Table Manners with Jessie and Lennie Ware - S9 Ep 29: James Blunt

Episode Date: August 19, 2020

Not only has this week’s guest sold over 20 million records, but he also owns his very own pub and a restaurant in Verbier. Best known for his hit ‘You’re Beautiful’ (don’t worry, there is a rendition from mum), James Blunt came over to Clapham at the end of last year & joined us for some delicious Eggs Arnold Bennett (thanks for the recipe Felicity Cloake!) James talks about his service in the army, living in Ibiza, how he can’t resist an In & Out Burger and why he doesn’t have any food on his rider. Blunty everyone, enjoy! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware and I'm here with my mum, Lenny. You're beautiful. Oh, you're beautiful. That's what you are. Is that how it goes? No. Okay. Can you sing it better? Probably not. Okay.

We had this gentleman, this crooning... Crooning soldier. Crooning soldier over to Mum's. To eat eggs Arnold Bennett. Because we thought it was a bit posh, didn't we? Yeah, we thought it was posh. And fit for a crooning soldier. So here is James Blunt at Mum's back in September.

We hope you enjoy. You're beautiful. James Blunt, thank you so much for coming to Clapham. It's so nice to be here. Thank you for having me. Such a pleasure. And you were doing TV last night. I was doing pretty simple television called Celebrity Juice, a highbrow piece about the, yeah, the in-depth reasons why one writes songs. And what did you have to do on that? The last thing I had to do, which is the reason I'm glad to be here to talk about food is I had to drink a dirty pint. What does that

entail? Well, some beer, a minimal amount of beer, some cornflakes in it, the pickle that pickles the eggs in the pickled egg, you know, that liquid. I suppose some kind of clotted cheese. Oh my god! Some kind of Thai.

Why did you have to? Did you lose a question? No, I think it was just showing that I had any form of talent. did you have to did you lose a question no i think it was just showing that i had any form of talent um was to be able to drink this where you know in there i've been hunting for a talent most of my life and think i've now found it because i did drink the date point um but but it may have consequences this morning oh my god i'm sorry the lavatory is just around the outside thank you so much it's strange in. In this day and age, it's amazing that it's allowed to go ahead, actually. So who was on the, who else was on it?

It was a great, fun team of people. The team captains are Mel B and Holly Willoughby. All right. And yeah, and it was a fun night.

Now you're like, yeah. I mean, I've been on it three times, so it must be a suck. Oh, okay. Fair enough. But I just think

what it demonstrates is that, you know, I'm desperate to sell records and I'll do anything in the process. And speaking of records, you've got a new record out yeah i have how's it feeling how many records is this now this is my sixth album fucking shit that's a lot do you have a big break in between um no i normally finish a tour my tour's 18 months and then then i normally just jump back

in a studio pretty much straight away so the last tour finished in september 18 october 2018 i was back in the studio and i've been writing and recording since then do you like touring i love touring um it has its consequences um you know this having yeah started out my sixth world tour i will start in february and i do now have a little family um and wife you've met my wife um and i leave them behind and my last tour was 18 months long as i say and if i've told you that i've got little children that means i really haven't been around and i then leave those people at home to deal with that and that's quite a big ask while i go swanning around the world singing songs yeah it has huge consequences which a lot of my album

is about that really really not just not in the just not not about, you know, small little children. But, you know, I sing a song called Cold. It's my single at the moment. And it's about the ocean between us. And it means, you know, obviously in a physical sense, but in a metaphorical sense of the difficulties that being away from someone creates on a relationship and the struggles and strains. You do get to sleep.

And that's why I do. That must be the reason. Some say I've timed it rather well. Where's your favourite country that you've toured in? The favourite place I've ever played? I mean, first of all, anyone with Latin blood is amazing. Are you popular in South

America? Fortunately, I get to tour there each time. Oh my God, that's amazing. So Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, these places are so much fun just because the audiences are incredible. But the best place I've ever played is Beirut in Lebanon. Just because it is such a healthy mix. In this day and age when everyone is polarised,

and of course that's a troubled part of the world, but it's a really healthy mix of Muslim, Christian and Jew, fantastic architecture where arab and european worlds meet on the mediterranean um and they also they're the scars of war there you can see on the sides of these hotels the shrapnel um scars from the the bombs that have gone off and so you're always aware that the bomb might go off tomorrow so these people are alive for today and and i suppose because they're a mix as well, like all dogs. They're very sophisticated.

