Van Morrison has given a new interview with Dylan Jones ahead of his upcoming album Remembering Now, out June 13.

He has two shows in Belfast set for June 23 and 24, and a Dublin performance on June 26 with Neil Young. Tickets for his Dublin show are on sale now.

“In the beginning it's just instinct, intuition, sometimes randomness,” he said of his artistic process. “It's more like being a receiver - you're receiving info, ideas, and concepts.”

Of the fourteen tracks on the album, Morrison cites ‘Stretching Out’ as his favourite. ‘Down to Joy’ is also featured on the record, first appearing in Kenneth Branagh’s 2021 drama, Belfast.

“I had this vision of walking down the road in North Belfast, and that’s how the song started — ‘coming down to joy,’” he explained. “I had an image of these young guys coming down the street, having fun, laughing. That’s how it started.”

Morrison also spoke about his experience with fame, and his relationship with the book Man And His Symbols by Carl Jung.

“I started to discover what it was about — projection,” he said of the book. “When you’re famous, people constantly project on you. This happens to everyone, but with famous people it’s amplified. It can destroy you if you don’t understand what’s happening. Or you can work your way through it. So I had to learn to deal with the energy and the negativity.

“The media constantly projects negativity — they think that sells. So they create what I call a “third party.” There’s you, and there’s the audience — that’s a two-way street. But the media creates a third thing that people start relating to instead of you. That took a long time to work through and come out the other end, learning to handle it."

Remembering Now is available for pre-order here, and tickets for his Dublin show are available here.

Watch the full interview below: