‘Strolling player and fun time troubadour’ is how Damian Lewis describes himself on Instagram. The actor whom we have mostly known for his stellar performances in Billions and Homeland but rarely for his music. Lewis — whose music is deeply rooted in folk, blues and rock — started out as a busker before he became an actor but did not cut an album until now.

The 52-year-old British actor-turned-singer-songwriter has recently released his debut album Mission Creep, which comprises a set of songs offering his ruminations on love, loss and comfort with a sense of swing and journey.

And even as Lewis returns as Chuck Rhoades for the final season of Billions on Netflix, he is gearing up to kickstart his first UK tour in October with select tracks from Mission Creep.

From busking to album debut

Music was Lewis’s first love which brought out the wanderlust in him. The idea for Mission Creep struck him as a teenager after he graduated from school and went busking all over Europe with his guitar. This experience has left an indelible mark on him, something which he has tried to evoke in his music.

Lewis is part of a folk-rock band who work with acoustic guitars, keyboards and clarinets, making for an immersive in-bar live music experience. His influences range from the country-tinged folk-rock singer-songwriter Neil Young to the American guitarist J.J. Cale.

She Comes

The song She Comes is the beating heart of Mission Creep. It is the first song that he wrote for the album and is also the most poignant one. Lewis has beautifully captured the loss of his wife, the Peaky Blinders actress Helen McCrory, who was once his ‘joy’ and his ‘pain’. Her death has turned his house into an abandoned place, filled with the ghosts of his memories of her. The song's emotive tenor finds its voice through folk-infused harmonies and jazz-tinged crescendos.

Zaragoza

Another track in the album, Zaragoza brings to life Lewis’s wanderlust and a yearning to begin again. The song is an ode to the Spanish city of Zaragoza where the singer is ‘looking for a start’. His whiskey-parched voice accompanied by the indolent strumming of an acoustic guitar adds to the ballad-like quality of the song. It is at once reminiscent of '70s country music which transports one from mundane settings to bustling towns.

Down on the Bowery

Down on the Bowery, another poignant entry, captures Lewis’s muse who infuses Manhattan's Bowery Street with hope and joy. He sings with a folksy strum about a lover who is yearning for his other half to comfort him and make him start laughing again. This intimate song serves as Damian's emotional journey of healing from the loss of his wife, progressing from a subtle whisper in a lover's ear to a cathartic outpouring of emotions, reciprocating the same feelings he craves for in his lover.

Forever the wandering street singer

Being a busk singer at heart, Lewis wrote and recorded his songs in a way that can be performed on the streets later on. “That's the way I’ve always played – getting out a guitar on the street and playing in a market square by a fountain, outside the Pompidou. In that regard, it should have that feeling,” he said in an interview with MusicWeek.

With deeply poignant, poetic and personal lyrics, Lewis’s music is a reminder of the beauty and serenity of life while confronting the hardships and losses that come with it.