I left it all for Tamara

EZRA: RISK INSPIRED MY ALBUM

GEORGE Ezra went to extreme lengths seeking inspiration for his second LP.

After two years touring his first album, and a year battling anxiety, the Blame It On Me star went on an adventure.

George famously sang “I’d leave it all” on his Budapest hit single and he did just that by ditching his luxury life to head off to Barcelona and stay in a random woman’s spare room to “reconnect with the real world”.

His imagination thrived on the feeling that the unknown woman might be dangerous.

George told me: “It was a really weird year for me, and I needed to get away, I wrote a lot of songs about escaping, taking yourself away and switching off.

“So I went to Barcelona for a month to write and instead of finding a nice apartment, I found a lady willing to rent her spare room.

“I just think it’s boring in a hotel, the thing with a stranger is anything can happen like are they crazy? What will they do? I found that really exciting. And also if something really bad does happen you can always leave, maybe get a song from it...” Luckily she wasn’t, but George did leave with a complete second album Staying At Tamara’s – named after the woman, now on course for No1 in the charts. George also left Barcelona with a new outlook. The Paradise hitmaker added: “I was influenced by the way of life there. I have friends that live there, I’ll text them and say, ‘Do you want to go for dinner?’ And they say, ‘Yeah sure, lets meet at 11pm!’ It’s taught me to relax a lot more... enjoy it.” Although George admitted that he would prefer a quiet night in at the pub. He said: “I’m not a partier, I just love pubs, where I can actually talk to my friends.”