Matt finished? No, he’s far from it
Matt Terry still chasing the dream after the X Factor
The 2017 winners of The X Factor, Rak-Su, saw their debut single, Dimelo, shoot to number two in the British charts last week. The track, which also featured Wyclef Jean, was held off the top spot across the water by Ed Sheeran’s Perfect. Coincidentally, last year’s winner, Matt Terry, took the Sheeran-penned When Christmas Comes Around to the top three this week in 2016.
Terry has had mixed fortunes in the year since his win and that first single release. He appeared on the charity single for the victims of the Grenfell Tower fire. The version of Bridge Over Troubled Water went to number one.
He also scored a top ten as one of the vocalists on the many versions of Enrique Iglesias summer hit Turn Up the Radio (Súbeme la Radio). However, his debut album, Trouble, only scraped in to the British charts at 29 last week and, sadly, you won’t – at the time of writing – find it in the Irish charts.
The Londoner, 24, therefore, is in a good position to tell this year’s winners about the vagaries of life as an X Factor winner.
Speaking ahead of the release of the album, it was still very much a case of ‘Wow’ rather than ‘Woe’ for the singer. Excitedly, he told me how he has got to travel the world.
‘I’ve been to Miami to record, I’ve been to Madrid, Finland, Norway, Denmark – all over the map. It’s been so much fun to be able to travel so much,’ he says.
He also gushes about the ‘amaz- ing producers’ with whom he has worked. The respective powerhouses Red One and Red Triangle have added lustre to the output of everyone from Little Mix and U2 to Green Day and The Vamps.
TV talent show winners dating a reality TV star is almost de rigeur and he is not an exception. In Terry’s case, he has been getting increasingly cosy with Montana Brown from Love Island.
‘We’re getting to know each other. We’ll see what happens. Everywhere you go, you get caught by a photographer or anyone with a camera on their phone. You can’t really live your life in hiding.’
He could have been predicting the relatively disappointing commercial showing of his album when he says, ‘any artist can release a song or an album and it might not take off, but you have to keep fighting for it’.
However, his perception of what constitutes the timeframe of a struggle, and that of acts who toil for many years before achieving a modicum of success, would be markedly different.
‘If you take someone like [English singer] Dua Lipa, she’s been working so hard for two years before she got any success, and it’s finally coming to her now.
‘The X Factor catapults you into the public eye and you have to be ready for it. You have to be able to produce good music. I’m grafting away so I can give it my best shot.’
Terry’s album is a perfectly serviceable dance-pop offering that might have legs. A number of Spanish language songs on it are testament to his childhood in Spain. The album was recorded in Miami and he hopes the Latino flavour will help him make inroads in the Spanish language market in North and South America.
‘I intend to stay in the UK for now but then really concentrate on the States and the Spanish and US markets once that’s done,’ he says.
This time next year, will the 2017 winners, Rak-Su, point to Matt’s Terry’s success as an inspiration in their quest for longlasting fame? Sólo el tiempo dirá. Matt Terry – Trouble is out now.
The X Factor catapults you into the public eye, and you have to be ready for it’