Passenger on the hard stuff BOOZED AFTER BIG BREAK-UP

New album Songs For The Drunk And Broken Hearted entered the charts at No2 this week. It’s a collection of bittersweet pub tales.

The star, AKA Mike Rosenberg, told me: “It does revolve around a bar room environment.

I went through a breakup a few months before the pandemic and wrote a ton of songs.

“That first few months of being out of a relationship, being on your own – I, like many people, drank too much and it started to feel like that was the theme of these songs.

“A little whisky helps pandemic medicine go down.”

“We did start talking about doing a limited-edition whisky to release with this record, but it isn’t shining the greatest light on alcohol.”

Music and booze have the also helped Mike forge relationships with other musicians over the years, included.

He told me: “Often Ed and I will have a night together where we enjoy a bottle of something and play each other new songs.

“I have that relationship with a few people like that in music and it’s important to have a sense of camaraderie, especially for solo artists.

“We don’t have a band to bounce off or a musical family as such, so to have like-minded writers around to do that with is essential.” Ed has just produced a Gingerbread Mix of Passenger’s new single Sword In The Stone. Mike said: “He is astronomically busy, but I’ve supported him over the years and we have made time for each other and he loved the song.

“I wrote it in lockdown one, and I think encapsulates what most people felt through the pandemic.”