00:00:00
no one signs a record deal and has a manager come up and go there's a good chance you're going to be really famous here's a pamphlet on how to not be
00:00:10
[Music] money and fame can show you who you are and one of the things you said is the person i was when i was 27 was a [ __ ] monster when i became famous i just went
00:00:23
a bit off the rails with drugs and alcohol i think there was just this one weekend at glastonbury where i just kind
00:00:28
of disappeared for 48 hours i was in an absolute state what was the cost well it's just not nice to see your parents
00:00:34
cry you know wow i look back as it being one of the worst weeks ever and then i met erin just
00:00:44
watching someone grow a baby and give birth is like one of the most sobering experiences ever you tragically had a
00:00:51
miscarriage on your second i remember i was invited onto lorraine and i was meant to go on and talk about a single
00:00:57
on a tour just before i went on they went we just found out you lost the second baby do you want to make the whole interview about that
00:01:03
i got so many messages from guys afterwards just going that was amazing you went on a spoke about that i've realized those have been the first times
00:01:08
i've spoken about things that i should have probably spoken about with friends or family a long time ago if you were
00:01:14
advising a younger elliot what would you say in terms of the components that make
00:01:19
for a good life i've often thought about this so without further ado i'm stephen bartlett and this is the diary of a ceo i hope nobody's listening but if you are then please keep this to
00:01:31
yourself [Music] one of the things i always try and do again because i i tend to believe that we are all a product of our like of
00:01:44
typically our significant childhood events whatever they might be when i look at your story i was hazarding a
00:01:49
guess as well i was saying well this was obviously quite a key moment this is the key moment but in your own words what
00:01:55
were those catalyst key moments from your childhood that ultimately shaped you to become who you are today oh wow um i think
00:02:06
in terms of work ethic um it's definitely from my mom and dad i was very aware as a kid um you know even like even before as a teenager how
00:02:19
much time and effort my mom and dad put into well like they're both working class and they
00:02:24
both came from very humble beginnings but i think the main thing i was aware of is that my dad was always away working as a kid
00:02:31
i was also aware that a lot of my friends parents weren't together you know there were a lot of them were raised by just a single mums
00:02:38
um but then i also saw how much effort my mum put in she was she didn't have a day job but i could see how hard my mum
00:02:44
worked especially with my dad being away so i think the work ethic thing has helped me a great deal in terms of
00:02:50
where i've got to um par not so much anymore but partly trying to impress them or
00:02:57
you know feeling like i lived up to their standards maybe in my early 20s mid-20s apart from
00:03:04
you know like my parents influence as a kid i think mainly i'd say that you know the
00:03:10
culture at school in terms of music culture london i grew up in fulham i went to school in wandsworth
00:03:16
and even that was a really nice school in terms of it was a modern school as a technology college
00:03:21
as uh i said the majority of kids i went to school we've all lived on council estates and i didn't but i spent a lot of time down
00:03:28
there so i think that was really good in helping me not only understand um different cultures and therefore as a result where the music cultures came from just like
00:03:39
how other people live and how other people you know what people have to go go through you know like some of my best friends their mums would have five jobs
00:03:47
and they'd be living in two bedroom uh council flats with like seven siblings so i think that even though i didn't live that life it was quite opening to see that um
00:03:58
did you enjoy school love school loved i i loved drama loves maths i was really good at maths but not very good at english which is weird because i use the english language i
00:04:09
manipulate english language for for financial gain really but um yeah i wasn't very good at english and wasn't very good at science because i wasn't interested in them i wasn't really interested in
00:04:20
religious studies because i always found there was occasionally two the different you know religions whether it's sikh
00:04:25
hindu muslim christian would be like little squabbles in the playground so i kind of didn't like that religion could
00:04:31
segregate people so but everything else i was interested in geography math drama art
00:04:38
music i excelled at and loved because you know i loved going to school my mum was always like
00:04:44
you were an absolute nerd but when it comes to school you like you couldn't wait to get there and you couldn't wait to tell me about everything you'd
00:04:49
learned that day and you couldn't wait to get there the next day and when it was coming to the end of school holidays you couldn't wait to get back to school
00:04:55
so i think i i enjoyed structure and i enjoyed either the attention from being a class clown at a playground you know playtime because i wasn't ever very good at sport
00:05:06
i was good at running in a straight line or swimming in a straight line but i wasn't good at team sports so i think
00:05:11
um i i really felt like that school was good for not only my brain which was a bit hyperactive but also i got this outlet of
00:05:22
doing making people laugh by doing impressions why did you care about that making people laugh because i just think
00:05:28
i felt like i don't know i've always enjoyed being an attention seeker um my mom said that when i was a you know very young like five five six years old
00:05:39
she felt that was a misbehaving a lot at school and she made a decision to put me on stage in the local grammar drama
00:05:45
group i definitely think my mum spotted something in me which was like this kid needs to perform and he needs attention and that's his outlet and that sort of levels him out a bit i'm surprised to
00:05:57
hear that you were so keen to get back to school because i also read that you were at some point bullied by the other kids yeah i was but i think because
00:06:05
my mum and dad did such a good job and sort of i don't i can't i can't even remember
00:06:10
any specific lessons but i just know that my mom always made me feel loved and uh
00:06:16
understood you know so if i was if i'd go home and just be like yeah they took the piss out on my teeth again
00:06:23
today or they took piss out my ears again today or whatever she'd just be like son we are all built differently like we were you know she was like your dad had funny ears when i met him and
00:06:36
he's the most beautiful man in the world as far as i'm concerned you know just little lessons like that so i just think there was so much love
00:06:41
at home that whatever hit me on the outside world whether that was down the local
00:06:46
park you know little kids in gangs or at school i just felt like i was mentally prepared
00:06:52
for it and then i think that kind of helped it gives you quite a thick skin in terms of when it comes to
00:06:58
you get into the music business it's like you have to deal with so much um disappointment like when i think that i've been doing this i'd say
00:07:09
you know i got my first record doing 2006 but i was releasing music in 2004. um i've played over a thousand gigs you know like most of my peer group have disappeared now um from say 2010 2011
00:07:22
when i think of like my peer group from around then like chasing status and sub focus are still going
00:07:29
um but most of the other artists that i came up with have kind of disappeared or send me retired or are kind of just sort of like doing their own thing on the peripheral now whereas
00:07:40
i'm still very much my focus is like i'm only competing myself i used to worry so much about
00:07:46
competing with them you know mm-hmm and you got you got diagnosis at a fairly young age for having asperger's yeah well yeah but i've been
00:07:57
my mom was quite good and i think she uh i think whether it was i don't i can't remember
00:08:03
because i was so young but it would have ever been from her friends you know other moms down the park going
00:08:08
elliot's a bit you know on the spectrum and you know what's what's up with him because i was
00:08:15
such a i suppose like hyperactive kid and i i'd sort of seem to flip between different personalities all the time but i also had these weird you know weird sort of
00:08:26
like uh nervous twitches um and i would uh if i had a photographic memory for like even at a young age i'd be like just look at a list of
00:08:36
i know like the american states and just memorize them very like within two or three reads or i'd get
00:08:42
the trivial pursuit box out and memorize every single question in a box of tribal pursuit
00:08:48
just so when we came to play with like neighbors or friends or family at a barbecue i knew the answer to everything
00:08:54
i think my dad didn't clock that i'd memorize them all but instead of telling everyone that i had memorized them all he was like yeah my son's really really
00:08:59
sharp he's really well you know um things like that you know how does that sit with you now that that diagnosis and
00:09:06
do you still well i just think every there's no way of knowing who what anyone is i think everyone can be a little bit of everything everything it's
00:09:13
not it's not clear-cut to just go this person is this diagnosis based on you know research by doctors and scientists and other patients it's very hard because i think every human
00:09:24
being has a little bit of of something and you could you can't just say someone is
00:09:30
100 definitely got this yeah you know that thing so i prefer i can see some things in my
00:09:36
eldest already where he shows certain similarities to me as a kid but then erin says no i used to do that as a kid as well and she's a bit mad like me as well but
00:09:47
i think weird is good i definitely think weird is good and i think it's special and i think my mum
00:09:53
spotted that so i'm kind of glad that i was never put into any special programs or put into a special school or
00:09:59
