How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S15, BONUS EPISODE! How To Fail: Roman Kemp on mental health, male suicide and failing to be Batman

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

TW: discussions around suicideThe period between Christmas and New Year can be tough for many. That's why I wanted to bring you an episode designed to help you feel less alone, where my guest talks openly about his own mental health and his desire to make others take care of theirs.Roman Kemp has presented the Capital FM breakfast show since 2017, attracting a weekly audience of almost six million. In August 2020, his best friend and the producer of his radio show, Joe Lyons died by suicide. Lyons’ death was deeply shocking to all who loved him, leaving Kemp bereft, angry and searching for answers. Kemp went on to present an acclaimed BBC documentary on male suicide and wrote a bestselling book, Are You Really OK? packed full of personal reflections and practical advice.Here, Roman talks about the impact of Joe's death, about this own mental health and destigmatising the conversation around these issues. Along the way, we chat about his failed driving test, his failed career moves and what it was like having George Michael as a godfather (pretty great, as it turns out). A moving, enlightening and ultimately uplifiting conversation. I hope you take something from it. If you've been affected by any of the issues raised in this episode, call Samaritans for free on 116 123.--Are You Really OK? by Roman Kemp is out now. The charity set up in Joe's name is here: Joe's Buddy Line --My new book for young adults, Failosophy for Teens, is a handbook for when things go wrong and is out on 5th January, available to preorder here--How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted and produced by Elizabeth Day. To contact us, email [e-mail]--Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod Roman Kemp @romankemp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Make your nights unforgettable with American Express. Unmissable show coming up? Good news. We've got access to pre-sale tickets so you don't miss it. Meeting with friends before the show? We can book your reservation. And when you get to the main event, skip to the good bit using the card member entrance.

Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. Regular listeners will know that I'm not a huge fan of New Year's resolutions because I feel like they just set you up to fail according to your own invented metric. But if there is one New Year's resolution that I would like you to keep or consider, it is to check out my first ever book for young adults. It is Philosophy for Teens, a handbook for when things go wrong. And it's a spin-off of a version that I did for adults called Simply Philosophy.

It's out on the 5th of January. It is perfect for any children aged 12 plus who might be in your life or who might be listening to this podcast right now. Hello. I appreciate your ears. It is a guide to being happier, healthier, succeeding better. It helps you talk openly about failure. It helps you understand how failure can be turned into success. failure can be turned into success. It also helps you to build resilience for when life sends you curveballs and hopefully to reframe any negative thoughts you might have about yourself. It's perfect for fans of Marcus Rashford's You Are a Champion and Bryony Gordon's You Got This.

And the wonderful Matthew Saeed, author of You Are Awesome, was kind enough to say about this book that it is an indispensable guide for teenagers everywhere I really wanted it to be a compassionate pragmatic book that any teenager could pick up at any point in their lives and get something from and feel less alone so if you want to buy it for the adolescent in your life or if you are someone who's intrigued by it yourself you can get it at all good bookshops and online from the 5th of January but you can pre-order it now and it is in my humble opinion the perfect way to set yourself up for a new year thank you so so much Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that

haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. Roman Kemp is, by any metric, successful, handsome and popular. He's presented the Capital FM Breakfast Show since 2017, attracting a weekly audience of almost six million. In his teenage years, he was briefly both a musician and a model. His parents are the pop star and actor Martin Kemp and the singer-turned-photographer Shirley. His godfather was the late George Michael.

It was a loving upbringing, but Kemp struggled beneath the surface. He went on antidepressants at the age of 15 to help with his mental health. As a radio presenter and familiar face on our TV screens, he came third in I'm a Celebrity and is a fan favourite along with his dad on Gogglebox. he's an effusive, cheerful and funny presence. And yet this outward self coexists with a sensitive and thoughtful individual who's spoken openly of his continued journey with mental health and depression. He didn't set out to become a campaigner, but in August 2020, his best friend and the producer of his radio show, Joe Lyons, died by suicide. Lyons' death was deeply shocking to all who loved him, leaving Kemp bereft, angry,

and searching for answers. Kemp went on to present an acclaimed BBC documentary on male suicide and wrote a best-selling book, Are You Really Okay?, packed full of personal reflections, insights, and practical advice. It breaks me that I wasn't there for Joe, he writes. I want people to be the hero to their friend that I wasn't to mine. Roman Kemp, welcome to How to Fail. How are you? That was quite an intro. Quite an intro. It took us on a journey, didn't it? Yeah, a little bit. What's the word effusive?

