Will Young - Who I Am

Full transcript: Will Young on London Real

5:27 This is London Real. I am Brian Rose. My guest today is Will Young, the singer, songwriter and actor. You were the first winner of the worldwide Pop Idol franchise and now the owner of two Brit Awards from 12 nominations. You’ve written three books, acted in film, television and on stage, where you were nominated for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical.

5:47 Your triple platinum single “Evergreen” is the biggest-selling song of the 2000s and the 14th best-selling of all time in the UK. Your new EP, Summer Covers, will be released August 26th, followed by a month of shows across Britain. Will, welcome to London Real. I love that intro. Thank you.

6:03 I didn’t know I was nominated 12 times, right? Like, that sounds good. Yeah, it’s great. That sounds that sounds good. It’s a bad TV.

6:12 I’m, I’m really glad you’re here because I think you value a proper conversation and you’ve always got all sorts of fascinating things to talk about, and I want to try to get through them as much as possible today, including some of the things we were talking about before about our voice and things like that. But for people, to give some people some context, because we got people watching all around the world, can you walk us through just what things were like, you know, back in ’02? I got here in ’02, and what happened that year for you, you know, what Pop Idol was, which later morphed into The X Factor, now it’s this worldwide franchise, but at the time no one had really heard of it much, no one had heard of Simon Cowell, and all of a sudden you were there and it just exploded.

6:53 Um, can you kind of, do you still know what that was like back then? Can you walk us through what it was like to be you then? It was, it was amazing. I mean, it really was. The context was it was a tiny show that sort of started and really, you know, how many people watched it on a Saturday night.

7:13 I found out about it from university. I’d finished my degree and then I was sort of passing and had a premonition that I would win this show, and I posted the letter and said, I’m gonna, I think I’m gonna win it, to my friend Adam, and really never lost that kind of knowledge that I was gonna win it. And it wasn’t an arrogance, it was more of a just a innate sense of the future, and that kind of pulled me through. Then as this show got bigger and bigger and bigger and it was very exciting, to the point that they started talking about it in Parliament, and, you know, I could notice it because I was getting, we were all getting recognized on the street.

8:04 Then people would be beeping, and then radio stations would start getting hold of our mobiles and ring our phones while we were en route to another photo shoot and all these things, and we’d be listening to ourselves on the radio because someone, they’re like, Chris Moyles was ringing your phone, you know, and it went mental. And throughout that whole experience I never really lost that kind of knowledge that I was going to win it, and it wasn’t about competition, it wasn’t about being better, it was just, just had it. And I’ve had very few times in my life, but that was one of the times.

8:40 And it was mental, I mean mental, it was so wonderful because I was singing and I was quite repressed as a singer, so for me every week to sing on a microphone with reverb, with echo, was an amazing experience. It was like I had this voice that had been stuck. You know, we were talking about voice, you know, earlier, weren’t we? And it was stuck inside me and suddenly every week I could just release it, and that was amazing. So you’re almost evolving more as a person every week, that you could kind of expand your voice and let it all out.

9:21 I think, I don’t know as a person, but certainly as a singer. Okay. Yeah. And I got instant feedback, so my confidence would grow very quickly, was growing because I was voted in every week, right? So I would say, you know, there was something inside going, okay, you must be all right, you voted in every week.

9:41 Um, so I did grow very quickly in confidence. Yeah. And I think that was a great thing, and also got great training. I mean, it was like being in boot camp for how to be a pop star, like loads of photo shoots, loads of interviews, singing live every week, how to do a TV show, the whole thing. So they kind of, like, churned out these really like well-trained mini pop stars.

10:09 It’s almost an academy. It is an academy. Nonsense. And before Pop Idol, what was your experience as a singer, as a performer? Very limited.

10:18 I mean, I joined Footlights at university. I would never sing. I used to say, I mean, just remember this, I used to sing at my boarding house when I was 18, but I’d have to have all the lights turned out. I’ve only just remembered that. Interesting.

10:38 And I would sing with a guitarist, but I felt so embarrassed about my voice. And then I got to university, it was a new chapter, so, and it might have been tied in with being gay as well, I think. I was sort of terrified about someone realizing I was gay. Okay. Quite why I didn’t worry about wearing vintage floral shirts it’s beyond me, but anyway, that was one of the things.

11:00 It seemed to slip my mind. And this is 18 and you were 20? I was 18 and then 20, I went to uni and I started doing Footlights, musical theater. Okay. Um, and then that was it really, and I used to go and sing in car parks because I love the acoustics.

11:15 Okay. Well, they say Jim Morrison used to, you know, sing with his back to the audience in the early days of The Doors, you know, and he just didn’t want people to look at him when he was singing. I’d completely relate to that. It’s terrifying. It’s terrifying.

