Love Lives - Tom Walker: ‘Songwriting is my therapy’

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

BRIT Award winning singer-songwriter Tom Walker joins us to discuss his second album, I Am.Tom opens up about one of the singles on the album, ‘Lifeline’, about the unexpected death of a friend, and how writing the song allowed him to process his grief.“It’s one of my favourite songs I’ve ever written, but also the most difficult song to listen to. It’s certainly one of the realest things I’ve ever put down on paper, and you can feel that when you listen to it.”Catch Love Lives on Independent TV, YouTube, and all major social and podcast platforms.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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One of the lads who like bullied me at school asking for free tickets to all the gigs on Facebook and I was like I'm gonna I need to delete my Facebook. This is ludicrous. This is ludicrous. Hello and welcome to Love Lives, a podcast from The Independent where I, Olivia Petter, speak to different guests about the loves of their lives. Today I am thrilled to be joined by Brit Award winning musician Tom Walker. He is back with a second album, I Am, as well as a European tour. So welcome Tom. Thank you very much. So can you start us off by telling us about the new music? Because it's been a while since fans have heard anything new from you and I'm sure everyone is so excited, myself included.

Just five short years. Just five short years in which nothing has happened. Yes, exactly. Yeah. I'm so excited about it. I've literally, you know, spent a long time. It's weird. It actually didn't take five years to write because I wrote this album over the course of six months after spending four and a half years trying to write songs. Wow, you wrote it in six months? Yeah. So I met a group of producers called the McDonagh Brothers and their friend Castle and another guy called Ryan Daly, who's an amazing producer. McDonagh Brothers and their friend Castle and another guy called Ryan Daly who's an amazing producer and basically the label wanted me to go out to LA I'm from Scotland going out to LA for me it's just too hot you know like I got burnt in Scarborough once when it was 13 degrees

so I was like oh I'm not really sure about LA you know it's like pretty hot and I don't really know anyone out there and like I don't know every time I've been there I felt kind of a bit isolated in an Airbnb on my own with like no pals to like go out for a beer with or whatever and there's no pubs out there and you know it's not my kind of place but i reluctantly agreed and i met the mcdonald brothers and they are just the most amazing group of producers and writers and they are so excited about music all they do is music day and night like they get up at 11 and they're in the studio till three that's every single day and they just like reignited this kind of passion for music and for songwriting that I'd kind of lost so this is by far the most ambitious album I've done both vocally and

production wise and some quite serious topics on here that I've maybe touched on a little bit in the past but there's definitely more of a deep dive of that kind of thing on this album. Do you think the time that you had in between releasing the music has given you the space to do that kind of deeper more emotional delve into things with your songs because you've kind of had time to reflect I suppose and think about those subjects more? I think I had too much time to reflect um I did not do well in lockdown because we just toured for like four years had a very successful album had won a Brit Awards all this mad stuff that if you told me four years earlier to that moment I would

have laughed in your face because I was giving out leaflets for a living. So when it kind of all stopped, it was the first time I had stopped really. And I just wasn't ready for that. You know, I kind of sat there with my own thoughts, overthinking everything, wondering what I'm going to do next. I don't know how it is for your songwriting process, but it doesn't really come on demand with me when I'm writing creatively. So I'm guessing it's not the same for you either. No, God, like ideas come to me the most inconvenient time as possible you know it'd be three o'clock in the morning I'll be lying in bed trying to get to sleep this idea would be milling around my head and I'm like oh my god

I better go and like you know do a voice note of this and suddenly that'll turn into a whole song and I'll be sat there till seven o'clock in the morning and then when the sun's coming up the song will be done that was literally how I wrote one of my songs just you and I that ended up having a huge amount of success and I always think if I hadn't got out of bed that night and if I hadn't bothered then that song would have never existed so it's hard not to run with those feelings of having to do it at those times because sometimes when you sit down and try and do something it's the last thing that happens yeah and how is it that it comes to you does it come as a melody or does it come as like a conceit or a series of lyrics what kind of comes to you when you have that 3am epiphany

it's usually i'm hearing an idea of the melody and the lyric in in my head certainly melody first i might have you know the lyric kind of always comes like afterwards for me, but I might have a concept kind of milling around. But people always ask me like, how do you write songs? Like, what is the perfect combination of things? And I would say like trying different things every time is what I try to do. Because trying to do the same thing over and over again, you get the same results. So believe me, I've not cracked the perfect way to write a song yet, but I intend to keep trying for the rest of my life and you mentioned earlier you know you delve into some