What does that mean? Sort of enthusiastic and like joyful. Cool. Yeah. Cool. I'll add that word to the other three. You have it. Yeah.

I mean, it's quite difficult to encapsulate everything that you have done over the last few years. And I want to pay tribute to you for this book are you really okay thank you tell us about the title because it comes from the idea of a double question doesn't it yeah so I made a documentary about about suicide in 2021 in that I met some amazing people from all over the country and and at one point I met a group of lads young 18 17 18 who'd lost their best friend to suicide. And I remember asking them and I said, you know, when does this go away?

When does this horrible feeling go away? And when does it get better? And they were like, it doesn't. You just try and learn how to deal with it in a different way each day. And I was like, okay, but what do you do to safeguard one another? And they said, oh, we use a two okay rule. I was like, what do you mean? And they were like, they said, we ask are you okay at the beginning of a sentence like when we chat to

each other but we always make sure that if we're talking to one another in our friendship group we ask again are you okay or are you really okay at the end of the conversation so to be honest like putting are you really okay on the front of the book was more so the question not for the reader but it's the question that I want the reader to then ask yeah for other people yeah you know this isn't aimed at necessarily someone that is struggling this is aimed at people that don't really understand it and don't really know you know what's going on in other people's brains you know I get so many people are always asking me saying you know your friend died by suicide what

should I look out for the horrible answer is there isn't something you can look out for there's not because everyone wears a mask and that mask is so tough and it's so hard to see through it but realistically what you can do is you can push and you know if you really are someone's friend you will do whatever you can to get to the bottom of what's going on with them and so that is why I'm pushing people to ask ask again basically and that was part of the devastation of Joe wasn't it that you didn't know and he was your best friend yeah not like when I say I didn't know like did not know we went out Friday night we went for dinner, me, my mum, my dad and him. Saturday night, and then we went out. Sunday, we watched football together at the pub. Monday night, he's dead.

It doesn't make sense. When I heard that he had died, genuinely, I went through every scenario in my head and not one was suicide. Not one. Like, originally, I thought he had choked on food. Then I thought as he had a heart attack, as he passed out after the shower, he hit his head on the side.

It wasn't until we were spoken to by the police and spoken to by the person that found him quite soon, like a couple hours, but within that two hours before we could have that conversation, I would never have thought that. And all of a sudden it was weird because all of a sudden I just had this hatred for him. It was like, you prick, like, how could you do that? And I think that's something that with what's come out from definitely my situation and having spoken to a

lot of people, you know, there was was always a very very tough taboo around when someone takes their own life can you feel like that can you feel like how could you do that can you feel angry a dead person that we look at and go that's so sad you were struggling but the real answer is that's grief that's what happens I'm not angry at him in the sense of, I'm not angry that he was going through something, which clearly he was. I'm so sad for him. And I, you know, I wish I could give him a hug and kiss him and tell him I love him and be there for him. But at the same time, it's reality that he has transferred his pain onto his whole entire family his friend group and me and for that I hate him you said it earlier on like I'm not a campaigner but now this is my life I'm finding it tough at

the minute harder than I thought I would in terms of taking on that weight and there will come a point where I need to go do you know what mental health stuff I need to personally step away from it for a little bit because it's a lot of responsibility and I'm not over my trauma yet so whilst I can do this I will do this and whilst it's raw for me I will want to show people how raw it is and and you know openly talk about it but there will come a point where I'll go okay today I'm not talking about suicide do you know what I mean today I've got to got to look out for myself yeah first of all I'm so sorry for no it's okay that loss yeah and secondly your courage in talking about this even when it is such a heavy weight is a radically generous act and I appreciate it and all of our

listeners do as well yeah because your honesty is extremely powerful and I think you know that but this book is extremely honest yeah but it had to be yeah when I made the documentary I knew and my agent knew and my family knew that if I was going to talk about other people and try and tell other people not to kill themselves, I was going to have to tell people what I'd been through. And that was what the people around me were nervous about. Of course they are because they don't, you know, my, I wasn't thinking clearly at the time at all, but I was like, I need to do this. I couldn't sit on a documentary saying, how could someone think about killing themselves? When I knew that three years, two years before I thought that I wanted to kill myself I'd been through several times where I've

