IF IT hadn’t been for what he describes as his “genealogical make-up”, singer Eddy Grant would have become a doctor. But his father, a mechanic, was also a musician.

“I really wanted to study medicine when I was much younger,” says the 61-year-old.

“I was deadly serious about it but unfortunately, or fortunately as the case may be, music formed a part of my make-up.”

Grant, who is supporting UB40 at the Echo Arena, was born in Guyana but raised in London, and first won fame in the late 1960s with chart-topping group The Equals.

He had worldwide hits in the 1980s with songs including Electric Avenue and I Don’t Wanna Dance, having swapped band life for a solo career.

“There were a number of things which promoted that,” he says.

“The first is if you’re one member in five, you have your own particular political thoughts and sometimes you want to air them, but it might not be the same beliefs of the other guys.

“The other reason was in 1971 I’d become extremely ill with my heart and that prompted me to look at my career.

“I just couldn’t continue what I was doing with a dicky heart, so I took my leave of my situation – which as it turned out was the right thing to happen at that time.”

Politics have always been relevant to Grant’s music. What is he currently thinking about?

“There are many issues. But I don’t just write for the sake of writing,” he explains.

“If something happens politically which upsets my sensibilities, then eventually that will come out in a song.

“I don’t just sit there and think, ‘Oh there’s something happening in Afghanistan, I’ve got to write about that’.

“But if there is a particular injustice highlighted in the media which particularly catches my attention, I’ll write about it.”

Grant left the UK in 1981, taking his children to be educated in the Caribbean.

He is relishing spending time back in the country he grew up in for this tour, he says.

“England has a special place in my life because half of my life has been spent here and half of my education has been here, so I'm a bi-functional person,” he says.

“ I function just as well in the England society as I do in the Caribbean society, and I don't really put one in front of the other necessarily because there is no need.”

Neither does he think about retiring.

“That time hasn’t arrived yet,” he says.

“I’ve got a fairly young outlook on life. I don’t think time has been eroding my energy or my need for creating music.

“I think I’ve managed to make a certain balance with my lifestyle, and therefore I’ve had a longer period of creativity.”

EDDY GRANT will be supporting UB40 at the Echo Arena, Liverpool, on December 6.