Speaker 1: I Heart Radio Presents Inside the Studio. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Joe Levy. Now, this episode was recorded in London, where
Speaker 1: I spent some of my time doing exactly what Americans
Speaker 1: in London usually do, eating fish and chips, drinking beer,
Speaker 1: and walking by Buckingham Palace while silently playing the sex
Speaker 1: pistols God Save the Queen inside my head. But I
Speaker 1: also got to spend some time pretty far off the
Speaker 1: tourist track talking with Nile Horn about his new album
Speaker 1: Heartbreak Weather and his upcoming tour with Louis Capaldi. I
Speaker 1: met up with Nile at his rehearsal space, where I
Speaker 1: heard him and his band run through some pinpoint harmonies
Speaker 1: for the excellent new song Everywhere, which is about being
Speaker 1: haunted by the memory of an X, you know, seeing
Speaker 1: that face everywhere you go. Except Everywhere doesn't sound haunted.
Speaker 1: It's up tempo and full of guitars that are headed
Speaker 1: straight towards the rafters. Nile has said heartbreak Weather has
Speaker 1: some sad songs dressed up as happy songs, and Everywhere
Speaker 1: sounds like one of those. As Nile told me when
Speaker 1: we sat down to talk, heartbreak Weather is sort of
Speaker 1: a concept album. It charts the course of a relationship.
Speaker 1: So it starts with three totally over the top love songs.
Speaker 1: I mean, one of them imagines looking back on a
Speaker 1: marriage from age six, and it ends with two songs
Speaker 1: about holding onto feelings for someone who's no longer there.
Speaker 1: In between comes some songs about hookups, like small Talk
Speaker 1: and Nice to Meet You, and some about breakups like
Speaker 1: put a Little Love on Me. Nil wanted to make
Speaker 1: a breakup album, but a different kind of breakup album,
Speaker 1: one that had shifting points of views. Where most breakup
Speaker 1: albums can be selfish, they're always kind of like I'm
Speaker 1: sitting at home You've made me so sad, And there
Speaker 1: is songs on the album which are like that. Now.
Speaker 1: I have a song called Arms of a Stranger on
Speaker 1: there that is literally like you left me with nothing,
Speaker 1: now I'm laying in the arms with a stranger. And
Speaker 1: then there's also songs that I've written from different sides
Speaker 1: of it, where it's about them. It might sound like
Speaker 1: it's about me, but I've written about them. Heartbreak Weather
Speaker 1: is nile second album. His first, Flicker, came out in
Speaker 1: but at twenty six, he's already been a pop star
Speaker 1: for a full decade. That's how long it's been since
Speaker 1: he tried out for X Factor UK, didn't make the
Speaker 1: cut as a solo artist, but got put in a
Speaker 1: group with four other guys. That group, of course, was
Speaker 1: One Direction, and for six years and five albums, One
Speaker 1: Direction was pop music's jugg or Not. Their first four
Speaker 1: albums debuted at number one one on the Billboard two hundred.
Speaker 1: No other group had done that before, and they put
Speaker 1: fourteen songs in the top ten of the Hot one chart,
Speaker 1: four of which went to number one. When the group
Speaker 1: went on hiatus and the One D guys started putting
Speaker 1: out solo albums saying malick In, Harry Styles and Nile,
Speaker 1: and those went to number one two. You can pick
Speaker 1: your completely inappropriate comparison point, but it's hard to think
Speaker 1: of a group that spawned this kind of solo success
Speaker 1: outside of the Beatles or n W A, neither of
Speaker 1: whom ever, sang a chart topping mash up of Blondie's
Speaker 1: One Way or Another and the Undertones Teenage Kicks, as
Speaker 1: that should have made clear One Direction we're closer to
Speaker 1: a power pop group than a pure pop product. Except
Speaker 1: One D was pegged as a boy band by a
Speaker 1: world that is not long on respect for super catchy
Speaker 1: music made by boys who rose to fame through television
Speaker 1: Shout out to the Monkeys, and especially is not long
Speaker 1: on respect when you can barely hear that music over
Speaker 1: the screams of stadiums full of young women. But whether
Speaker 1: you liked them or not, and I did one direction
Speaker 1: where something special. Think of them as the Pixar of
Speaker 1: pop music. Both assembled by teams of professional fundmakers working
Speaker 1: together to invent new tricks for an established medium, both
Speaker 1: relying on state of the art techniques, charged up by
Speaker 1: a combination of super smarts and super heightened emotions, happy
Speaker 1: and sad, both packed with bright colors and humor that
Speaker 1: dazzles kids, but also full of bits aimed at the parents.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's how I always heard the classic rock
Speaker 1: riffs embedded in one D songs the Who's Baba O'Reilly
Speaker 1: in Best Song Ever? Or the clashes should I Stay
Speaker 1: or should I Go? And while We're young or deaf leopards,
Speaker 1: pour some sugar on me in Midnight Memories, journeys faithfully
Speaker 1: and steal my girl queens. We will rock you in
Speaker 1: rock me Or at least that's how I heard them before.
Speaker 1: Harry Styles and Nile released their first albums, both of
Speaker 1: which were heavily indebted to the classic rock California singer
Speaker 1: songwriter sound of the nineteen seventies, albeit in very different ways.
Speaker 1: Harry came off more like a Nielsen weirdo, studio obsessive,
Speaker 1: and Nile more like James Taylor heartbroken trying to get
Speaker 1: over it, although both of them sounded like they'd crashed
Speaker 1: a Fleetwood Mac recording session. Nile has said he's known
Speaker 1: how he wanted that first album to sound since he
Speaker 1: was a kid playing Bob Dylan and Beatles covers in
Speaker 1: Irish pubs for older patrons. But for the new Heartbreak Weather,
Speaker 1: he was a little more free with the process and
Speaker 1: the sound, a little less worried about its sounding like
Speaker 1: something that came before, so maybe it ended up sounding
Speaker 1: a little more like him. A song like No Judgment
Speaker 1: started out with him playing around with a riff that
Speaker 1: reminded him of an old John Mayer's song Neon, but
Speaker 1: it became something different once he put a groove under it.
Speaker 1: Now talked with me about starting writing while he was
Speaker 1: recovering from sinus surgery and also getting over a breakup,
Speaker 1: about recording at a studio in the Bahamas that has
Speaker 1: a champagne bottle vending machine, and about what it's like
Speaker 1: to stand in front of fifteen thousand people and sing
Speaker 1: about your feelings. Here's what else he had to say. Now,
Speaker 1: welcome to inside the studio, very very welcome to London,
Speaker 1: youwre and thank for having me on your podcast. So
Speaker 1: let's start with the album title. What is heartbreak Weather?
Speaker 1: Where did the phrase come from? What does it mean?
Speaker 1: And and how does the weather change? It's been randing
Speaker 1: hare for about two weeks, so it doesn't change that often. Um,
Speaker 1: heartbreak Weather kind of came from I wanted to write
Speaker 1: like a breakup album, but not very selfishly. When you
Speaker 1: write breakup albums, they all tend to be very selfish,
Speaker 1: sounding like very you know all about you and how
Speaker 1: sad you are instead of thinking about other people. So
Speaker 1: I when I was writing down ideas for it, I
Speaker 1: was just kind of thinking, how do I how do
Speaker 1: I write all the different feelings because it's not always
Speaker 1: like sad or there's happy days as well. When you
Speaker 1: go through a breakup and there's feelings that you shut
Speaker 1: and feel you know and you do you Do It
Speaker 1: and Heartbreak Weather. It was something I wrote down, and
Speaker 1: the minute I wrote down, I was like, this has
Speaker 1: now become a concept and concept album because now I
Speaker 1: can write different feelings and relate them to different weather patterns.
Speaker 1: So it was like, you know, if it's a sunny song,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a little bit more egotistical, and
Speaker 1: if it's a ballad, it's going to be a little
Speaker 1: bit stormy and rainy. And that kind of helped me
Speaker 1: stick with the con scept. So from minute one, the
Speaker 1: album was always going to be called Heartbreak Weather. And
Speaker 1: when you say breakup albums can be selfish, do you
Speaker 1: mean only from one point of view? You're not thinking
Speaker 1: about the other person in a way? Yeah, they're always
Speaker 1: kind of like I'm sitting at home, You've made me
Speaker 1: so sad, And there is songs on the album which
Speaker 1: are like that. Now. I have a song called Arms
Speaker 1: of a Stranger on there that is literally like you
Speaker 1: left me with nothing, now I'm laying in the arms
Speaker 1: with a stranger. And then there's also songs that I've
Speaker 1: written from different sides of it, where you know, there's
Speaker 1: it's about them, it might sound like it's about me.