just been like this is enough I can't take it I had to get out of this for me they come in terms of like I see them as a bit of breakdowns and they can come from a number of things for me you know you mentioned I've taken antidepressants and that can come from say if I go on holiday and I forget my tablets and then three days after when I come back I'm still not taking them because I haven't collected them yet stupid right but that can really set me in a spiral quite quickly that's not my own dependency on a tablet but it's just that's just how my body works in the same way for some people it's like therapy you know at the minute whilst I'm promoting a book and talking about it all the time I've made sure that I'm doing weekly therapy as well for my own safety yeah and as you said it's it's the responsibility thing here's the deal

the worst case scenario in all of this about talking about suicide is someone kills themselves that's the worst case scenario for everything it's already happened in my world yeah so i've got no qualms in talking about it and i'm damn sure I'm not gonna have it again do you know I mean how are you feeling now yeah tough really tough I'm certainly nowhere near 100 because you know doing everything is is taking a toll on me in the sense of I'm two years on now from when it happened you know you have to think every time I go into that radio studio I'm back in the same room where I had that moment which was the worst moment of my life and so I deal with that every day and the show helps me with that you know

talking to listeners and having my team around me they help me with that and also it's my responsibility but the thing I'm finding really hard is taking on other people's things yeah and what I mean by that is I'm so pleased that it helps other people so pleased and that is brilliant and if I can help people in a formal sense in terms of release a book or we got the doc or chat on a podcast like this brilliant you know I'm happy if i've got it in my head that i'm going to go and talk about it that's fantastic if i'm in sainsbury's and someone wants to talk to me about suicide i find that really tough of course and that's just me being honest like that's not to say don't come up to me don't talk to me in public i just some every

now and again i find it really hard you know like i it happened to me the other day and and I just broke down a little bit, and I was just, you know, I was crying. I was just saying that, like, it's not my fault. Like, do you know what I mean? It's not, it's like, you know, I'm like, I get that it's helping people, but it's not my fault that that's my job. Yes. You never asked for it. No.

Like, no. And, like, that is tough. That is tough. It means so much to me. But as I said, there will come a point where maybe next year I just need to just step away from it a little bit, just for a minute. And cause obviously like, look, it means so much to me in terms of like, you know, I'm so grateful that I can do things to, you know, in every talk that I ever do around

the country, any hosting thing I ever do around the country any hosting thing i ever do around the country if anything is to do with suicide the money goes to the charity you know that's what happens this is a charity set up in joe's name yeah joe's buddy line yeah because i feel like that's not my money it's not my money i wouldn't have that money if if that hadn't happened so it's dirty money in that sense anyway so it's like do you know what i mean so the first thing i did when i got the paycheck from the book was give you know give the money to the charity you know and we did that and it was really nice and you know and i said how much i wanted to give and and that type of stuff but in terms of going around and talking about it i'm doing it to one help the charity grow because it's so hard for charities small charities and two for his family do you have dreams about joe

i had one dream the other night we were just back normal he's a tottenham fan and i'm an arsenal fan so you can imagine that was quite a weird mix yeah we have dreams but i never realized that he's dead which is quite strange yeah that's difficult to wake up from uh yeah but it's quite nice i don't mind it you know because i have a new scenario with something someone that i'm never gonna have again yeah i still talk to him all the time like you know you have those moments where you sit and it's not praying but it's just you talk out loud things that you want to say or i'll go to you know his grave and speak to him there he's buried in this lovely place in surrey and you know i'll go and go and speak to him but

other than that it's just it's reality i'm very accepting of death i think i'm okay with that in understanding okay that person's gone that's okay it's more the way that he's gone yes that's tough this episode is airing in between christmas and new year yeah and january is a really tough month for mental health yes and for suicide rates yeah you've already given so much and what you've said yeah already on this podcast but if someone is concerned about the mental health of their friend or their loved one or even if they're not concerned yeah because there seems to be no cause for concern what advice would you give what pragmatic tips ask twice you know push if there's any part of you that wants to push for a question do it not being afraid to talk about suicide is the main thing is you know that word people are so scared of saying it and again you know i wrote an article recently for publication and and it was it basically i just