extracurricular activities or even on light medication i'm quite thankful for that because i've got friends my age
00:10:07
who've been on meds since they were kids and are still on some form now you know and they think they're
00:10:14
bipolar or aspergeric or adhd and and i'm like there's actually a really close friend of mine who i actually encouraged him to maybe have like six months off
00:10:26
and he uh he's better for it now and he doesn't take the meds anymore he's like you know he's better at dealing with his uh let's say his demons and his you know these thoughts maybe it used to
00:10:37
haunt him and scare him he's he stopped taking the meds and he's he doesn't take him he's back for it
00:10:44
have you have you ever had any of those demons especially at a young age that you used to contend with
00:10:50
i think the main thing and i still contend with it now is sometimes i just have so many thoughts
00:10:57
uh am i i'm not like a warrior i've never been a warrior because i've always known how to compartmentalize stuff and i'm i'm really good with admin i'm really good at multitasking
00:11:09
but i've it's kind of been a gift and a curse like it's i either been having a whole say film script or scenario in my head going round and round
00:11:21
that i can't seem to switch off and that might be whilst i'm in a meeting i'm not doing it now
00:11:27
it might be you know like when i say multitasking i'm like i can sometimes be in the studio writing a song but have a
00:11:32
shopping list in my head that i just can't seem to get rid of um which is why yoga can be really good
00:11:39
for me and like you know breath work like vim hof style that really levels me out um
00:11:45
but for instance like i when i'm freestyling you know like and i don't mean like pre-written raps that people go out and perform in a battle inside i mean like just like
00:11:57
freestyling like rhyming like sometimes i'll be at the gym and i'll be there for 45 minutes and the
00:12:03
whole time i'm there i'm freestyling in my head and it could be about what that person is wearing what exercise that person's
00:12:10
doing what music's playing and it's kind of gift and a curse because it's great for
00:12:16
you know when you're producing songs just words being able to just fall out flow out but also just like not being able to
00:12:22
switch off sometimes so i'll be in a room having a conversation with someone and they're like you're not listening are you and i'm
00:12:29
really sorry but i've got a shopping that's right you're like okay what are you getting later and i'm just there like swiss cheese
00:12:39
like swiss cheese i've just got a very overactive frame you talked about failure a second ago you said you know going into the music industry there's a lot you met with a lot of failure and ups and downs after
00:12:50
your first album um your first studio album i was reading about your kind of your feelings and
00:12:56
sentiments towards it it sounded like you were gonna quit yeah i think you have to be prepared for
00:13:02
disappointment in this industry especially because i'm about to release my eighth album
00:13:08
and i don't really have any expectations for it other than whoever hears it i hope really enjoys it because i don't
00:13:13
really know how many streams it's gonna do or it's just you have to be quite robust
00:13:19
in the sense that you may put so much time and effort into a song and radio one or capital turn around and don't playlist it or
00:13:30
you make a song and think this is going to perform really well on spotify because i should get on the workout playlist
00:13:37
and it will get on the uk house playlist and maybe this could do well in germany and like not that i make music like that
00:13:43
but once the song's finished you can't help but have expectations for it and then to think that you might have
00:13:49
spent you know i might have written it in four or five hours but then spent six months perfecting the mix downs and
00:13:54
adding instrumentation and so on or adding another vocalist or a feature to it and then to think that that might come
00:14:00
out and someone's someone somewhere is like nah not actually into this when i was
00:14:06
trying to ministry of sound it was so much pressure like you know constant meetings every week i
00:14:11
wouldn't go to them because after a while they get too intense but it's like we're ready one uh uh discussing this in playlist this week we're hopefully gonna
00:14:17
go on the c list next week and then two weeks later we'll hopefully move up to the b list and then the aim is weaker release we're gonna be on the a list and
00:14:23
we should be getting 11 to 15 spins a week and you know hopefully we'll going straight into itunes with pre-orders
00:14:28
into the top ten and we'll climb to number one and mtv are fully behind this and you're going to do a live lens next week and capital have just come on board
00:14:34
with it and it's all you know it's it's great when you're flying you know and obviously you always have number one singles and top tens
00:14:40
it's great but you realize the pressure that artists are put under and managers and then the pressure that the record labels are putting on themselves you know to compete
00:14:52
with you know because they've got to bring in x amount of revenue as you know if you're in marketing or andr
00:14:58
they're under pressure from your bosses and then the artists are under pressure from the label and then the managers are under
00:15:05
pressure from what the artist expects and it's actually a losing formula money and fame they often say can show you who you
00:15:11
are or it can bring out the the best and worst in you and one of the things you said is the person i was when
00:15:16
i was 27 was a [ __ ] monster compared to the person i was when i was 21. yeah what did you mean by
00:15:22
[ __ ] monster i was just um well see so i i hadn't tried uh class a drugs until i was 23 which is mad because most of my
00:15:34
friends and peer group in music and i grew up with were probably doing it at 14. um
00:15:41
and then i just think when i became famous and came into money i just went a bit
00:15:46
off the rails with drugs and alcohol but i was also in a relationship where i was lying to my girlfriend and cheating on
00:15:52
her and i was just everywhere i was going girls were throwing themselves at me and
00:15:58
people wanted to party with me and people were doing everything they could to try and keep me awake all night with them you know whether it was girls or bad
00:16:04
influences other celebrities you know and then you get carried away she's like oh my god i'm hanging out with such and
00:16:10
such actor and such and such footballer and this model and this person and where we've got access to this bar and this
00:16:16
club and we've walked straight into this restaurant and got a table so you just go off the rails a bit and i feel like
00:16:22
everybody kind of needs to when you get to that stage every artist actor that i've spoken to whether
00:16:28
they've chipped away it for years like i did or just had this sudden overnight fame i
00:16:33
feel like you kind of need to get out your system because it's kind of like it's not not saying everyone has to but
00:16:38
nearly everybody i know is just like oh god how amazing does this feel right i'm getting free clothes and free
00:16:45
trainers and i've just been giving this free car i'm getting upgraded on this flight and i've
00:16:50
got this table this restaurant that i couldn't get before i've been invited to this premiere i was just on that television show with that hollywood
00:16:57
actor and then i'm in this person's house you know this person's giving me free drugs
00:17:02
and this girl wants to sleep with me and this guy these girls want to freeze them and then all this [ __ ] so
00:17:08
he's like why would you not take it because you get to do something that you know it's like a one in a million thing no one
00:17:13
else gets to do this you don't you don't go i need to do this because no one else gets to do it you're just like this is [ __ ] this is fun this is mad like my
00:17:21
life's mad right now and i just defy anyone to not to not do the same i mean i think you know sometimes like top level athletes because
00:17:32
they have to their focus is being an athlete so it's all about their body and their fitness
00:17:38
they can't do drugs and alcohol in the same way so i think for a lo that's why that footballers just end up like i'm gonna
00:17:44
have 15 cars or i'm gonna get gambling addiction because everyone needs some kind of
00:17:51
vice i guess i mean all human beings need some kind of vice anyway i think i think that's how we're built we're not
00:17:57
meant to just live squeaky clean right constantly like i think life's boring like
00:18:03
and it doesn't have to be sex or drugs and alcohol but someone you need something you need something
00:18:08
to obsess over that feels a little bit like naughty a little bit edgy what was the cost because i mean all that sounds great but there's got to be everything in life has a cost well
00:18:19
the cost was i you know i broke a a lovely girl's heart and you know took her a while to deal with that i'm sure afterwards and
00:18:29
you know i probably upset quite a few people along the way i know my parents weren't proud of me even though i was doing really well
00:18:36
career-wise um there was like a moment where there was a bit of an intervention you know it was almost like what have you become
00:18:44
you know we're not proud of you this is not cool what caused that i just i think there was just this one
00:18:51
weekend at glastonbury where i just kind of went down with my band and crew and my girlfriend and my sister and i just
00:18:56
kind of just completely went off the radar kind of disappeared for 48 hours and then everyone was like where is he
00:19:02
and obviously glastonbury's a crazy place to get lost in anyway and then i just turned up 15 minutes before i went on stage so still professional
00:19:09
but i was like i was uh i was in an absolute state around like 2012 maybe 2010 to 2012 well it wasn't great when your family staged an intervention
00:19:23
what does that look like in like real terms is that like a phone call or is that well no it's like sort of catching me off guard and
00:19:29
sitting me down in a in a room you know and showing me how disappointed they are
00:19:34
and how did you take that well it's just not nice to see your parents cry you know it's quite