Speaker 1: But I've written about them, you know, or so even
Speaker 1: though you're speaking from the first person, you might actually
Speaker 1: be coming from the other point of view. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: sometimes it might sound like I'm saying something, but I've
Speaker 1: actually just in terms of the heartbreak weather concept, i
Speaker 1: was writing from a different point of view. There's just
Speaker 1: different songs for different angles, and I'll probably have to
Speaker 1: explain it at some point to put just once you
Speaker 1: know that every song is not about me and how
Speaker 1: selfish I am, then it will help. You talked about
Speaker 1: the different moods to the first songs we heard, Nice
Speaker 1: to Meet you put a Little Love on Me. Those
Speaker 1: are very different moods. One's very interior and one's really
Speaker 1: about going out on the town. Yeah, literally, that that
Speaker 1: was That's kind of the heartbreak weather thing again, you know,
Speaker 1: the egotistical one and nice to Meet it comes out
Speaker 1: and makes a load of noise and good talks about
Speaker 1: going around London on the tear and then put the
Speaker 1: Love of Me is the piano ballad, you know, written
Speaker 1: with the rain bashing against the window and you know
Speaker 1: in the hills of Hollywood. It's kind of like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a there are two contrasting things, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of the theme across the across the album, and of
Speaker 1: course Heartbreak Weather it's off the title track. You're really
Speaker 1: singing about being on the other side of the heartbreak weather, right,
Speaker 1: you know, the sun's come up, it's I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a love song, right, yeah, yeah. No. In terms of
Speaker 1: the track listing of the album, I wanted to tell
Speaker 1: the story from the start of the relationship, through the relationship,
Speaker 1: the feelings you might have within the relationship, and then
Speaker 1: out the back and how you feel um. And you'll
Speaker 1: see that if you listen to the album throughout Heartbreak Weather,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like what it was. It was all
Speaker 1: sleepwalk living, and it's been hardship, it's been heartbreak Weather.
Speaker 1: It's been sleepwalk living up until this point, and now
Speaker 1: I met you. That's how the album kicks off. Black
Speaker 1: and White was one for me where I was kind
Speaker 1: of like trying to go nostalgic and be thinking, like
Speaker 1: when I was fifteen and got my first girlfriend, was like,
Speaker 1: that's it marrying you, you know, And that's why I
Speaker 1: was trying. I had the title black and White, and
Speaker 1: I was thinking, how do I make it different and
Speaker 1: that's what happens when you first get with someone and
Speaker 1: you're in that honeymoon period. It's black and white, it's
Speaker 1: crystal clear. The whole world is black and white to you.
Speaker 1: It's it's this or that and that. This in that
Speaker 1: song is I'm completely in love. You're imagining at one
Speaker 1: point when you're sixty five years old and the two
Speaker 1: of you were together. Yeah, it just kind of like
Speaker 1: was thinking how I had the title and I was
Speaker 1: just running with it, and I was thinking, how do
Speaker 1: you change this? And I was kind of thinking like
Speaker 1: when you were a kid and the first person you meet,
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm going to marry you. And then it
Speaker 1: was kind of like, you know, thinking of a wedding
Speaker 1: scenario and the black being the suit and the white
Speaker 1: being the drawers. So the top of the wedding kick, Yeah,
Speaker 1: room in black and white. I see us, and you know,
Speaker 1: I see us in black and white, crystal clear and
Speaker 1: the starlet night. And it's kind of like very nostalgic thinking.
Speaker 1: And you know that honeymoon period when you first get
Speaker 1: with someone and it's like this is it. You hear
Speaker 1: the first few songs you've released, particularly put a Little
Speaker 1: Love on me, and you think about the album title
Speaker 1: heartbreak Weather. People may get the impression that this is
Speaker 1: a sad breakup album. But those first three songs, they're
Speaker 1: about falling in love. And the third one we talked
Speaker 1: about the first two. The third one, dear Patients, you
Speaker 1: the singer or you were telling yourself, slow down, let's
Speaker 1: let's try. Let's try not to get to the altar
Speaker 1: before we've gotten to the bedroom, almost, because they're all
Speaker 1: these are all the things that go on in your head,
Speaker 1: like when you're when you start a relationship, you're like,
Speaker 1: I really, I really like you. This is probably gonna work.
Speaker 1: But if I slow down a bit and be a
Speaker 1: bit more patient, will probably make the best of it.
Speaker 1: So that's where their patients came from. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of like literally writing a letter to patients, the feeling
Speaker 1: of patients, and like telling yourself, all right, this time,
Speaker 1: don't eff it up and just be patient with it,
Speaker 1: because it could be really good if you let How
Speaker 1: did the process, the songwriting recording process change between the
Speaker 1: first record Flicker. In the second record, this one was
Speaker 1: a bit more I found a bit more off the cuff,
Speaker 1: like um in terms of the recording. Like I last
Speaker 1: the last album, I was in with full band in
Speaker 1: the room, playing everything completely live and then doing overdubs
Speaker 1: and stuff. But this album I found like I was
Speaker 1: just kind of I just said I'd gone right songs
Speaker 1: so I could they could happen anywhere, you know. I
Speaker 1: was just writing songs of some of them are written
Speaker 1: at home, and some of them are written in the studio,
Speaker 1: and then we'd kind of play instruments as we were going,
Speaker 1: And a lot of this album is kind of done
Speaker 1: at home really, to be honest, written because my idea
Speaker 1: was that I would just write songs and then dress
Speaker 1: them up. However, I feel production wise later on, just
Speaker 1: write the song first. And because before I kind of
Speaker 1: pigeonholed myself a touch, you know, I was straight away
Speaker 1: I was noodling away, playing and like fingerpicky type stuff,
Speaker 1: which straight away sends you down the alley of Okay,
Speaker 1: now we're writing a folk song. And that's what I
Speaker 1: kind of did to myself on the first album. I mean,
Speaker 1: in hindsight, the album did really well, so I can't complain,
Speaker 1: but you know, I know I need to do next time,
Speaker 1: and this time I just wanted to just go in
Speaker 1: write the song, and then whatever happens afterwards, we'll make
Speaker 1: a decision do that later. The first album is it
Speaker 1: all fingerpicking folk songs. It's it's got some big pop
Speaker 1: songs on it. But this one I heard, unafraid of pop,
Speaker 1: unafraid of R and B, unafraid of rock and roll.
Speaker 1: I listened to this one and I thought, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's he's got a swagger back. Yeah. No, I just
Speaker 1: like with the success honestly, with the success of sloans Um,
Speaker 1: I thought, well, if an eighties well, I think it's
Speaker 1: like an eighties blues jam meets pop music can do
Speaker 1: well in on the charts of R and B and
Speaker 1: hip hop. Well, you know, and it did well. It
Speaker 1: stood because it stood out. You know. I was thinking, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I can just take a few more chances. And
Speaker 1: that's why I was thinking, right, just let's go and
Speaker 1: write the song, and the dressing up can can be
Speaker 1: done afterwards. But the success of Slohan's made me walk
Speaker 1: into the room they sim and think about things differently.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about how this record happened. You you finished
Speaker 1: the Flicker tour eighty one shows around the world. That
Speaker 1: was September eighteen, You're done? What happened? Then I went
Speaker 1: back to where do they go? Went straight back to
Speaker 1: London for a few weeks, and then I went back
Speaker 1: to l A. And I went back to London for
Speaker 1: like ten days. They went back to l A and
Speaker 1: I had to have sinus surgery. Sinus surgery. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: just it was like there was like some sort of
Speaker 1: drip from me, Like I would get in sinus infections
Speaker 1: all the time, and it would like drip onto my
Speaker 1: vocal cords and kind of burned them. So when I
Speaker 1: would lay down at night, you know, when I wake
Speaker 1: up in the morning, I would be barely able to
Speaker 1: talk because like all the drip would like dry out
Speaker 1: my throat m over the course of the night. So
Speaker 1: that's not great for a singer. Um. So I've been
Speaker 1: talking about getting it done for a while, but then
Speaker 1: the schedule got in the way. So I had that
Speaker 1: done and then I was in kind of he was
Speaker 1: The doctor told me to kind of stay at home
Speaker 1: for like ten days two weeks, so that's what I did,
Speaker 1: and it was just kind of bored. And then I
Speaker 1: wasn't planning on writing for a while. I was going
Speaker 1: to take a bit of time. Obviously, I lasted like
Speaker 1: three weeks off the back of the tour, sat down
Speaker 1: at the piano one day and started writing the first
Speaker 1: and the chorus for Love on Me, and then I
Speaker 1: was just gone. So the first thing you wrote through
Speaker 1: this album was put a little over. Yeah, I had
Speaker 1: those cords just when I sat down and played those
Speaker 1: cards and just kind of went man and and and
Speaker 1: then from there that's where the album started. And once you,
Speaker 1: once you start, it's the best book you've ever had.
