Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
MY MUM CALLS ME A NERD
I think she means it as a compliment ...so no wonder she didn’t bat an eyelid when Gareth Malone was consumed with an obsessive desire to win Celebrity Bake Off. But did it pay off with a handshake from Paul Hollywood? By Jenny Johnston
his specialist instrument, but he plays piano to an accomplished level and has recently bought himself a new guitar. ‘I get better because I do lots of scales. It’s hard work. In my field, I sometimes think I’m doing something instinctively, from a gut feeling, but in actual fact I think it’s more about experience. I have a feeling in my gut because I’ve been here before.’
He thinks we should talk less about talent and more about slog – in and out of the kitchen. ‘In the music world you will invariably find that those who are successful have put the work in. The Amy Winehouses, the Adeles. Of course, there is natural ability, but how many bad songs did Adele write before she made it? Hundreds, probably thousands. We seem to have an issue with admitting that, but I don’t mind looking as if I’m trying. I really don’t think we should be embarrassed by it.’ The first time I interviewed Gareth, back in 2011, he marvelled about the youngster Adele who had burst onto the music scene a few years before, but he cautioned about how she would need to be careful with her voice. He said her singing style – all emotional welly – was ‘unsustainable’. She had vocal cord surgery that year, and there was another injury in 2017, when she famously had to cancel shows. More recently, she cancelled a string of Vegas dates, saying her show simply wasn’t ready. Some fans were quite vocal about the fact that a seasoned singer like her should get on the stage regardless.
No way, says Gareth. ‘I would go out to bat for Adele. If you are not up to your game, you shouldn’t do it. You wouldn’t go to watch the Olympics and say to an athlete, “What do you mean you’ve broken your leg? Get out there. I paid money to get to Japan.” The risk is that the thing that defines them may be the thing that is destroyed if they perform when they’re not ready.’
Obviously he’s even more nerdy about voices than he is about sweet treats. ‘In the way that Paul Hollywood can put a piece of apple turnover in his mouth and say, “Too much sugar”, so I can tell you with a voice. I’m not a clinician, but I’ve spent so long learning about the voice that, when someone sings, I can tell the psychology of that person, the aptitude, the state of mind, what they’re feeling. You can hear into a person’s soul.’
Is Adele OK then? He becomes uncharacteristically cautious. ‘I fear the headline will be “Gareth slams Adele” when I’m not. She’s so brilliant, but her issues with her voice are well documented and there are lots of things at play – stress, pressure, fatigue, age. The things you can get away with as a 21-year-old vocalist, you can’t as an older one. She’s changed. She’s a mother now. Her voice is deeper, richer, more beautiful I think, because it has life in it. That’s the whole thing about Adele – in those early albums she was angry. I definitely hear a more measured vocal approach now.’
Gareth Malone really is a national treasure. Only Britain could concoct a celebrity out of a man who seems more like a provincial vicar, and whose musical tastes lean more towards Gilbert and Sullivan than Lady Gaga. His previous choral projects have taken him into prisons and hospitals, but during the pandemic his Covid choir took him to the bottom of his garden most nights when the kids were asleep. As luck would have it, he had built a music studio (‘my man shed’) there. It had just been finished when the pandemic hit. ‘And thank God for that, otherwise I really don’t know what we would have done.’
After Esther Rantzen mooted the idea on This Morning, over 10,000 people applied to be in Gareth’s virtual choir, and the result was heavenly, like a choir of angels soothing our collective soul. He did miss real people though. ‘Online singing is great. It’s changed the way we do rehearsals and will continue to transform the way we work, but fundamentally singing in a choir is about being in a room with people.’
His only setback has been Pitch Battle, a big, shiny BBC1 Saturday night competition for choirs that lasted one series in 2017. But Gareth, you were never going to be a shiny show person – you’re not Simon Cowell. He agrees. ‘My
‘I hear into a person’s soul when they sing’
idols are Stacey Dooley and Louis Theroux, not Simon Cowell. I’ve always been in this slightly weird place. If you do music on TV, people think you must be Simon Cowell and do those sorts of shows – although that era has passed slightly. Hasn’t it? I do feel as though that phase is over.’
It’s curious as in some ways he is Mr Showman. He did a drama degree before following his classical music dream. On his website, you can buy Gareth Malone tea towels, for goodness sake. ‘And mugs,’ he says. ‘I make everyone who comes to my house drink from a Gareth Malone mug.’ That does suggest a hankering to be in the limelight.
‘I don’t eschew the limelight, but I’m at my best if there’s a reason for me to be there. I’d never go on I’m A Celebrity, for instance. What would I do – just sit there? I’ll do something like Bake Off that lasts a couple of days but after that I’m like, “Where’s the piano?”’