It’s a heartbreak album ... I am owning up to what I have done
TOM GRENNAN TALKS TO ALEX GREEN ABOUT FAME AND THE RELATIONSHIP THAT INSPIRED HIS NEW RECORD
EVERING Road is the name of a strip of houses in Hackney, northeast London.
It’s also the place Tom Grennan lived out the dizzying highs and lows of his last relationship – and the place that gives his second album its name.
“It was the hub of love, the hub of heartbreak and the hub of redemption too,” he recalls in the sandpaper voice that has quickly become his calling card.
“All these different things happened in this house and on this street.
“This relationship was all around that area. It just felt right to name it that,” he says.
“I love that road and I loved that house but I also hated the person I was in that house. I didn’t really know who I was.”
Tom, 25, grew up in Bedford. He had no aspirations in music and trained to become a professional footballer, playing for Luton Town before his career stalled. Much has been made of the fact his first real performance came at a house party, egged on by friends to sing Seaside by The Kooks, a twee indie favourite.
After that, he began to gig around London’s small venues circuit, before being spotted by the boss of Insanity Records at The
Finsbury Pub during a gig to some 30 punters.
He was signed off the back of that performance.
Since then he has gone on to collaborate with Chase & Status, Ella Henderson, Bugzy Malone and superproducer Fraser T
Smith and reached number five with his debut album, Lighting Matches, in 2018.
But it is instantly obvious listening to Evering Road that this album is a step forward.
“My first album, I didn’t really know what I was doing,” he admits.
“I was learning on the job and frankly it did what it did and people loved it.
“But this album I really knew what I wanted. I really knew what I wanted it to sound like.” After initially being positioned as a kind of indie singer-songwriter, Tom has settled into the more mature role of gravel-voiced soul singer.
He admits he started out aping Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys and Scottish favourite Paolo Nutini before trying the vocal stylings of Tom Jones, Elvis Presley and Ray Charles on for size. Now he just sings as himself. “I’m not conscious of trying to sound unique,” he suggests. “That’s what comes out my throat.”
Evering Road is an excoriating listen. It is both an apology to the girlfriend he wronged and an attempt to purge the guilt he feels.
“I wouldn’t say it is a break-up album in the sense of, ‘Feel sorry for me, cry about it’. But it is a break-up album the way I am owning up to what I have done and I am trying to better myself.
“I am saying sorry and that I have done these things I have done and I have made mistakes, but I am trying to be forgiven for them.
“It is a heartbreak album but it is also an album that is saying, ‘I am a better man for it’.”
The pandemic has been hardest on young artists on the cusp of breaking into the mainstream – artists like Tom.
But he is philosophical about the missed opportunities. “Everything pans out the way it is meant to,” he says matter of factly. “We are all in the same position, so I haven’t really felt hard done by.
“I have had more time to sit with it, which is sometimes a lucky thing.
“I have had more time to prepare myself and just wait until the right time. 2020 might have been my year, but 2021 is now hopefully going to be my year.”
I didn’t really know what I was doing. I was learning on the job Tom on his first album
■ Evering Road by Tom Grennan is out soon on Insanity Records