Speaker 1: It's like you just you just keep going and you
Speaker 1: can't stop. Next day, next week, I wrote No Judgment
Speaker 1: and it's just off. But you were just a few
Speaker 1: weeks off tour and and I recovering from sinus surgery.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have been doing anything. Well, I mean, you
Speaker 1: didn't exactly take a vacation, did you. To be honest,
Speaker 1: I'm not very like. Actually, I went to a friend's
Speaker 1: wedding first week of October in Spain. That's why I
Speaker 1: went back to the UK after my tour. Then when
Speaker 1: we met up in London and then we went to
Speaker 1: a wedding in Spain and talk about a week off basically,
Speaker 1: and then went back to the States and just started
Speaker 1: writing what do you do to recharge? Then I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not like I sit on the beach type holiday person. Also,
Speaker 1: a lot of my friends have like nine to five jobs,
Speaker 1: so it's not like I can be just like, come on, guys,
Speaker 1: do you want to just come for two weeks with
Speaker 1: me somewhere? And they're like no, because we've got a job.
Speaker 1: I couldn't do that, And so I just kind of
Speaker 1: play a lot of golf, you know, like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I just go back to Ireland for a bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just kind of general chilling stuff. I don't I'm not
Speaker 1: like a on the beach type person. But you did
Speaker 1: record some of this record on the beach, because you
Speaker 1: did record it Sanctuary Studios in the Bahamas, where I've
Speaker 1: read a little about this place. The live room overlooks
Speaker 1: a marina that's full of yachts, and I believe it
Speaker 1: has one of three vending machines in the entire world
Speaker 1: that dispenses split bottles of Moette champagne. This sounds like
Speaker 1: a place the Stones would have recorded in the seventies.
Speaker 1: What what was it like? I mean, it was the
Speaker 1: best ten days I've ever had. Um, yeah, a friend
Speaker 1: of mine lives in the Bahamas, so I was down
Speaker 1: there anyway, and um um, all the you know, all
Speaker 1: my writing partners came down for ten days and we
Speaker 1: just went into the studio. I mean the studio. It
Speaker 1: sounds ridiculous, it sounds ball or if you like, I
Speaker 1: mean there's the daves, like the way they've built a building.
Speaker 1: You can always see boats in the marina. It's like
Speaker 1: the windows are like in a slad and you can
Speaker 1: see that. You can see you like two dat pulling
Speaker 1: in and all sorts. It is a bit obnoxious. Um,
Speaker 1: but we do you know what, surprisingly because we're not
Speaker 1: in l A or we're not in London and people
Speaker 1: have lives to go back to at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. It doesn't feel like it didn't feel like
Speaker 1: we were you know if like, if we're in l A,
Speaker 1: we're going to the studio eleven and we leave at
Speaker 1: six or seven, and that's just like it's more of
Speaker 1: like a job, like a working hours job. Um. Whereas
Speaker 1: you know, because people have to bring kids to school
Speaker 1: or pick scoo kids up from school, or go home
Speaker 1: and make dinners or something like that. Um. Whereas if
Speaker 1: we set a time to go away, and that's all
Speaker 1: we have to do is write songs. We don't even
Speaker 1: have to, like if we don't want to sleep without
Speaker 1: to sleep. You know. It's kind of like we actually
Speaker 1: wrote a lot more than I thought we would. You
Speaker 1: see your songwriting collaborators who are down there with you,
Speaker 1: Who who came down through this trip. Julian Bonetta, John Ryan,
Speaker 1: who I always work with very closely, and they're like
Speaker 1: my two of my best best best friends, and we've
Speaker 1: known each other for a long time. You've been working
Speaker 1: with them since the One Direction there, Yeah, we did.
Speaker 1: They did it basically last three or three one day
Speaker 1: albums effectively. UM and we Yeah, we worked really close together.
Speaker 1: And then it was Tobias s So Jr. Who we
Speaker 1: wrote Meet Shelf and Julian wrote Slow Hands with um.
Speaker 1: So we've worked well together before and we were we
Speaker 1: had we had written No Judgment before we went to
Speaker 1: the Bahamas. UM, so that went well. He's a greatest
Speaker 1: guy in the world. Teddy Geiger and Scott Harris, who
Speaker 1: are obviously super famous for all their for their Shawn
Speaker 1: Mendez stuff. It was also a good friend of mine
Speaker 1: and explicit who famous Miami writer Um wrote the famous
Speaker 1: hit work from Home by Fifth Harmony, but also a
Speaker 1: good friend of mine, So it was kind of like
Speaker 1: friends go on holiday and write songs at the same time,
Speaker 1: and everybody was down there at the same time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we would split off into groups, so like I would
Speaker 1: it was like a writing camp, almost writing camp being
Speaker 1: sort of where where different songwriting teams come in and
Speaker 1: write songs, but it was your writing camps, like my
Speaker 1: own writing camp, and I would like, I have loads
Speaker 1: of ideas and concepts and stuff like that, and stuff
Speaker 1: that I want to write about, and would all would
Speaker 1: have like a verse or a chorus or something already
Speaker 1: prepped a while before the trip, and then I would
Speaker 1: like walk into the room, would say Teddy and Scotland
Speaker 1: say right, I've got this concept and there's this first
Speaker 1: and then they would kick it off and then I
Speaker 1: would go in and start another one with like me
Speaker 1: and Julian and then go back to them every like
Speaker 1: twenty minutes and like this is all happening at the
Speaker 1: same time. But that's what they were like we were
Speaker 1: talking about. We all went for dinner in l A a
Speaker 1: a few weeks ago, and it was just like I was.
Speaker 1: I was so busy in the Bahamas that like, I
Speaker 1: think I got sick when I got when I came back,
Speaker 1: because I was just running around the place from room
Speaker 1: to room with a massive studio and I was all
Speaker 1: over the place. Um, because then you really have no chill,
Speaker 1: you you you you just went like song to song,
Speaker 1: not even a day to work on one song or
Speaker 1: one project like and then there were some songs we
Speaker 1: hadn't finished, like the nice to Meet you didn't have
Speaker 1: a bridge, And so me, Tobias and um Julian went
Speaker 1: into the studio one day and finished off you know,
Speaker 1: I sung in something and then we wrote lyrics to
Speaker 1: it are no judgment didn't have a verse or second
Speaker 1: verse or something, and we were doing that as well.
Speaker 1: So we're writing new songs and finishing old ones. Which
Speaker 1: did you even use the vending machine that spits out
Speaker 1: the champaioge did? Yeah. They had these like gold coins,
Speaker 1: you know, like slot coins, and they were you could
Speaker 1: like have so many a day or whatever. It's part
Speaker 1: of your studio bill. But it was good at the
Speaker 1: studio had like a hot top in it. The studio
Speaker 1: had a hot time. It's a joke, it's like insane.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's too entice the rich and famous then,
Speaker 1: you know, to use the studio. And so this was
Speaker 1: like prep for that SNL skit where you got to
Speaker 1: be in this hot with Scarlett your hands. Yeah Scarlett
Speaker 1: weirdly enough of us in our at our writing session
Speaker 1: in the Bahamas. But um but yeah, the whole the studio.
Speaker 1: Is this a joke? But it was. I just couldn't
Speaker 1: believe how much work we've got done. We we would
Speaker 1: go down to the beach at sunset every day just
Speaker 1: for like fifteen minutes, just to be like, we need
Speaker 1: to get out of this room. And we ended up
Speaker 1: writing everywhere on the beach one day. I mean a
Speaker 1: few of us the song everywhere we were on the beach,
Speaker 1: and I mean, I think the opening versity even has
Speaker 1: a line that says, you know, it feels like the
Speaker 1: world's locked us in an island, an island without waves,
Speaker 1: as the waves are breaking and the and the tides
Speaker 1: going out with pretty sides coming in. It's pretty. Um Yeah.
Speaker 1: It was just a great way, great which such a
Speaker 1: good time because we were just all that we were
Speaker 1: there for one reason and one reason only was to
Speaker 1: write tunes and hang out and it was good fun.
Speaker 1: Wait a great time. You mentioned nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: I want to start with one thing i'd heard you
Speaker 1: say previously that when you were working on this song
Speaker 1: with two Bias Jesse Jr. You said I'd probably written
Speaker 1: fifty songs. Now, what what does that mean? I always
Speaker 1: hear people say that, But does that mean you've written,
Speaker 1: like you finished fifty songs, you recorded fifty songs. You
Speaker 1: you wrote fifty one line versus like bits of verses
Speaker 1: down what? No, probably were written fifty Like I'd say,
Speaker 1: if I was to guess, I'd say fifty three or
Speaker 1: four songs for the whole album written. Bear in mind,
Speaker 1: that's horrendous, you know what I mean? Like you have
Speaker 1: days where it's just like what we even doing? Um?