deeper subjects with this album can you give us a bit of an insight into what some of those are yeah I mean one of the songs on the album Lifeline I've lost a friend of mine oh I'm so sorry um and it's so unexpected at this age. Just like the worst thing ever. And it was, you know, it was more, it wasn't like a best friend or anything, but it was my friendship group was hit so hard by it and none of us were expecting it. And people started kind of blaming themselves and asking what they could have done

and what could have been different and all the rest of it. And I hated that because I've got such lovely friends I'm so blessed to have them and we're all such a tight group and I hated that people were so upset because they felt partially responsible because they didn't do enough when sometimes like you can't do enough sometimes when people don't ask for help it's difficult to help them and it's difficult to know what's going on when people don't reach out so there's a song on the album about that which is I think one of my favorite songs I've ever written but also the most difficult song to listen to but certainly one of the

realest things I've ever put down on paper and you can feel that when you listen to it and I think that songs that kind of provoke that kind of level of real emotion, they always do good things. How does it feel to write a song about something like that? Because is it cathartic for you to kind of express it that way? Or I mean I can imagine it's incredibly painful to articulate your grief in that way. I think songwriting for me has always been like a therapy so it's a way i can work through my emotions and the things that i'm feeling that was certainly a difficult

one i kind of wrote it after i wrote it in that while i was out in la and me and the mcdonough brothers i've told you about before i'd kind of had this idea for a chorus but it was just a melody and it had no chords and i just thought the melody was really cool and I went home and they've got these amazing things in America called White Claws I don't know if you've had them but they're so delicious and refreshing I bought a 20 pack of those and I just sat one night having like four of them kind of getting a little buzz on and just got really upset because it kind of had hit me it happened three months before this then I'd gone and I was in rehearsals for tour at the time and then I'd gone from rehearsals straight into the tour without really being able to think about

any of this because life's so busy when you're rehearsing and you're on tour like yeah 10 o'clock in the morning till you know one in the morning something's happening that day and that was every day for a month and a half so it wasn't until I was sat in this Airbnb in LA on my own where it kind of just hit me so that that was a really difficult one to write but also I actually got quite upset which was probably a good thing for me to kind of process everything that had gone down well I mean I think it's really I mean first of all thank you for sharing that and I think you know it's really valuable to have a skill that allows you to process something like that in the musical form because then anyone who listens to that song who can relate to that experience I think that's a very healing thing for them yeah and that's a gift for them and I'm sure your friends as well will hugely appreciate

that when they listen to the song it's a difficult difficult one because, you know, when you write songs that are so personal to people, it does upset people. So I'm really mindful of that. And I wasn't on the first album. You know, there's some songs on there that were personal to other people that I hadn't really thought about. I just write what I'm thinking about.

And it used to be that those songs would never leave the bedroom. Nothing would ever happen with them. They would just be my way of running through my emotions. So it's difficult when suddenly this personal thing is being aired out to everybody. nothing would ever happen with them they would just be my way of running through my emotions so it's difficult when suddenly this personal thing is being aired out to everybody but then I just write about the things that are happening in my life but it is beautiful when other people resonate with those songs so personally and you know with Lifeline I'm teaming up with Calm who

are an amazing suicide prevention charity that they campaign against living miserably, who are doing some absolutely incredible songs. So, you know, there are positive sides to it, but yeah, it's a bit of a head sometimes. It's a lot. Well, thank you for sharing that. And I'm interested what you said about the writing about other people as well,

because this is something that I constantly come up against too in my work. And I find interested what you said about the writing about other people as well, because this is something that I constantly come up against, too, in my work. And I find it so interesting because similar to when you're writing a song, when I'm writing, you know, an article or a piece of fiction or whatever, obviously I'm writing about myself, but your stories involve other people. Sure. And I'm constantly grappling with this idea of like, well, do you own everything that happens to you? like well do you own everything that happens to you and how how do you go about like what's your responsibility to other people when you involve them in your writing because it's sort of part of being an artist yeah but then also there has to be a degree of respect and distance there too it's a difficult thing to kind of tussle with I think as long as there's an open dialogue which I was very keen to do on this album because I didn't do