Well, they're very beautiful people as well. You know, beautiful look out male and female and beautiful in their spirit. So for me, it's just the most amazing place. Well, it's also quite sophisticated. The food is amazing. The food is incredible. And the wine, Patoose. Yeah, totally.

Oh, I've never had Patoose. It's the best. Yeah. Where's your best favourite spot for food in touring? For touring? I mean, I just eat anywhere, actually. Really? Because I'm not too picky with food.

We thought you were a real foodie. Yeah, I'm sure he's a foodie. So I'll just eat anything and anywhere. Dirty pipe included. Yeah, exactly. Okay, my best place to tour. California, In-N-Out Burger. That's just fantastic.

Or anywhere in Buffalo where you can get buffalo wings. Oh, okay. Spicy buffalo wings. Yeah, that would be my go-to. Yeah, I mean, I should have done. I couldn't have done wings. We've done Eggs Arnold Bennett for you. Which we've never actually done before.

Eggs Arnold Bennett. I don't know. I've never heard of that. Well, you. Which we've never actually done before. Eggs Arnold Bennett. I don't know. I've never heard of that. Well, you can get it in swanky restaurants. But it's basically a kind of omelette with smoked fish in it. Okay, great. You're not allergic to smoked fish, are you? No, I'll try anything. It's kind of like an Eggs Benedict.

Eggs Benedict, but with a bit of Welsh rabbit in there too. It's kind of like, it's quite kind of opulent. I don't know, it feels quite like indulgent. It's got cream in it. This is a high-end omelette. No, yeah, I felt like you were a high-end guest. So we felt like, why not? And then I thought, I don't know, mum may be like,

you're not allowed to do that. But there's this sandwich shop in King's Cross that are friends of mine and it's called Sons and Daughters. And they do apparently this really good chip butty where they put truffle like chips in um well crisps truffle crisps are the best thing in the world so I thought you know we could have some yeah I mean my children only they make them because I live yeah because I live in Ibiza. Yeah. We have these amazing salt flats called the Salinas, where they obviously have these shallow lakes

so that the sea can dry out from the sun and take the salt from it. And they've just discovered, hey, look, rather than just selling salt, let's sell other things, including crisps. So are they the Torres ones? I don't think they are. Oh, right, they do their own ones.

James, can I ask you, you look incredibly young, like about 18. You're very, you're so sweet. Thank you. Don't you think, Jessie? I have a lot of work. I haven't got my glasses on. Maybe he's had filler.

I haven't had work. I have a lot of work done. A lot of work. I do little and often is my motto. Like Sharon Stone. You absolutely look about 18. Thank you. Well, I'm thoroughly immature as well.

How long were you in the army for? I was in the army for six years. Crikey. And it was an amazing experience because I came out of university where you're pretty lazy out of university. Where did you go to uni? Down in Bristol. Okay. And yeah, you know, God, I just had a blast at university for however many years.

And then the army kind of gets you back into being a normal human being who's kind of motivated to do stuff and I think without that I probably wouldn't be able to do my job as a musician because it kind of just you know gets your workload and work level out but did you because you were studying what were you studying is it I did aerospace manufacturing engineering which I couldn't spell and sociology which which was far easier as a combo um which hall were you in um i wasn't actually i just went straight into a flat there were three boys in a tiny little l-shaped flat it was had one bedroom and a sitting room and so two boys were in this l-shaped room um with a mirror in the corner so you could never even get anyone around in your bed because then you're just too close you could see everything that anyone was doing in your room there was no privacy it was and talking of food there actually because of my sociology part of my course on this uh on

the engineering side there were 170 men and only three girls um and and then on the uh sociology side of things there were 170 girls and only three boys of which all the girls were vegetarians or vegans and so at a principle i decided I would become a carnivore. I just lived on mints, some chicken, maybe some mayonnaise, a little bit of, you know. And it took me about eight, six to eight weeks to get very, very unhealthy. See a doctor who then said, I think you've got the symptoms of scurvy. Oh my God, that's hilarious. Anyway, then he said, you're really lacking in vitamin c so then i took

it upon myself to just drink a liter of orange juice every night and then i immediately developed acid reflux so so as you can see yeah food's not necessarily my forte when you're in the army do you think they'll cater for vegans and vegetarians and people like or did they say you've got to eat what's put down for you um it's been a long time i'm sure we did probably you know we have army ration packs um we're in the army ration pack and as far as i can remember it's baked beans baked beans with sausages there's some corned beef what like the sausages in the baked beans those like the combo really good yeah totally um if you're into school food army rations are amazing and then what we also had is we would always compare our rations against another army's rations so i was working in in kosovo i was working up on the on the border of macedonia

kosovo it was during the air campaign the bombing campaign i was a reconnaissance officer so i'm i'm small i creep around in bushes try and find the enemy positions in camouflage yeah exactly um and and during that time i had to work with the italians and the italians just had such I'm small, I creep around in bushes, try and find the enemy positions. In camouflage? Yeah, exactly. Wow. And during that time, I had to work with the Italians. And the Italians just had such better ration packs. Oh, I bet. What did they have? Like pepperoni?

