BEN HAENOW ON HIS DEBUT ALBUM
and hanging out with interesting characters, including a farmer who fought in Vietnam who recites Native American poetry to him.
“I do pinch myself that I am here,” he says. “To think that I am in a barn in Nashville shooting a music video. I can’t quite believe it. Working with Kelly has been incredible.
“We had a lot of banter. She has a British sense of humour... she’s got the sarcasm. When you work with someone like that you understand why they’ve had such success.
“She thought the track was incredible and kept saying, ‘ I don’t know why you need me on it.’ ”
This is the first time an X Factor s ing e r ha s collaborated with someone else for their debut single.
“We wrote the song out in LA and recorded it there – it was never going to be a duet,” reveals Ben. “But then one of my bosses said he had a vision of it being a duet. At the time I didn’t know how that was going to go down.
“But when we found out Kelly was interested it was a no -brainer. And now I listen to it, it works perfectly.”
What about the “Curse of X Factor”? The show’s first winner, Steve Brookstein fell into obscurity and others such as Matt Cardle, Joe McElderry and Sam Bailey are heading that way.
“There is the whole stigma, but that isn’t affecting me at the moment” says Ben. “I’m so happy about what we’ve done that the pressure hasn’t got to me yet.”
He also points out that his duet partner Kelly, 33, first found fame on American
Idol. “She
I want to get to the point where people stop saying, ‘It’s the guy from X Factor’
was the original pop star to come from a prog - ramme like X Factor and she has superseded it,” he says.
“It’s a fantastic platform and I owe them everything for this, but you want to get to that point where people aren’t going, ‘ That’s the guy from The X Factor’, they’re going, ‘ That’s Ben Haenow’.
“With the album I hope they see that there is an artist in me.”
Ben is a calm, cool and collected kind of guy, but he has worked up a sweat under the Tennessee sun and it will be interesting to see if it returns when his X Factor runner-up Fleur East, 27, drops her debut single a week after his.
Her version of Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk went straight to No 1 during last year’s competition, though Ben did beat her to the title with nearly 60% of the public vote. “There is no animosity between me and Fleur,” he says. “We are now entering the realm of the charts, and you don’t hate everyone who is your competition. We are two completely different acts.
“Fleur, presumably, is going to come out with some R’n’B and dance song, which is what she does, whereas for me it is going to be something a bit more organic and ‘ bandy’, more singer-songwriter stuff. Everyone in the charts is competition and it’s nice to have a friend in it, so best of luck to her.”
Ben says the whole X Factor process has been a great thing for his splintered family. He is now on good terms with his estranged dad Mick and he dedicates the song Every Tear You Cry to his mum Rosanna, 52. “Me and my dad see each other and speak,” he says. “At the end of the X Factor my family were united when they hadn’t been in the same room for a long long time. “To see them in that way, it was a healing process, and for them to be proud of me for once was a great thing.
“I can’t believe what is happening and I think my family are still pinching themselves.”
Ben’s single Second Hand Heart is out now and the album will drop on November 13.