Speaker 1: And you will you know, yeah, maybe like fifty verses
Speaker 1: and like twenty verses and choruses and then fifty like
Speaker 1: thirty full of songs and like you know, there's kind
Speaker 1: of like it's a bit of dribs and drops, but
Speaker 1: you can see, like if I've got a verse in
Speaker 1: the chorus, I know that I can pretty much match
Speaker 1: that on the other side, and I use it like
Speaker 1: a symmetrical like first verse, pre chorus, take a break,
Speaker 1: start the next part, but kind of dribs and drops.
Speaker 1: But I would say, like a good solid forty odd songs,
Speaker 1: full songs. How does it happen for you? How many
Speaker 1: of those were ideas that you might have flashed on
Speaker 1: while you were touring or before you even started the
Speaker 1: songwriting process for this record, things like no Judgment, I
Speaker 1: already had the riff. I wrote the riff in I
Speaker 1: think it was in Chicago or something on tour, like
Speaker 1: six months previous to writing it, So it was in Chicago,
Speaker 1: and like July or August, and then yeah, July maybe
Speaker 1: did you say you wrote the riff? Where you were
Speaker 1: you playing around on guitar and peple. We're sitting on
Speaker 1: the bus just in the middle of the day between
Speaker 1: making great or something and just in the show and
Speaker 1: just like just start going, and before you know, I've
Speaker 1: just got a really good riff and didn't really know
Speaker 1: what to do with it, and then tried to match
Speaker 1: it up to a concept that I thought sounded texting. Therefore, Blaine,
Speaker 1: you can stay with me tonight. You don't have to change.
Speaker 1: Men come around you, So go ahead and say what
Speaker 1: song your mind on your mind when you meet. You
Speaker 1: can get that anyone. Yes, you don't have super you
Speaker 1: can just be yourself when you meet. The song was
Speaker 1: a bit more kind of like John Mayrish, kind of
Speaker 1: like Neon, the kind of continuum type era, and then
Speaker 1: they developed because we put that groove underneath. It kind
Speaker 1: of turned into a pop song. But subconsciously, you know,
Speaker 1: you're on tour in Chicago, it's in between a meat
Speaker 1: and green, You're playing around. You have this riff, So
Speaker 1: do you get out your phone and record it? What
Speaker 1: do you how do you capture? Yeah? I take it
Speaker 1: out on the phone. And what I was doing last
Speaker 1: year a lot of time was we would jam on
Speaker 1: stage as part of our sound check and just get
Speaker 1: the front of house guy to record like bits and
Speaker 1: then like record ten minutes of it and then send
Speaker 1: an email me it's straight away, so then I have
Speaker 1: like an actual recording of us sound checking. Did anything
Speaker 1: from those sound checks end up on the record and
Speaker 1: one nearly did? Yeah, there was a song there was
Speaker 1: a song that I ended up righting with Tobias that
Speaker 1: that nearly did. Yeah. I almost trying to find that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like bits and pieces, not much. It was more like
Speaker 1: you're just trying to think of ideas two to be
Speaker 1: a catalist for when you go into the studio, because
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot of If I just turned
Speaker 1: up on the studio on day one and don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna write about it, it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: lot of harder album to be heck. You know you
Speaker 1: mentioned you were playing around with the riff for No
Speaker 1: Judgment and that the song was coming together and it
Speaker 1: was a little more John May I ish were there
Speaker 1: were there any artists? Were there anything that you turned
Speaker 1: to for inspiration that you were listening to or thinking
Speaker 1: of when you're making this record. I know when you
Speaker 1: made Flicker, you you talked a little bit about Fleetwood
Speaker 1: Mac and the Eagles and whether the record sounded like
Speaker 1: that or not. That really stuck to that record. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now that that and that definitely like helped me as
Speaker 1: I went. As I went on this one, I was
Speaker 1: kind of like it was a bit of everything, different
Speaker 1: songs for productions for different songs. So like in my
Speaker 1: head across your mind was kind of like you know,
Speaker 1: you use songs as references, you know, like going and
Speaker 1: absolutely rubbed the place blind, but you know, like Walking
Speaker 1: on the Drain by Empire the Sun was kind of
Speaker 1: like a nice reference for Across your Mind because Across
Speaker 1: your Mind actually started as a piano ballad and I
Speaker 1: actually have a video on my phone of me, of
Speaker 1: me right across your Mind. It was the demo was
Speaker 1: a piano ballad of singing me, really singing slow and
Speaker 1: love the way me and it doesn't even rushing. And
Speaker 1: then before but every time I played it on the piano,
Speaker 1: I kept like tapping my foot like like faster and
Speaker 1: faster every time I played it, and I was like, no,
Speaker 1: this needs to be this needs to be a jam.
Speaker 1: And then it turned into effectively an Empire the Sun
Speaker 1: meets Fleetwood Mac Thrive and Tune. Yeah. I mean when
Speaker 1: you sing it now, I hear the way it is finished.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine it is a slow and sad piano
Speaker 1: because it's got that, it's got a groove, I mean,
Speaker 1: and and the group that could go in a lot
Speaker 1: of different directions. You could be an R and B song,
Speaker 1: it can be what you know, I mean, it can
Speaker 1: be with the song it ended up as. But this
Speaker 1: album has that strong pop bounced to it. I always
Speaker 1: try and do like pop with my twist on it.
Speaker 1: You know, I like, I absolutely love pop music and
Speaker 1: kind of but I don't want to sound like everyone else,
Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. So I try and
Speaker 1: do me on a little twist on it. And I mean,
Speaker 1: bringing Fleetwood Mac into a pop song is you know,
Speaker 1: it's something to behold, I suppose, and like, I try
Speaker 1: and do things differently, and I guess maybe it sounds
Speaker 1: like you're bringing that into the pop world now, into
Speaker 1: that machine tooled, computerized pop sound. But remember Fleetwood Mac.
Speaker 1: We're the biggest pop band in the world in their moment.
Speaker 1: But that's that's the thing. Like I remember Julian Vanetta
Speaker 1: said to me, he got like, I'm always trying to
Speaker 1: like find different older drum sounds when I when we play,
Speaker 1: when we put grooves on stuff. And Julian said to me,
Speaker 1: he goes, you know all those bands that you love,
Speaker 1: like the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, do you think that
Speaker 1: they were looking for old drums? Said they were looking
Speaker 1: for the drum sounds that were big at their time.
Speaker 1: They were writing songs around the grooves. And then from
Speaker 1: then on, I was like, you're so right. I was
Speaker 1: doing that for a while where I was like chasing
Speaker 1: down old seventies tunes and eights tunes for a drum
Speaker 1: groove or a sound or a snare or sound, because
Speaker 1: I'm like so particular about stuff like that. But I
Speaker 1: just remembered I'm a twenty four century pop back, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like I have to play it
Speaker 1: to it too. You know. Well, we were just talking
Speaker 1: about Crush your Mind starting as a sad piano ballad,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the sad piano back put a
Speaker 1: Little Love on Me, which just the title sounds a
Speaker 1: bit like a Rod Stewart come on from the seventies
Speaker 1: or something, but that's not what it is. So tell
Speaker 1: me about how this song came about just a thought
Speaker 1: sign of surgery. Time just sat at the piano and
Speaker 1: just went bum bum bum bum bum bum. To me,
Speaker 1: it sounded quite like Altony the way I played it,
Speaker 1: like the dancing bam bam bam bam, And in my
Speaker 1: head I was thinking, like, what would Elton do now?
