JAMES Blunt is on a world tour for 15 months. Who knows, given the title of his fourth album Moon Landing, he could even land there next.

The anti-Blunt brigade might add “best place for him”, but for all the naysayers, the album sales and the BRIT awards pile up and so does the number of followers of Blunt’s humorous, suitably Blunt-speaking Twitter account.

Once back in Blighty, former soldier Blunt will be taking to the great outdoors for a series of Forest Live shows for the Forestry Commission, including Dalby Forest, near Pickering, on June 26, and a post-racing show at Doncaster Racecourse on August 16.

At the time of this interview – June 3 – James was in Australia. “I started at Shanghai on New Year’s Eve, flying around the world for 15 months, and I’m now up in Darwin for the first time,” he says in his soft-spoken, ever-so-slightly high voice.

There had been a time when stories were running that Mr Blunt was quitting the music scene to settle for the sunny life after album number three, 2010’s Some Kind Of Trouble. Well, one particular story, and it was wrong. “I never actually said it. It was a misquote by the Daily Mail,” he corrects. “I came off my third world tour and I was asked by someone from the Daily Mail what was I going to do now? I said I was going to go home and wash my clothes!”

The story didn’t wash, and Blunt returned to the fray to make Moon Landing, his best received album since his 2004 debut, Back To Bedlam, the one with the ubiquitous You’re Beautiful, a Marmite of a romantic hit single in the tradition of Chris de Burgh’s Lady In Red.

James decided to head to Los Angeles to seek out Tom Rothrock, the producer who had worked his alchemy on Back To Bedlam. He knew it was time to re-connect with Tom, having let off steam on the unhappy All The Lost Souls in 2007 and let rip on the louder, wilder Some Kind Of Trouble three years later. “By then I was writing songs for the amphitheatres, the arenas,” he says. “But now I wanted to re-discover my passion; the side from when I was younger; and that was the side that people had connected to.”

Looking back at his third record in particular, James decides: “I think there was definitely a reaction to what was happening in my life; so it wasn’t contrived, it was considered, but now, having gone round that roundabout, it’s not about the music business or being in the public eye; it’s about how I feel now.”

Right now, at 40, he is living on a tour bus. “I haven’t been home since August ; so I sleep on a bus with 12 hairy, smelly men; that’s the way we travel but we have fun,” says James. That contentment has come about in part from Moon Landing hitting the heights. “I recorded it for myself, but by the act of putting it out there, you have hopes for it,” he says. “I was asked what my expectations were and in my answer I didn’t say very much but I love to see how it has connected with people.”

Nevertheless, James had noted that while he was playing big venues around the world, it was “harder for me in the UK, where I’ve played to smaller audiences”. Suddenly this has changed; Moon Landing has landed and so has the revived James Blunt. “We’re doing three tours this year in Britain; one already, including the Royal Albert Hall; now the summer shows like Dalby and Doncaster, and then an arena tour in November,” he says. “Good taste in music comes back to the UK.”

Such self-deprecation has led to James becoming a big hit on Twitter, revealing a quick wit that has shown him in a new light. “What’s quite funny for me is that as a guy who’s known for singing some over-emotional songs, people assume you must be really romantic, but if you break it down, that’s not the whole picture, so it’s been a relief that people can see there’s more to me,” he says.

“It was the record company who came to me and said ‘we need you to be on Twitter’, but it’s just an opinion platform, as if someone’s opinion matters, but it works well for journalists, who are the only people I follow that really matter.”

While in Australia, James has been drafting his set list for the outdoor shows with his band. “We’ve been playing arenas in Europe and Australia, but outdoor shows benefit from even more energy, especially if people have come for the racing and are sticking around for more fun,” he says. “If they think they’re just seeing that guy who wrote ‘that song’, they’re in for a surprise hopefully.”

* James Blunt plays Dalby Forest, near Pickering, on June 26 and Doncaster Racecourse, Town Moor, Doncaster, after racing on August 16. Dalby tickets: £43.45 on 03000 680400 or forestry.gov.uk/music; Doncaster, race day tickets/Blunt, adults from £31, children from £11; 01302 304200 or doncaster-racecourse.co.uk