Johnny Borrell has responded to the low first week sales for his debut solo album 'Borrell 1' earlier this year

The LP shifted just 594 copies in its first week of release and failed to make the Top 100 of the UK Official Album Charts.

Defending his poor sales, he told Drowned In Sound: "It is being heard and appreciated by as many people as possible! It is! If that’s 500 people, that’s 500 people. If those are the 500 people that are open enough at this point in time to hear this record, fucking fantastic man."

He continued: "On a personal level, I feel like I connected with songwriting again. I would rather play to 80 people who are switched on enough, and unprejudiced enough, to get what’s going on with this band right now, than to play to 80,000 people who are there because that’s the CD that's out this year or whatever."

A tongue-in-cheek statementfrom Borrell's record label Stiff Records followed the announcement of 'Borrell 1's low sales figures. The record label pointed out that the Razorlight frontman's debut solo album is the 15,678th best-selling album of the year to date, adding: "First week sales of 594 make 'Borrell 1' the 15,678th best-selling album of the year to date. So far we've achieved 0.00015 per cent sales of Adele's '21'"