Latest news with #LightingMatches
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Tom Grennan looks back: ‘After being beaten up, I went from thinking I was loved to feeling hated'
Born in 1995 in Bedford, Tom Grennan found fame as a guest vocalist on Chase & Status's 2016 track All Goes Wrong, which led to his inclusion on the BBC Sound of 2017 list. Known for his blend of soul, pop and indie rock, he released his debut album, Lighting Matches, in 2018 and has since had more than 1.5m album sales and 2.5bn streams. His new album, Everywhere I Went Led Me to Where I Didn't Want to Be, is out now. He tours from September. This was taken in my mum and dad's first house in Bedford. It must have been Halloween but I'm not sure what kind of monster wears socks on his hands or a Tom and Jerry T-shirt. I look very happy but boisterous, too – that graze on my face was probably because I'd fallen off my bike. My childhood was rich in love: my mum was a teacher and my dad is a builder, and while they worked hard, they were always there. Mum played a lot of pop like Madonna and Robbie Williams in the house, and my dad liked Irish music and had an accordion. It was a very working-class background, and while we didn't have a lot, I wouldn't have noticed. We lived on a quiet street, we had a back garden and all I needed was a football. As well as being a handful, Mum says I was a kind boy who was quite emotional, too. I was popular at school, and although I wasn't exactly a jock, being good at football does help you make friends. Socially I did well, but I was pretty naughty in class. I was dyslexic so I'd muck around and wouldn't pay attention because I didn't understand what the teachers were on about. They had this mad system at our school where they segregated our classes based on how well you behaved. There were about eight of us naughty kids who did lessons together. I didn't do any work for four years. I got excluded a few times, too – mainly for being a pain in the arse. My friends who got excluded would just go home and play the PlayStation. Not me: my mum took me to the school she taught at and made me sit in isolation. I had no idea I could sing until I was 18 and at a party. It was just after our A-levels and I'd got properly drunk for the first time. Someone put Seaside by the Kooks on to the stereo and I started singing along. People were like, 'What the hell? Do that again without the music on!' The reactions I got that night gave me this confidence and fire in my belly. After that I went from being the popular boy who played football to the guy who sings in a band. Then there was a turn. Bedford is a lovely small town, with its good sides and its bad sides. Everybody knows everybody. Which can be nice, but not always. Once I started singing, there was this general attitude of, 'Who do you think you are?' Friends became jealous and also resentful of what I was doing. Then the attack happened. One night, outside a chicken shop, I was beaten up by a group of strangers. The injuries were so bad, I had to have surgery on my jaw; they put in metal plates that I've only just had taken out. It wasn't only my body that changed – the attack made my brain feel as if I had been rewired. I went from thinking that I was loved by everyone, this golden boy, to being someone hated by the entire world. It felt like even people who didn't know me hated me. Pretty quickly, I became chronically depressed. It felt as if I was being suffocated by all these dark, negative thoughts. I didn't know whether I was going to kill myself or go out and do something stupid to the people that had messed me up. Before the attack I was an extrovert, someone who loved going out, finding adventures and never thinking of the consequences. Now I was an introvert who was terrified of leaving the house. Because my character was so different and I had become a recluse, all the friends that I had at school didn't want anything to do with me any more, apart from two, who are still my best friends. But in that loneliness and isolation is where I met my pen. I started to write down how I was feeling and I picked up a guitar and taught myself how to play. My mum was always asking me how I was doing, but I found it impossible to articulate it to her unless I put it into a song. Writing songs to process how I was feeling kickstarted the next part of my life. Every time I had an evening spare, I'd go to London and do open-mic nights. I was really naive and had no idea what I was doing or how to get discovered, but I knew that I loved performing my songs and meeting other musicians on the circuit. I looked like a proper indie boy – I had a shit beard, two nose piercings and wore skinny jeans, a hat and charity shop jumpers. It wasn't until I put a song online, and then did a show in a pub afterwards, that someone from a record label reached out, asking, 'Are these your songs?' I told him yes and he said I should come and see him. It all propelled from there. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Being in the music industry in London meant that nobody knew me or what I had been through. I realised I could create another persona, one that wasn't still struggling mentally. I became the guy who's always smiling but has a lot of problems underneath, and I found myself surrounded by the wrong people. There's probably more awareness about drugs and alcohol now, but nine years ago that rock'n'roll lifestyle was normal and encouraged around artists. Suddenly I was the person who would get the most fucked up, the guy who was the loudest in the room. Professionally, I had about five years of coasting. I was lucky: I put records out, I did all right, but I was close to getting dropped at one point because I was just self-destructing all the time. I would go on massive nights out that would end five days later. I'd disappear on my own. At the start of 2020, Mum came to my house and stayed with me for a few days. She quickly realised that the way I was living wasn't good. I was lost; I wasn't taking care of myself as I had been going out too much. In the end, she told me: 'It's time to come home.' Then lockdown happened. I couldn't go back to London as it was clear to my mum that I needed to be around people who knew and loved me. So I stayed in Bedford. I got fit, mentally and physically. I spent time with my brother and parents, and I reconnected with old friends on Zoom. Now I only drink alcohol on special occasions and only if I'm around good people. I got married last year – my wife is a pilates instructor, so she understands about keeping healthy, and always keeps me grounded. Writing songs and being in the studio brings out the best in me, too. I sound so boring, but it's true. For a while I stopped being the kind, emotional kid that I was when I was little. It's taken me a decade to figure it out, but I've done everything I can to get back to him.
