Army officer turned playboy popstar James Blunt is in Amsterdam's Heineken Music Hall. He says pensively: "It's raining outside.

"I'm looking through a big glass window and I'm in a pretty empty...well, it's just a changing room really ... in a thing called the Heineken Music Hall. So it's a Heineken-sponsored fridge which has no Heineken in it. So it's basically torture! "

It's the first night of his new European tour, which hits Manchester's MEN Arena this week. Blunt says: "This leg, we're bringing this whole new massive production and so tonight's actually our first night of trialling it and we'll see if the stage and lights and second stage and bangs and flashes actually work in time.

"There's lots going on onstage and new songs, new instrumentation. I think people are normally surprised because I'm always marketed by my record company and definitely pigeonholed by the media to be one man and his guitar and in fact, it's a concert that's fun and energetic."

Blunt was suddenly everywhere when his third single, You're Beautiful, went stellar in 2005. The song lodged at Number One and now rivals Robbie Williams Angels as the most popular song played at UK weddings.

It propelled his debut album, Back To Bedlam, to the top too and ironically turned Blunt into playboy tabloid fodder, pictured with a string of supermodels and beauties, and with the press baying at his and his relatives' doors.

To write his second album, All The Lost Souls, he retreated to his new home on party island Ibiza – where a burglary assisted the songwriting process.

He says: "Someone stole the boiler. I think it probably did (help). Everyone needs a bit of hardship but I don't think it's the hardest thing to live without hot water. There are many people suffering much more than that, but it definitely can put a morose angle on a song when you're there on your own with your fingerless gloves on.

"I'd sleep with my jeans on and get all the sheets from around the house and just try not to die in my sleep. It got worse, I had to go down and speak to local Spanish farmers and beg them to sleep with me just to keep me warm enough not to die. But I don't tell that to the media.''

Despite Ibiza's party reputation, James grinningly insists that he's the stay-at-home type. He says: "I like to stay in of course, because I'm a delicate singer songwriter so I wouldn't dream of going out clubbing.

"In fact, my third album is an 'electro, techno with a dash of garage' album. I haven't told the record company but I'm sure they'll be fine."

He has begun work on a new record and admits: " I've got a couple of new songs. I'm trialling them for the first time tonight," but refuses pointblank to name them.

Born into an upperclass family with centuries of military service, he grew up on Army bases, and after schooling at Harrow and an Army-funded university education, he joined the forces himself for six years.

He says it was his choice. "My dad never brought it home. It was his job but he never really brought it home. I didn't have to salute him when he came in the house in the evening.

"I guess lots of children follow their parents' line, don't they? I wasn't fussed about it, I knew lots of people joining and I knew the way of life and it's quite an interesting way of life.

"I didn't have all the songs for an album at that stage, I didn't have a record deal in place and four years at that age doesn't sound like too long so, hell, why not?"

During his service, he guarded the Queen Mother's body, became regimental skiing champion and was the first officer into the Kosovan capital – an experience he says changed him.

He says: "It felt that both sides were asking for help and I could see that both sides needed at least a third group to come in and stop them murdering each other. I think anything like that can't help but make you grow up."

But when the time came to leave, he had no qualms, despite his anxious father's advice. He recalls: "I said, 'Dad, I'm not after the commercial success because the success I'm after is just to be a musician for any number of years so that when I'm old and grey, I'm not looking myself in the mirror saying God, you missed a chance there, just too afraid to follow a dream.'

"Instead, it just seemed really important just to give it a go and so once I'd made that decision, very easy to go in and see my commanding officer and resign and say, look, I'm just going to give this a go for a while.''

He recorded both albums in LA – staying with Star Wars and Postcards From The Edge star Carrie Fisher who he met through a mutual friend. She helped come up with the album title and even let him record Goodbye My Lover in her bathroom after he ran out of money for studio time.

He says: "She's an amazing creative person. Not only is she obviously a famous actress but also a great writer herself of novels which are normally stories about her own experiences which are amazing, and her family and life in Los Angeles.

"I was doing a creative process of making these albums and every night, I could come back and play bits and bobs to another really creative person with a mind that's probably too bright for planet Earth so really a great thrill.''

Press intrusion took him by surprise and he remains guarded. He says: "I remember the press knocking on my parents' door and my grandmother's door.

"If I wanted to tell you something more about what I want in this interview, if I was then to turn up on your relation's doorstep, I think you'd probably lose your mind.

"I think when the press turn up on your doorstep, call your parents, call your grandparents, go and involve themselves with your friends or relations, (they) need to go away and have a long hard look at themselves."

At times, he takes distrust of the press to extremes. Asked what he thinks of the Iraq war, he grins: "I don't think anything in newspapers is real – so I don't believe we're really there.

"The media is a fantasy world like a comic book that makes things up to such a degree that if you believe everything you read in the newspapers, you might be stupid enough to do something like invade Iraq based on there being weapons of mass destruction that are heading our way within 45 minutes."

One final question – does Blunt, like many, ever want to scream when he hears the opening chords of You're Beautiful? He laughs politely. "I get a little bit sick of being asked that question because every journalist asks that and it's very easy to go for the negative.

"But I'm here in Amsterdam tonight and I'm going to hear it sung by 5,500 people in a Dutch accent – and I tell you what, it's going to sound great!"

* James Blunt plays Manchester MEN Arena on Wednesday, October 8. Tickets are still available from www.gigsandtours.com