on the first one you know I just put those songs out and never thought they would ever go as big as they did you know and then I was thinking oh my god I should have had some conversations so I've had those conversations for this album and made sure that people have heard these songs and are okay with them before they've actually come out so yeah and let's go back a bit because you mentioned earlier you you know used to be handing out leaflets I want to hear about what those leaflets were and also I know that you started out by busking so tell me about tell me about the kind of early beginnings of your musical career and your leaflet handing out career well the leaflet was I did a degree in songwriting in the LCCM the London Centre of Contemporary Music although I

think it's a different name now and I can't remember what it was but it was LCCM, the London Centre of Contemporary Music. Although I think it's a different name now and I can't remember what it was, but it was LCCM when I went there. It was an amazing music school. And you know, there's only eight other songwriters in my whole class, which was so good. That's amazing. And the teacher we had in first year

was a really amazing writer called Jez Asher, who I've actually written songs for on this album and the last one. So it's so cool to still be in touch and be writing together and all the rest of it. But after I'd finished I had no idea what to do because the one thing I I felt the the university kind of lacked on was like an actual real pathway in into the industry now luckily like two of my um tutors at the time had kind of showed the keen interest in my song writing and and it helped me put me in touch with like the right people which is how I met my manager but but after you know but that was kind

of in the year after uni and I was like oh my god I need to get a job living in London no more student finance like it's going to be game over unless so so I had a few different things I was working for a photo booth company which was you know when you go up to an event and like take I don't know it's like what was it nine flight cases and i set up the photo booth i had a reno clio at the time so imagine trying to get all that in the booth uh and then setting that up and kind of babysitting drunk people and trying to make sure they didn't steal the fancy dress so we did some like you know horrible corporate events for like i won't name them specifically but you know petrol companies

who like just the richest of the richest and the drunkest of the drunkest kicking off breaking the corporate events for like i won't name them specifically but you know petrol companies who like just the richest of the richest and the drunkest of the junkies kicking off breaking the photo booth stealing all fans just like running around yeah running around at like 90 years old after these 40 plus year old executives who've nicked one of the apps and all the rest of it thinking oh my god and then the leafletlet thing was just the wildest job ever because i was hired through some company by tfl to give out leaflets on cycling safety to moving cyclists and i just thought this is the most dangerous thing ever and they were like just you need to make sure you're giving these to cyclists so they know about safety but they're all just like

whipping past and you're trying to be like here's a leaflet on safety mate so so yeah those were two very interesting jobs i had for about a year and a half wow that is interesting it's like hey here's a leaflet on safety don't fall over yeah yeah i'll give it to you luckily nobody did but there was some definite close calls you know people kind of grabbing it and looking behind and not looking there they're going all the rest of it so oh my god very interesting job and so when you were busking whereabouts were you doing that did you get big crowds did people love you did people boo how did it work it was a nightmare because you've got to have a busking license in london which you don't in the rest of the uk right kept getting chased away by the council like constantly constantly. It was such a nightmare.

I think they're a bit more relaxed about it now because there's loads of different artists I've seen on TikTok and stuff. Or maybe they've actually got licenses. But the waiting list was two years. So I was like, well, I need money now. It wasn't a very financially stable enterprise. I was probably spending more on batteries for the amp than I was making each day.

But it was a lot of fun. I went out with one of my mates, Ed Cubitt, at the time and me and him used to just go out and he played sax and guitar and bass and I had like a little loop pedal and I would beatbox and play guitar. It was a wicked way to kind of test out new songs and kind of hone

your craft as as like a performer but certainly difficult when you're getting moved on every 15 minutes chased away by or getting shouted at by you know we used to do like late at night on the south bank because you know they'd gone home by then basically the council so they weren't trying to kick you away but then there'd be the people in the flats there coming out and shouting at us at like eight half past eight on a Wednesday like kicking off and all that so uh yeah definitely an interesting experience but a formative experience and how you mentioned that you got your manager when you were through through LCC how how did that then escalate to releasing your first single and then that becoming such a global hit? I mean, how did that happen?

What was the timeframe there? Well, it was actually quite a while, which I'm really buzzing about. It seems like, you know, Leave a Light On came out and it was this overnight success, but it even took a year and a half for that song to get anywhere near the top 10, which a lot of people don't know

because it was this kind of international thing but i met my manager you know as i say like a year and a half after university through one of my songwriting tutors mark and they you know put me in touch with um my current manager simon now and he killed oh god it's quite funny i basically lied because i had i had this song that i'd done at uni but it had been remixed by one of my mates who'd like done the production on it i'd written the song but you know i had no idea how to produce at the time i met my manager and he was like i love this can you give me more of this and i was like absolutely no worries and then proceeded to spend six months diving through YouTube and

anybody I knew who could produce to try and start producing myself and just basically completely blagged it. I had a load of great songs, but they were all recorded with a guitar and a terrible microphone and didn't really sound that great. So it was a real trial by fire. And luckily, my manager eventually did work this out and started putting me in with some great producers um and that was such an amazing experience for me for the first time actually co-writing I'd never really done like a massive amount of that I'd done a bit of it at uni but getting in with these people who were so much more talented than me that I could learn from every single day just got me so excited about being in

the music industry and it's such a such a tiny door to try and get through but then once you're in oh my god it's it's so amazing like what is available and the amount of talent and um so so yeah I just I just kind of spent the next a year and a half with Simon developing what we thought we could do and then eventually sent a few songs to the first record label that came knocking which I would not advise anybody to do it worked out very well for me because they have been amazing but I literally signed the first thing that came my way because well because I had no money I was living in London you know what was getting at the photo booth place like 140 quid twice a week and the leaflets definitely wasn't paying much so I was

like if I don't get something now I'm gonna have to leave and this is all going to be over so we did kind of accept the first thing that came our way and and you know thank god that's actually worked out yeah I mean it worked out incredibly well so yeah let's talk about that I mean I know you said it wasn't overnight success but to the outside world that's how worked out. Yeah, I mean, it worked out incredibly well. So yeah, let's talk about that. I mean, I know you said it wasn't overnight success, but to the outside world, that's how it looked. And I suppose the overnight thing was the attention and the fame and that level of recognition. What, looking back on that now, like a couple of years later,

how do you reflect on that experience? What was that like for you? Do you think you handled it well? I mean, how can you handle that experience? What was that like for you? Do you think you handled it well? I mean, how can you handle that well? Probably not, no. I mean, I handled it as well as anybody can, I think. People have been so lovely. So it's not like I've ever been, you know,

I've not had a stalker or like nothing crazy. Like you hear these stories and you're like, oh my God, that sounds horrific. I've been so lucky and everyone who I've ever met who's recognized me on the street bar like a few exceptions of people being slightly rude but it's not the biggest deal in the world have been lovely but it is it is a madness where nobody knows you at all and you know kind of is like oh you do music that's nice like what do you do for your job though you know, kind of is like, oh, you do music. That's nice. Like, what do you do for your job, though? You know what I mean? And then all of a sudden they're like seeing you on Graham Norton

and winning Brits and stuff. That is a strange jump and really shows your real mates. Yeah. You know, because people start coming out of the woodwork. That's the thing I hated about it. I was about to ask you about that because I've seen, I have friends who are in the music industry and it always makes me laugh the people that come out that they haven't seen

in like seven or eight years yeah like and like we they weren't even friends at school being like hey so I have this sister and she has this fashion brand and I was wondering if you could post about it yeah did you get a lot of weird things like that I'm like one of the lads who like bullied me at school asking for free tickets to all the gigs on facebook and i was like i'm gonna i need to delete my facebook this is ludicrous um but yeah it's just it it was it was so important to me to have like my core group of mates and i've been so lucky to be best mates with the like four lads who grew up on my estate i've known them since I was seven we're all still best mates even though we all live in different places we still meet up loads of times a year and make sure that we get time in and nothing has ever changed with them and same with my partner my wife now

Annie um nothing has ever changed like when I met her I had no money she was buying us dinners like out of her student loan because she was getting more than me. And so it's people who've like actually seen the journey and kind of stuck by your side through the ups and the downs and the all arounds. Yeah, and we're going to talk about those relationships, because I want to hear more about them. I know that some of them are the loves you've chosen. But before we do that, just on fame generally,

what's your understanding of that now? Like at this point in your career, having dealt with the kind of sudden rush of it all and having had that experience what what does that kind of mean to you if anything because to me I think I find fame so fascinating because I sort of think it's something that other people put onto you as opposed to something that you kind of exude it's it's a very kind of like external projected thing yeah i'm quite an introverted person so talking to strangers was a real new thing for me when i was becoming you know famous but i also will say like i never got to like a ridiculous level like people knew me on the streets and stuff but i wasn't no one