They had obviously incredible coffee. And they had all the gear. So we'd stop. They'd make these coffees. They'd have like a little espresso maker with them. Yeah, totally. Oh, my God, amazing. Well, we were there with our English tea.

And then they would have a little shot of grappa. Because you can't get drunk on one shot of grappa a day so they've got a shot of grappa every day which they didn't drink they just saved it till the weekend or when you know till the seventh day and then drank that and all got really drunk so yeah and we'd you know we're just trying to take their rations off them and they would never take ours back in return so you had to work with an italian army did they all speak english or did you speak italian not at all it was very uh it's very frightening actually because we're in a war zone um because it's their area politically they're in charge of i would have to follow them i show them on their maps the maps that they were using were world war ii maps we both had these world war ii maps but i bought myself a gps the very first garmin gps that i could find so i knew where we were and they

weren't like you had like a sat nav with you like what's it garmin like a tom tom but one of the very very first ones um this is how big so it didn't have like what's his face and faulty towers his voice on it like john cleese's no voices because we're not on roads as well you're just you know just on hills and and dales and so yeah they were what looked like an armored transit van ford transit van i'm in a really old tiny little tank following them and if someone jumped out of the bushes to the left and you know we'd identify it with me and my gun and i'd say over the radio uh regard a regardé, à gauche, les Serbes, in my GCSE French.

And the Italian would go, uh, quoi? In his equivalent of French as well. And then I would say to my driver, let's just, you know, let's just start waving

and get the hell out of Dodge. Um, because yeah, we were, it was, it was all pretty basic stuff. Did you have like some, yeah,

serious. Yeah, totally. I mean, it was a, it was an was all pretty basic stuff did you have like some yeah i'm serious yeah totally i mean it was a it was an ugly uh place to be because there were two peoples who were just simply murdering each other it was in a place where armies were then murdering civilians um and so and really showing human beings at their worst and i really feel it's relevant to what goes on today the way we are polarizing um our politics and our identity politics is a terrible thing to say that you have to identify whatever your race might be um your religion might be when we you know we pit people against each other and and particularly now left versus right means that we get to such an extremes that we start fighting and we can't understand and if you can't understand how someone's got to their position then you must either they're mad or you're an idiot for not

being able to understand it and most people have come to a place of because you know for a logical reason but we're just pushed into these extremes um and humans were so ugly to each other in kosovo so violent and imaginative with the way they killed each other, that it was a really sad moment of realisation for me that humans are very, very easily malleable, very mean, very unkind. And do you know what? In the identity politics of today, we talk about left and right, and I'm not.

I'm in the middle. And most people, presumably, we're somewhere in the middle. Surely we can be moderate. I think there's a lot of people moving to the centre now. One would hope so, because the notion of you have to be labelled, are you left or are you right? The terms of are you remain or leave? All these things stuff it.

These labels that we have to then be, and that's all we can believe, and we can't respect the other person. That's the fundamental thing, the fundamental sadness, that you can't respect someone else's a viewpoint and opinion and discuss it normally is what's saddest your dad was a soldier so you're born into the army way of life yeah totally he was an army helicopter pilot yeah was he disappointed when you left and became a singer no i think he was nervous for me um because it is difficult in the music business to be commercially successful isn't it um and but i

did tell him at the time i said you know thanks for the advice definitely you know i've got that my career in the army and i really enjoy aspects of it but i have this dream to be a musician to get to old age and not have followed that dream in any way would be a terrible waste of my one's own life and i've told everyone so much, they were telling me, come on, I need to get a move on with it. But also success, I told him, should really be measured not by fame and fortune, but by happiness.

If you're happy being a musician, you know, for however many years you are doing that, then that's the success we should say. Does it still make you happy then? Yeah, very much. Have you ever had any times that you've just been like, fuck this? Yeah, absolutely.