said it was just like i can't believe how you know we've progressed into this but it's getting to a point now where it's like you had aids and everyone saw that as a dirty disease that no one wanted to mention or talk about nowadays the more you talk about it it's out there in the oven there's a lot of things that can help there's huge advances in the aids community and that's you know looking fruitful now the next one was cancer during the 90s where everyone just called it the big c even bleeding into like you know the noughties and now look at the advances there's adverts all on the tv you know men go for regular checks you know we're now at a point in terms of like specifically i can only speak from a male perspective but you take a look at things like testicular cancer that is like a 98 99 percent you know success rate and then now

we've got this thing of suicide and and it's about time that we just accepted that word realize that it's part of human life and it is normal to think about suicide it's okay and when i what i mean by that it's okay it's okay to have those feelings and the more you understand that you know one in four men think about killing themselves at some point in their life but yet every man thinks that they're the only person that thinks like that and that scares them even more if they know that more men think about it than they do then they're more likely to talk about it yeah don't get me wrong there is a huge huge mental health problem if not more in women but i can only ever speak from a male perspective obviously coming around christmas time a lot of unfortunately the reason why a lot of men take their own lives men this is specific to men is not anything to do

with a tragedy or divorce or things like that that a lot of people think you know they've lost all their money and you know it's terrible it's as simple as i'm not where i should be in life interesting so sad so sad because that is in the eye of the beholder yeah that's why when people say about anyone in their walk of life, whether this could be a really rich guy who has to everyone else, everything, but he's not up to his own standards. And we set ourselves such unrealistic standards all the time as men in terms of what car we should own, how much money we should have, what family we have, the girlfriend, the wife, whatever the partner we have, all of those things. And that's the reason why most men take their own life is because we don't give ourselves a buffer. We think about it and do it. And that's the

problem. We've got this instinctive way whereby when I play video games and things like that, people play video games online. When they're losing so badly at a video game, they'll just switch the PlayStation off. That's the equivalent of suicide for me i'm losing at this game so badly i know that i can start again and work it out but i'd rather just switch it off that is so powerful and i think you are incredibly gifted at putting very complicated ideas into words i've never heard that before it's so that's thank you but But you can imagine it, right? You know what I mean? Yeah, totally, totally. Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest? This is a time of great foreboding.

These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago. These words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago set in motion a chain of gruesome events and sparked cult-like devotion across the world. I'm Matt Lewis. Join us as we unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. we are finally being recognized for being very online it's about damn time i mean it's hard

work being this opinionated and correct you're such a leo all the time so if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions if you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second then join me hunter harris and me peyton dicks the host of wondery's newest podcast let me say this as beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mess, we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't have to. We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news. Like it's not a question of if Drake got his body done, but when. You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the B-sides. Don't you worry. The deep cuts, the niche, the obscure. Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise.

Mother. A mother to many. Follow Let Me Say This on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Let's get on to your failures. Yes. I'm so intrigued as to where they're going to lead us your first failure is that you failed your driving test oh my god yeah so driving tests

were like a big thing for me but my failed driving test then leads me actually into my past test which was even more of a trauma so my first big failure in life i think was my driving test it means everything to you right at 17 and you know I was one of those people that were like four weeks after you're 17 straight away do your driving test and I just had such a horrible memory of feeling like I absolutely smashed this test and the lady almost like taunted me at the end she was like I'm so pleased to say that you did everything right except from the beginning so you failed it was so bad right it was so so bad but yeah i was speeding on my driving test which isn't a good look but then i eventually did pass my driving test and the day i passed my test i wrote off my

car yeah so okay wow how many goes did you have to pass your test? Twice. Twice. Okay. So I did it one second time. And I had the same examiner both times. Did you? Oh, I had a different one. Really freaked me out. Then you pass your driving test and you go and drive your own car. Then I drive my own car.