was like chasing me down the road or nothing apart from in italy really yeah well in italy i don't know what happened i did a song with a guy called marco mcgurney who's a very lovely artist and in italy we were getting chased around by paparazzis on scooters which was such a mad i was thinking what are these two guys doing at the back here driving like this getting so close to the van and then they then whipping out cameras and like snapping you and all that so that was

that is crazy but you know luckily in the UK I've had a tiny bit of that when I've come out of like the BBC or ITV where there's like

a few people there but it's been like a really nice level of fame if you ask me and to be honest people are nice to you

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i'm right in thinking it was a ski trip in france yeah you were going through a heartbreak at the time what happened yeah well it's a bit of a mad one because i shouldn't really been on that but it was a uni ski trip for sheffield university which i did not attend i went to uni in london and my mate my best mate tom he he was like i basically kind of fancied this girl for a while and got completely shut down and rejected and uh i was just like feeling a bit depressed to be honest and it was a bit rubbish and he was like come on the ski trip it'll be awesome it's a 24-hour bus to get there i mean we're talking it was the cheapest holiday i think i've ever been on like 270 quid or something mad for like accommodation ski pass like everything

it was amazing um so i went on that with him even though i shouldn't have been there you know i was part of the sheffield hallam snow society for a little while and it was an amazing all day so much fun like crazy like partying and all that but like amazing and on the last day dubstep was all the rage at the time i'd like to just say that i was in this kind of mountaintop bar raving in this fluorescent jacket you know it was like neon blue and kind of like i don't know traffic going green or whatever and this stranger comes up to me and says hi i'm annie he arrives with fanny i think i love you i love you dancing that's the first thing my wife ever said to me really so which I just looked up and went what so then we get we get chatting um and it just so happens that my my mate Tom was kind of like pally with her friend and they were kind of having a thing and on the bus the

24-hour bus on the on the way back we kind of sat next to each other and just got chatting the whole time and realized like how much we had in common and the same music and all the kind of same thing and and then when I got back to Sheffield I stayed there for a bit even though I should have been back to uni I think I took just didn't turn up to uni for a week so I could just stay with Annie and just go out and party with her and stayed at my mate Tom's house and it was just so good and we just we just instantly just hit it off and it just felt soless. And I'd never really had that before, you know. And it just felt like this really beautiful, organic thing. So, you know, I eventually left Sheffield and said,

you should come to London next weekend. There's this dubstep rave on. A place called Cable, you should come. And she was like, yeah, yeah, no worries. Kind of expecting like, oh, maybe we should come, but maybe not. And then she did. And then we just basically accidentally started doing a long distance relationship for two years because she was living in Sheffield doing um her last two years of uni and I was doing my last um year at uni

and and so obviously she was with you when all of this happened for your career I mean what was that like having her by your side through that because i feel like it's kind of essential to have someone there grounding you through all of that she's just the most lovely down-to-earth bubbly nobody dislikes her people think i'm interesting and then they meet annie and they just love her and they don't want to talk to me anymore because she's just got this infectious energy and loveliness. And if people, even if people show a bit of like dislike in her, I just kill them with kindness.

And I love it because I would just get frustrated and be like, this person's an idiot. I'm going to go and not talk to them. Whereas Annie, like she's so good at winning people over. So just having her around for the whole process, which is, is you know we've been together 10 years now I've been in the music industry for eight years I think so the first two years was just like me you know doing a year left at uni and then doing two very strange jobs at the same time and trying to become a musician um and she didn't care like that had no money and that I was barely scraping enough to get the

petrol down to Sheffield and it would only be like once a month sometimes because I just didn't have the monies to get down and all the rest of it and none of it bothered her she just liked me for me and that has been such an integral thing to have while all this other craziness has been going on in my life and all the traveling and being away we were set up to do that because we did long distance so we were used to like being away from each other for extended periods of time so she's just an absolute rock and oh god I just can't praise her enough she's such an amazing woman because I'm I'm interested in this idea of kind of great success when it happens to you and because there are some quotes i've probably seen them somewhere on instagram but it's like you know none of that success and fame and wealth