There are huge, as you know, there are huge ups and downs that come with it. I put out my first album and it blew up around the world. And then with that, you suddenly, the real world, everyone is incredibly positive with. You go to your own concerts and people turn up in the queue and they sing songs with you and they're and it's amazing and then on the other hand you have to deal with the online world which seems to be always negative and people and although it's not real that's what you're asked about if you're asked an interview by a journalist it's only about the online world and the negativity that might be um directed towards you but i feel i, how long ago was it that your first record, first record is back to bed?

2006, I guess, yeah. So was Twitter even happening then? No, that wasn't. So Twitter was good for me. That was my first time I had my own voice other than singing my songs. Right, yeah. Twitter, you've kind of used as a weapon of like being able

to defend yourself and, but also everyone to kind of see another side of you. Yeah, totally. It's just a voice where I didn't have that voice before. I just put out these in some ways, quite earnest, serious songs about what was going on in my mind.

And, and I never really, if I made a joke in an interview, it was never reported as a joke. And so it was always a bit serious. And you thought, you're supposed to put ha ha afterwards. And so Twitter just gave me an outlet to not be marketed but people have been mean to you well if you put music out your mum is a bit like me i think she stood up and protected you yeah but

do you know if you put music out some people are going to like it and some people aren't and what's weird is that even if five ten or twenty thousand people will come to a concert of mine in an evening, it's still in human nature to focus in on the one negative comment. And a journalist will ask me, oh, I read this negative comment about you. And you go, hang on, aren't you going to mention the 20,000?

But he's not the only person because I do it too. And I focus in on that negative. And so Twitter is me really not just taking the piss out of someone else who's you know who's made those negative comments but laughing at myself or even taking them seriously i mean you've used it as like it's made everyone realize how hysterical you are and what a brilliant sense of humor you have but like is it that you could like i mean you take the piss out of yourself like amazingly but is it that thing of you're like, right, I'm going to Google,

I'm going to search James Blunt on Twitter today and see what's coming out of the trolls? Yeah. I think about, I only go on about once a month. Okay. And if you look how many times I post, it's about once a month. I think, oh, you know, I know the label will want me to, you know, keep myself in there.

Because it's now become a bit of a kind of... Some way. So I'll go on, have a little look through, see a nasty comment, write a stupid reply, and then I'll go back to the real... They're not stupid. They're brilliant. Well, then I'll just go back to the real world. And the real world is just full of generally quite nice people.

Even if someone didn't like my music and I bumped into them in the street, they're unlikely to say anything negative. They're like, all right, mate, how are you doing? And that's that. negative they like to say hey all right mate how are you doing and that's that while mum attempts Felicity Cloak's Arnold Bennett I'm going to ask you about food okay well although my my food knowledge is low I have definitely got much more into it recently I'm building a menu because I've just bought a pub in Chelsea um off the Fulham Road wow amazing yeah and what and it's going to

serve food gastropub it is we're open we've been up and running just um over a year now it took about 18 months to renovate this 170 year old pub uh i mean incredibly small very sweet wood paneled um filthy when we bought it um i mean properly filthy with grease flowing off the dead of the kitchen um upstairs and dust. And yeah, it's just astounding. But anyway, we spent a year and a half sanding it down, varnishing it, digging underneath, putting in a beautiful kitchen, getting in a Gordon Ramsay trained chef.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And making this place absolutely stunning. And now, obviously, I'm quite heavily involved with the menu. My wife is a glutard in that she can't eat gluten um and so the menu is is orientated uh for her celiac friendly okay celiac friendly exactly sustainable um with uh with not only the fish but the meat that we um might have seasonal so that we're um sourcing locally and then we try and send some profits off to um the blue marine foundation who are um about

marine conservation um wow and so so that's our kind of that's the that's the aim and we're up and running for a year um what's the name of it the fox and pheasant and what's your favorite dish on the fox and pheasant menu i'm a sucker for the pie it changes every three months what is it like literally can all change every three months it could be in a bit every single time it's amazing our souffles are incredible again i'm not something i'd ever imagine wanting to have a souffle for a pudding but it's just off the chart um yeah i mean it's so it's really it's really high-end pub food it's pub grub but yeah high-end yeah so that you're not just getting blokes going in there um wanting to stodge but uh but but you'll get people who look after themselves a

bit better which normally means girls too and how's that felt like because i mean doing the podcast for me has been really lovely to be able to kind of enjoy to be with you um mom um no to kind of enjoy music in a different way so i guess you know starting a business that's a pub it's very different to making music you're totally right it just gives us something else uh on our minds starting a business that's a pub, it's very different to making music. You're totally right. It just gives us something else on our minds, doesn't it? That's this, you know, as a job that then makes music back into the passion that perhaps it was to begin with.

