To be Blunt... ME? COOL? DON’T BE A FOOL!
James is singing a new tune
When we catch up with James Blunt, he’s just about to embark on a three-month tour of North America supporting Ed Sheeran. “It’s going to be three months of pretty much nonstop fun,” the singer grins. “I can’t wait.”
The two musicians are best of mates, but there’s a competitive nature to their friendship. When Woman’s
Day mentions how Ed, 26, recently played the headline slot at the Glastonbury music festival, James, 43, attempts to one-up his young buddy.
“I’ve played there three times now – and I’ve camped each time,” grins the former soldier. “I’m an excellent camper. Come on, it was my job. Creeping around in bushes is something I excel at. Glastonbury is essentially what the army equipped me for.
“The first time I played there, I was standing naked at a tap, trying to wash the mud off myself before I climbed on to a stage at something like 11am. No-one knew who I was – just another weirdo Glastonbury victim. I played twice on the main stage and I’ve always said it was the best live experience I have ever had, so a small part of me envies Ed. It’s very exciting.”
With grudging admiration for his friend, James adds, “He’s a good man. He can turn his hand to almost anything.”
The pair were introduced by Sir Elton John, who signed both artists to his Rocket Music management company, and became firm friends. Their interests include skiing, collaborative songwriting and drinking. The tour, James promises, is going to be a hard-core hoot.
“But I know my place,” he concedes. “I’m lucky to be a support act to the biggest male
solo artist of this decade. It’ll be a thrill to step out in front of his audience and inflict my songs upon them.”
While the “You’re Beautiful” singer and former XFactor
Australia judge is often written off as a one-hit wonder, he’s sold more than 20 million albums – he released his fifth one, The After love, in March – and few who meet him would be immune to his charms.
He’s impossibly witty, handsome, impeccably polite, can handle a gun, lives on the party island of Ibiza and has an incredibly posh accent. At 1.7m tall, he’s slightly lacking in the height department, but otherwise, he’d make the perfect James Bond.
Licensed to lol!
When we suggest, however, that he might want to reroute his lucrative 15-year music career into high-end espionage movies, the star convulses with laughter. “Acting really isn’t my forte,” he declares. “I mean, have you seen my latest video?”
James is nothing if not a great sport – just check out his infamous Twitter timeline for proof. “I never liked the sound of my own voice. Till it made me rich,” he recently posted. When a hater asked, “Who invited James Blunt to the Invictus Games?” he replied, “Prince Harry. By text. BOOM!”
For those quips and many more, he’s been crowned the unofficial King of Twitter, although James insists, “I only ever look at it once every couple of weeks now.” However, he admits, “It has been freeing in that it allowed people to see who I really was, rather than the guy my songs portrayed me to be.”
More significantly, James recently became a dad. His striking wife Sofia Wellesley, 33, granddaughter of the eighth Duke of Wellington, gave birth to a son early last year. He won’t publicly reveal his boy’s name, but the singer does confess that fatherhood has made his job a little trickier.
“Going on tour will be harder, but there will be two spare bunks on any tour bus for friends and family
as they come along to visit,” he says. “I love touring because we’re like a bunch of children anyway, so one more won’t make too much difference.”
James insists being a dad won’t affect his “cool factor”. He grins. “I never was cool and I never aspired to be cool. I’m never going to be cool. When I hear the word ‘cool’, the soldier in me understands it to mean ‘keep cool under fire’, remaining calm in a hostile environment.”
Forward march!
He was only two years out of the military when he released his debut Backto
Bedlam, which became the 16th best-selling album of all time in the UK.
Looking back, he confesses, “I was slightly highly strung. When you’ve just stepped out of the army back into the civilian world, the pace of life outside seems quite slow. You do things quickly. Even now, my band always complains that I walk too fast – it doesn’t sit comfortably in the music business, which likes to think of itself as laid-back.”
James was a captain in the Life Guards, a regiment of the Household Cavalry, and worked as an armoured reconnaissance officer in Kosovo in 1999, leading a column of 30,000 men.
During his six years in the army, he became close to both Princes William and Harry. He says he’s incredibly supportive of the young royals speaking publicly about the grief, anxiety and depression they suffered after the death of their mother, Princess Diana.
“I haven’t had the enormous trauma that many people experience in life – I’ve been very lucky,” James muses. “I haven’t had real difficulty. Even with my experience on operations, while witnessing huge and terrible traumatic experiences, they weren’t my own family.”
The singer has never suffered from depression, but he adds, “I’m lucky enough to put my miserable moments in songs – they’re my outlet. Although I don’t think my songs are depressing. They’re melancholic.”
Where did this melancholia come from? James will only admit to an “incredible intensity of emotion” during his 10 years at boarding school and he maintains he wasn’t bullied at Sandhurst Royal Military College. “No more than anyone else,” he sniffs. “I am a smaller man, though, so I probably have a Napoleon complex.”
Could it be the alcohol? James bought an old London pub, The Fox and Pheasant, on impulse last year, although the purchase was simply to preserve his “lovely old local boozer”, he says. “I don’t drink at work. I always get up on stage completely sober.”
In his downtime, it’s a completely different story. Ed recently wound up with a scar on his cheek after a night on the sauce with James, which led to a fanciful story involving a clumsy Princess Beatrice and a ceremonial sword.
Asked now about what really happened, James squirms, coughs and giggles.
“I’ve sworn an allegiance as an ex-soldier and as the Queen’s horse guard,” he smirks, literally pulling rank. “It’s my duty to say nothing at this stage.”
However, he will say of Ed’s scar, “It only makes him more beautiful.”
I was slightly highly strung ... Even now, my band always complains fast’ that I walk too