means anything unless you have someone to share it with sure you think that's correct 100 yeah it's sharing in those big moments where you do get a win is the most amazing thing in the world but also being there for each other when everything comes crashing down super important to have somebody who isn't just there for like the highlights of your life and then when things aren't going right they bugger off because that's just devastating isn't it because then you get into this thinking that if i'm if i'm not this level of success all the time i'm a failure and it's so unhealthy for anybody who's who is you know in in the limelight or in a in a kind of high pressure career that's looked on by the

public i guess you've kind of got to be happy to to accept that you're not always going to be right here and that took me a minute to to come to terms with for sure you know like especially after i'd won a Brit, number one album, I was like, literally things I'd dreamed of, but never even thought myself were possible for me. So that was like trying to get to grips with all that stuff and having Annie around just made it so much easier.

I'm just so happy with our life that we've managed to build together. We're so lucky and she's just the best. Oh, that's so nice. it's so nice to hear um and i want to ask you about your friends as well because you mentioned them already um your group of old friends who you call you call each other the chelly boys yeah and they are your second love so tell us why first of all why the chelly boys and who are they because we grew up in a place called Chelford. I see what you did there. So we're the Chelly Boys. I think it's so rare to meet people who are like in their 30s who are still best mates with the lads that grew up on their estate. Yeah.

Also just been an amazing constant in my life. We're all so different. It is crazy how different we are and we all didn't even go to the same school we just lived on the same estate and there was nothing to do where we grew up there was like a park that was for like eight and below like with swings that you couldn't fit in from you know nine onwards and a pub that we couldn't get into until we were 15 probably uh at a petrol station and that was literally it and if you wanted to get like the bus into the next town it stopped at like nine and like there was just nothing to do it was so wonderful having nothing to do with this bunch of lads they're just so amazing and and do you think if you met them now you would be friends because

of how different you all are? Probably not, no. We're so different and we move in such different circles as well. So we might not even meet each other. Everyone's so lovely, don't get me wrong. It's just, we are so different and we're all doing completely different things and all live in different places. So the bond that has kept us together was that boredom that we had in that tiny town and I really get worried like for for young people now who aren't bored because out of the boredom came so many amazing things you just go around to your mate's house to be bored together not even necessarily to like

do anything but now it's like there's always something going on on your phone there's always something going on in social media there's always something going on on your phone. There's always something going on on social media. There's always something going on everywhere. And I really do think boredom ignites this amazing creativity that comes of you like, okay, we are going to go out and we are going to do something. We're going to build something. We're going to make a den. We're going to do this.

Yeah, I'm worried that that might get a bit lost in future generations. I sound like a complete old man here, but I'm worried about it yeah i know what you mean because it also it it fosters intimacy in between people in real life as opposed to like you said just being like oh i'm a bit bored i'm gonna like watch some tiktok videos yeah and then you kind of you feel connected because you've got that kind of pseudo sense of being connected because you're engaging with things on your screen yeah but actually you're just kind of exacerbating your own loneliness even more because you're not actually speaking to anyone or talking to anyone.

100%. So I know what you mean. I have young brothers and sisters and I worry about them too because they're not forced to kind of socialise and do things and actually be out there in the world because it's just so much easier to be like, oh, this dude's sit like this all day.

I'm so guilty of it myself. I'm a hypocrite saying this like i love scrolling through tiktok it's it is great and it's so entertaining but do find myself being like why have i not gone out tonight why have i not gone to see my mates why have i just sat here and done this for an hour and a half what what not a waste of time but like i could be out i live in london why am i not going to see a show why am I not going to do these amazing things so it but it's really so good to have had a time in my life where that was not a thing to appreciate what it is actually like to have it and to not have it so and do they come to lots of your shows oh yeah like everything they were the only people at my

gigs when I was starting out it was like them and the sound man always so supportive like my mate Ross he was the one who convinced me to move down to London he found the songwriting course that I didn't even know about I was thinking about going to Liverpool where I knew nobody and had no friends and he was already in London he was like mate come up to London I'll show you the robes like I found this course it's in songwriting you'll absolutely love it like I'll come to the robes. Like I found this course, it's in songwriting. You'll absolutely love it. Like I'll come to the open day with you. He came to the open day with me and then he came up for like the audition with me.

