The man who held his nerve
WHAT PERFORMANCES ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO AT THE BBC MUSIC AWARDS? Craig David definitely. He’s a really old friend of mine and I absolutely adore him and I love the fact he’s had this amazing comeback after all these years of holding his nerve and doing what he does, just privately still making great music. I think the arena is going to go absolutely wild for him. So I’m really excited about that and also The 1975 are a great little band doing so well internationally now, and it’s always lovely to see Robbie Williams play as well. Literally everyone there will be fantastic. YOU MUST’VE KNOWN ROBBIE FOR YEARS... Yeah I have. A really long time. I’ve interviewed him over the years and we have mutual friends, so I see him about a lot and I love his wife Ayda [Field], we’ve hung out a little bit over the years. She’s great too. So yeah, it’s going to be a really nice event. WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE SONG OF THE YEAR SO FAR? Probably Tom Odell’s Somehow, just because I think it’s got this amazing production quality about it and the song builds and builds and builds into this full orchestral cacophony of amazing noise. I heard it for the first time walking along my local high street with headphones in and I had a real moment and was like, ‘Wow, this is so phenomenal,’ and such a step up from his already remarkable first album, so that was definitely one of the musical highs. And also I really like the new Kings of Leon track Around The World from their new album WALLS, that’s a really great song too. WHAT SORT OF MUSIC DO YOU LIKE LISTENING TO? Loads of different stuff, but I think mainly at home it’s either stuff from the Seventies like Fleetwood Mac, Led Zeppelin, the Stones, and stuff like that. Or Bon Iver we all love in our house and Tom Odell, Foo Fighters, Kings of Leon. Just a whole big mix of stuff. CHRISTMAS IS NEARLY UPON US – WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE CHRISTMAS SONG? Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas. I don’t even have to think about that one. It’s just the best feel-good Christmas song and I love it. It brings back lots of good memories. I always try and sing it and hit the high notes and completely fail. It’s just a really happy Christmas number. ARE YOU BUYING VINYL AGAIN? Yeah, that’s been the only consistent in our music-loving lives. We’re very much Spotify these days in our house because anyone who’s in the house will jump on and put the system on through our phone, or their phone and add songs. We’ve got playlists with friends, and playlists for parties that get added to, so we love Spotify. But vinyl we have always consistently bought. I’ve had it since I was a kid and I inherited a lot of my parents’ record collection when they stopped listening to it, because a lot of their music tastes are my favourites, so I’ve got a lot of theirs and then Jesse’s got a lot and we still buy a lot. We’ve got a record player in our dining area and that gets played probably more than anything.
The BBC Music Awards will air live on BBC One on Monday.