So like, who approached you with this dirty pub and decided that, how did you decide that you wanted to kind of, are you a big pub person? Well, I'm a big pub person um well i'm a big alcohol person uh although i live in ibiza i have had a small house in london for my for my sister to live in where i've kept my clothes um and it's in chelsea and this pub then was all was the local for you know our local for 14 years and we called it the fox and unpleasant because it

was so dirty um and so miserable and empty but we sat in there looking around thinking what would you do if you could to this place to make it amazing because it's potentially incredible and so we always discussed what we would do um what one should do and but it would never come up for sale it was for us owned by owned by green king anyway one day on a night out drunk this estate agent who was at the table said yeah i'm selling this pub called the fox and pheasant and i said you know what i'll take it he was already being bid on by people who wanted to turn it into flats and i said absolutely i'm in on that and i mine was a lower bid than the other people but green king said you know what we'll sell it to you on the

basis that you'll keep it a pub because if you get get it wrong, if you cock it up, they can still buy it back. You know, then they're in the business of pubs. And yeah, and that was that. And it's going strong. It's going well. At the moment, it's a proper up and running business and great fun to be part of. If I'm on a night out with friends and they say, hey, where should we go? I can say, I own a pub. That is really cool.

So how do you think, like, you live in Ibiza the majority of the time. The food in Ibiza? Yeah, it's a Mediterranean diet. It's good? I think they tell us it's really good for us, don't they? Yeah, but, like, do you like the food? Like, I mean, is it kind of... Yeah, the Ibiza diet.

Yeah. The Ibiza diet just means eating once a day, doesn't it? Yeah, right. Well, I mean, like, yeah. So, I mean, the Mediterranean diet, like, how do you start your day there so 11 a.m time for bed yeah um but you know it's a place where i have a tiny little boat which we jump on and you know go for picnics around the different bays rather than be on a beach um so try and do that you know every day

or some days um and you know and otherwise it's got fantastic mountains to go and walk in it's got incredible beaches um and the people are really nice there you can be anything and anyone i live up in the hills surrounded by the forest um and it's and it's a beautiful beautiful place and then of course the action is not too far away do you still go clubbing i do um i have a little family so it's harder i have built a little nightclub at the end of my garden shut up really so that so that you know if i've been out to nightclub then it's always good for an after party back at mine and it means that my own bed is only 30 meters oh my god that's the dream yeah so i have a it has a neon sign my band gave me saying blunty's

nightclub where everybody's beautiful and what kind of music gets paid though only no definitely not mine uh you know whoever's i don't know is it ipad is it ipods ipod playlist no we know we have people come in and play and oh really mates do and you just give someone the decks and let them give i had dj harvey i don't think so you should get dj har around. Right, actually. He does the Pikes party. He's the best. Okay, really? Oh my God, he's amazing. When I've been to Ibiza, the food is pretty good. There are amazing places. Macau is fantastic, totally.

There's one called La Plaza in the corner. And it's really, yeah. There's some other incredible ones. Utopia up in San Miguel. Do you go to a fish shack the fish shack is fantastic isn't it so good they were so nice once we forgot all our money and they kind of i thought i was like i'll do the dishes and they were like just come back tomorrow i was like oh okay yeah cool i will did you yeah i did actually i did i did um would you live anywhere else now

do you think you're like you're quite settled in Ibiza? I love Ibiza. You get to travel though, don't you? Yeah. And so I do have a base in London. So if I'm traveling, then at least my family can be based here. And we do also have a place in Verbier in Switzerland. Because I love skiing.

I always love skiing. And I always joked. I said, when I hit it big in music, I'll live in Ibiza in the summer and Verbier in the winter. Darling. And so I've got a little place there. And they very sweetly along the way, they let me name a chairlift after myself. And so I had to go in and cut a ribbon, smash a bottle of champagne on the first pillar and say, I name this chairlift James Blunt. God bless her and all who ride me and uh and at the very top of this chair lift

is a restaurant which i've just um bought with with lawrence delalio the rugby player the rugby captain um and carl fogarty the motorcycle world champion and so the three of us have a restaurant there that was like my first venture before the pub and what does that serve and that serves a pretty basic food because we're not going to be able to compete with the Swiss restaurants, which are serving, you know, their incredible cheese, raclette, fondues, all that. They're all over the mountain. So we do really good Italian pizzas, pastas, burgers, soups and salads. The stuff you want when you just ski down a hill.

