TIM Bowness says he feels like he has tapped into the spirit of the age after creating a fictional classic rock star for his new album.

The former Stockton Heath prog musician invented Jeff Harrison, complete with a fake backstory and discography, as part of his concept record, Lost In The Ghost Light. But the 53-year-old admitted that it is only a timely coincidence that the album has been released in the age of the Trump presidency and the ‘fake news’ debacle.

Lost In The Ghost Light was actually inspired by a man that Tim saw while he was pondering the recent loss of some of his heroes like David Bowie, Leonard Cohen and Yes’s Chris Squire.

The former Appleton Grammar School pupil said: “I saw a 60-something jogger in an expensive tracksuit manhandling grapefruits at the Co-Op. He had a very intense stare, an immaculate Mick Fleetwood beard and thinning long grey hair in a ponytail.

“I wondered which veteran rock band he’d once played with and that got me asking questions about his – probably non-existent – music career and the nature of the industry in the present day compared with the industry in the 1960s and 1970s. I see the album as being a little like a wildlife documentary with me as David Attenborough chronicling an endangered species.”

So there began the creation of Jeff Harrison in 2010. Tim spent the next seven years developing the idea, slowly setting aside songs that felt right for the concept in between other projects. But despite ‘Jeff’ sharing Tim’s birthday and birthplace – Victoria Park Maternity Home – he said the faded rock star is not his alter ego.

Tim, who grew up in Ackers Lane, added: “I got signed in the early 1990s so I’ve known the industry since the beginnings of the CD age. I imagined Jeff Harrison as someone 15 to 20 years older than me who’d experienced what I consider to be a very different and more idealistic time in music history. I gave him my birth date and birth place for fun as much as anything else.

“I imagined him as the sole remaining member of a formerly well-known band playing golden oldies to a diminishing number of ageing fans at the likes of the Parr Hall. Some of my own fears are wrapped up in the story and the idea of my music and the music I admire becoming valueless in my lifetime is real, but beyond that there aren’t any similarities. Thankfully, I’m not known for wearing the leopard skin outfits that Jeff took a fancy to!

“I was interested to know how the fact that the general public don’t value music as much as they did impacts on musicians who came of age in the 1960s – a time when music was vitally important on so many levels. I was interested to know how playing to an older audience just wanting ‘the hits’ affects a musician who once believed they could change the world with their music.”

Creating Lost In The Ghost Light has also brought Tim back to his youth when he was obsessed by some of the most ambitious concept albums going.

He said: “I loved albums like The Who’s Quadrophenia, Genesis’s The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and Pink Floyd’s The Wall and I’ve always harboured a desire to create an ambitious ‘story album’. I immersed myself in the artwork and back story, and really enjoyed creating Jeff’s fake history and discography, not to mention his fake Twitter account. Bizarrely, some people seem to believe that Jeff Harrison really does exist so I’m considering putting together some shows with ‘Jeff’ and his fake band playing the real album.”

Tim, whose album was mixed and mastered by prog icon Steven Wilson, left Warrington in the 1990s and now lives in Bath but he is constantly reminded of home.

He added: “I have business dealings with people from Warrington including a songwriter in LA, a singer in Hong Kong and a record company person in London so Bridge Street fights, The Longford Lover and The Wire still get discussed! One bizarre thing is that my next door neighbour who moved here a year ago is from Latchford. It turns out that she was born and brought up in a house her family had bought from my grandfather and that her father was a teacher at St Thomas CE Primary School where I went and my grandmother also taught at.

“Naturally, I found out a couple of weeks ago that the name of her neighbour in Latchford was Jeff Harrison...”