Stay With Me singer OK with coverage of his sexuality
TORONTO — Emotive British neo- soul singer Sam Smith recently opened up about his sexuality in an interview with Fader magazine, sending minor ripples through the broad pool of music press on both sides of the Atlantic.
As Smith prepares to release his spine- tingling debut In the Lonely Hour in North America this Tuesday, he acknowledges that he watched to see how his comment — that the album’s love-drunk gut- punches were inspired by a guy he fell for last year who didn’t return his feelings — would reverberate.
“I don’t read album reviews, but I’ve been reading the stories
I fell in love with someone who didn’t love me back when I wrote the album — which probably made it easier to write music.
SAM SMITH
BRITISH SINGER
about my personal life — which is completely fine,” the 22- yearold said in a recent telephone interview from London. “I was expecting it.”
And in the hurricane of interviews and coverage, does Smith feel accurately portrayed?
“Oh, one million per cent,” he replied. “You’re getting my personality spot- on. I am highly emotional and also very loving and caring and I’m just an honest person.
“And I think people are feeling that honesty.”
They’re certainly feeling some element of Smith’s forwardthinking sound, which marries his expressive, opulent vocals to elegantly uncomplicated backdrops, ranging from the dignified piano and strings of Stay With Me to the buoyant electronics of Money on My Mind.
Both those tracks have topped the chart in the U. K. — and his Naughty Boy collaboration La La La breathed the same rarefied air — while Stay With Me has climbed to No. 10 in Canada, too.
He’s stunned at the quick development of his career Stateside, where Brit artists typically face a more arduous path to success.
A goosebumpy choir- aided performance on Saturday Night Live in March certainly helped but there’s also the fact that Smith draws from predominantly North American influences, citing Etta James, Joni Mitchell and Beyoncé.
Still, Smith concedes the attention is a little overwhelming. He’s only years removed from attending high school in the sleepy commuter town of Bishop’s Stortford. He moved to London at 18 and wrote his debut album two years later while mired in a deep funk.
“( Life) was pretty lonely,” he said of first moving to the city. “London’s a big place. All my friends were back where I’d grown up in the countryside. And also I fell in love with someone who didn’t love me back when I wrote the album — which probably made it easier to write music but harder to live life.”
To Smith, unrequited love was largely unexplored territory in pop music.
“I feel like there hasn’t been a body of work that’s really properly dealt with it head on in a simple pop way or a soulful way,” said Smith, who has performances scheduled in Toronto and Vancouver in September. “I wanted to write a love album from a different angle, basically.”