It's like all these little things that just like really made the difference. Oh, that's so lovely. And tell me about your third love is your family. So I know that you grew up near Glasgow. So tell me a little bit about your family how many of you are there how close were you when you were growing up so I was born in Scotland I know I don't sound like it because I moved when I was three three and a half years old to like the outskirts

of Manchester to Chelfers um so I don't really remember like being in Scotland it's funny when your parents show you photos and you're like, do I remember that? Is that a memory or do I just know it now because of the photograph? Do you know what I mean? But yeah, my parents, they grew up in like Cumbinold and Corsife. My dad was in Corsife, my mum was in Cumbinold. And had like a totally different upbringing from me.

Like their parents really didn't have much money my parents have both been working since they were like 14 and have continued to work till now have never not had a job just didn't have the same opportunities that they gave me and my sister really had to work for it they were the first of like their generation to get out of Scotland. I literally did a DNA test and I am 100% Scottish and Glasgow was the top city. And I was asking my dad and it's like,

he can't remember any generation that had left Scotland. Not that I'm saying you need to leave Scotland because obviously an amazing place, but they were the first to kind of get out of their comfort zones and they the reason they moved to to near manchester is because there was loads of opportunities for my mum she was working in like the tv industry and there was like an amazing really well-paid job but like a really scary move for them and they took a real gamble um and and i've talked to like my uncles about this they they were all

absolutely like in like shattered when my parents left because they're not going to have them in their lives because they're three hours down the road which is hilarious to me now that i've done so much traveling that three hours is nothing three hours in america wouldn't get you like a quarter away across the state never mind like so it just it just seems like this this this huge distance that didn't doesn't really seem that big to me these days but so they they moved into like this place where they didn't know anybody that they were bringing up two kids didn't have many mates had both just started brand new jobs um and i think all because they wanted like better opportunities for us.

So I just think they're super brave. And I think my dad watched his father work at the same company for 40 years. And then when he left and was made retired, they gave him a watch. And that was the end of it. And my dad was like, I don't want that for my life. I want to own my own thing. I want to be my own boss. And that was really inspiring to have around like my dad always pushed me to to take the unsafe bet always to have a

backup because he is a bit of a like captain safety you know what I mean but he really pushed me to do music when I was crap at everything else at school like I was a star in music d's and e's and absolutely everything else so he was such an inspiration and i wouldn't be doing music and i wouldn't have taken the risks and the chances that i have because everything in this industry in music is a huge like bet it's like trying to actually get through the door is so difficult so my parents really inspired that which is yeah why i love them so much and did you used to perform for them a lot at home no do you know what I didn't start singing till I was 19 really it wasn't until I did the songwriting degree and I didn't know anybody in London who was a singer that I actually started

singing so it was just playing instruments and stuff yeah I just played guitar I mean I had wrote songs but I'd never sang them really and the ones I had I was such a bad singer like people think that you just wake up and you can sing like it's so not the case so what happened five years of really really trying like still now like i'm nowhere near as good as half the people i know it's singing like i'm really good at doing my thing well but like i would never be able to be in a covers band like and sing other people's songs i'm so limited and what i can do my actual technically ability a technical ability i'm

really lucky that i have a very unique sounding voice so that's something that is hard to train i guess so i've kind of just been born with this raspy mad tone which is awesome was there a moment when you realized that you had that then so when you were 19 you started singing was there a moment when you realised that you had that then? So when you were 19 and you started singing, was there a moment where you were like, oh wow, I actually sound quite different and maybe people will like this? Yeah, it was my songwriting tutor, Jez, in first year was like, you're a really good singer, you know, your voice is really like individual. And I was like, oh really? No, I think it sounds terrible. I'm I'm a rubbish singer I just don't know anybody else and I'm too shy to ask

so having him around to kind of again be another person to be like you should really give this a go because like I think you've

got a bit of talent here that could be developed was really fortunate might not have had that at another place at another uni so yeah

I'm very thankful to Jez oh it's been so lovely to chat to you Tom thank you so much thank you very much I appreciate your time that's it for today

thank you so much for listening you can catch up on all episodes of Love Lives on all podcast platforms you can also watch us now on Independent TV so do head over there and catch up on the show and I will see you next time bye and catch up on the show. And I a show that we recommend. hot wiggle. I didn't even know a thirsty man until there was all these headlines. And I get schooled by a tween. Facebook is like a no. That's what my grandma's on. Thank God Phone a Friend with Jesse Crookshank is not available on Facebook. It's out now wherever you get your podcasts.

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