Yeah, there's a Delalio pizza, which is really an American hot. Yeah, there's a Fogarty pizza and a blunt pizza mine's like a um a diavolo really i'm closely american hot but better um um and then and then the fogarty pizza he said he wanted ham spec ham parma ham spicy ham every kind of ham it made no sense meat feast a meat feast but just all odd different hams that don't really go together. So without telling him, I changed his on the menu. So it was rocket, parma ham, and what else can I think of? Rocket, parma ham, and parmesan. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. Shavings of parmesan. Yeah. Anyway, he arrived, saw the menu had changed, and said, well, the man's turned into a fucking salad was really really upset but we compete as to who's sells the most pizzas each year so and and i'm and the blunt pizza sells the most at this stage but i do only let my mates eat

that when we go that's it you are having like that pizza whether you like it or not how does it work because obviously you are a solo artist and now you've gone into business with three well two other people is it not like being in a band where you're just like you have to kind of because i know that working with my mom now it's like we have to make joint decisions and usually i have executive decision over everything yeah and now i'm maybe gonna have to have leopard decisions and usually i have executive decision over everything yeah and now i'm maybe gonna have to have leopard print in the bloody cookbook because of my mum yeah i'm uh i definitely understand what you mean i think we you just do what you fucking like yeah you know then they're not as involved and we we do have there's a guy out in uh switzerland

who is like a silent partner and actually he's our medi And actually he's our problem rather than the other two. Oh, really? Which is why I really enjoyed stepping into doing the pub here in London because it was just me and that wasn't as complicated. You take the risk, much bigger risk, obviously, but you live your risk because you make the choices. What's the restaurant called in Verbier? Lavash.

Lavash. Lavash, the cow lavash lavash the cow the cow because they have local cows they're fighting cows in the summer you can hear them going around with bells on and it's their kind of the local thing what's your apres ski drink um i would probably say a jaeger bomb oh god are you 15 jesus Are you shitting me? No. Why? Tell me why.

Well, it just seems to be really efficient. What, to like get you drunk? Yeah. Quickly? Yeah. And medicinal kind of... Exactly. Yeah, might as well get it all over with.

How many Jager bombs will you do? I don't know. I don't know. I'm unable to count after, what, five of them. You're gone, aren't you? Oh, wow, Mum, that looks really nice. Oh, it's hot. Oh, that's proper, Mum.

If you want to go into business with a Jewish mother, you know. This is fantastic. You could have Arnold Bennett's. Right, shall I get some watercress out, Mum? Yeah. When you were growing up, who was doing the cooking in the house? Did you grow up? Have you got brothers and sisters? You've got a sister that you've taught?

I've got two sisters. Yeah, my mum, my dad was in the army. He travelled around a lot. We were based in Cyprus, Hong Kong, Germany, and as far abroad as Yorkshire. And my mum cooked for us. And yeah, I think at the time, I always do take the mickey out of her

cooking um because i'm mean like that and i've i tell her that i only remember her ever cooking liver for us and i guess because also when you're in the army you're not being paid that much and you're living on these kind of army patches i'm a pad brat so you're living on these um things and then living and then the kitchen is pretty simple and so I just remember liver but I know she promises me it wasn't like that what how did she make it like what would she serve it with potato I think it's just some kind of creamy sauce as far as I remember it's quite a long time ago because I also um I left home pretty young um I went to this because my father because as a family they were traveling around and based overseas So I went to boarding school from seven.

So my real memory of food as a child is school food. Which, as I was saying, is probably why I'm very happy with army rations and plain food. Did you miss your mum and dad? Well, you get over that really quickly. Do you? I mean, I was dropped off at school. They'd given me a game and boy, Donkey Kong. You know, Nintendo. Love that. Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong 2, I think I had. dropped off at school. They'd given me a game and boy, Donkey Kong. You know, Nintendo.

Love that. Donkey Kong. Donkey Kong 2, I think I had, which I still have. And they dropped me off at the school. I was playing. They said goodbye. I waved goodbye. And after three days, I turned around to this, you know, the house matron and said,

excuse me, when are my parents coming back? And she said, at Christmas time. And, you know know that was the beginning of september and yeah and then that's that's a moment of shock and then you realize okay this is the way life is oh mate at seven at seven so yeah that carried on school carried on until what 19 then university then army after that and then it was only after really after the army when i got into music when the world turns weird when you go into music and you suddenly become, in any way, recognisable, people treat you differently

in a way that was unexpected. Only then have I really reconnected with home and family because I've really needed that stability. Do you think you'll send your children to boarding school? I don't know, it's a tricky one. Let's see when we get there. I mean, they're trying to make sure that their first words are boarding school.