00:19:40
you know it still took me a few years after that to get my act together um but yeah i just i don't i don't feel like there's any real shame in it looking back like i'm
00:19:51
not i'm not saying i'm proud of it but i just feel like certain mistakes have to be made it's
00:19:57
like in the same way i don't really have any regrets about anything i'm just like everything i've ever done in life however bad it is whoever i've hurt or
00:20:03
whatever i've learned from it and i've tried to make amends for it you know did is there in hindsight information
00:20:09
that you didn't have that caused you to choose that path like is there something you you now know that is stopping you from
00:20:17
repeating that cycle and just continuing to do that well it's just like i mean like my mum was as a kid she was like i
00:20:23
was i was a liar as a kid but she said they were like not really lies that really would hurt anyone she said i just knew that you had
00:20:29
this overly creative brain and this imagination so you would just take situations and just exaggerate
00:20:36
them and she was like and it kind of makes sense that you're a songwriter and you're a storyteller and i get that and
00:20:42
looking back now you never there are certain times i know it would really upset my parents and my mum in particular because she was spending more
00:20:49
time with me probably day to day you know like 10 like little white lies about scenarios that had happened just
00:20:55
because i sort of enjoyed the fact maybe that i would attention seeking could manipulate a situation that i could take a situation and my imagination run
00:21:06
wild with it and create other scenarios and i think that was uh something i don't do at all anymore but like lying as a kid and then carrying that through i didn't then obviously
00:21:17
realize at school you can't get away with certain things because you know there's structure and there's teachers so it probably calmed me down a bit then
00:21:24
and then i'd had like four serious girlfriends and i'd never once cheated on them because it just wasn't
00:21:31
on my radar wasn't the way i've been brought up but it's just like i guess and i've spoken to other
00:21:38
guys about this and girls this is like you have that first time you do it you feel bad and then one becomes two
00:21:44
and then two becomes five and five becomes ten and then it just kind of spirals out of control and you kind of just like numb your brain to it
00:21:50
and i just don't think there's no no one signs a record deal or gets into the music industry and has a record label or
00:21:56
a manager come up to them and go by the way there's a good chance you're going to be really successful and famous in
00:22:01
the next year or two years so read this book here's a pamphlet on how to not be a [ __ ] people often say that if you are a late
00:22:12
late to lose your virginity you some when you get into your adulthood you kind of make up for lost time well that's that was me so all my friends were losing the virginia at 13 and 14
00:22:23
and i was 17 and a half so i was probably one won the last at my school maybe it's just a part of south london
00:22:31
but um yes i used to hear stories from other other guys at school about some of the
00:22:36
stuff they were doing at 14 and that was just like absolutely mind blown but i definitely feel that because i was a
00:22:42
late bloomer then by the time i was in my like early to late 20s i just went crazy with it because you're
00:22:48
almost doing it for your younger self you know yeah yeah that was what i was i suspected because
00:22:54
i was reading through and i remember thinking yeah if you're a bit of a late bloomer and then you get it full-on you know
00:23:00
yeah early 20s because you become this star and it's thrown at you it's always like exactly because like some guys at school
00:23:07
like you know the guys who develop a bit faster than the other guys you know they've got biceps and six packs at 13
00:23:13
14. and they're exceptional at football regardless of what their academics like or they're the fastest sprinter and then
00:23:19
they're really good looking and then i went to school with guys who slept with like 15 girls by the time they were 16.
00:23:25
so chances are they get to the mid to late 20s and they're not like oh i need to just go out there and go crazy
00:23:30
because they've already done it whereas not only did i i didn't feel like i needed to go crazy but given the
00:23:36
opportunity and you're presented with like you can i'm just like a kid in a sweet shop you know exactly and then like really you're
00:23:43
just like yeah this isn't me you know i just become a bit boring and mundane after a while was there a point where you you felt that well you thought you know i'm doing all this but i hate
00:23:54
myself was that 2000 yeah and then luckily i just and then i met aaron what was so but specifically so was that was there days where you were waking up thinking what
00:24:05
the [ __ ] is my life yeah like it's also it's like you come on stage at a gig at 11 p.m in manchester i remember there was this one week we was just like i look back as
00:24:17
it being one of the worst weeks ever where um i was just splitting up properly with my ex who i cheated on a lot you know
00:24:27
moving out from hers i was pretty lonely because i was living with my step-grandad
00:24:32
in like a an ex-council house in fulham um and he was like 93 and the whole house was like it smelled quite bad and it was falling apart i mean his blessing he was in great shape
00:24:44
and for 93 and but obviously the house wasn't the cleanest nicest place you could live i
00:24:50
didn't really have much cash even though i was starting to become quite famous and successful it was like the money
00:24:56
tends to come six months later you know you have a number one single or kick starts with number three in the charts
00:25:01
your festival fees will go up tenfold but probably not until the following summer
00:25:06
and so i'm still living with him so it's quite it's quite embarrassed to bring friends or even girls back to this place
00:25:12
um so i just moved finally moved out from what my ex which has had to happen it was a long time coming and then i was like i was doing a gig in manchester came on
00:25:25
stage at 11 and then i had to be up at 4 30 a.m the next day to shoot a music video because
00:25:30
we had to catch a catch sunrise and i was like why can't we do sunset and pretend it's sunrise you know so i
00:25:36
can actually go home and have a sleep they're like oh the director can't work that late or something and i remember looking
00:25:42
when i look like i've never watched a music video since it was for a video called two lives and the lyric is actually called it's like two lives
00:25:48
living two lives don't know which side of me is where the truth lies that's the chorus
00:25:53
um so it was like a poignant moment recording a music video for a song on about three hours sleep i looked awful
00:26:00
in the video like huge bags on my eyes and then went back from the video shoot to this house where my step granddad was
00:26:07
and just sort of sat in bed feeling quite lonely and then the next day doing like a
00:26:14
magazine cover shoot and then going straight to radio one to record a live lounge and then going out for dinner that night
00:26:21
for you know like for a pr press junket or something and then the next day was like another tv show and another radio
00:26:27
show and then i caught this girl to come around just because i literally just wanted a cuddle
00:26:34
you know and then was up there till like 4 a.m and then up at 8am and then starting a taxi for like an hour and a half to go
00:26:39
across to that hackney whole time just you know i remember just getting to the end of the week just going like i can't do this
00:26:46
i can't do this right and i remember saying to my manager i was just like we need to start
00:26:51
cancelling this tv and radio and it was just like you know he's like you can't cancel going on graham norton
00:26:57
you know you can't cancel going on you may be canceled no offense probably cancels going on sunday brunch
00:27:03
sorry sunday brunch but you just got banned for something yeah and then and then you're almost like
00:27:10
when's my next day off in eight days you know stuff like that it was like what we've got this weekend
00:27:15
again because i'm at this point wouldn't look at the diaries it would scare me it was like well you've got
00:27:20
um i beat the rocks friday and then you've got global gathering saturday and then you've got um something in finland on sunday
00:27:31
and then i was like i've got monday off no no no you got majorca and then you've got ibiza again tuesday
00:27:37
and then you get into each thing and you're just so completely knackered like [ __ ] that you're just like okay i have a drink you know i'm
00:27:48
drinking on the plane drinking we get there and then you kind of remember the gigs i remember like you look look at the
00:27:53
photos in the videos you're like the crowd we're having an amazing time thank god that i can do this even when i'm at my lowest when i've got no energy left
00:28:00
when i've had six seven drinks but i looked back and that was one of the worst weeks ever and then i think it
00:28:07
was maybe like june 2011 album came i know july and then i went to australia in october that year to do my first ever australian and that's when i met erin
00:28:18
when you're like sort of self-medicating to kind of deal with the pace of life or whatever
00:28:24
it tends to be the case i mean just from sitting here speaking to musicians that you're not far especially when you like
00:28:30
you use the word lonely with like a lack of connection you're not far away there from mental health issues like anxiety and
00:28:38
depression and those kinds of things typically when you find yourself without connection in your life
00:28:44
self-medicating stressed by just looking at the thought of this hectic schedule a lack of sleep
00:28:51
i can't imagine the diet was phenomenal no it wasn't i mean like i i've always been into fitness and running and i
00:28:57
would like even when i was really really knackered like i've got my apartment still in in
00:29:02
fulham right next to craven cottage and it's actually that that was a big help because that whole period is like
00:29:08
