As he restrings his tenor guitar, Seth Lakeman can’t help but have a smile on his face. He’s backstage at a music festival, enjoying the calm before another whirlwind performance. A few days earlier, his new album was propelled into the top ten of the UK album charts. Did he ever think that, one day, thousands of people would be listening to his west country folk songs? ‘No – it’s amazing!’ he grins.

Such success is a far cry from the 31-year-old’s early days as a struggling folk musician in Devon, when his versatility (it seems he can turn his hand to anything with strings) and powerful singing voice barely paid the rent. ‘I was playing in all sorts of bands, performing in dodgy pubs, country and western festivals, you name it,’ recalls Seth, who spent years playing second fiddle – sometimes literally – to other folk artists.

‘But it’s important to earn your stripes,’ he points out, ‘because it gives you a foundation. If I’d had success when I was 21 I’d probably have got carried away with it all, but I can appreciate what I’ve got now and things are growing at a rate I feel I can control. Put it this way: when I smile on stage it’s genuine.’

Sharing the onstage smiles is his brother Sean, a regular member of Seth’s band. Seth, Sean and third sibling Sam learned to play folk instruments at a young age, going on to form The Lakeman Brothers. In the years that followed, Seth performed with various line-ups, honing his fiddle and singing skills, until he began to record his own work.

Dartmoor, where Seth now lives, inspired his second solo album, Kitty Jay, named after a servant girl whose grave is a well-known spot on the moors. The album was nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize in 2005 – he shared the shortlist with huge bands such as Coldplay and the Kaiser Chiefs. It was a breakthrough that led the music press to credit him with bringing folk to a whole new audience.

While his fellow best-selling artists sing of nightclub romance, street crime and drug abuse, Seth continues to follow his rural roots. His latest album, Poor man’s heaven (see review on page 31), is inspired by both fictional and reallife sea tales from south west England – including the loss of the Penlee lifeboat and her crew in 1981. Seth’s father, a national newspaper journalist, covered the story at the time.

‘It was the 25th anniversary of the Penlee disaster while I was setting to work on the new album,’ says Seth. ‘I was obviously only a kid when it happened but I got to know the sons of one of the lost crew members. And reading up about it inspired me to write the song Solomon Browne [the name of the lost lifeboat] as a way to remember those men.’

If Seth was too young to understand the tragedy of Penlee at the time, the loss of a close friend to the sea 15 years later was felt only too keenly. ‘When I was 19 one of my best friends died while surfing at Polzeath,’ says Seth. ‘My brothers and I wanted to do something in his memory, so we played a concert to raise money to improve the local surf lifesaving facilities.’

The concert funded a new surf lifesaving unit at the beach, which is now patrolled by RNLI lifeguards. Seth adds: ‘A lot of my friends are lifeguards now and I’m glad we could make a difference back then. When you lose someone you want to do something, otherwise you feel helpless. That was our way of helping.’

This Summer, Seth’s music raised more funds in aid of saving life at sea. ‘I wanted to try and do something positive when I launched the album, rather than just another gig, and raising money for the RNLI felt appropriate as the songs have such a strong coastal theme,’ explains Seth. His support included a concert at Perranporth beach.

So, with albums themed around Dartmoor folklore and sagas from the sea under his belt, what’s next for Seth – urban myths? ‘There’s no part of me at the moment that wants to sing about urban things,’ asserts Seth, who admits he’d rather be camping in Cornwall than frequenting towns and cities. ‘I’m just enjoying playing these songs at the moment – this is the most powerful thing I’ve done.’