For J K Rowling’s Harry Potter it happened sitting on a delayed train, for John Lennon’s Imagine it was lounging in bed with his wife Yoko Ono.

An artist’s inspiration can strike at unusual times, and for musician Darren Hayman it was while wandering through the William Morris Gallery in his hometown of Walthamstow.

Tucked in a corner he discovered a dusty old pamphlet of lyrics that the famed designer, writer and socialist wrote in the late 19th Century, entitled Chants for Socialists.

“My initial thought was just that it was a good title,“ says Darren, “very bold and brave and very divisive for a record. If I was going through a CD rack it would leap out at me as very unfashionable and political in a way that music and art tends not to be.

“A lot of what I do is born out of a record that I wished existed and the realisation that nobody else is going to make it except me.“

East London and West Essex Guardian Series:

The William Morris Gallery by ProfDEH

The 44-year-old decided to re-write the words and set them to modern music, as Morris intended them to be, record them at three of Morris’ own homes and create an album of the samename that upheld their socialist ideals, with the download version offered on a ’pay what you can’ basis and Darren returning to the three homes to perform concerts as a way of paying them back.

But the former frontman of indie band Hefner, who has released about 17 albums over his career, admits the project was one of the hardest he has tackled. “There are lots and lots of verses and very elliptical and quite unclear prose, but I’m quite a determined person.

“The hardest part was trying to make the bridge across class, 100 years, and the fact he’s dead and I couldn’t talk to him, and also songs were always longer then, as they had a different purpose.“ So does he even think Morris’ words are relevant today?

East London and West Essex Guardian Series:

Portrait of William Morris, aged 53

Darren thinks they are, as songs such as Awake London Lads talk about war, a word he thinks we are having to redefine with events like the Paris Charlie Hebdo massacre. And for Darren who was brought up in Brentwood, bought his first guitar aged 18 and found success with band Hefner in the 90s – the project was always about making music that “interests him”.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want greater financial success because life can be made easier with more money and I wish I was playing bigger shows, but it doesn’t seem to enter my brain when I pick up a leaflet from the William Morris Gallery,“ he remarks drolly.

“What I felt when I was reading these things was nostalgic for something a bit simpler. When I was at art college and becoming involved in politics, and there was Red Wedge and Billy Bragg was nostalgic for when people in left-field indie music would be much more political in a broader sense about class and money.

“I suppose the criticism of that and William Morris would be that it’s too simplistic and his lyrics about the workers breaking the chains of the boss, people could look at that and say “it isn’t that simple Darren. Or indeed William, but I sometimes think it is as simple as that.

“The truth is the people at the bottom do get treated the worst all the time and the richest people are getting richer exponentially.“ Darren wanted his album to break through this divide, so he put out an open call on Twitter for people to come and record the album with him at the William Morris Gallery in Walthamstow and Kelmscott House in Hammersmith, which also lent Morris’ own letterpress to create the limited edition vinyl editions.

East London and West Essex Guardian Series:

Kelmscott Manor

Darren also travelled to Kelmscott Manor in Gloucestershire to record on William Morris’ own piano.

“I had to put on white gloves and they wouldn’t leave me alone with it in case I did a Jerry Lewis. The piano was very out of tune, old and broken, and I like it when place, randomness and luck changes a sound, so I recorded them and brought them away.

“I like it when the project tends to talk back at you and makes you do something unpredictable.“ The project has made Darren into a fully fledged William Morris fan and he says: “I like the fact that with him it all joins together. His life’s work was being William Morris’ in a way.

“And I suppose I do the same, everything I do has an innate Darren-ness about it.“ He adds: “I hope I would have had his approval because he was a communicator and wanted things to be popular. I imagine he would have given me the thumbs up.“

Chants for Socialists is released on February 2. Darren will be performing it at Union Chapel, Islington on January 24, William Morris Society and Museum, Kelmscott House, Hammersmith, on February 7 and the William Morris Gallery, Walthamstow, on March 19 and 20.

Details: chantsforsocialists.blogspot.co.uk, hefnet.com