waking up every day the river gave me so much calm right were you anxious yeah but you just
00:29:14
get up and sit on the balcony and have like i'll make fried eggs on toast whatever beans on toast and just look across the river and i live on the part
00:29:20
of the river where there's no buildings opposite it's like the barnes wetlands center so you feel like you're in the
00:29:25
countryside so that's a great escapism straight away from london in general so i feel like when i bought
00:29:31
that um you know subconsciously i was probably thinking about this peace and tranquility escape from whenever i'm
00:29:38
home i'd close the door to my apartment and i've got the river there but it was uh
00:29:44
i think i was quite smart and i whenever i could i would go for a swim or i'd go
00:29:49
for a run because i remember my dad used to say to me when he was so when my mum was pregnant with me
00:29:55
my dad was working as i said two hours up in birmingham so driving four hours a day
00:30:00
um because it was the only job he could get at the time he was working for a um computer services company um nixdorf
00:30:07
siemens group and he had alopecia as well from stress his dad was dying he was pregnant with my mom and he was training for the marathon and i think that you know stress-related alopecia is
00:30:20
quite clear why he lost his hair given everything the aforementioned things um and but i think running is what saved him from a very young age like that time
00:30:31
alone and like whenever i go for a run to this day i don't listen to music i i that most people go for to listen to
00:30:38
music for fitness whatever that is my brain escapism and it's either swimming yoga or running
00:30:43
it's the only time when i can not think about anything else and whenever i was anxious or stressed about things that
00:30:49
those are the things that saved me i actually think that living by the river and even if i did it twice a week during
00:30:55
those stressful times just being able to get up and just go for a four mile jog i don't know where my head would have
00:31:01
been like if i hadn't got that like i've been out to go out and do that and run by specifically by the river not
00:31:07
through a city with traffic lights and cars on straight onto the towpath over hammersmith bridge along the river by
00:31:13
fields over putney bridge back through bishops park pretty much the area i grew up in and then also i got to the stage
00:31:19
where i was like i was calling girls up to come over and it was like who's going to give the best cuddle and who's going to stroke me to sleep but that's where again not didn't really make a conscious
00:31:30
decision but looking back now it would be like i don't just want to have like meaningless sex i just want to actually
00:31:36
be held you know bear in mind my mom dad and sister lived on the other side of the world by this point they'd moved to australia
00:31:42
you know didn't have a girlfriend like i had my mates you know in my band who would in a way
00:31:47
of traveling with the bands that thing so i traveled with a dj now but back then i traveled drums guitar bass and then five or six crew it's kind of like
00:31:53
a little family on the road so that was probably better than if i'd been with just the dj that would have been quite lonely um but yeah i kind of feel like
00:32:01
my there was an intelligent emotionally intelligent part of me i wasn't actually in tune with
00:32:07
was inviting girls over who were going to give me the best cuddle and struck me to sleep so i just felt you know from
00:32:12
that sort of fetal position and felt loved or felt safe you know what i mean did you know you were lonely
00:32:18
like in the at the time no i didn't at all that's what i'm saying but in hindsight yeah there's so many things
00:32:24
about that whole period where i was so ambitious and i was so resilient and i was also despite what i was putting into my body all things considered pretty
00:32:35
healthy or i certainly had endurance um in terms of what i was capable of mental insurance and physical insurance
00:32:42
so yeah so i wasn't healthy i mean i was i just had endurance tonight stamina and that was
00:32:48
probably from you know starting the whole uh drugs and alcohol thing way later than most other people you know like say
00:32:59
23 24 had i started that at 18 like most of my friends probably would have burnt out ways sooner but i was in you know when i wasn't on tour and i wasn't doing promotions i was at the gym nearly every
00:33:10
day and i'd go to the gym and then for a run so i was in pretty good shape to be able to do all these things and also
00:33:15
performing for 90 minutes on stage can be like playing a football match and you know sometimes you plan five
00:33:22
football matches a week and i would always have a good physio after i got back you know so every three
00:33:28
or four days i'd have a full body massage needles um cupping so on just to and then i would whenever i could i would spend a whole day two three days i know it doesn't sound that much but just
00:33:40
complete detox what what was it that made you go from being someone who was dishonest in your relationships and
00:33:47
would would cheat on your partner to being honest and committed was there a catalyst event was it erin was it
00:33:54
i just think when i met erin we just sort of fell so head over in heels with each other within pretty much the first night
00:34:02
um and then she dropped me off at the airport and she was almost a bit tearful she was i don't think i'm ever going to
00:34:07
see you again i bet you've got a girlfriend in every city i was like not at all no i've got a few in london but no i was like you think too highly of me i haven't got girlfriend ever see
00:34:19
and then she called her mum and her mum was like i bet he's got a girlfriend every single she was like no no she goes honestly i think we're gonna get married
00:34:25
after we spent the night together um but that was my sort of moment i was just like reset go back to who you've always known you were
00:34:37
meant to be you know be the person that your mom and dad raised which is to be honest and faithful and
00:34:43
and you were honest with her from the jump we basically it it was weird because we got to know each other a lot over face time
00:34:50
and then she'd come to london for two weeks and go back to sydney and then i'd go to australia maybe for a week and then we'd speak on the phone for three
00:34:57
weeks and then she'd come to london again for maybe a month and then i'd go spend christmas in australia do some festivals but also see
00:35:03
my mom and dad and my sister and spend time i lived with her and bond there but because that time becomes so precious
00:35:09
you tell each other absolutely everything so i think we'd been together six months and we knew
00:35:15
everything about each other in terms of uh x's uh worst fears you know biggest achievements biggest wants desires everything sexually all the partners we've been with like you
00:35:26
just it was almost like speed dating crash course of like you know when you when people are together generally they'll be intimate with each other or they'll just laugh and giggle and
00:35:38
go out for dinner you meet each other's friends and so on when you're chatting over facetime it tends to be more like an interview
00:35:44
you know so you end up over sharing what has aaron taught you about love there'll be a lot of people that are listening to your story and they'll think maybe i'm in the reckless phase where i'm i'm sampling all the forbidden
00:35:55
fruit and then it seems quite clear from your story that you you met this person and as you said you kind of both changed
00:36:01
each other but what what what advice can you impart on on someone who's in that reckless phase
00:36:06
oh and i think if people in a reckless phase you you either you're like i need to do this now and i don't know how long
00:36:13
you're going to do that for but people if you're smart you can work it out i've got guys i know now who are like
00:36:19
they that because you know they work in high intensity high pressured worlds of like
00:36:26
finance and hedge funds and i know a lot of guys who want to settle down but also on the side want to continue having these other experiences
00:36:38
with women and i think they feel that they have a right to do that now i'm not sure if
00:36:44
that's because of the mentality of a lot of people that i work in that world with you know like it's a boys
00:36:50
club sort of thing and and that's that's you know that's just how it is i feel like some of them you know like there's a lot of guys who like seem to be happily married with kids
00:37:00
my age a bit older and seem to have all these other girlfriends and flings and bits on the
00:37:06
side if you'd eren out another phase in your life though do you think it would have worked out do you think so
00:37:11
i met we met at the perfect time that's why she's just get up with someone like timing is a key factor yeah she'd been single for maybe seven weeks and i'd
00:37:18
been single for maybe three months if you'd met her at say 20 i don't know five i don't think so if i
00:37:24
win a match two or three years earlier wouldn't have worked we met exactly right it was almost like
00:37:30
the stars aligned the universe decided that we were going to collide at that moment
00:37:36
mentioned she was a gemini and then you just mentioned the universe decided are you at all um spiritual i wasn't
00:37:42
and i am now did she have a role to play in that yeah i guess so because you know i just
00:37:47
i used to just think i was in control of everything and i know i was one of those people i don't believe in luck you make your own
00:37:53
luck because i was kind of what my dad would instill in me and i've never been religious and i never used to believe in
00:37:59
zodiacs but then i did used to believe you know after i'd uh read some stephen hawking
00:38:04
stuff and then you start reading books on lateral thinking and the laws of attraction and so on you sort of go oh actually yeah we are just atoms just bouncing off on
00:38:18
one another just like because we've got brains and we can make our own decisions but that doesn't still mean that we aren't in control of
00:38:24
the energy around us and the energy around other people and how we collide and then what things come out of that
00:38:31
