‘I’m a hedonistic person, I like to have fun’ – there’s life after X Factor
Former winner Matt Cardle talks to Joe Nerssessian about rehab and his latest release
When he left Simon Cowell’s Syco record label in 2012, Matt Cardle was labelled another male X Factor winner who had flopped.
Initially, it appeared he had managed to reject those accusations with two albums in two years.
But as the 2010 runnerup’s One Direction saw their careers skyrocket, Cardle was in turmoil.
Addicted to a cocktail of drugs and alcohol, he spent two years dependent on prescription medication such as Tramadol and Valium before almost fighting with his drug dealer in December 2013.
Three albums in three years, the pressure of fame, and of course winning the UK’S prime-time singing competition seemed to have taken their toll.
But Cardle is used to comebacks.
A survivor of cancer as an infant, he also battled a severe fever during his time on X Factor, taking to the stage straight from his sickbed in the competition’s semi-finals.
And now he’s back again, releasing a new album on Sony, who just so happen to be the owners of Cowell’s Syco.
Rehab saved him, he admits, as he struggles to answer whether he would be sitting here now, in Sony’s Kensington offices, if it wasn’t for intervention.
“I’d like to think ‘yes of course I would’ but I don’t know,” he says, pausing to exhale. “It’s such a tricky thing. “With Valium and alcohol, if you drink too much you pass out and at the worst you might choke on your sick.
“Valium is a muscle relaxant and your heart is a muscle, and with alcohol it amplifies its effect.
“It’s so dangerous and that’s what’s killed so many people.
“Every day is another day of getting off your head, numbing everything, and sometimes it just goes too far.”
He spent 19 months after
0 Matt Cardle has used his experiences to shape his new album rehab completely sober but admits he is drinking again now.
Though he feels in complete control, comparing total abstinence to being like “sent off for fouling” in a football match.
“Being totally sober is not being able to touch the ball at all,” he adds to the metaphor.
“I wanted to have complete control over the ball.
“I’m a very hedonistic person, I like to have fun and I just felt like I wasn’t really able to be me.”
His return to alcohol was also prompted by the crash of emotions that came with finishing his role in Memphis The Musical in the West End opposite Beverley Knight in 2015.
“I was buzzed up for six months in a row on adrenaline. When the show
“I’ve always wanted to write an album that has weight and depth and meaning”
stopped, I was like what am I doing?
“Let’s try getting a balance back and I did and I have and I am balanced,” he says.
It’s eight years since 17 million people tuned in to watch Cardle take the X Factor crown.
His new album, the aptlynamed Time To Be Alive, is an exploration of his battle with addiction, journeying through the recovery process to his current contentment.
Billed as fusing electronica, gospel, rock and soul, he roped in producer Jim Eliot (Ellie Goulding, Olly Murs, Kylie Minogue) to help translate those personal battles into hits. “I was the annoying little parrot in the studio but I totally let him do his thing,” he says of Eliot.
“It’s so different from what I’ve put out before musically. One of my favourite bands of all time is Coldplay and I just think they’ve gone on one of the best musical development journeys ... they’re like the Madonna of bands.
“I’m not for a minute comparing myself to Coldplay but I wanted to try and develop sonically.”
More important, perhaps, than the sound however, is Cardle’s own journey.
Although he took his guitar to rehab, he ended up not writing while he was in recovery.
It took a while before he was ready to put his struggles to paper, but feels more worth as an artist for doing so on the album.
“I’ve always wanted to write an album that has weight and depth and meaning,” he says.
Aware that people may struggle to understand why he considered his struggles beneficial, Cardle defends himself quickly, insisting there was no “self-sabotage” involved.
“That was just how it went down and how it happened,” he adds.
“And it’s given me something to really stick my teeth into in regards to an album and saying something that means something to me.”