Then I go out for dinner that night with my girlfriend at the time. We were only like 17. Where did you go for dinner? I can't remember. No, it was like, it's probably the zzz's yeah yeah yeah 17 yeah zzz's yeah and she used to live in like high wickham so it was like great missenden way so it's like a few country lanes and i remember i was going maybe under the speed limit not fast at all and then it was really dark and it was like a country lane where, you know,

if another car comes up, you got to pull over, it goes around. So anyways, I'm going round on this country lane. And then as I go around on this lane, I go over a giveaway, not realizing I've gone over a giveaway because the hedge just kind of stopped as you turn. Yeah. And then literally I've gone over it without realizing it. I just thought it was a turn. As I turn, all of a sudden headlights at the side of my car going about 50 wow you wrote about this in the book yeah i didn't realize it was the day you passed your test oh my gosh into the side car over smash everything airbags like the you know it looked like a scene out of eastenders it looked like how my dad died in eastenders right and yeah and it ended up into you

know put my girlfriend at the time out of car and and like horrendous but like so driving and driving tests were definitely a fail at the beginning of my life but you everyone was fine in that crash thank god thank goodness if i'm genuinely honest i don't know how someone was looking out for me that day because it was bad i'm always intrigued when people say they failed their driving test and it's really stuck in their mind. It totally did for me as well. It's traumatic. Well, I think you've really identified what it is. It's like the first big test.

And it's also for me, I lived in the middle of the countryside. It was representative of my freedom. Yeah. Like I really needed it in order to live the kind of life I wanted to live. It's traumatic from a social aspect and for a life aspect. You feel like I've got got to do this all over again i've got to go and tell my mates that i've failed it do you know what i mean like you know i go back to it all the time and this is a lot of thing that i talk about with schools i'm always obsessed with parents saying to their kids you know school is the easiest best time of your life you should enjoy it no it's not i could not agree more horrendous

awful i'm so relieved now still that i'm not at school no but that's what i'm saying like like all of us all come out of school and go oh that was bad like do you know what i mean but yet when we see kids we're like no i enjoy it you get to just do this and call you gotta think like as a child even from like reception upwards you're learning social cues you're being pressured academically you're in a classroom full of people that you've got to talk in front of you've got all these things right and it's so traumatic like you're constantly pushed to see who is the best who is the best child in this class yes and that's like messed up like and and so i'm always surprised that there's not more

safeguarding around children when they are at school in terms of their psych do you know what i mean like in terms of their mental health because it's like we just expect kids to be fine with it because they can't articulate what's going on yeah so that's my it's a very good point and actually it ties in with something that i talk about a lot so i've had fertility issues and i think fertility should be taught in schools in the same way. I'm terrified as a guy. Like I was terrified about fertility. Really?

Yeah. Like I've actually made a movement of a couple of my guy mates now. We're all going and testing our sperm count. That's amazing to hear. Well, it's scary. I love that. But again, I think a lot of guys don't admit that. Yeah.

But to me, family is everything. Like family is everything. Like for me, the only thing that really matters to me is that i have kids genuinely for me that's like you're here to make other good human beings you know if i can't do that then obviously i'll adopt or whatever whatever the fertility is a big thing that's so beautiful yeah that's true thank you for sharing that no that's okay i wanted to ask you finally on your driving test before we move on how much of it was to do with anxiety i feel anxious every single time i get behind the wheel of a car because i'm so aware of all the things that could go wrong and it's actually quite you have to suspend that in order to be able to function sure when you're doing your driving test you're always nervous now I'm a good driver

I've already seen what a horrendous crash looks like and I know I definitely don't want to do that ever again you know the noise and everything you know I can still hear the noise now like I don't really want to go through that again so it made me a better driver yeah but definitely who knows maybe if I'd passed on that first day maybe it would have been a worse crash and that's why I had to fail it well this is what this podcast is all about. That's a failure that taught you how to succeed better as a driver. Precisely. Your second failure, I've never had this before, is that you failed to be Batman.

Yes. First of all, I should preface this by saying that I know from the book that you were born in a superhero position. Yes, I was, yeah. Which means what well my mom always used to say this my mom always used to say that a psychic told her it's about money or some post-natal a baby psychic or something if a baby comes out with arm first in a superman pose they're ready to receive they're ready to receive things they're ready to you know go out into the world and earn money and have things come to them.