um so as soon as i got my head around that and then aaron started explaining the zodiac and when you were born and what time of day you were born and you know the the distance between
00:38:43
planets and so on and what moon it was that day i used to i guess i didn't have the
00:38:48
patience for it before and then like she's like explaining actually yeah and that's why some people have certain
00:38:54
traits and so on i'm not like i'm more into like spirituality since um you know i'd start
00:39:00
doing yoga for instance and meditation you know like two or three times a week we'll do a sauna and ice bath put the kids to bed we'll do like 10 minutes sauna 2 minutes
00:39:10
ice 10 minutes long and two minutes ice and then you just come out just feel like you know you feel so alive
00:39:17
um and then the moment you kind of have kids and you're like oh my god there's these other human beings that we made
00:39:24
you do get in touch a lot more with your your spiritual side i think because you're just like
00:39:30
you know you could it's like science and spirituality can go side by side i think you know i think
00:39:37
the spiritual awareness of oneself actually comes from having a greater understanding of science and the
00:39:43
way the universe works in general what impact does that have on your life yoga breath work and all that stuff
00:39:48
i think the breath works been incredible right so if it doesn't involve like ice or meditation even i listened to um there's
00:39:56
a guy i know back in brisbane he's got something called the breath collective and he gets people in like groups of 20 around to his house clears out all the
00:40:02
sofa out the way and the tv and they all sit on the floor on their backs with eyes closed and it's
00:40:08
like it's that rimhoff style of you know like um short breath out like deep breath in
00:40:14
short breath out and then holding your breath you know in that moment and you feel all the physical changes in your body like
00:40:20
i'll do it a couple of nights a week i did it last night because i wanted to have a good night's sleep and there's a lot of stuff going on my head but
00:40:27
like it's hard if you'd tried to sell that to a younger me i would have been like you're having a [ __ ] laugh you
00:40:32
want me to spend 10 minutes of my day breathing in and out in silence what you because i just didn't understand how to
00:40:38
relax and how to be at peace with myself and how to actually deal with my inner thoughts and inner demons you know how
00:40:45
much credit does aaron deserve for this um a huge amount really she's um just watching someone grow a baby and give birth and then breastfeed them for
00:40:59
a year it's like one of the most sobering experiences ever you know it's like it just blows your mind like i just think the moment
00:41:11
the rush of adrenaline endorphins whatever that i got when she gave birth to our first standing up standing up yeah she'd been training the
00:41:23
whole way through her pregnancy as well like she found a form of uh pregnancy hit training which had been
00:41:29
approved by her midwife and gp obviously not crazy jumping around but you know squats and lunges and and so on and push-ups obviously not much ab work
00:41:42
but she was reading lots of um research saying you know the the healthier the mother is you know yeah it's like if you eat nuts during the pregnancy
00:41:53
child has no chance of having a nut allergy but if the mother eats enough nuts during it um likewise if she gets her
00:42:00
heart rate up to a safe level that baby would be born with a less likely to have a heart condition
00:42:06
and there's other research shows that if the mother does the x amount of training throughout you know it's even goes back to say the hunter gatherer period where
00:42:14
a female might have to be on the move constantly or on the run whilst holding a baby
00:42:21
and what that instills in the baby's genetic makeup when they're born like you know is
00:42:27
i'd have to find the research papers but there's stuff that she was reading about your baby will have zero chance of asthma if
00:42:32
you do x amount of exercise whilst you're growing that baby and it can all be passed on like the science
00:42:38
behind it's mental it's like when uh like your baby has a way higher chance of starting life with a better
00:42:45
immune system just from breastfeeding alone if you admire the camp recipe because the baby's saliva
00:42:52
passes information to the nipple and then the nipple tells the mother what to put more of into
00:43:00
christ the milk so it'll be like if the baby's lacking in iron or zinc or certain vitamins hits the saliva from the baby's mouth will tell that to the nipple and then the mother will produce
00:43:12
milk with more zinc more magnesium more vitamin d to to give the baby so which is why a
00:43:18
lot of babies have better immune systems when they're breastfed and not bottle-fed
00:43:24
so just you know on formula so crazy stuff like that but then yeah just seeing my wife like
00:43:29
and she had no gas no epidural no no assistance no you know drugs as it were to help her through pain relief and
00:43:36
she gave birth standing up and like the midwife was like catch your baby who who called it you caught it
00:43:42
no she did and i was and then she just sort of collapsed into my legs and we just sat there and then
00:43:47
didn't even look at see if it was a boy or a girl for like the first 10 minutes we were just so in awe it was like this whole it's the most alive i've ever felt
00:43:55
it's mental and like because apparently the um the tailbone actually blocks the baby's
00:44:02
head from coming out so human beings women should give birth on all fours or standing up they're not meant to give birth on their backs
00:44:08
because where the tailbone comes up under the baby's head strikes come on yeah women should be standing up so that tail
00:44:13
burns like disengaged and can baby can basically just fall straight out mad right yeah crazy i bet you weren't expecting this today no i wasn't but there you go every day's a school day
00:44:25
you so you give birth to your foot and one of the things that i read about was you tragically had a miscarriage in your second yeah the second one i think we
00:44:30
got so i might say cocky so we're so excited and the first one seems to go so well
00:44:38
um everything from when she found out she was pregnant to given birth that you're not meant to tell people
00:44:44
that early on but then she found out she was pregnant with the second one that we lost it was only been five weeks and really meant to wait
00:44:50
quite a bit longer and have your first scan and so on we went around told everyone and then she lost it a few few weeks
00:44:57
later just before you know like the safe date so that was pretty pretty tough i remember i was invited onto lorraine
00:45:05
kelly show and i was meant to go on and talk about a single on a tour and then they kind of blindsided me and it was just before i
00:45:11
went on they went we just found out you lost the second wave do you want to make the whole interview about that
00:45:17
and i was like for what reason they were just like because we've never had a guy come on here and talk about it before it's definitely not like a celebrity i was like okay cool
00:45:28
so that wouldn't be about that and it was actually it was quite positive because i got so many messages from guys
00:45:35
afterwards just going that's amazing you went on and spoke about that because guys are just like woman's just lost a baby
00:45:41
guys just got to get on with it and deal with it by themselves just do everything they can to support the mother what was
00:45:47
it like for you well it's really tough because you just don't know how to you're like oh my god this is actually
00:45:52
something that was living inside of her that has now died and i've just got to be there for her and i'm just gonna have to
00:45:58
like suck it up and get on with it because no one ever really asks the dad how are you feeling how are you feeling it's not in really in our
00:46:04
in our society it's not normal everyone just goes oh my god how is she how are you feeling
00:46:11
just like just helpless really it's awful but yeah aaron's my um dad was great and
00:46:18
my dad was great as well in terms of uh you know how do you feel how do you think you should feel how do you want to feel how did you what do you think you need to do to get through this especially when you've already
00:46:29
got a baby and then you're just like how beautiful that whole experience was and you're like i could have another one and
00:46:34
then you start is this gonna happen with the next one the next one yeah tough yeah men don't i mean all of the even
00:46:46
like men aren't really even taught how to deal with how they're feeling themselves right like i i i've
00:46:52
actually you know doing stuff like this and doing interviews with either magazines or television shows i've
00:46:57
realized there's been sometimes been first times i've spoken about things that i should have probably spoken about with friends or family
00:47:04
a long time ago you know because we're just you know it's either the whole macho
00:47:10
thing of you don't talk about that you know just get on with it like that's a woman's thing you know
00:47:16
when women discuss things like i'm not even talking about miscarriages i'm talking about relationships or
00:47:21
you know it's one of the most amazing things in my life that i get to do a podcast which
00:47:27
of course needs money to to fuel and i have a sponsor like your who i genuinely believe is going to help every single
00:47:33
person who starts their heel journey change their life because this podcast the central intention of this podcast is to
00:47:40
help people live better lives and we get to sit here and i get to promote to you a product which has not only helped me
00:47:46
change my life but it's going to help millions of people and is helping millions of people live a nutritionally complete life it does all of that in a
00:47:53
small drink that tastes good there are other products there's foods there's the hot and savory collection many other things but for me
00:47:59
this ready to drink is the absolute saviour of my diet throughout the week where i'm moving at such pace if you
00:48:05
haven't tried you'll give it a try and if you do tag me when you look forward at your future then so you've got this eighth studio
00:48:11
album coming out what what what do you want the next five ten years to look like in terms of your career