But we'll see. So what's on your rider? Corona, Heineken, vodka, mixers. Drink? Drink. And absolutely no food. Because otherwise we're sitting around there. You're not even joking?

No, not. Oh my God. no food because otherwise we're sitting around there you're not even joking no not oh my because otherwise you know keyboard players they're likely to just start scoffing on it putting in their pockets putting in their bunks and putting on too much weight and you know it's all about appearance much more than how how it sounds so is it more about the smell that you just don't want like the stench of fucking dressing rooms with food is we just really don't you just don't eat don't really eat in it you know you know there might be some catering obviously but okay you all have catering right yeah we're catering but i don't think we have too much in the way of food on a rider and do you drink before a show definitely not no um because i think it's well you i don't

know how you do it i think i really want to be able to communicate you're communicating a human emotion to people or telling them on a taking them on an emotional journey and i think you should be sober to do that i we drink immediately afterwards uh we ask every guest what would be your last supper i mean embarrassingly i've already mentioned it which is it really would be uh hot wings from the hot wings cafe on a melrose um as a starter oh my god i've been to that place the hot wings cafe yeah um awesome isn't it it is and uh it's huge yes uh and then an in-and-out burger um would be my main course with chocolate milkshake. That's probably enough for pudding, isn't it? Oh, come on. Push it. My mother's cheesecake.

There you go. Yeah. What is it? It's digestive biscuits with butter. She uses Philadelphia and lemons and I guess, you know,

that's pretty much it and it's nailed. That sounds really good. And what would you be your drink? Oh, the milkshake or would you have an alcoholic drink? Ooh, do I have to stick with one?

Or can I have multiple drinks? You're dying, it's fine. You're not dying. No, okay. You're going to be stranded. I'm going to be dying. You're going to be stranded. Okay, it's either stranded or, yeah.

Ooh, I think Coca-Cola. What? Really? James, you're disappointing me. You have a fucking club at the end of your bloody garden. And you're choosing a milkshake and Coca-Cola as your final drink. OK, fine. You're not going to have an alcoholic drink?

Yes, OK, I will have an alcoholic drink. I thought I just pushed you into that, though. No, I mean, I would, but I would just as a thing right then and there, I'd like the Coca-Cola just to enjoy everything else that was going with it. But yeah, OK, I just feel I need more than one drink. That's the way I've always felt in my blood. Great, I'm going to start with the Bloody Mary. I'm feel I need more than one drink. That's the way I've always felt in my blood. Great. I'm going to start with the Bloody Mary.

I'm going to have a Corona after that. I'm going to have some decent red after that. Amargo. And then I'll go on to a vodka tonic, please. Vodka tonic. That's what I want. Yes. Great.

Thank you, James Byrne. And then I want whiskey in my eyeball. What is your guilty pleasure meal? with a hangover I would normally eat Domino's pizza in bed which one would it be? onions, sweet corn and pepperoni I order the spicy chicken wings that they do on the side which are amazing and I order two cans of coke

because it makes me look like I'm not just alone I bet your wife doesn't eat it well she's a glutard so she can't i can't eat gluten so that's the thing she's celiacs exactly she is yeah which yeah not fatty she just really does yeah if we have an argument and we and we have a row i i can sprinkle breadcrumbs in her food and she's out for 24 hours you know where did you meet her she was a groupie really you don't say that where did you meet you know weirdly that's entirely not true i'm very much lying and if i said that uh and my wife you were her groupie i'd be in serious thrown out out. Three of my bandmates have married people from the audience. You're joking.

Shut up. Yeah. Amazing. Isn't that incredible? And which countries are they from? Two from Perth, Australia, but on different tours. Winter Sun, clever. Yeah, exactly.

And one from Copenhagen. Also clever. Yeah. Excellent food, beautiful people. The girl from Copenhagen came to this night, thought she was being brought along by friends to a James Bond premiere. Obviously was devastated when she saw the sign

saying James Blunt concert. Thought, oh, stuff that. But was dragged in anyway. And we saw her in the audience, sort of flower in the hair, looked amazing. And one of us wandered over and said you know you wouldn't want to come and meet the band afterwards just because otherwise we have to talk to each other um and she came backstage met the bass player and the rest is

history how sweet that was probably about uh eight nine years ago i suppose that is i mean that's very charming and you know and this person is a really you know obviously being danish really really beautiful person, but beautiful inside out, really, really nice. So whenever I was single, I mean, that's what my band do. They'd be like, oh my God, that girl on the front row. Would they? Oh my God, they'd all discuss it, being like,