Yes, good things come to them. So she was always talking about that. But as a child, I was always, always obsessed with Batman. Batman was my number one thing. Like it was everything to me in the sense of my pajamas, my bedsheets. It was either Arsenal or Batman. That was my life all the batman toys all the arsenal kits anything i ever wanted the first you know great present that george michael

ever bought me when i was a kid was a batmobile you know when you go to hammerheads and you see those like electric cars those little cars fully reverse and drive yes they bought me a batmobile it was unreal great godfather still got it oh still got it right still work still driving in it still driving in it that's why i filmed a test um god knows i was speeding in it um and i was batman obsessed and i was you know i loved all of you know anything when i was around 10 to 14 i started getting quite a lot of like requests come through for me to audition for things i think my dad was in eastenders at the time and they were saying oh does he have he has a son what can the son act or whatever and so my dad's agent started like just sending me things

through being like this person's asking for this this person's asking for this and then all of a sudden this script comes through and it's for batman begins and i was like you're kidding and i was like who do they want me to play and they were like bruce wayne and i was like what actual batman and they're like yeah it's like the young kid part in it you know when the joker kills yes his parents yes yeah yeah in the film in the film okay okay this is sorry i suddenly got excited i was like I remember that scene that scene yeah and then he goes down the well and then the bats raise him and all that jazz right so like that kid I was going into auditions for that and I went into the first audition must have nailed it went into the second audition must have nailed it then got to about like the sixth audition and I know it was just me and this kid and it got to a point

where it was all being sent off to christopher nolan and and i didn't get it oh roman i failed my one chance in life to do it to say i am bruce wayne and i failed that is such a good failure close i did not know because you just said i failed to be batman yeah no i but genuinely failed to be batman and how old were you to say 13 14 i'm no i must have been around this was quite early on i must have been around 10 that must have been so disappointing yeah i was going how did you deal with it at that age you know i'm not sure my parents were always quite good with it my parents were always just like with auditions and things like that like i got a few bits when i was a kid but it was always just i don't know i never really cared too much about it in terms of acting

because it was just my dad's job you know it was just my dad used to film us all the time doing silly stuff and you know so it was never really like you know i used to read scripts for my dad all the time i guess i was just more focused on you know what the score of the arson march was going to be that night as opposed to you know when my parents when you're a kid and your neck is oh you didn't really get that and you're kind of like okay next thing but looking back on it now I'm more upset about it now do you still like Batman I love Batman so you'll still watch the movies it hasn't put you off no I love Batman okay more than anything what is it that you love about Batman what does he represent I don't know I think it was just that vigilante kind of attitude, I guess.

You know, still fighting for good, but doing it in a different way. Who's your favourite Batman actor? Oh, I mean, I liked the nipple suit. I did like George Clooney. But I just think Christian Bale was really good. Michael Keaton? Does he get a look in? See, I love Michael Ke Keaton I would say that's my favorite Batman film yes fine in the round in the round I would say yeah I would say but who is most believable as Bruce Wayne is Christian Bale yes I don't like his

Batman voice okay I don't like that well he listens to how to fail so he'll know yeah I thought he did just going back there a bit because you mentioned your parents and your parents come out so well in your book yes and too well I mean too well almost it's taking the I'm doing their PR away from you yeah and Shirley your lovely lovely mum has been on this podcast and is just one of my most beloved guests of all time she said so i need to get martin next and i'll have the full family gay sister into he's got a book coming out so yeah he's everywhere at the moment he was on capital fm the other day but i suppose a lot

of people's approach to failure is often instructed by how they were raised and their upbringing what does your parents teach you about making mistakes or getting things wrong? That it's okay. It's always just about support. Never about expectation with them. It's we'll support you if you want to go and do something and we'll support you if it doesn't work. And that's all I needed.

I didn't need motivation because if you get this right, I will do this for you. It's just, we're here for you either way. And if it doesn't work out, it doesn just we're here for you either way and if it doesn't work out it doesn't work out if it does work out it does work out my like we're positive but anything to do with money or jobs or things like that we're very much like don't think about it never think about it never think about getting it or never think about you know like if ever ever i go to my dad and i say oh i might be getting this job he goes cool put it out your head yeah that's good advice and and the only thing that you have to guarantee is that you have gratitude for the

things that you do have yes and when you do get something then you have gratitude for that because the things that you don't have what's the point you know it goes back to my thing that i was saying earlier on so many guys have so much expectation about where we should be in life it's even that thing of like that question i would eliminate that question of where do you want to be in five years so would i it's unrealistic and eliminate new year's resolutions that's not my bug bears unrealistic yes unrealistic and unhelpful i'd rather look back at everything i did last five years there's a lot you know and then i then I go, you know, done loads. Well done.