Speaker 1: So I even like go to minor records and like
Speaker 1: at the end of the chorus and stuff like that. Literally,
Speaker 1: in my head the whole time, I was was thinking about
Speaker 1: what Eldon do now. So I just started saying along
Speaker 1: and I had a concept for it that it was
Speaker 1: like one of the first things that I wanted to write,
Speaker 1: because I've just gone through a breakup and there certain
Speaker 1: things that I needed to say straight away, like the
Speaker 1: first first just flew out of my mouth and the
Speaker 1: pre um, and then I went in. When I came back,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm going to leave this because I
Speaker 1: know someone that can help me with this. And then
Speaker 1: with Jamie Scott, who had written this Town and too
Speaker 1: Much to ask with and he had written story in
Speaker 1: my Life in one Direction and stuff like that, and
Speaker 1: he's a very good friend of mine, and we were
Speaker 1: planning on going into the studio anyway, so I was like,
Speaker 1: Jamie will be really good at this, and he's an
Speaker 1: unbelievable piano player. And we went in and he loved it,
Speaker 1: and we kept playing and playing and got to the
Speaker 1: end and he played the first pass of the piano
Speaker 1: and I went in and recorded the vocal, like the
Speaker 1: two takes of the vocal or something like that. I
Speaker 1: just loved the vocal and loved like the rawness of
Speaker 1: the song and didn't kind of was thinking that I
Speaker 1: don't really want to overproduce this. But then the longer
Speaker 1: I went on, I was like, no, I want to
Speaker 1: produce it now. And we gave it. You know, I
Speaker 1: gave it a couple of shots and differ with different
Speaker 1: producers and had produced a few times, and I just
Speaker 1: kept coming back to the first past of the piano
Speaker 1: in the first vocal. So what we hear now is
Speaker 1: literally just the day one demo when we finished the song,
Speaker 1: which is rare. I mean, those productions could be amazing,
Speaker 1: and they were both. You just have a feeling deep down.
Speaker 1: So knowing that this is the first thing that you recorded,
Speaker 1: the first thing you wrote, and knowing that you were
Speaker 1: just a few weeks off tour. Now I think I
Speaker 1: understand a bit the little bit of the Easter Egg,
Speaker 1: the lyric on this song that connects to a lyric
Speaker 1: from a song on Flicker too much to ask. In
Speaker 1: that song, your your shadow is dancing on its own
Speaker 1: for the first time. In this one, shadows come up again.
Speaker 1: But now the lights are up and there are no
Speaker 1: shadows dancing. Yeah. No, I I just thought would be
Speaker 1: nice to reflect it back to another song that myself
Speaker 1: and Jamie had written and we were taught he was going,
Speaker 1: but shadows the ton of it like he was doing that,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, it's up there for a second,
Speaker 1: we can we can actually push this back to put
Speaker 1: this back on too much to ask and literally do
Speaker 1: what you said, you know, in the In the previous song,
Speaker 1: the shadows were, you know, done and without you for
Speaker 1: the first time, and then this song now there's no
Speaker 1: shadows done because no one's done with right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I just thought it was a cool, like a cool
Speaker 1: little nod to the and the Funds picked up in
Speaker 1: a straight way like they were like, oh, this song
Speaker 1: has this a lyric that's just amazingly plain spoken. Watch
Speaker 1: the sun coming up? Don't it feel fucked up? We're
Speaker 1: not in love? And then put a Little Love on
Speaker 1: Me has a song that is also super point spoken,
Speaker 1: Is it wrong? I still wonder where you are? Is
Speaker 1: it wrong? I still don't know my heart? You know?
Speaker 1: And then and Ben the Rules On this album, there's
Speaker 1: a moment where you're talking about, you know, when somebody
Speaker 1: makes you laugh but you won't say what it's about.
Speaker 1: And I really felt that that's a real moment. We
Speaker 1: have those moments like where you're watching someone you love
Speaker 1: kind of spark to something else and you're wondering, what
Speaker 1: the hell is that about? Is that about? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: you don't want to be needy and and say it
Speaker 1: out loud or for yourself. But these kind of brutally
Speaker 1: honest lyrics are really shaping up to be a specialty
Speaker 1: of yours. Yeah, I hope they're connected um people, because
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like I just those ballads, like they
Speaker 1: all come from that same sit down at the piano
Speaker 1: and just say sometimes like when I'm writing a ballad,
Speaker 1: I'll actually speak instead of saying, and like we nearly
Speaker 1: write like an out loud poem to music and and
Speaker 1: do what you've just done. They're just like, is it
Speaker 1: wrong that I still don't know the art and then
Speaker 1: try and sing melody around that or whatever. Yeah, just
Speaker 1: like I don't know, probably I hopefully get the credit,
Speaker 1: the credit for the nice lyrics at some you know,
Speaker 1: at some point in the line, hopefully lets say what happens. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, look, all of us have used
Speaker 1: music when we're sad. We've used it as a form
Speaker 1: of therapy. Songwriting sounds like it's a form of therapy
Speaker 1: for you. You sit down and you just talk the
Speaker 1: lyrics out. It seems like you should be paying the
Speaker 1: piano a therapist. Yeah, I have a little like collection
Speaker 1: box on the top of the piano and pay the
Speaker 1: fee every time I sit down. When those lyrics do
Speaker 1: that brutally, plain spoken and honest, Do you ever worry
Speaker 1: about being that vulnerable? No, I don't um at all.
Speaker 1: Actually I probably When I was younger, it used to
Speaker 1: be like I wouldn't say stuff in interviews, or I
Speaker 1: wouldn't put a lyric in a song because they didn't
Speaker 1: want people to be talking about it. But what I've
Speaker 1: realized is when you're vulnerable, people want to know who
Speaker 1: it's about for about two seconds, and then tabloids make
Speaker 1: a story out of it, and the online websites make
Speaker 1: a story out of it for ten minutes, and those
Speaker 1: stories only over last day, and then after that people
Speaker 1: actually connect with the lyrics, like you have no idea
Speaker 1: what the songs are about, but you've made them a
Speaker 1: connection to yourself, as you said, And that's what I
Speaker 1: love about what we do, because the flash of the
Speaker 1: pan stories over, and then I go on tour and
Speaker 1: I look at the crowd and I'll see three or
Speaker 1: four girls in the first ten roles, crying their eyes out,
Speaker 1: and that's the best part because they don't know who
Speaker 1: the song is about. They've just connected it to something
Speaker 1: in their life. And I think the older I've got,
Speaker 1: the more I've realized the power of actually writing lyrics.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why I like to write ballads more,
Speaker 1: because you get that feeling out with people. Because when
Speaker 1: the lyrics, like I'm very good at like dressing a
Speaker 1: sad song up as a happy song. So but if
Speaker 1: you're dancing at a concert, you don't necessarily listen to
Speaker 1: the lyrics. You're just singing out and you're screaming at
Speaker 1: the top of your lungs. But if you're listening to
Speaker 1: a ballad, you're a bit more like tentative and like
Speaker 1: listening and breaking the lyrics down in your head. And
Speaker 1: that's what makes you emotional, I suppose. But you know
Speaker 1: who these songs are about, you know what these songs
Speaker 1: are about, and you're gonna go out and sing them
Speaker 1: every night, and that never that that's not a trigger
Speaker 1: for you, that never makes you feel vulnerable in that way.
Speaker 1: I mean, sometimes you know, like I liked when I
Speaker 1: write a song once I've like released it. I'd like
Speaker 1: to think of it as not kind of not mine anymore.
Speaker 1: The audience now now it's now it's up to them
Speaker 1: to decide what they do it and and those girls
Speaker 1: in the front row who are borrowing their eyes out,
Speaker 1: that's what's for them, and it becomes their story as well. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: because if they can connect with it, like too much
Speaker 1: to Ask or the shadows dancing line or the line
Speaker 1: you said him bend the rules, like, if they can
Speaker 1: do that, then that's what it's about. Because I've already
Speaker 1: my therapy side. If it came when I was shouting
Speaker 1: the lyrics at the piano, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: that's where I got my bit out of it. And
Speaker 1: obviously if there is times when you're thinking back, like
Speaker 1: there's been times where like on the first tour where
Speaker 1: I like had a wobbly bottom lip, you know, because
Speaker 1: I was singing like Flicker or something and thinking old juice.
Speaker 1: You know, when you have a day we're like, oh
Speaker 1: I miss her, you know what I mean, And then
Speaker 1: there's nothing more of a catalyst and standing in front
Speaker 1: of fifteen thousand people thinking about your feelings. But you do,
Speaker 1: and it happens every now and then. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean after a while, it's like anything. Time is the hailer,
Speaker 1: I suppose, and then by the time I get out
Speaker 1: and tour of can a half healed. But it also
Speaker 1: stands the way in which the audience can make this
Speaker 1: their own stories, They put their own feelings into it
Speaker 1: makes it more of a shared experience than just your experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like I have fans, so I mean I'm
Speaker 1: not always like self Stue writing for myself. You know,
Speaker 1: you write lyrics, You're right, Like, That's why I like
Speaker 1: story teller. The storytellers always have done well over the
Speaker 1: years in terms of the lyricists because people the storyteller.
Speaker 1: That's why country music is so big, because it's just storytelling.
