Steve Parsons first came to Brighton to work with his old band mate, Chris Spedding, from 1970s rock band, Sharks.

He produced and wrote an album featuring Johnny Marr, Bryan Ferry, Glenn Matlock – and Lewes hero Arthur Brown – which is due out early next year.

Barely a year on he has given up on rock to open a new snack bar, California Soul Bowl.

And a month on from opening a permanent place in Middle Street, with warm yellow decor and bright breezy staff, he’ll be serving fruit blends and smoothies in Churchill Square.

Tomorrow, ice-cold combo bowls, sorbet cups and fruit drinks will be available from 7.30am at the six-week pop-up on the site of the former Pie Society.

“I used to live in Dalston six or seven years ago and everything was pop up,” explains Parsons, as cool as his cocktails, every bit the rocker with shades and bead necklace.

“We are in. Bang. We are doing our stuff. You don’t worry. You just get in. Get an atmosphere going. Get the music going. Get the blenders going. And get rocking.”

As we chat outside the shop Pink Floyd bass player Guy Pratt walks by. Parsons had just been explaining how Pratt called the dairy–free, gluten–free and sugar free bowls “rock and roll health food”.

Over Pratt comes to confirm as much before wandering back to a studio down the road.

Parsons, who has lived in New York and London and worked with Cream legend, Ginger Baker, now calls Brighton home.

After two months in Brighton to write the record, he realised he’d had enough of London. So he visited an old work colleague (from his 25 years scoring music for television and adverts) in southern California.

Out in Huntingdon Beach, Surf City, he stayed with Chris Motion, aka The Juice Fairy, who had also turned his back on the media to become the go to man for “bespoke smoothies”.

The Juice Fairy, explains Parsons, blends for celebrities and producers on movies and photo shoots. His clients include Jackie Chan, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Costner and Mr. T.

“With him I learned how to blend and I also saw what people were doing with blending over there, which was taking it a bit further.

“In the UK people only think “smoothie”. But the smoothie we make is a by-product. What I set out to do was create really good blends with ‘flash frozen fruit’ and non-dairy substitutes.

“Flash frozen fruit is stored in nitrous oxide to keep the taste. It’s more expensive and keeps all the flavour in,” he says.

He blends the fruit with soya, almond or hemp milk to create an icy mix, like the French flavoured ice cream, granité.

Then he uses a superfood powder – it could be acai or masa or cacao – to thicken the blend.

He adds granola mixes made by Seaford baker, Jurgen Muller, and seed and raw chocolate from Under The Counter. Prices range from £3.50 for a sorbet cup to £4.90 for a combo bowl.

The similarities between Brighton and Southern California are not only the love of music, thinks Parsons.

“People are concerned about having too much gluten, dairy and sugar.

“Health food and health food consciousness is starting to come to the tip of food thinking. It used to be just for faddists, but everybody is finding that it effects their wellbeing.”

After 25 years writing music for clients in TV and advertising, Parsons started to feel tired all the time. In 2005, he found out he was gluten intolerant and had to cut bread out completely for two years.

“A whole bunch of things happened and I didn’t want to do that anymore. It was in some ways tied into food thing. I was eating too much sugar. Living an unhealthy diet. Tied that up with the tension, working for ad agencies and TV companies, it was a lot of stress and it is not good for the stomach.”