Will Young has had a busy morning chasing a fox out of his kitchen when we chat, a la Fleabag-style.

“I left the doors open and heard the dogs barking, and then I came and closed the door, shutting it in.

“It was quite big, actually. It was just sitting there, looking at me. I feel quite bad for poor foxes. It was certainly an interesting morning.”

As interesting as this sounds, of course, my morning is more interesting as I’m spending it chatting to Will Young.

A UK pop icon in his own right, Will shot to fame after he exploded onto the pop scene in 2002 winning Pop Idol when he was only 22.

READ MORE: Little Mix in Glasgow: Everything you need to know about their Hydro shows

It’s now 18 years later and Will has just released his seventh album, Lexicon.

The idea for Lexicon came after a period of personal overhaul for Young.

In 2016, he had withdrawn from Strictly Come Dancing early in the competition, as a result of anxiety, depression and PTSD. In 2018, he starred in the stage musical version of Baz Lurhmann’s Strictly Ballroom in the West End. It all led, slowly but surely, to Lexicon. With no management and no interference from his label, Young was free to make the album he wanted to make, when he wanted to make it. “It’s been about enjoyment the whole way, and I suppose that’s the overarching theme,” he says.

“This new record has gone down really well, and I’ve been so pleased with the reception.

“I make new music obviously but as my back catalogue gets bigger and bigger, I think it’s really important to play the hits.

“I might have sung a song thousands of times but that could be an audience’s first time hearing it. There’s nothing worse than going to a gig and you don’t know any of the songs the act is singing. The hits are important - I always have to remember that.”

Lexicon has taken Will’s music in a different direction - still pop, but more in line with ‘heart-break dance anthems’ of Calvin Harris and Sam Smith, compared to previous ballads like Leave Right Now.

“I haven’t had my heart broken, but I think there is something really powerful about an upbeat song with devastating lyrics.

“I had to break it down to get there – to start from nothing and work it back up, reassembling the pieces.”

What, then, is the thing that makes it all worth it?

“For me it’s the audience. I love connecting with people and talking to the audience. Audiences are so funny, particularly in Scotland. People are a lot less reserved.”

With almost two decades of experience under his belt, Will has come to know his audiences well.

But he has a special connection to his Scottish audiences.

“A large part of my family have historical Scottish connections, and we have family who have lived in Scotland for the past 70 years, in Dumfriesshire. I’ve always felt that I’ve had an affinity with the Scottish audiences, and Scotland has always been a second home to me.”

READ MORE: Review of Boyzone's last show at the Hydro in Glasgow

By now, the whole media world has become a second home to Will. Since becoming a household name after Pop Idol, he has progressed into many other facets of entertainment and public life, becoming a vocal campaigner for LGBTQ+ rights along the way. I ask him: does his life feel totally transformed since the time he first walked on stage in 2002?

“I do remember back to the time before Pop Idol, and I think of it really fondly. I’m proud of what we did on the show and what we became, and the connection we had on the show.

“I’m still the same person but life is different. It was always going to be different anyway, as its now 18 years on.

Time, experience, and doing it for the sheer wonderful joyousness of it have given Will the space to find himself again and to rebuild the parts that were broken. “It’s a success story,” he says. “That’s wonderful, because it’s not the success that is on the surface, you know? It’s successful like, actually, bloody hell, I managed to do it. And now I’m 40 I’ve got the rest of my life to just carry on doing it. Where I am is exactly where I’m meant to be. And that’s a great thing to feel.”

Like Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag, it seems it will take more than a fox to slow Will Young down.