Speaker 1: It's relatable storytelling that everyone can connect with it. And
Speaker 1: all over the years, the greatest artists of all time
Speaker 1: have always been the storytellers. Bruce Springsteen, he always says,
Speaker 1: I've made a full career. He said it in the
Speaker 1: show on Broadway. I've made a full career of writing
Speaker 1: about something I've never done, which is working a factory
Speaker 1: or have a normal ninety job. But he said, all
Speaker 1: he's ever been is a musician, right, Yeah, he he
Speaker 1: didn't really ever have the day job, but he connected.
Speaker 1: He wrote about factories and car factories and blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. His first band was called Steel Mill exactly
Speaker 1: didn't work in one, never worked and self admittedly, but
Speaker 1: he connected with the people Elton, John Simon and Garfuncle,
Speaker 1: Bob the greatest of all time, Bob Dylan. Like they're
Speaker 1: the storytellers and they've always done well. Taylor Swift massive
Speaker 1: tell stories in the most relatable, nostalgic way. Edge here
Speaker 1: in the same when I was six years old, I
Speaker 1: broke my leg Castle on the Hill, you know, like that.
Speaker 1: People just relate to that stuff. So to find that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's why I do it. I think everywhere on the
Speaker 1: new album really striking song. It's about a feeling of
Speaker 1: seeing someone you're trying to forget. Everywhere you go, I
Speaker 1: see your face and people I don't know that. That's
Speaker 1: another lyric I heard that. I felt that I was
Speaker 1: because I've had that experience. The music has some sense
Speaker 1: of desperation in it, but it's also really triumphant, right,
Speaker 1: and yet you were mentioning you're good at writing a
Speaker 1: turning a sad song into a happy stay and that
Speaker 1: kind of feels like one, yeah, this is it. Because
Speaker 1: it's four on the floor. It gives you that I'm
Speaker 1: going to roll in my windows down our stand in
Speaker 1: the stadium type fail. It's guitarists are soaring, almost like
Speaker 1: you two style. Yeah, that's the idea. Stick a lot
Speaker 1: of reverb on the guitars and just lay into it
Speaker 1: and and the story them and kind of leave it
Speaker 1: all out there. And well that's why I do. You'll
Speaker 1: find that in a lot of my songs. The production
Speaker 1: in the verse is very simple, so like in Everywhere,
Speaker 1: it's just going booming and then when the chorus hits,
Speaker 1: just like because you like to get into desperation in
Speaker 1: the verse and then have a triumphant course and I
Speaker 1: tried to do that quite a lot um Everywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as you say, it's like literally I felt like when
Speaker 1: I broken up for my last relationship, I felt I
Speaker 1: honestly felt like I was seeing the person everywhere, um
Speaker 1: for different reasons, but I was also literally seeing I
Speaker 1: remember when Teddy said that when I when we were
Speaker 1: writing Everywhere, and Teddy said, I see your face. Some
Speaker 1: people that don't know I was like, that is genius
Speaker 1: because that sums up this song. There's always a line
Speaker 1: that wraps the song up. And yeah, he just could.
Speaker 1: You can't feel like you just couldn't get away from it,
Speaker 1: Like because when you break up someone, you're either one
Speaker 1: of two things. You want them back or you're trying
Speaker 1: to run from them, but you can't when you see
Speaker 1: them everywhere you go, you can't help it. I don't
Speaker 1: think I've ever really thought of Instagram is the everywhere
Speaker 1: you might see someone but you've been there. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: it has to happen. It's this is a this is funny,
Speaker 1: funny now, but but I'm just used to, oh, that's
Speaker 1: somebody who has the same haircut or the same same
Speaker 1: color hair that. But again, I hadn't thought of it
Speaker 1: that way. I'm just thinking of my perspective. Just seeing
Speaker 1: somebody you know on the block who literally reminds you
Speaker 1: of that person who you you know, You get that
Speaker 1: sudden it's almost like a chemical reaction, like you think
Speaker 1: you're actually seeing that person. It's crazy, but you're not. Yeah, honestly,
Speaker 1: it's like it's it's and I think that's just part
Speaker 1: of it, isn't It Like he can't help. But you're
Speaker 1: not seeing them at all. It's like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's like fucking believing in the parent armor or something
Speaker 1: like that. It's just that they're not there. But you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, you just kind of you keep
Speaker 1: saying them everywhere you go. It's we were talking about
Speaker 1: this a little bit. People will want to know who
Speaker 1: these songs are about. But they were asking the same
Speaker 1: questions about songs on Flicker. Does that bother you? Does
Speaker 1: it matter? No? Um, in the grand scheme of things,
Speaker 1: it doesn't like it doesn't matter at all, because they'll connect.
Speaker 1: As I said earlier, they connected with the songs in
Speaker 1: their own way. Um, the flash in Japan story is
Speaker 1: what people are just asking the question for and it
Speaker 1: won't really make a different difference in the long run.
Speaker 1: We were talking about the great songwriters. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: there's a whole parlor game of trying to guess which
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan song is about yeah yeah, or which Steph
Speaker 1: Nick's songs about Lindsay and At or about make or
Speaker 1: you know, like it's just kind of like another time
Speaker 1: honored tradition exactly pop culture. That's what it is. And
Speaker 1: and now We're just we're in that period now where
Speaker 1: people are just going to ask and like it's not
Speaker 1: like I'm writing songs to stop someone in the back
Speaker 1: or anything. It's just kind of like it doesn't really
Speaker 1: matter or about you know, I'm not I'm not like
Speaker 1: going after. If I was going after someone, then yeah,
Speaker 1: people want to know who it is. But it's fine.
Speaker 1: I don't mind. It's all good, right, But it's not
Speaker 1: a rap battle. We're not. You're not coming after M
Speaker 1: and M on this No, no fifties, not getting a
Speaker 1: fifty cent is not not coming after The Nice to
Speaker 1: Meet You tour with Louis Capaldi starts in April. You'll
Speaker 1: be playing Arenas, which is both a return and something new. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly how does it feel and how are you preparing? Well,
Speaker 1: we're as you know, We're we're in rehearsals right now. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited about it. Um. Playing an hour and
Speaker 1: a half show one album last year the last time
Speaker 1: was tough, trying to stretch things out at in covers
Speaker 1: and bits and piece of which was great. I only
Speaker 1: get to do it once. But the idea of playing
Speaker 1: two out is now in Arenas, going back to arenas
Speaker 1: like it was with the Lads, um putting on an
Speaker 1: arena show, designing that stage, designing the screen content, situating
Speaker 1: the band, the lighting. Um, it's just that feeling I've
Speaker 1: been wrapped in an arena and still trying to make
Speaker 1: an intimate show. Um, I love all of this. This
Speaker 1: is what it's about. This, this touring aspect of what
Speaker 1: we do is the best part of what we do.
Speaker 1: What should fancy expect? I mean, you talked about trying
Speaker 1: to make an intimate show in an arena. How do
Speaker 1: you go about doing that? Well? Set listen, there's a
Speaker 1: big one. You know. I'm lucky that I've got intimate
Speaker 1: songs and I've also got now got some mad ones
Speaker 1: and which as a blend will make for a nice
Speaker 1: show because you can have roller coaster moments, you know,
Speaker 1: start with a bang and then dip down for a
Speaker 1: little bit and come back up and dip down again,
Speaker 1: and you know, you have to bring people on a
Speaker 1: journey across the hour and a half or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at probably an hour and thirty five or
Speaker 1: something like that I think we're at and which is great.
Speaker 1: You know, we're playing more more songs than an arena
Speaker 1: show would usually of pending on playing twenty two or
Speaker 1: three m and having though like bringing the lighting down
Speaker 1: at certain points, or you know, I've got a B stage,
Speaker 1: so I'll be doing some ballads out on the B
Speaker 1: stage and making the arena feel smaller than it is,
Speaker 1: because those arenas are huge. Should we expect any collaborative
Speaker 1: moments between you and Lewis? Or Lewis is on his
Speaker 1: own tour at the moment, so I need to get
Speaker 1: in with him. But yeah, the idea would be too
Speaker 1: for me and Lewis to do something at some point.
