DESPITE his huge success as an indie star in Nineties band Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine, his solo career and being a respected writer, Jim Bob is as approachable and unaffected as can be.

Even though he has toured and performed all over the world, he says he still gets nervous when faced with a new challenge.

“I probably will be on Saturday”, he says, referring to his forthcoming gig at the Sundown Arts at the Village Green festival, Chalkwell Park, on Saturday.

Jim, whose real name is James Morrison, is going to be reading extracts from his novel which he says is “a fictional autobiographical novel and collection of short stories told in words and pictures that, if nothing else, finally solves the mystery of what happened to all the missing boy bands”.

The book – which is certainly funny – has been praised by many including comedians Dave Gorman and Isy Suttie.

As well as reading from his book, Jim will also be performing some of his songs.

He says: “The book took six years to write. I kept stopping and going back to it. Really, the actual work involved would have probably been more like six months.”

The original synopsis was scrapped several times, and the book ended up nothing like its first draft.

“It started as semi-ficitional autobiographical, but I inserted more lies to make it more interesting, and then it became total fiction,” he says.

It is the third book written by Jim. The first was the autobiographical Goodnight Jim Bob – On the Road With Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine and was published by Cherry Red Books in 2004.

His last solo album, A Humpty Dumpty Thing, was released with a mini novel, Word Count, which Jim is adapting as a screenplay for a Hollywood production company.

Writing seems to have found Jim, rather than the other way around. He says when he was younger he was only interested in being a pop star, the writing side of it wasn’t as important to him.

But one thing leads to another and Jim’s habit of saying yes, and a keeness to give new things a try, has led him to open many new literary doors.

These include writing songs for Ian Dury and for the 2006 Barbican production of Mark Ravenhill’s Dick Whittington and His Cat.

He also just performed at the Fringe in Edinburgh, in Gutted A Revenger’s Musical.

“That was nerve wracking because I was out of my comfort zone and it was out of my control,” he says.

“I also did the Latitude festival this year and read extracts from the book. That was terrifying because there were all these literary types who weren’t laughing in the same places as people usually do.

“I wonder if that is how it’ll be in Southend – I don’t know if anyone will know who I am.”

In fact, Jim does have an impressive local following, not least because of his references to the area, notably the Master Butcher of Leigh-on-Sea in the Carter USM hit Sheriff Fatman.

l Catch Jim at the Sundown on the Meadow Stage, in the Big Hat Tent. The event starts at 2.45pm until 6.30pm. Other acts at the free Village Green festival include Brand New Heavies singer Carly Anderson, Latin percussionist Snowboy and comedian Francesca Martinez.