00:48:19
i would love to accidentally somehow have a chart hit again just to remember what it feels
00:48:25
like interesting yeah it's not key to me but it'll be amazing to have like a number
00:48:30
number one album or a top 10 single you know it'll probably be based on streams rather than sales in this day and age
00:48:35
but you know some some just because i want to remember how it feels you've forgotten yeah i've forgotten what it kind of feels like
00:48:42
it's 10 years ago you know i had like 22 top 40 singles um i think seven top tens two number ones but i haven't anything for so long but i'm still going like my my tour sells
00:48:54
out in a way that you would assume that i was still having hits but then you realize that hits aren't that important
00:48:59
what's important for me is just making songs that go off when you perform live you know so
00:49:04
you know i did an hour on saturday night there were probably seven hits in there
00:49:10
the other uh nine songs weren't hits but they still go off like their hits people majority
00:49:17
of the crowd know them word for words the energy is there you know the build the drop i did the last
00:49:23
sold out tour in the uk of any artist before covet which was uh march 2020. i played
00:49:35
uh kentish town forum sold out march the seventh i was back in australia by ninth i think ten days
00:49:40
later we went into lockdown in brisbane and the rest of the uk and the world followed pretty much like april that year
00:49:46
so i played the last ever tour and then i played the first festival anywhere in the world
00:49:53
after covert i mean covered with everyone was in lockdown in england america and so on i played up in darwin in the northern
00:49:59
territory in australia i played 5 000 people they had 23 covered cases so as long as you go out of a negative
00:50:05
test so i was at a festival in october october 2021 uh no october 2020 um playing the game diamond five
00:50:16
thousand people and then i came back and just did my january february tour so i had one the first sold out to us after
00:50:22
covert so i feel like live music and my performance is like my bread and butter it's what i know best that's what i do best but it would be really nice to
00:50:35
you know taste a little bit of success again with a with a song that maybe like because it's
00:50:41
still don't forget i'm still in a situation where i've got 40 gigs this summer anyone who follows me on instagram is like wow amazing
00:50:47
you're having the best year forever forever but i still bump into people in the street and it's like a taxi driver on the way here today it's like an
00:50:53
example wouldn't ya there you go what you've been doing you haven't released any music for years i thought well released an album in june i did release
00:50:59
another album last year and how does that feel it's quite it just makes you just goes to show you that
00:51:05
there's there's some people think if you're not on jonathan ross or graham norton or on capital fm or on
00:51:13
radio one and you're not playing radio once big weekend or doing capital summertime ball
00:51:18
then you've retired and then there's another bunch of people who hear you in the clubs or listen to you on spotify
00:51:23
playlist and have no idea even what radio one or capital fm is and then there's your die hards you follow you'll know every move you're doing from your instagram but you know i don't tweet that much anymore because it
00:51:35
becomes quite toxic place but you know the you meet people and they're just like i didn't even know you were
00:51:40
playing like well you know you'll be like they're like oh man what you're doing in newcastle you're like i'm playing newcastle academy tonight
00:51:45
they're like but as follows on twitter i've not seen anything you know because i used to be known for tweeting quite a lot back around 2011
00:51:52
and 12 i used to get into a lot of trouble and have arguments and such and there but you realize that everyone has their way of discovering and digesting
00:51:59
and discovering you know discovering music um the same way we do with films and so on or how you read about some people
00:52:05
just read bbc sport some people just follow a twitter account that updates you on the premier league and there's
00:52:10
some people who only find out about music from spotify and there's some people who still only religiously listen to the capsule breakfast show every morning and the thing that i find is i just have
00:52:23
to know where my fans are and what they want there's always going to be that group of people though that if you're not in the charts they think that you've
00:52:28
either retired or fought exactly and they still think that's the case for me so i'll be like even when i got a taxi
00:52:34
to brixton in february because i'd like to get black taxis mainly because my one of my cup my
00:52:39
cousin's a black cab driver i need your car mike you can't use uber um i like the tube but whilst i'm blonde
00:52:45
which is for the foreseeable future the tube's not a safe place for me at the moment um it's a selfie central
00:52:51
um and then obviously you have one or two and then that leads to 10 more and 20 more and i don't mind meeting the general public i love it but it also
00:52:57
it's nice to just sit on a tube and listen to music sometimes rather than having constant photos but this guy was like so what you doing were you guys
00:53:04
there gig plans and i was like yeah it's my gig he's like oh whoa i'm driving examples who's on gig i was like yeah i'm you're
00:53:10
taking me to soundcheck now you went ah sworn you retired you're like my eldest used to come watch you does that piss
00:53:16
you off a bit yeah because i'm like when they're like my eldest used to watch you know i'm like well if you just follow me on
00:53:22
instagram you can still keep up to date with my song releases and he can still come what anyway i ended up putting all three of his kids and their partners on
00:53:28
the guest list and then i got a dm i think from one of his sons the next day i think someone was maybe 26. it was a hard time in my
00:53:35
life reminding me so you've just realized that because you're not on capital fm anymore that certain people if like i don't know
00:53:42
they could be a decorator they could be an estate agent they could be a you know a taxi driver whatever but
00:53:48
everyone has their go-to places for music and it might be like in your office where you work all day on
00:53:54
they have radio one on so whatever is on radio one may dictate which festivals they go to or who they go and see on
00:54:00
tour because it's advertised on there it's like you know like playing at v festival playing at cream fields is blah blah blah blah
00:54:06
but if you're not if other people only discover music from their spinning class and whatever music's playing so people message me go oh your new single was on my spinning class today i didn't even realize you were still releasing music
00:54:18
and you almost want to go well i've released three albums since then and you know 11 singles but
00:54:25
you can't it is quite frustrating was that you left you kind of left the when you with those labels and you were
00:54:31
charting all the time with these with these these like big global hits you leave that
00:54:36
game and then it was there a moment where it was difficult to deal with the what you've described there where it was most difficult to deal with it where people are going where are you like where's where's the music like why
00:54:47
aren't you charting if you fall well it is you know what also is really frustrating is right so i've performed in 27 countries in europe
00:54:54
um i'd say about 10 of those countries i've i've headlined festivals so there was a period where i was really big in
00:54:59
finland hungary estonia uh czech slovenia slovakia latvia lithuania i'll be doing one or two festivals in those countries every year for four or five years headlining or second on the bill really
00:55:13
really decent fees and then you i left ministry of sound um 2013 signs of sony didn't really haven't had no success at sony and he had one top 10 single album
00:55:26
bombed they spent a fortune on it didn't really know where to position me and all of a sudden all the gigs dried up in
00:55:31
these countries as well and we were going back to them like with spotify numbers and you know saying well
00:55:38
he's still got you know four percent of his fans uh are in hungary which is massive considering my fan base in the
00:55:45
uk and australia is my second biggest like four percent in hungary and then it would be like you know one
00:55:51
percent of his listeners are poland that's a pretty big listenership still and then it was like 2.8 of his
00:55:58
listenership in colombia and you go to these promoters and they'll just be like look his last single that 10 of his
00:56:05
listeners came from your country and they're almost like yeah but it's not radio and you're like radio [ __ ] debt
00:56:10
you know or you know i've been and done a chat show in germany for a bit so i'm not getting i played
00:56:16
the biggest festival in germany it's called rockham ring and rockin park so that's like their reading and leeds i
00:56:22
played that festival three times unbelievable massive cars i knew the words word for word like half my set
00:56:28
i had three top ten singles in germany and then the moment you're not on radio they're like no i would like to book him but there's until he gets back on the radio and you're like well they know my
00:56:39
other hits and like and there's people streaming the new stuff so this summer we got we've got bennet
00:56:45
kasim in spain um we've got a gig to lend off in portugal and i'm playing amsterdam this
00:56:50
friday um but it's been really tough like to actually go in and like almost having to
00:56:55
present the figures i see this with artists that have that meteoric i mean i sat with craig david
00:57:01
and he's an example of an artist at 18 years old i think he had a number one album something [ __ ] staggering and
00:57:06
he's only like a year older than me but in my mind craig dave was like five or six years he was in the charts at the
00:57:12
same age as i was listening to so i was in clubs listening to garage music yeah yeah exactly and he was on top of the
00:57:17
pops yeah i didn't have any success until eight years after that so i was 26 27.