Speaker 1: I mean, we can't sell the tour as myself and
Speaker 1: Lewis and then do nothing about it. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's natural whatever happens. You know, we'll
Speaker 1: do a cover, we could do something we've written together.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, whatever that is we'll have,
Speaker 1: We'll have to have a moment. Yeah, Lewis, this is
Speaker 1: well known that that you came across his music early on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you got in touch with him, You invited him to
Speaker 1: open a show of yours in Glasgow. So that makes
Speaker 1: me ask, what are you listening to these days? Who's
Speaker 1: your next discovery. Well, okay, there's I mean, there's so
Speaker 1: much stuff going on at the mo moment. I've been
Speaker 1: listening to a lot of singer songwritersh vibes at the moment,
Speaker 1: and there's a girl and bringing on my tour in
Speaker 1: the UK and Europe, English girl called Mazie Peters. If
Speaker 1: you haven't heard of her in the States, you should
Speaker 1: wrap your ears around that because her voice is beautiful,
Speaker 1: she's real talent. She's coming and told me in the
Speaker 1: UK and Ireland she'd be kind of my next I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I discovered her, but she would be
Speaker 1: like if I was spread that to the world, I
Speaker 1: think Mazy Peters is my next thing. Um. But Lewis, Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like my cousin has this knack of finding artists
Speaker 1: who have gone on to do unbelievable things when they've
Speaker 1: had like minimal views or listens or remember he played
Speaker 1: me the like that Tones and I song and the
Speaker 1: one who went on to take over the world about
Speaker 1: two years ago because it was like he was living
Speaker 1: in Australia at the time. He was like, this is
Speaker 1: going to be a smash worldwide and he was right,
Speaker 1: or he found remember he playing. He played me James Bay.
Speaker 1: When James Bay first very entered. I've seen him in
Speaker 1: a pub somewhere are And what is your cousin do
Speaker 1: with with sports? Is a sports patient. It just has
Speaker 1: the amazingly not an in our perpect And I've been
Speaker 1: trying to tell the people, but he has this knack.
Speaker 1: It's again and Lewis he showed me Lewis and Lewis
Speaker 1: had like two d views on like this vivo video
Speaker 1: of him singing a cappella in an old house. Um
Speaker 1: and it was like the first thing that they brought
Speaker 1: down for Lewis and he played me this video. I
Speaker 1: was like, WHOA. So I just wrote to Lewis. I
Speaker 1: was like, dude, I love this song. I love these songs.
Speaker 1: I love your voice because his voice is like quite
Speaker 1: captivate and you very early hear that much gravel with
Speaker 1: that much range. And I just wrote to him and said, yeah,
Speaker 1: do you want to come and play if if we're
Speaker 1: about And we went met up for a few beers
Speaker 1: in Glasgow when we were there over a rugby game.
Speaker 1: And then you come up the next day and played
Speaker 1: a few tunes and basically I am the reason why
Speaker 1: you suck successful. No, but he's I mean, if you
Speaker 1: have that much talent, that much wit and can write
Speaker 1: songs like that, I'm just happy that songs are back. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: Lewis's success is quite amazing. And you mentioned songs are back,
Speaker 1: but not every great songwere. Do you hear so many
Speaker 1: of them that every great songwriter goes on did that
Speaker 1: kind of monster success? No, And it's just a lot
Speaker 1: of the big tunes are just fluke. He said. He
Speaker 1: was just sitting at home on playing the minimal piano
Speaker 1: that he can play like we like most songwriters like
Speaker 1: I can't play much piano, but I can play enough
Speaker 1: to write a tune on it. And Louis said, he said,
Speaker 1: that's why, that's why they the part of the piano
Speaker 1: part on Someone You loved. This so simple, it's just
Speaker 1: going better U And he said he just oaut there
Speaker 1: and just started singing. And you just have to cross
Speaker 1: your fingers every time you open your mouth to do
Speaker 1: a melody. That it's a good one. And he bumped
Speaker 1: into it and had a concept and now it's the
Speaker 1: biggest song on the planet. And sometimes those limitations are
Speaker 1: really useful, like when you don't know how to do it,
Speaker 1: you discover either something new about your own approach to
Speaker 1: it or an approach to it in general. You can
Speaker 1: have I mean that it proves it. You can have.
Speaker 1: You can have days where you're just absolutely useless and
Speaker 1: nothing comes out, and then you have days of absolute magic.
Speaker 1: I find that like a lot of my better ideas,
Speaker 1: like my better songs, have come from Like early in
Speaker 1: the process I wrote put All the Love of Me
Speaker 1: and No Judgment. In the first week and last album,
Speaker 1: I wrote This Town and Too Much to Ask two
Speaker 1: days in a row. You know what I mean. It's
Speaker 1: just because your ideas are fresh. You knew what you
Speaker 1: were going to write about before you walked in the room.
Speaker 1: You had a piano part for that, you had a riff.
Speaker 1: You're well prepared. The longer it goes on and the
Speaker 1: ideas start to dwindle out, you know, they're harder becomes
Speaker 1: and you get writer's block more often. Keep you see
Speaker 1: good thing. It's time we will find ourselves again. Everyone speed.
Speaker 1: I remember running into a corner and just calling my
Speaker 1: manager and be like, listen, cancel all the sessions we've
Speaker 1: got for the next two three weeks because I need
Speaker 1: I'm just running into a corner here and I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm just writing crap and I just need more
Speaker 1: time to just you know, reconfigure everything, get my concepts
Speaker 1: back in line, you know, think about other angles for
Speaker 1: this heartbreak, whether the thing, and then reconvene um. And
Speaker 1: that's what happened, because the reconvene part can when I
Speaker 1: got to the Bahamas. So what did you do for
Speaker 1: those two weeks when you when you run your stuff
Speaker 1: into the corner? How did you get out? But had
Speaker 1: a lot of golf on my own. I find playing
Speaker 1: golf of my own is a great one because you
Speaker 1: get to listen to like I'll put a speaker in
Speaker 1: the golf cart, listen to stuff that I'm into, and
Speaker 1: then like I'll hear a line in the song and
Speaker 1: it'll sparking idea, and then I'll write that down and
Speaker 1: then you know, before you know, I've got like a
Speaker 1: show you here. This is in the last I haven't
Speaker 1: pulling up my notes on my phone. Where is this from?
Speaker 1: This one started on It's funny eighth of February, And
Speaker 1: these are just stuff I just wrote right down. So
Speaker 1: you're jatting all this down in the golf cart while here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like just kind of like this is like and this
Speaker 1: is right up until the present day. Like how at
Speaker 1: the moon House of Pain a song about like I
Speaker 1: wrote down the word strange and the idea of like
Speaker 1: when you break up with someone and now they're just
Speaker 1: a stranger to you when they were a stranger beforehand
Speaker 1: as well. You know, I just kind of write random
Speaker 1: stuff down, random little stories that happened to me just right.
Speaker 1: I'm just look, I mean that's yeah, that's quite quite
Speaker 1: a few things there. But that's stuff is happening all
Speaker 1: the time. I might see something on the street or
Speaker 1: see a couple and like the look of it, or
Speaker 1: you know, like just random a little bit and just
Speaker 1: write something. And it sounds quite creepy, but um it
Speaker 1: helps you know. When you were playing golf, where were
Speaker 1: you golfing? But I got in l A. I kind
Speaker 1: of play on the public golf courses and then here
Speaker 1: come on, yeah you got It's hard. It's hard to
Speaker 1: play golf in l A. You have to be like
Speaker 1: you have to be well connected, and you have to
Speaker 1: know a member of some place or something something. You
Speaker 1: don't know people who can get you on a good
Speaker 1: golf and l A. The hardest thing to do is
Speaker 1: come on, boys, that's go and play golf, because you
Speaker 1: have to go and play with the sea, oh of this,
Speaker 1: or you know it's a private club or um. So
Speaker 1: I just go to the public spots and nice and
Speaker 1: cheap and cheerful, and I just love getting out. I
Speaker 1: don't care where I play. Um. And then here in London,
Speaker 1: I'm a member of a place called Wentworth, which is
Speaker 1: beautiful and kind of just literally getting the golf cart
Speaker 1: on a Sunday day, go around in my own listen
Speaker 1: to a few tunes, make a few notes and does
Speaker 1: it have to be a sunny day? Or you one
Speaker 1: of those crazy rainer shine golfers. I grew up in Ireland,
Speaker 1: where raised rains for about three hundred and sixty days
Speaker 1: of the year. So I am now a fair weather golfer.
Speaker 1: I live in Los Angeles. It's twenty five degrees every day,
Speaker 1: or seventy every day, thank you for the conversion from
Speaker 1: something it's probably about twenty four, but seventy four. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I just become a bit of a fairweather golfer these days.
Speaker 1: So yeah, when it's sunny, I do a lot more
Speaker 1: of my golfing on tour because I'm you know, I
Speaker 1: don't have much to do until about four in the afternoon.
Speaker 1: Well it's a healthy occupation, I suppose, compared to some
Speaker 1: of the other things where you could get up to
Speaker 1: on tour. Exactly. Know, I've been trying to love do
Speaker 1: less less boozing, if you like um, because trying to
Speaker 1: sing for an hour and a half every night at
Speaker 1: the level that I have to be at for people
Speaker 1: to spend hundred dollars for a ticket or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: You can't give value for money if you're drinking every night.