You know, and you feel proud of yourself. You know, you go back five years, you haven't even started this podcast. No. So, you know what I mean? It's like, think how much your life has changed. Totally. You know? And I think you're so wise there because the problem with a five-year plan is that we have,

as you say, unrealistic expectations of ourselves. But we also don't know who we're going to be in five years we don't know what circumstances might have changed yeah and if you get to that five-year point and you think well i haven't ticked this off my list that i made five years ago for different me yeah then you feel like a failure according to your own metric 100 so just reduce the stress on yourself yeah but also you know my dad is someone that i always look at in terms of people forget as well that as a family, kind of what we went through when my dad was sick, my dad had two brain tumors when I was growing up and that came out of nowhere. Doesn't matter who you are, how much money you have, how well your life is going. Something can happen like that, that changes your course forever. And it's always knowing that it's not a

fear of that but it's an acceptance that things out of your control can change your life forever yeah so trying to plan five years ahead you can try but there are things in life that will happen and it's about rolling with that and accepting it and keeping on going and and and I always you know admire my parents mainly my mum like if I'm honest. My dad was in the driving seat, obviously. But as a mom watching that, thinking, I've got two kids, I've currently not got any source of income, and my husband's about to die. What do you do? Do you know what I mean? And I speak to my mom about that all the time. That's the thing I'm so proud of my mom for. I couldn't't imagine and we're so lucky that my dad

didn't pass away you know i couldn't imagine life without him but that's why it makes me so sad i meet a lot of you know my dad does a lot of work for brain human charities and things like that and it makes me so sad when i see kids that lose their parents young because i just i feel guilty i feel like i kept mine i got to keep mine and that's the best thing in my my life in my world and so that that i'd say harbors quite a lot of guilt, but sorry, I've gone off your question straight away. But it is, you know, it is that thing of like, when I think about my parents and everything they've taught me is the things

that they always want to preach about is enjoy the current moment that you have and have gratitude for the moment that you have. Looking forward, you're just almost disappointing yourself. Yes. Yes. Oh, we all need a martin and shirley in our lives we do they're a good mix yeah and i know that shirley has been instrumental at points in your life when your mental health has been a struggle partly because of what she went through with her dad yeah who struggled with his mental health and yeah yeah big time My mom's dad was miserable. I really struggle with speaking about him because on one sense, I love him.

He's my family, he's my blood. I look a lot like him. But on the other side, he was someone that was abusive towards my nan. And I love my nan. And, you know, it's a very weird relationship. He was very abusive to my nan. He wasn't excellent to his kids,

I wouldn't say. His values weren't in line with what mine are at all. And that for me is really difficult. However, what I do look at now is that here's a man who was struggling with heavy undiagnosed depression, heavy undiagnosed anxiety, purely hormonal. And that has been passed down through my mom's side of the family. My auntie suffers with very similar issues to me. She looks very similar to me. So my mom was really scared that that would manifest itself and it kind of has into me. And so when I was 15, the second she could take me to the doctor, she did. And, you know, the doctor said, you know, hormonally and et cetera, everything you're describing is depression you know I would say I would wake up and I'd have this feeling of sadness

and just I guess personal dejection I guess from other people not wanting to talk and some people can put it down to like teenage angst but my mom didn't want to take any chances but now I'm so pleased you know the way how my mom has led me to be open about that and unflinching when talking about it I've been certainly after Joe died but now I don't think there's an insecurity that I wouldn't talk about I don't think there's a part of me because I feel like the more I talk about it the better it becomes and that's genuinely how I feel I feel like it's a part of your brain that you're exercising when you talk about it and that's all because of my mum what she's taught me your final failure is that you failed to be a musician yes so what happened how did you get into a band in the first place really weirdly I was like contacted one day by these two guys

to see if I'd ever be interested in writing music and you know you know performing live and things like that and I was like yeah of course I knew how to play guitar my dad had taught me I knew how to play bass guitar I knew how to play bass guitar better than I knew how to play guitar because of my dad mainly because when my dad had his brain tumors he forgot all of his span out ballet music did he like it like his bass lines and I had to reteach them to him okay that's beautiful which is really nice I have a really nice memory of that I remember him sitting down with me and me going no no no my ear has been good I can hear something and tell you what what you know on a guitar and so