00:57:22
yeah and there's a 22-year gap between yeah when craig david i think had his first one to his his most recent album
00:57:29
is there a thing of like you basically start competing with a former version of your success you have
00:57:34
to i only compete with myself but and when i'm in the studio i'm only competing myself but the form of the
00:57:40
yeah and my former first which is why i say to you i'm over the moon that i've got my busiest summer in six years
00:57:46
um i'm i'm i'm so in love with this album i'm still playing this album but even though it's
00:57:52
been finished for months um but that's why i'm like i'd love to just taste that chart success again just once or twice
00:58:00
a to shut up all the people who think i'm retired and b just to remember what it feels like you know it's almost like a little
00:58:06
validation that my career is going to continue for next five six seven eight years as long as i stay fit and healthy and i keep producing music and people
00:58:12
still want to come and you know they choose one night a year they go out to a gig 10 of their mates get absolutely off
00:58:18
their face and have the time in life if they i want them to pick me for that then i've got a career i don't need
00:58:23
anything else i don't need radio i don't even really need streaming um but it would just be nice to have that
00:58:30
validation and i shouldn't reset it again i need validation but it would be really nice to fill that again so every
00:58:35
time i get a taxi it's like oh you shot whoa i heard you i'll see you on jonathan ross the other day i thought you'd given up you know as australia
00:58:43
rather than just sitting there going i've never stopped releasing music i've never stopped touring but i've been
00:58:48
touring for 16 years i've been releasing music for 16 years but you know what i mean no slightly
00:58:54
frustrating but i think this about myself and when you're talking about having this kind of chasing the the former version of
00:59:00
yourself i worry about that sometimes i think i always think especially now that i'm on dragon's den on the bbc i think when i
00:59:07
come off that the cabbie who watches bbc one but doesn't have a clue about podcasting yeah yeah yeah is it gonna
00:59:13
happen well you have some people you're oh you're the podcast guy and there's everybody it's an age thing for me
00:59:19
someone's coming up to me in the street i i know exactly where they know me from by the by their demographic and if if a
00:59:25
56 year old male comes up to me oh you're on dragon stone yeah he has no idea that i do anything else or that you
00:59:32
know so so in saying that right so on my last tour most nights i come out after our stage
00:59:38
before i get the tour bus and you know my two minutes will be out and they'll be like well you'll be out in about an hour if you want to wear it i
00:59:43
know it's cold put a hoodie on you know like he makes sure that you know i say just go and give him a
00:59:49
load of uh monster munch or whatever you know so he goes out with a big whatever's left on our rider monster much maybe a couple of beers he checks
00:59:55
their age and so some you might have 200 people waiting after the gig and then by the time i come out 11 30 12 there might
01:00:02
only be 20. but i'll always say to them where did you buy this ticket from and why did you buy this ticket it just does
01:00:08
a little bit of market research and all the young kids are like we saw advertisers on your instagram and pretty
01:00:13
much anyone over 30 40 years old they saw a billboard a billboard yeah on a bus stop
01:00:19
or on a train station or their friend forwarded them a link from gigs and tours or bands in town on
01:00:26
facebook so even though i'm not on bands in town i don't go on facebook much i don't really decide when my posters are
01:00:32
put up that's like uh you know the touring company the promotions company decided that as long as these people
01:00:38
know where to find me that's great and then they come to the gig and then maybe there's like four or five songs they haven't heard that i've released in
01:00:43
the last two years but chances are the two of them they'll fall in love with and go back and continue to stream those songs or they add it to their playlist
01:00:51
there's an ether to trying to detach a little bit from the external validation driving your
01:00:58
self opinion i guess because as much as it can be like a good driver of ambition and competition and having
01:01:04
something to aim for is great you don't want to be dragged like because because i can see how an artist who is used to
01:01:11
getting number ones all the time could get a number two and feel like [ __ ] because yeah it's a number two
01:01:16
whereas really without all the number ones number two is unbelievable yeah i was like saying this earlier these these
01:01:21
here are my top tens yeah all of those those are my three number twos that was actually unorthodox with wretch yeah
01:01:28
yeah that was will we come back with calvin and that would say nothing which came out just after that and even looking
01:01:34
back it's just like like to go from six to three from two to one it would have been nice if those last two just went
01:01:40
one one one like the difference you know like the difference between that one and number one was about
01:01:45
267 downloads on itunes and the difference between that one that one was maybe like 400 in something and it's
01:01:52
like i know it's nice to say it's amazing so i've had two number one singles and a number one album um
01:01:58
out of everything that i've done in my career but it'd be extra nice just i've had four number ones you know i mean but
01:02:03
that's exactly what i mean it's you're never going to be but i don't know sleep over it what can
01:02:08
you tell me about this album can i like listen to something i want to i need some kind of flavor of this this
01:02:14
eighth album um there's i've never done drama bass before and there's two drama bass tracks on it
01:02:20
okay uh i've i used to when i started emceeing like 15 it was mainly over uk garage or
01:02:27
garage garage um and the 10 tracks on this album are garage and then there's three drill tracks um with probably the best spitting i've
01:02:39
ever done there's like i'll play you a song afterwards but there's a track but i'm just spitting straight for three
01:02:44
minutes uh we shot the first half of the video in a shipping container yard in brisbane
01:02:50
which being brisbane we got to use for free complete no regulations just like you
01:02:55
might uh open the gate for you we'll be back at eight please go where you want just don't don't don't break a leg or
01:03:01
anything done anything stupid um so we shot this video which i directed in a container yard and one of my mates who's in construction we shot the second half of the video on the roof of his new apartment block
01:03:13
where i'm standing on top of the lift shaft and then we've got drone footage going around me um very cost effective video and it's
01:03:20
basically just me rapping solidly for three minutes and i think it's probably the best rap and spitting i've ever done
01:03:25
i based it all on buster rhymes but i used you know from back when i was like 17.
