Musician Rick Springfield has spoken about his Christian faith and how his desire for a connection with God impacted on his new book, Magnificent Vibration.

Although Australian, the "Jessie's Girl" singer spent part of his youth in England, where his army officer father was stationed from 1958 to 1963.

He says in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter that although he was raised in the Church of England, he was frustrated by the kind of religion he was presented with.

"It's all about faith.  'You gotta believe.' It was very frustrating to me, because I wanted a connection.  There's a lot about my religious upbringing in the family [in the book]."

He says later on in the interview that he was raised with the understanding that God was a "punishing God".

"He'll kick your ass if you do wrong things, and if you do good things, then you gotta turn around and say, 'Thank you Father, appreciate it.'  That used to f*** with me as a kid.  And as a preteen I was very angry with God."

The anger made the eastern philosophies coming through the Beatles and the other options he was exposed to through the music scene more appealing to him and he "started to look elsewhere". 

But asked if he is a believer today, he says: "My concept of God goes through changes daily.  There is still a part of me who is very Christian, and that punishing God is still very much a part of my psyche ... I'm still very Christian; I have crosses all over my house."

The eastern influences are also still there.  He meditates regularly, something he says connected him with a "spiritual entity" and helped with his depression. 

The desire for a connection was a strong trigger for the plotline in the book: "I started with the idea of God talking to me - like, if I had a connection to God, if I could actually talk to him or her, what would I say?"

But the sexual content in the story, including a scene with a preacher's wife, means it's not exactly in the same league as God's Not Dead and Heaven is For Real. 

The God in his story "doesn't really give a s*** about the day-to-day crap that we do.

"I'm probably going to get a lot of flack from Christians and Catholics and Mormons - and everybody - from this.  But you just have to write what you're going to write," he says.

You can read the full interview with The Hollywood Reporter here