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"It certainly wasn't slick, we had a few 'technical' issues, but it was great fun. I think people seemed to enjoy it." Norman Blake is discussing Jonny's first ever live outing, the project that has seen him team up with Welsh musician Euros Childs, formerly of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. The Teenage Fanclub stalwart compares and contrasts between that relatively low-key experience, and his recent tour with the Fannies. "With Teenage Fanclub, we have a big keyboard setup and have to lug amps about. This tour is much easier. Our keyboard of choice is a Casio MT 65 so it's quite small. So we're just taking a car for this tour and listening to the Play For Today on Radio 4 in the afternoon. We share taste in music so that will be OK in terms of the songs in the car."

The pair have known each other for a while, since Gorky's toured with Teenage Fanclub in 1997. Blake even played with the Welsh outfit for a few gigs and they've had some informal songwriting and gig playing sessions since then. Eventually, they decided it might be fun to press up some singles and take them on the road for a bit. This notion of fun, explains Blake, is the very reason Jonny exists. "Euros makes his own records but is sort of constrained in a way to being Euros Childs. If you think back to the Gorky's records, there were quite a few funny and humorous songs. I think with his own records he doesn't really do that, they're quite autobiographical. With Teenage Fanclub, well, it's not like we're the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band [an avant-garde psych-jazz 'comedy' collective formed in the sixties], we have our trusted methods. That said, there are parts of Euros and I that really like the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and would like to write songs for them, or in that style, so it allows us to have a bit of humour or do anything we want; anything goes, to be honest with you."

Anyone who's caught the video for lead single Candyfloss will have twigged straight away that this isn't meant to be taken altogether too seriously. In a rather literal interpretation of the theme, our protagonists are seen sitting down to a meal consisting solely of the titular foodstuff. It's pretty evident too that they're not faking it – in fact, it's quite stomach churning. There's really only one question: why? "That was Euros's idea. I took a bit of convincing but it was worth it because you should have seen his face an hour after we wrapped up. We'd spent four hours eating candyfloss and he just looked at me and said 'Oh, I'm really sorry!' There's no camera trickery whatsoever. By the end of it we were just spitting big lumps of sticky, sweet sugar. I don't think either of us will ever touch candyfloss at any point again in our lives."

As part of the democratic Teenage Fanclub modus operandi, Blake, along with Raymond McGinley and Gerard Love brings his own songs to the table. Four from each then make it to the album. With Jonny, even though both men had pre-existing songs to work on, it was also a very collaborative affair, an approach Blake seems to have appreciated. "It makes things a little easier. I think a big part of writing songs is confidence, and taking risks. If you come up with something which seems a bit ridiculous, you might worry about it. The other person might say, 'No that's good, I really like it'. It helps you to work more quickly and be less critical of what you do. I mean that in a good way. You get to appreciate letting your creativity flow a little bit more."

Turns out the name Jonny has nothing to do with the latex prophylactics (we had to ask), although Blake laughs mischievously at the notion it could be construed that way. Instead, the name comes from a photo Blake found on the website of Glasgow-based artist Joseph Mann, featuring five guys lifting their tops to reveal the name painted across their midriffs. The image also features as the cover art for their eponymous album. "We thought we could kill two birds with one stone, band name and album cover. Jonny, it seems, is a friend of the guys in the photo. It was his birthday, and they daubed his name on their chest in his honour. What a very nice thing to do. I'm assuming Jonny was at the other end of the camera, smiling happily at the kind gesture. We did actually ask the guys if it was OK if we used the image and they were all cool about it. You can imagine if they didn't know about it and came across it one day looking in the record shop..."

Jonny will be playing around Britain for the month of February. In advance of the album launch, they released a free four track EP of non-album songs by way of getting the word out, a deviation from the original plan of pressing vinyl because, as Blake puts it; "We're in a very different world now to what it was even five years ago." He also reveals that the Fannies are planning to enter the studio to record their eleventh studio album but that in the meantime, he wants to continue enjoying this project as much as possible. "We both like writing songs, so it's another way for us to make music together and go out on tour. I hope people will come along and enjoy it for what it is; it's just us trying to write songs and entertain people. It's an exercise in self-indulgence to an extent, but hopefully people go off on that."

Jonny is out now via Alsatian records

Jonny play Platform, Glasgow, 19 Feb with support from Adam Stafford. A return bus from Mono, Kings Court, is available for £4