01:03:31
so i'm just hoping won't know that when people hear this album they're gonna go [ __ ] he sounds he sounds good he sounds comfortable he sounds the most confident
01:03:42
best performances i've ever heard him do i truly believe that and i can't wait for people to hear it
01:03:49
because it's also like you associate drill music with uh gangs and knife crime and selling drugs and i've basically just taken inspiration from the beats
01:04:02
um and just done elliot you know i'm being true to myself i'm not which is what i've always done it's just like i used to feel like i started saying she was just off air before i used to feel like i was this uninvited
01:04:14
guest to rap and hip-hop because i felt that you needed certain credentials you know to do it
01:04:21
and then you slowly realized that no it's just like an art form as long as you're respectful of the culture it's just like what are you doing with that
01:04:28
that music what what story are you telling and you've always just got to tell your own story i guess
01:04:33
having been through all of this eliot if i really call you elliot having been through the fame the you know the
01:04:41
ups and downs of the music industry the you know the sex the drugs the rock and roll all of it and also the family the kids and all of that if you were advising a younger elliot
01:04:53
who might be listening to this and what actually matters in terms of the components that make for a good life what would you say now in
01:05:00
hindsight having tasted it all right now i mean like being a dad is so so important to me and so rewarding especially once
01:05:12
the little one enyo who's now four he was a bit later with a speech the fact he can now speak
01:05:18
it's like my young my eldest evander he was speaking like 18 months he was saying words and then
01:05:25
our our youngest didn't really start speaking she was three but now it's not only just being able to communicate with them but then listen to
01:05:32
them speak to each other there's bonkers stuff that comes out their mouth it's just like it's the most rewarding
01:05:38
thing of the day but i'll spend most of the day just writing down quotes they've said and send them to my mum and dads or my sister or to erin's family just like
01:05:45
you won't believe and like the stuff that comes out their mouth that's that's right for me it's
01:05:50
like i love cooking i love food i love fine dining i love eating out like food is so important to me training is so
01:05:56
important to me sleep is important to me sex is important to me being a dad is important to me
01:06:02
and if i'm being totally honest like i make music for a living but i could right now
01:06:07
i love being on stage but if it was that someone was like you've got another year now you're not going to write one song
01:06:12
or do another gig i'd be totally happy with that as long as i had all the other things
01:06:18
we have a we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest writes the question for the next guest okay and
01:06:23
i i read it now so i haven't seen this before um it says of all the achievements in your life which do you think made the biggest impact on
01:06:36
another on another i'm going to guess they mean also everything you've achieved another person yes of all the achievements in your life which do you think made the biggest impact on another person
01:06:49
um that's interesting it's a really good question two minutes in your life which
01:06:54
one do you mean that is a really interesting question well do you know what what i would say actually and i could probably apply this to a few [Music]
01:07:06
i'll apply it to two people rather than just one person in particular is there's a guy three three three people in particular so there was a guy called david stewart
01:07:19
who was my guitarist for three and a half years um very different to me as like a private
01:07:25
school educated um but and and you know grew up in for in money if you like near near westbourne grove and we used to rip him quite a bit he
01:07:38
was like six seven years younger than all of us but he was a great kid really good guitarist really good uh keyboard player
01:07:44
great singer good looking he always wanted to make it as a solo artist and for whatever reason this was around
01:07:50
the same time ed sheeran started blowing up where it's like you could be the best looking kid in the world but you know no offense that's a really good
01:07:56
mate of mine but you know what i mean ed's not a model um he's not that justin timberlake cut but david fair play to
01:08:02
him like we spent a lot of time writing songs together i would try and hone his lyrics he was amazing with melody
01:08:08
and he's now officially the most successful songwriter in the world in terms of streams so he wrote
01:08:14
uh the last three jonas brothers singles and he wrote uh dynamite for bts which is wow i think the third or fourth most stream song of all time it was the most stream song of the last year i'm not saying he owes that to me but
01:08:26
what i'm saying is i know for a fact that his years on the road with me and the time me writing
01:08:32
songs with him was instrumental in his drive and ambition and his craft i feel like he may have gone on to do this anyway but he you know he
01:08:45
he definitely i feel like success he's more success and i'm really proud of him like that he's now the most
01:08:52
successful songwriter in the world you know and then there's like my guitarist replaced him another guy called kai kai he's going to be very
01:08:58
successful composer he went left me to go and play guitar with jura lipper for a few years when she was blown up i
01:09:05
might drop my drummer he was playing with the streets and lily allen and played with me for five years he went on to help put together ed sheeran's live show and create the
01:09:16
technology behind his loot pedals oh yeah yeah and then my playback guy he's the guy who runs the laptops which run
01:09:21
alongside the live musicians he's gone on to put together huge shows for kygo in las vegas so i feel like nearly everybody who's worked alongside
01:09:33
with me i've learnt from them and then but they've i guess what i'm saying is i'm glad that they've all
01:09:38
gone on to do huge things they haven't gone on to just be standard session musicians you know like
01:09:44
my bass player andy sheldrake's now a producer in his own right he produced all night so that song was just me and
01:09:50
him you know so my biggest song i suppose from the second year of my career was down to him like everybody there's not one person i've
01:09:57
worked with closely in a musical level you know in terms of what people regard as session musicians
01:10:03
most session musicians just go on to play for other bands on the road for eternity you know earning 3 400 pounds a
01:10:10
gig and they're playing into their 50s or 60s just getting by whereas all the guys who've been part of my band
01:10:16
who basically my brothers onto my family or been made an incredible successor themselves
01:10:21
that's dope and i mean that's that that says a lot about the environment that you guys have together when you're
01:10:27
together and like i'm quite proud of that you know yeah yeah because i didn't try i didn't
01:10:32
intend to do that it was just obviously it was clearly a nice place to work and was inspirational and was very
01:10:38
creative and ambitious and they've parted company with me all on good terms and have gone i'm not
01:10:45
just going to sit back i'm just going to go and do what elliot's done in my own way and in david stewart's case it's
01:10:52
like stratospheric you know but produced and wrote the biggest song in the world that
01:10:58
year for a korean pop band mental mad elliot example thank you hey thanks for having me i've loved this yeah i mean these conversations are also so
01:11:11
unbelievably different but i think your honesty and like there's a real sort of overwhelming sense of inspiration i get from watching a man go on a journey and change in so many
01:11:23
really fundamental ways in terms of their character their craft their art and even like their emotional awareness
01:11:30
and their ability to like be in touch with their emotions tends to be the case that women can be the catalyst certainly
01:11:35
for me it was you meet the right you're very easy to speak to though i must say you're
01:11:40
a real sense of safety and i can talk about whatever i want and there's no agenda which is really interesting yeah
01:11:45
because you know it's funny because i write these questions down that i actually don't write any questions down but i write like bullet points things to remember
01:11:51
and then i genuinely go in the direction that that i i'm interested in but so many things you talk about even from breath work my my girlfriend is a
01:11:58
breathwork practitioner so i'm doing breath work all the time these days you know the wim hof thing we've just booked a retreat to do wim hof's ice thing um
01:12:05
so i had no idea about any of this yeah exactly so that's why like when you're saying that i find it really intriguing to like probing around there yeah um but
01:12:12
it's all led by curiosity and there's so much in your story that is really really inspiring to me and i'm
01:12:17
actually the most inspiring thing for me is what happens next so the most inspiring thing to me is seeing how your eighth album plays out how you continue
01:12:24
to like move with the changing times and changing platforms and who that that creative and artist becomes but yeah
01:12:30
thank you for your time today i love these conversations and it's been super energizing for me right now will be
01:12:38
quick one as you might know crafted are one of the sponsors of this podcast and crafted are a jewelry brand and they
01:12:44
make really meaningful pieces of jewellery i think i've worn this piece for almost a year
01:12:50
it hasn't broken hasn't changed colour because it's really really good quality and it costs roughly 50 quid i'm not the
01:12:57
type of person that has rolexes or jewelry that cost tens of thousands of pounds i want pieces that are reliable
01:13:03
that look beautiful and that holds meaning and significance for me and that's exactly why i've worn
01:13:08
crafted for so long and when we had the conversation about them sponsoring this podcast i was so unbelievably keen for
01:13:14
them to do so check it out if you're a guy crafted london.com and yeah if you get any pieces of crafted tag me let me
01:13:20
know what you think [Music] [Music] foreign [Music]