Hello Lee. You’re driving - where to?
I’m on my way to Leeds - I’ve got a gig up there which has just come in. It’s a little corporate event. Well they’re like your bread and butter.
More than record sales?
Well I don’t know - you can still make a lot of money through records sales, I think. You’ve got PRS and things like that. As a singer you’ve got a lot of streams of income that you could take from. I think what’s different these days is the structure of record labels, and how they make their money. Record sales are declining across the board but now they’re more into touring and merchandise. Touring’s very strong - you can’t download that experience, can you.
What are your live plans now?
I love playing live, I really do. At the moment I’m just waiting to see how this single does, to be completely honest. It’s such a nerve-wracking time. I’ve worked for four years to get to this place right now. I’m just so nervous about it. I’ve worked so long and so hard and taken different routes, and turned down a lot of other offers because they didn’t feel right... Then I got the right offer from Colin (Barlow, at Geffen Records) and it just felt right. But it’s taken me a long, long time to get here.
You say you’re scared about how many it sells. Obviously musicians talk a lot about ‘I’m just happy to have made the music, it doesn’t matter how it sells’, isn’t that something you feel?
That’s bullshit. Am I happy that I’ve made music? Yes - I’m happy and I’m really proud of it and I listen to my album all the time, and my family and friends like it. But I don’t make music because I want my family and friends to like it - I want to share it with the world.
The other point being that if a single does well, it makes it more likely that you’ll get to release another.
Yes. It means I get to release the album, which is more important for me. I want the album to come out, I want people to hear the body of work that I’ve done. The first album I did, I didn’t write any of it, I just got given a lot of songs and I didn’t even know how to promote it because it didn’t make any sense to me. This time round I’ve really walked the walk, I’ve been to America, come back, been through turmoil and stress and anxiety, thinking I’d never be able to come back into this industry again, and I’ve had the opportunity to really take four years out of my life to come up with this album, so it means a lot to me.
Presumably part of that period was spent coming to terms with the fact that you’re never going to be as big as Blue were.
This album is more about what I’m trying to say.
So what are you trying to say?
I think I’m the backbone of this album. I think a lot of people have a misconception of who I am. It’s people in the industry and it’s people in the street. I was out the other day and I was walking through Hyde Park with my guitarist and we sat down and just started jamming with these people who were queuing for a Kings Of Leon concert. And we were sitting and talking with them and I said, ‘I’ve got a new single out’, and they said, ‘play us your new single then’, so I just started playing it with my guitarist, and they all said ‘wow man you can really sing and I love that song’. And one bloke went, ‘and I’ve got to be honest with you, I thought you were a knob but you’re actually quite nice’. The thing is I say stupid shit but it’s normally in jest. I don’t know why people take me so seriously sometimes, like I mean everything I say, or something.
.... continua a leggere/ keep reading
|
0 commenti:
Posta un commento