RTÉ News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Tom Grennan: 'I've grown up in an Irish home - it's just not in Ireland'
Everywhere I Went, Led Me to Where I Didn't Want to Be is the new album from Tom Grennan. The "Bedford and Ireland" singer tells Harry Guerin about making it in the music business to album number four and the pull of home. Harry Guerin: When you talked to RTÉ Entertainment in 2018 before your debut album, Lighting Matches, was released, you said you were looking for "longevity". Here you are seven years later with your fourth album. Tom Grennan: I'm still looking for it, for sure! At the moment, things are going alright. I've had my head screwed on and I've known what I've wanted for many a year. But I think it took me a while to get to the place where I'm at now, where I'm like, 'Do you know what? Things are cool'. I'm just keeping busy and [I] just keep putting the songs out and see where they go. Everywhere I Went, Led Me to Where I Didn't Want to Be is a brilliant album title. Where did it come from? I was listening to Paul Simon. Paul Simon was a man who inspired me, and that title came from that (Paul Simon used a similar phrase to describe how he wrote Bridge Over Troubled Water). For me, that whole sentence just summed up everything about me, and where I've been at, who I've been, and who I am now. What I've done and what mistakes I've made - and how I've learned from them. Also, just being at peace with who I am. There was a long time where I was like, 'I don't want to be this person or I don't want to be that person'. Now, I'm kind of in a place where I'm like, 'Actually, there's loads of different sides of me'. I know what the good ones and what the bad ones [are]. It's a pretty deep album title. I wanted people to think on it and see how they related to it in their own life. It's an interesting juxtaposition, though, because if I had to pick one adjective to describe the album, I would say it's joyous. Definitely - and that's the album I wanted to make. I wanted to make a joyous album. I wanted to make an album that celebrated. Lyrically, if you wanted to sit down and investigate and go through what the songs are about, then there's thought and there's times for people where they go, 'Do you know what? There's a deeper meaning behind these songs'. But also, if you're a person like many who just wants to have a good time, then they (the songs) cater for everybody! What headspace were you in after finishing the tour for your last album, What Ifs & Maybes, and then going into the studio to make Everywhere I Went, Led Me to Where I Didn't Want to Be? I was just very much, 'I know what I want to do'. I was working with Justin Trenter (Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Chappell Roan), who's a massive songwriter, and various different [song]writers who I looked up to. I said I wanted to write an album that... I wanted it to be like a journey from being 21 in the music industry to 29 and how I navigated myself through that. But I want it to be the album that people go, 'He's a real popstar now!' I don't know whether it's done that yet and whether it will, but I think I put everything into it. I'm at a place in my life where I'm like, 'Well, it is what it is'. I'm putting out music that I love. Some people will love it, some people might not like it, but I'm cool with that too. Whereas back before, I used to be like, 'Everybody needs to love this'. I'm at peace with the fact that not everybody's going to like me. You talk about the journey from being 21 in the music industry to being 29, what was the biggest ask during that whole time for you? What do you look back on and say, 'I thought I had a sense of something being like that, but in reality it was like this'? I never got asked to do anything. It was more just like you're in this weird world and how do you navigate yourself through it? I got swirled up in it, and I also realised who I didn't want to be. There's a lot of fake people in it and there's a lot of smoke and mirrors in it - and not to get lost in it. You're playing the 3Arena on 13 September. What have you planned band- and stage-wise for this tour? It's going to be a big show! I'm not missing a trick on it! I'm going to put everything into it. Like I said about the album, I want people to be like, 'Wow, he's being very ambitious and very much believes in himself'. A lot of people coming to the shows have been fans from day one. I want them to also feel like not only have I done it, but we've done this [together]. People who would have seen me in a pub, and now I'm in these big arenas. And I'm there because of them, too. I want it to be a celebration for everybody and a win for everyone. You did Electric Picnic last year in your Ireland jersey. Would you hope to be back next year? At Electric Picnic? I'd love to! Wherever the wind takes me and wherever these songs take me, then I'll go! For me, I think that was a big moment. Somewhere where I consider home and it's across the sea - it's pretty special. I was reading Ed Sheeran recently saying that as he gets older, he's feeling more of the pull of his Irish identity. Is it the same for you? I mean, when you talked to us in 2017, you described yourself as 'Tom Grennan from Bedford and Ireland'. Do you feel your Irish roots more powerfully as you get older? I think it's always been powerful. It hasn't changed. I think, for me, I've always known who are my Irish roots and I've always been kind of drawn into them. And I think I've grown up in an Irish home - it's just not in Ireland. I'm someone with an English accent, but I'm very much Irish. What's the one thing you'd really like people to take away from this album? I think I want people to take from this record that it's ok to make mistakes, and there's always going to be a brighter day behind another door. Be happy with where life's at. Life is short, so try not to waste any minutes. Of course, we're all human, and anxiety will set in, but remember to smile when you can. And be very aware of your emotions because when you're not aware of emotions, that's when you can get lost. And I think that's where I was lost for a while.