I used to teach him how to do it which was quite a weird experience so yeah I was contacted by these guys and then they were like, yeah, come down. And I would just have a chat. Turns out everyone was working for Universal Music. Next thing I know, I'm being drafted into like a 360 deal, which is like you basically become the label's bitch. And what I mean by that is any project that they kind of want you to be a part of, they can put you in that project. Anyone they want you to write with, they can make you you ride with them you can go and perform live for certain people

support people at shows etc and i did it and to be honest it was kind of like my university i signed a deal when i was 15 and when i barely finished my my mock gcses i just left i didn't i didn't go back for any lessons but just turned up on the day of my exams because I felt like I've done it now. I was like, OK, I've got all of that. I know I'm rubbish at school because I wasn't great at school. I was good at drama and RE weirdly. So I ended up just doing the music thing. And then all of a sudden it kind of formulated into this band where we had three other lads and it really worked.

You know, it went from, from oh maybe write a song for someone else or this this this to hang on a minute we could make a band here we made a band and this band kind of kicked off to the point where we were then being poached by sony music and all this stuff and we play in all these different places but then the day that we're meant to go and sign this deal with sony our lead singer pulls out and says that he doesn't want to do it anymore he wants to go to university and just like that your dream's over all of a sudden the label don't want you anymore you've not spent time as a solo person you've just spent time as a band so people know you as a band you can either start from zero again or leave and let me tell you at 18 that's crushing 18 19

crushing because you're like everything was set out yes for success and one person's decision has changed that bro and it was really hard really really hard it was great i loved the fact that i did it i loved it you know we would sell and sold out shows at o2 academies and stuff like that like it was great it was sick and got a taste of it and you know whatnot and it was going to go on to do good things i'm sure of it but i remember the day where we got the call because we were all waiting to go into this meeting and he was he was late and he was like where are you then like he's like i'm not doing it we're like what so we had to all go home and then just be like we've got no deal what do we do what do we do and then everyone else like tried to form a new thing and I was at that point I was like I'm done

like I said I was like I can't do this the three years before two three years of doing it it was a lot already like it was very adult at a time where I wasn't ready to be an adult in so many ways going out and whatnot but also being in meetings with like heads of labels and then being pretty straight up you know having business chats with you is intimidating. And when that went and when that decision was made, it triggered a mental health spiral for you, didn't it? Of course. Yeah.

Again, I had one of those kind of breakdown moments where I just ended up just crying all the time. And then, you know, and then, and then my mom having to speak to me and then my mom reset me back on my life again. My mom sat me down and said, you know, and then my mom having to speak to me and then my mom reset me back on my life again. My mom sat me down and said, you know, what is it you love? And, you know, what do you want to do with your life? And I said, I don't know. And she said, well, you just need, okay, well, take yourself out of the equation for a sec.

You know, I was doing modeling on the side and those types of things, but didn't mean anything to me. I actively dislike the fashion industry, but I can still say that now. I don't agree with any of their values at all you write in the book about how certain male models you were expected to go to parties fashion parties and there were a lot of predatory males there yeah i've never read that anywhere before yeah that must have been horrible yeah yeah yeah all of the values in that industry i do not agree with it's just how i am like i respect the artistry 100 like you know what i mean really respect the artistry but in terms of they are so far behind in terms of their expectations of men women or whatever sex you are

expectation again sets people up for failure and it's unfair i ended up kind of like not doing that but then moving into worked in a gym, cleaning the equipment for a little bit, which was horrible. But I did that to save up money to then do what I wanted to do, which was talk about football. And I built a football studio in my basement and film myself talking about football. And then one thing led into another and all of a sudden you become a cameraman for other people, but a sports presenter and that bled into capital and so on and that's where we are now yes you are the voice of a nation you are you're the voice of a nation the voice of a generation i've loved our chat so much i can't thank you enough for your that's okay honesty your humor

your profundity and i can't wait to see what you do next, even though there is no five-year plan. No, there really isn't. Like everyone always says it. They're like, they're like, so, you know, do you know, if something comes up, I get offered it. I'll see how I feel. If I like it, then I'll do it. And I might see you in the big Sainsbury's near us. Yes. Yes. We both love a big Sainsbury's. There you go. Definitely. Roman Kemp, thank you so much coming on how to fail if you enjoyed this episode of how to fail with elizabeth day i would so appreciate it if you could rate review and subscribe apparently it helps other people know that we exist