TOM ODELL ON SONGWRITING

Odell, one of the UK’s biggestselling young singer/songwriters, performed three songs live in the house, and spoke to BBC Radio 6’s Matt Everitt about

his latest album.

Jubilee Road is a concept album in the sense it was all written in one room and inspired by living in one place. I didn’t sit down to write an album about a road. It was much more natural.

The songs are more about people and characters than me. I was so sick of singing about “I”, “me”, endlessly warbling on about myself. As I’m sure lots of other people were. I could sit and play you 150 songs I’ve written that will never be heard. There are sort of two schools of songwriting, certainly from my

heroes. The Bruce Springsteen side — he writes, like, 100 songs for one album. Then when I toured with Billy Joel he told me he’d never written a song that hasn’t been released. It’s a lot of responsibility to be on your own and not part of a band. I put pressure on myself to write, perform and constantly make something.

I realised recently I need to chill out. At 18, I left home, arrived in Brighton and said I’m not going to stop until I make the first album. Then the first album comes out and I said I’m not going to stop until I make the second album. There’s this insatiable thirst.

Fame is so fickle. I’d go on TV and get recognised the next day but not a week later. I only have people coming up to me to say

something nice. It’s a nice level.

There’s a new song called “Don’t Belong in Hollywood”, the most humorous song I’ve written. It takes the piss out of myself when I had a girlfriend in LA. I was at the Beverly Hills Hotel and noticed I was enjoying staying there a bit too much. I caught my reflection in the window and went, “God, what have you turned into?”