James Blunt singing all the way to the bank

A slight, unassuming figure with delicate features framed by questing blue eyes, James Blunt’s British accent is precise, his vowels perhaps clipped by life at a London boarding school and then the British army, where he was a reconnaissance officer. But he’s also rather playful.

“Of course,” he says. “We are in the entertainment business. This should be fun. We are musicians; we don’t save lives. We shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously or be revered that much.”

When he started out on Twitter, his handle was @DirtyLilBlunt until his record label intervened. “They asked me to stop because they thought I would damage my brand. I thought, come on, what are you talking about? My brand is broken. This is who I am; it’s amusing.”

It’s surprising that Blunt perceives his brand as broken. He is extraordinarily successful. His 2004 debut, Back to Bedlam (which included the hit single You’re Beautiful), was the bestselling album in Britain of that decade and his estimated wealth is more than $24 million. But he’s right in a way: His music has always had a critical mauling. This is probably because his earlier work was dominated by playlist-friendly ballads, evincing an earnestness that’s markedly different from Blunt’s puckish online persona.

His recently released album, The After love, isn’t a departure but there is more light and shade. Blunt has collaborated on it with, among others, his friend Ed Sheeran.

Nevertheless, he says, “whoever reviews my album for your paper will not be brave enough to say they like it — even if they think it’s the best album they’ve ever heard — because they are too worried about how they are going to be perceived. But I’m cool with that.”

Blunt will open for Sheeran on his U.S. tour in June.

Another friend was Carrie Fisher, who died in December. They met through a former Blunt girlfriend, and when he travelled to L.A. to record his first album, Fisher offered him her Beverly Hills mansion. She later became godmother to his son by Sofia Wellesley, whom he married in 2014.

Fisher’s death is still raw for Blunt. He wrote a song for the memorial service of Fisher and her mother, Debbie Reynolds, who died a day later.

“I don’t want to appear to be selling my record off the back of my friend,” he says. “But what I will say is that she was hysterically funny, and someone who was probably too bright for planet Earth. Life won’t be as much fun without her. She was quick with her humour — she laughed at herself and she laughed at the world.”

Blunt, 43, possesses a stiff-upperlip maturity which indicates he is aware of his privileged position.

“I haven’t had the difficulties in my life that other people have had. I didn’t have an unhappy childhood. There was the experience in Kosovo (when he was in the army), but that wasn’t difficult for me, that was difficult for the Kosovans.”