Sometimes I feel I have to work twice as hard as everyone else
JAMES ARTHUR TALKS TO ALEX GREEN ABOUT THE MENTAL HEALTH STRUGGLES THAT INSPIRED HIS NEW ALBUM
WHEN James Arthur won The X Factor in 2012, he set out on a path of fame, public controversy and ultimately redemption.
Nearly a decade on, three of his albums have charted at either number one or two.
The Middlesbrough native, 33, also maintains an energetic fan base, born out of his time on Simon Cowell’s talent show and grown by an ear for a hook.
But his success has also been tempered by mental health struggles and drugs.
His career almost entirely derailed in 2014 when he parted ways with Simon’s Syco label following accusations that he used a homophobic lyric in a song.
But finally James is in a place where he feels he has the maturity and creative control to make something a little different.
“I do sometimes feel I have to work twice as hard as everyone else just because of where I came from,” he explains over the phone from the home in Surrey he shares with his girlfriend.
“It has been a long time coming for me to get to a place where I have full creative control.”
Lockdown inspired creativity in James. He recorded an album in three months during the first national lockdown in England and took up hiking and running.
New single Medicine is the first taste of that project.
His languid voice, almost tailor made for the radio, combines with brash production and upfront lyrics – “When I’m suicidal / you don’t let me spiral”.
“I learnt a lot about myself and the things that I want to do and the things I don’t want to do,” he says of the past year.
“My girlfriend was really supportive in that time.
“The song is about love over adversity, about the things that help you through the dark times.”
In the past James’s mouth may have got him in trouble, but now his honesty feels more refreshing than antagonistic.
He entered 2020 struggling with his demons, stemming from his time in foster care and his parents’ split, and suffered a debilitating anxiety attack on stage in Madrid.
Shortly after, he was rushed to hospital with flu-like symptoms where doctors found he had a gallbladder infection.
“I had hit a roadblock,” he recalls. “I had this arena tour that I had to do, but before that it was a question of, ‘Do I go off to rehab in Texas to address these childhood traumas that I hadn’t processed?’.
“That was why I was hitting these walls every so often.”
Eventually he checked himself into the Nightingale, a private mental health hospital in central London, where he began cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), embarked on a course of medication and got fit.
Soon March was upon him and he went out on tour again, where, by his own admission, he “smashed it”.
Of course, the tour was curtailed by coronavirus and James was grounded once again. The first few months were tough.
“Health anxiety was a huge one,” he admits.
“For the first couple of months I didn’t want to step outside. I thought I was going to be one of the statistics, having a little bit of asthma and things like that.
“I am very hyper vigilant of my health anyway. I have always had this fear I would die young of a heart attack.
“It definitely freaked me out and after a couple of months of sitting on my couch, I realised the best therapy for me was in making music, so that is what I did.”
You don’t need to point out the stigma that comes with starting your career on The X Factor, James brings it up himself. “Ballads are a thing I have stayed away from on this album,” he says half laughing. “I don’t want to be defined that way, as the guy who does ballads all the time. I have tried to make it so the label can’t tell me, ‘Oh, let’s have this one as the single because it’s a ballad’. He continues: “Even halfway through the process of writing (this album) I realised that this is really a moment in time.
“You can hear that it is a guy who is really reflecting and processing things and being very honest about where he is at this very moment in time. I talk about things on the album that I don’t think I have ever touched on as literally as I have here.”
Lockdown has not blunted his acting ambitions, James reveals.
“I am a big fan of Shane Meadows’ work,” he says of the cult This Is England director.
“That sort of style of drama would suit me in the future.
“There are a couple of things that I am working on that I am excited about.
“I can’t share too much about it, but I feel like the acting thing is going to take off quite soon.”
■ Medicine by James Arthur is out now
I thought I was going to be one of the [Covid] statistics James Arthur on his health anxiety over coronavirus