My role is to tell stories
Lucy Spraggan tells MARION MCMULLEN she has Simon Cowell to thank for working with Robbie Williams and reflects on five years of her sobriety
LUCY Spraggan admits she grew up listening to Robbie Williams.
“I was such a big fan when I was younger,” she smiles. “I actually recorded my second album with Steve Power because he produced Swing When You’re Winning for Robbie Williams.”
She never got to meet the singer when he appeared on The X Factor, but they have now collaborated on a special new version of her song Sober. The powerful track about Lucy giving up alcohol was first released in 2021 and she is now marking five years of sobriety.
“Working with Robbie was a huge thing,” she says. “I’ve been working with
Simon Cowell for a couple of years now and he knows Robbie.
“I actually got the opportunity independently to support Robbie at Sandringham Palace.
“Simon loves the song Sober and he said to Robbie, ‘listen to this song, would you like to be involved in it?’ and Robbie said ‘yes’.
“So when I saw him at Sandringham backstage I was [like], ‘Oh, have you heard the song yet? and he was like, ‘Yes, I loved it’.
Lucy adds: “I wrote Sober about a week after I stopped drinking.
“I wanted to write a song that I could listen back to, whether that was in a month, six months or years, to remind me why I had made the decision to be sober.
“I just see sobriety as my super-power and I get to share this song with everyone.
“Sobriety is personal for everybody, but at the same time as being very personal, you also have an understanding with other sober people in general.
“Everyone’s journey is unique and different, but when you actually look at sobriety and you speak to other people who are sober from drugs, alcohol or gambling, you can relate it to other people.”
The 32-year-old says working with Robbie has been the highlight of her career so far, adding: “I am so thankful for all of the places that my sobriety has taken me.”
Lucy says she has been starstruck in the past and Robbie was certainly up there.
“There are a few people you meet and you just go ‘wow’. Robbie was one of them. When I met Robbie I sort of looked at him and had a pause and [thought] ‘wow, that’s Robbie Williams’. He’s a good guy.”
Lucy sang her own song Last Night about the perils of drinking for her X Factor audition back in 2012 and says she has been talking about alcohol in her songs for a long time. She also wrote about it in her book Process: Finding My Way, in which she also revealed she was raped by a hotel worker during the X Factor period.
“I spent 11 years thinking ‘should I do this?’ and then I started writing and realised actually writing the book was a healing process,” says
Lucy.
Nowadays, Lucy takes care to look after her health and diet.
“I do a lot of training. I was at my boxing gym this morning and I do a lot of running, and just generally physical activity is my other passion. “When I’m on tour, my day starts with the local gym or a run.
“I wake up on the tour bus and my day starts with those things. It’s such an important part of my physical and mental health and my routine.
“It’s non-negotiable to me and then I go to work. “People go, ‘you must be kn ***** ed’ and I say, ‘no, I’d be tired if I wasn’t doing it.’” She laughingly admits to having loads of tattoos and says they were all painful to have done.
“I’ve not had one for a few years but I am completely covered in tattoos. I had ‘proud’ written on the back of my neck and my mum said that I would regret it and she’s absolutely right, but I won’t have it removed simply because she can’t win.
“She told us [Lucy and her siblings], ‘no tattoos and no motorbikes,’ – there are three of us, two ride motorbikes and all three of us have tattoos.” Lucy laughs: “She should have told us not to go to university or something like that.” Lucy has just been supporting James Blunt on tour and heads out for her own run of gigs this month, ahead of her wedding to girlfriend Emilia Smith in June, followed by summer festival dates. “I’ve got a very intense Google spreadsheet,” laughs Lucy. “I keep looking at my diary and thinking, ‘wow, who on Earth planned this?’. “To be honest it’s always felt like that. I’ve been working solidly over the last sort of decade. “I’ve got the tour, I get married and then there’s Glastonbury two weeks after the wedding.
“We’re going to do the whole weekend at Glastonbury and I might be a bit grubby by the time I play on the Saturday. “A whole summer of festivals and then the paperback version of my book comes out in August.”
Lucy says she initially planned a career as a fire fighter, but music was always her first love.
“I started writing songs when I was 10 and that’s when I started teaching myself the guitar as well. I think it’s a huge privilege in life to know who you are. I have worked out that my role in life is to tell stories whether that is through music, songwriting or writing books. I see myself as a storyteller.
“The privilege is that I get to go on stage and tell those stories.”
Sober is out now and Lucy will be touring from May 14 followed by summer festival dates. Visit lucyspraggan.com for details