Speaker 1: So I'm not gonna be doing that, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to play more golf. So you were saying that. On
Speaker 1: the Flicker tour, you you were breaking out some coveries.
Speaker 1: You did quite a few classic rock covers. You did Springsteen,
Speaker 1: Tom Petty, the Eagles. Sometimes there were nods to hometown heroes.
Speaker 1: You were in Dublin. You did Ben Lizzie's right, did
Speaker 1: you too? Yep? Did Billy Joel song when you played
Speaker 1: Long Island. That's right. Yeah. So the tours opening in Nashville,
Speaker 1: are you are you getting her Garth brook song? Ready? No?
Speaker 1: But if he was talking to Marion Morris. I have
Speaker 1: a song with Marion Mars from my last album see
Speaker 1: Him Blind, and the whole idea that UM like if
Speaker 1: she hasn't had her baby, or if she's already had
Speaker 1: the baby, and once to an open door for her
Speaker 1: to come into the arena and things say I'm blind
Speaker 1: with me. If that's that is baby permitting. UM. But
Speaker 1: that would be fun if we could do UM. Because
Speaker 1: it's the first night of the tour. It's actually shame
Speaker 1: that it's a Nashville because you want to announce. The
Speaker 1: fans are waiting online to see what the set list is.
Speaker 1: But if it's like if I'm in Nashville and everything,
Speaker 1: you want to bring loads of my country friends up
Speaker 1: on stage. I kind of broken that because you spend
Speaker 1: a fair amount of time in Nashville on the West record. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh yeah. I love Nashville. Honestly, I talk about like
Speaker 1: getting a place there for a while because it's such
Speaker 1: a like it's exactly the way I'd like to live
Speaker 1: in my life. It's so chilled out. People just write songs.
Speaker 1: It's like for fun. There's the people who are just
Speaker 1: great down there. I love. I'm just really getting into
Speaker 1: country music. I've got a lot of friends and country music,
Speaker 1: and there's just no place I've been in the world
Speaker 1: where music is taken more seriously, but but not in
Speaker 1: an overly serious way like it it's just it's so
Speaker 1: much a part of the culture. Yeah, it's just a
Speaker 1: it's a passion thing. It's a cultural thing. Like it's like,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's called music city, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like it's like it's just their life. Like you go
Speaker 1: into a bar and random pub in Nashville, you'll probably
Speaker 1: hear one of the best guitarist players you've ever heard.
Speaker 1: Like it's just you go for a sandwich, right, I
Speaker 1: mean literally anywhere you're in the airport there's a guy
Speaker 1: playing the guitar and he's unbelievable. He's not just like
Speaker 1: you know Joe Shmok. He's like he's really good. And Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just love it here in a way. I'm happy
Speaker 1: opening the tour there, but it's also a city that
Speaker 1: makes me nervous, Like it's like playing Yeah, you're it's
Speaker 1: like playing your hometown shore. When I play in London,
Speaker 1: I get nervous when I play in l A get
Speaker 1: nervous when I play in Dublin. I get nervous when
Speaker 1: I play in Nashville. I get nervous because you know
Speaker 1: that there's very talented musicians in the crowd, even if
Speaker 1: you know they're not. So since we're talking just a
Speaker 1: little bit about covers, I want to ask you one thing.
Speaker 1: I heard you say recently that when you were a kid,
Speaker 1: you're thirteen years old, you're playing in pubs, and so
Speaker 1: you needed to no songs for an older crowd, so
Speaker 1: you'd be playing Dylan McCartney. What was your dyling song? God,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you're kind of remember I played lots of
Speaker 1: McCarry play a lot, a lot of Beatles. I love
Speaker 1: playing Yesterday because people could sing along to it. Hey, jew,
Speaker 1: it was always a good one for a pub. And
Speaker 1: when I first started like making my like my own
Speaker 1: musical decisions, because I was brought up on like the
Speaker 1: Eagles and Fleetwood Mac and then at a certain point
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, actually I can go looking for
Speaker 1: music myself. With Tin Lizzy was a big one for
Speaker 1: me because, like they were, I was getting into my
Speaker 1: first bands in school and you know, being you know,
Speaker 1: standing my friends garage playing tunes and I remember hearing
Speaker 1: the song Dancing in the Moonlight within Lizzy and I
Speaker 1: remember thinking that has got a bit of everything. You know,
Speaker 1: I love Bruce Springsteen, so it's got the brass section.
Speaker 1: I loved that, the bass, the bass players, the lead singer,
Speaker 1: you know. I love tone of his voice and how
Speaker 1: energy some of the songs are, like Whiskey in the
Speaker 1: Jar and um, the Boys are Back in Town and
Speaker 1: like that summed up Ireland, and you know, I think
Speaker 1: that another one was like the idea of like a
Speaker 1: black musician being a you know, a black, powerful Irish
Speaker 1: musician was huge for me as well. I remember, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I was kind of relating black culture and
Speaker 1: music too to America, um and stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: having an Irish you know, black frontman was unbelievable for
Speaker 1: for me, and and discovering music at that level was
Speaker 1: was amazing. So having the thin Lizzy and McCartney and
Speaker 1: and people like that, it was just it was great.
Speaker 1: I'm just so lucky that I was up in that
Speaker 1: type of music. And when you were growing up and
Speaker 1: starting to play at that time, was it music of
Speaker 1: the past that you were watching onto or was there
Speaker 1: contemporary stuff that you were listening to as well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was all the old stuff, all the stuff that
Speaker 1: we've mentioned, and then there was like, um, my mother
Speaker 1: was a big fan of Schneia Twain and Garreth Brooks,
Speaker 1: so I had that kind of country thing already, the
Speaker 1: Irish music thing and the country music things you can't
Speaker 1: do friends and little places. I love Guard Brooks when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. He was like when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, he was playing like stadiums in Ireland. He
Speaker 1: was huge. Um yeah, and then I was like, well
Speaker 1: I supposed to listen to at the time kind of
Speaker 1: went like when I got into my teenagers. Then I
Speaker 1: had like more of a emo kind of punk rock
Speaker 1: and Green Day followup boy, my Chemical Romance, Um you
Speaker 1: know Dashboard Confessional no no, no, no no. You just
Speaker 1: kind of kind of what was in the charts at
Speaker 1: the time when when punk cat it's kind of big
Speaker 1: moment there. Hopefully that comes back around a big brilliant
Speaker 1: um uh. That kind of stuff was going to a
Speaker 1: lot of gigs. Then I was like into the English
Speaker 1: rock scene, which is like the Cooks, the Fritelli's, the
Speaker 1: raisor Light Arctic Monkeys that very like North of England punk,
Speaker 1: like Oaysis. Remember going to watch a gig at slain
Speaker 1: Castle in Ireland and it was Kasabian open up for
Speaker 1: the Prodigy opening up for Oasis, and it was like
Speaker 1: the best night in my life. I think. Um, a
Speaker 1: lot of underheage drinking happened at night, drink responsibly. Um,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. And that's the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that was in massive in my teens. Um. So
Speaker 1: when when people say when I've played, nice to meet
Speaker 1: you now, and people are like, oh, it sounds very
Speaker 1: like the Arctide Monkeys, Yes, because I was a teenager
Speaker 1: once when they were big, and that's the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that I listened to and then naturally kind of
Speaker 1: play when I pick up a guitar and write riff.
Speaker 1: I was always very guitar driven, like none of Like
Speaker 1: I love pop music and I remember like I auditioned
Speaker 1: for the X Factor, work like a Neo song or something,
Speaker 1: and I love the R and B era of like
Speaker 1: Chris Brown, Neo Jordan's Sparks, carry Hilton Kanye when he
Speaker 1: was at his in his prime. I loved all that stuff,
Speaker 1: but I always kind of kept going back to either
Speaker 1: like singer songwriter vibes, like because I was brought up
Speaker 1: in like Damian Rice as well. He was huge when
Speaker 1: I was a kid in the album Oh Change My Life.
Speaker 1: But I always found myself going back to like the
Speaker 1: rocky guitar driven stuff. And when you hear my music
Speaker 1: now it all starts to make sense. I think it does, indeed.
Speaker 1: And uh no, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1: Thanks for signing all the way from from America. Oh
Speaker 1: that was the easy part, to be honest. It's walking
Speaker 1: around in London that was terrifying to me. Well, because
Speaker 1: you know, I'm from New York, so the cars are
Speaker 1: coming from the wrong place, and New York is scary
Speaker 1: enough cities it is. You don't need the cards coming
Speaker 1: cars coming from the opposite direction. But I appreciate you
Speaker 1: coming over and doing this because it's a big trick
Speaker 1: to make for an interview. So I appreciate now complete pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. Thank you. Inside the Studio
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, check out the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.