HER pioneering approach to becoming mainstream ensured that I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair) went to No1 and she landed a major record deal off the back of it.

It was, Sandi Thom says, something that “wasn’t an accidental arrival on the scene, but a conscious act of promotion”. Now, almost 10 years and five albums later, she is still “sticking two fingers up to convention”.

Sandi, who appears in Worthing this month as part of a UK, Australia and Scandinavia tour until December, is producing her new album Weapons of Past Destruction and hopes to launch it with the longest webcast ever, possibly on Periscope, the live video site that allows viewers to “discover the world through someone else’s eyes”.

“It would be a live concert,” Sandi tells Simply Worthing & Adur from her home in Los Angeles. “I might just do that and do it for a good cause with a message.”

Weapons of Past Destruction is the first album Sandi has produced – and it has emerged in the aftermath of a painful split from her long-term relationship with American blues musician and singer-songwriter Joe Bonamassa. “It’s about picking up the pieces and starting all over again in the aftermath of an emotional disaster,” she says. “The songs are about war, death, destruction, anger, courage and hope as well as reconciling with the past and moving on. I don’t pretend to have a hard life. I’m not living through a war. I don’t know that kind of pain and suffering but in my own small way, like everyone in life, I have had to face that moment when the rug gets pulled out from under your feet and you’re left standing there with a broken heart, shattered dreams and the long road ahead to rebuild your life.”

But rebuild her life she has. Last December, Sandi met Matt, a man she “fell in love with almost at first sight and who proposed to her even before their first kiss”.

They married in September and she is expecting their first child, and the turnaround in her life inspired her most recent songs, including Timeless and Soarsa. “These are songs of hope, songs that show that in the aftermath of an emotional disaster what lies in front of you can be a million times better than what you left behind.”

Sandi, who has recorded in Nashville and LA, played Glastonbury and performed on stage with Brian May, Alice Cooper and George Michael, also wanted to return to her pop roots. “After many years of a musical adventure into many different genres, I wanted to go back to creating catchy, memorable melodies very much like my earlier work,” she explains.

Growing up in Scotland in a family fllled with singers, musicians, poets and published authors, Sandi was learning piano by the age of four. “Expressing yourself was always encouraged,” she says. “It's just what you did.”

Steeped in the storytelling music of Joni Mitchell, that original punk rocker with flowers in her hair, and Buffy Sainte-Marie, with whom she would eventually

record a duet, Sandi realised by the age of 12 that she didn't have to play other people's songs but could write her own. By now, she was playing and singing with a group on the local circuit and was the youngest person ever to be accepted into the prestigious Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts, where she honed her skills in music and performance, and also the business side of the music industry.

Producing was the next logical step. “It brings together everything I've learned throughout the years working with so many incredible musicians and producers,” she explains.”Now was most certainly the time to come back with a bang.”

Sandi Thom appears at the Connaught Theatre, Union Place, Worthing, at 7.30pm on Saturday November 14. Tickets £20. For details, phone 01903 206206 or visit worthingtheatres.co.uk.

For more information about Sandi, visit sandithom.com, facebook.com/sandithom,

twitter.com/sandi_thom or

youtube.com/sandithom.