yeah, she was looking at you, bro. I'm like, oh my God, that's amazing. I mean, we've always then, because we're on these 18-month tours, we've always then asked people if they want to come back and and talk and have a drink with us because if they don't we're just literally going to be talking to each other about guitar chords and boring each other senseless um so whoever is around um and looks like they're you know hanging around and what's and when and will be nice um of what you know whatever sex or age um it really hasn't mattered to say, you know, come on, come and have a drink. Have you ever had like really awkward moments backstage

where you've chosen the wrong people, you've invited the wrong crowd? Not really. Normally, if someone will come, they might say, hey, I've got to go now because my mother's outside. And we'll say, hey, take me to your mother, come and bring them in because, you know,

we're just, otherwise I'd say we'd be very lonely human beings. I live on a tour bus for extended periods of time and uh and yeah otherwise you'd just be very lonely people or at least you'd just be very boring people um talking obsessively about music do you have any super fans that follow you from country to country i have some very very loyal fans um who yeah who have stuck with me for many many years through thick and thin and forgive me my um mistakes um and constantly buy stuff and i'm very grateful for them and they're right but have you got any you know okay um that kind of i mean there are a couple of things along the way that are that show um a great dedication definitely you're being very switzerland about this um i i

did find back in backstage in my dressing room a box, a flight case, like a pilot's flight case. And I opened the pilot's flight case and in it was a wooden box with a Perspex front. And in it, you could see the contents of my life. And so there's a piano, a guitar, pictures of me as a child, my old hat from school,

books I'd said I'd read, albums said i'd listen to and uh and then every time i put out a new album in a little photograph uh plastic container you know those things that old film used to come in uh cylindrical film film that would arrive at management and in it would have the next album or things i might have said that i enjoy. So chicken wings. Chicken wings arrive, but they're all, you know, miniaturized. Everything is just my life in the box, scaled down. And the only thing that's missing is me. And I do have nightmares that one day I will wake up.

A shrunk in the box. In the box. And it's in the attic in the house. Do you know the person that's sending it? I don't know. No. So they never write a letter or? Yeah, I mean, I just don't know the person

got it and i did i did have another one who they'll be listening to this yeah i feel nervous about saying uh there's too much but that but i did receive a 50 page document from someone who said i've been stalking them all my life and how she was the woman on the underground on the subway from the song you're beautiful um uh and she was saying it's me new york 1984 um you know i'm the one and and i was saying hang on but you know but i wasn't yeah i was however old then for the sake of this interview i'll say i was five then um and and yeah she was getting really angry saying you know you know you've been to my house dozens of times and that stage i was thinking have maybe i have i have i have i just not recognized you and you're like a

friend of my parents um it was all really scary and very aggressive this happened over a number of tours so you know this person has arrived and and been there in different venues over four separate world tours now and you and you don't quite know yeah what line of thought they're going down because it's not making any sense. Do you think you've got good table manners? I haven't finished yet, so I feel a bit sorry if I haven't placed my knife and fork in the right position. No, but you haven't finished yet.

No, I haven't. So that's correct, how you've placed it. Thank you. I would hope so. It's been very delicious. I think you're very well um what's your worst table manner in somebody else i um other than today where obviously we've been chatting away but i do eat incredibly quickly me too um and yeah and i'm normally

finished pretty early on and i think that's really because of my time in the army i'm just get it all down you so that you're ready for when the enemy come over the hill. I bet people hate sharing with you then. I can't share. I can't share with anyone. No, it's a real. And so if I am told I have to share, then I very specifically have to cut it totally in half and make it very clear, not to them, but to myself that that's the line that I must not go beyond. Sometimes you can get away with pizza if it's cut in little slices.

Because then you can be like, oh, what? An extra one, yeah. James, thank you so much for doing this when I know that you're promoting the record. It's a pleasure to come. Thank you so much for cooking me breakfast. Absolute pleasure. But thanks so much.

Good luck with the record. And yeah, pleasure having you. Great to be here jessica he looked very young very young i want to eat and drink what he's drinking. Didn't give him any secrets away. No, I think he thought we were basically Jenny Murray and Jane Garvey. Do you think? I don't know.

I think he felt like he was coming into potentially a journalist war zone. Who knows? Excuse the pun. Anyway, thank you so much, James Blunt, for coming on. It was such a pleasure to hear about your pub. Yeah.

His tour. World tours all the time. Oh, my God. All the time. All the time. All the time. But thanks so much. Thank you for listening.