Johnny Borrell was 13 when he walked from his North London home near Archway to Brixton, south of the River Thames. That’s a distance of around nine miles. This route also encompasses Central London’s busiest thoroughfares, the choking, sometimes ickiest parts of the capital. If you’re an adolescent, tramping these mean streets alone could be troublesome. Especially if you’re barefoot.

“Why did I do that?” says the often shirtless Razorlight front man of his shoeless past. “Adventure. What happens if…?”

For one thing, I imagine your feet would get cut to bits.

“They didn’t. They were just quite dirty.”

Was it about proving to someone – himself? – that teenage Johnny had physical stamina and bloody-mindedness?

“Nah. You know, I was listening to a lot of Country Joe & the Fish and I felt like, why do I need to wear shoes, man?”

Does that seem a bit foolish now?

“I was 13!” Borrell retorts with a squeal. “What are you f****** supposed to be? Smart? Are you supposed to know the rules? The foolish things I did when I was 13, I cherish them. Those cringe moments when you’re a kid – it’s what makes us human.”

Fifteen years on, Johnny Borrell, 28, has retraced his roots with the song North London Trash, an oompah-ish knees-up on his band’s impressive third album, Slipway Fires. Other songs on the folk’n’roll record – it’s a little bit the Clash, a little bit the Waterboys – include Borrell’s musings on what could be interpreted as his treatment at the hands of the red tops (Tabloid Lover) and a relationship with a posh model (Burberry Blue Eyes).

But North London Trash was, literally, much closer to home. Unlike Brixton, Waterloo or the West End, he feels there have been no songs written about the patch of the city in which he was raised. The song also reflects on the image of himself that has built up through Razorlight’s six years and two albums (with 2.5 million sales in Britain alone). Borrell is the swaggering rock star with the big mouth. The charismatic, peacocking, snaggle-toothed Jagger clone. The public school ex-junkie, ex-mate of Pete Doherty. The ex-boyfriend of Kirsten Dunst. The singer who fights with his own bandmates. The ambitious indie-rocker who inspires as much devotion as hatred. He’s put all that into North London Trash. Altogevva now: “I’ve got a broken smile, and an arrogant line/I’m really no one special but I’m in my prime/ I’ve got a hardbody girlfriend/ She helps me spend my cash…”

“I was trying to write an ode to the North London mentality of life,” says Borrell. “This sort of up-ish, brash, arrogant thing. So I was inventing a character. And bit by bit I borrowed stuff from my take on this fictional, bumptious, obnoxious caricature version of myself. People are gonna invent the guy – can’t I invent him as well?”

In October, Borrell led Razorlight on to the stage of the Forum. It was the first British show in support of Slipway Fires and true to form he put on quite a performance. He wore not one but two coats, and a white shirt that he gradually unbuttoned to the navel. This time, however, there were no skintight white jeans, the uniform he wore throughout the international tour in support of Razorlight’s self-titled second album (the trousers were a way of “photocopying that person I am on stage and sending it around the world”, he told GQ magazine as he collected its Most Stylish Man of the Year 2007 award). Nor did he, as was his wont for the best part of two years, sing bare-chested. That was the “look” when he appeared on the cover of Vogue (with Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova draped over him).

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