11:30 And yet you felt this kind of outer sense that you were there to complete this, it sounds like, for a bigger purpose. Yeah, I mean, I’ve had three premonitions in my life, all related to work, and that was the first one. Yeah. And so it did feel like a bigger purpose, whatever that was. I didn’t really think about it, but it was just innate.

11:55 It was like a tractor beam and I was just going towards the final. Wow. Yeah. Okay. How many weeks was that from first before 20 weeks?

12:06 20. And you’re being voted on every week? Every week from 12 weeks in. Okay. 20 weeks.

12:13 Okay. So this isn’t, this is quite a long time. Okay. But comparatively, you know, tiny compared to how other people get into the industry, right? Okay.

12:25 Um, things you remember from that 20-week period that stand out in your head, the competition, the final show. Oh, so many things. Okay. So many fights. The first thing that came to my head when you said that was friends, because I just left uni, so we, the majority of us had moved to London to start finding jobs, so I would just sneak in all my mates every week, and you were limited to like four tickets, but I’d get to any of us and we just have a party every Saturday.

12:54 Okay. And the joy of the show spread way beyond my own personal joy. It spread to, you know, the excitement of it and people being excited for me. Just, it sort of, it spread through everyone, and that was just so special. Um, there are very few times when people are really brought together.

13:20 It’s normally either through death, through a tragedy or through something unusually exciting, and that was what happened there. So my, I felt like I got really close to my sister again, my family got really close again, um, my extended family came in, and it was just the beauty of sharing it with all these people. I don’t know why, but it just was so beautiful to be able to share the joy of it with everyone. That’s interesting. I mean, say most 24-year-olds would probably be thinking about themselves, you know, in that situation.

14:00 No, it was all about, I couldn’t, it was all about my mates in particular. I, I had such good friends and I really needed them. Okay. And the fact that they were there, it just made the whole thing quite funny because, like, example, like I’d have to, you know, I’ve got a politics degree and I’d have to come out and, like, clap at the beginning and just be looking at my old housemates going, they know that I hate this, you know, and it just makes it all the, the first thing I said when I won to my old housemate apparently first, um, I said, think of all the free parties we can go to.

14:32 I mean, it was not like I’ve got, realized my dream, you know. And I think that kind of, I think that kind of sums up, right, that experience and how it managed, I managed to sort of, my friends very much kept me on the ground. Yeah. And a bit of innocence there. Yeah, I think, and maybe that would have only happened on that first season, because if you had gone in the 10th season knowing that it was such a big deal and it launched careers, and maybe that would have been too much.

14:58 Fresh. I don’t think I could have done it. Okay. I don’t think I could have done it because because I would, I wouldn’t have been able to be anything other than authentic and and I think that I probably would have been tested a lot more. Yeah.

15:12 Now the world now knows Simon Cowell as a personality, but at the time I don’t think people really knew what to make of him, and it’s entertaining for us to watch him be critical, but when you’re on stage that probably isn’t so much fun sometimes, week in and week out. Do you have perspective on that whole relationship at the time? Oh yeah, I had it at the time, I think. You have a famous outtake on YouTube where you really disagree with him. Yeah.

15:37 You said, no. Actually that was brilliant, that gave me my moment. I mean, that was my moment, you know. I became the person that answered back, and it was probably one of the biggest moments of my life, you know, apart from having a breakdown. I’d say that was the second biggest moment of my life.

15:53 Was that something you would thought about, like, I need to just go ahead and say this to him because I’m tired of being talked to this way? Yeah. Okay. It was other people that were being talked to, and and it just, I just hate bullying, and I just, I don’t know where it came from, but I think I was thinking about this today actually, funnily enough, on the way here. I think sometimes they’re just different energies that bring out different things in people, and for some reason that brought out a very, um, strong part of me, which I’m really pleased, um, you know, because I wasn’t a confident person at all, and for some reason that I just managed to just, you know, there’s a line inside all of us, and for some reason that line managed to come up and show his claws, and, you know, I credit my family with that, um, and probably in part my degree, you know, doing politics really helped, um, and I think I just had a sense that this person might try and take my joy away.

17:08 I don’t know why, but I just had that sense. Um, so I kind of prepared for it. Um, yeah, and then after that I just sort of knew it was for it. But also I’d lost a great family friend, you know, my family had, and so I think even then during that period just before that, um, my audition when I sort of answered back to Simon Cowell, so I’ve managed, I’d been up to a funeral, you know, that day. Okay.

17:37 So I think I just managed to have it in perspective a lot. So, oh come on, is Simon Cowell a bully? Um, no, I was thinking about that as well. I think it’s very interesting, like when people say the person that has everything, you know, I don’t think that money and success and power, whatever that is, necessarily brings happiness. Um, you know, and for me it certainly didn’t, and I wonder if it’s brought him happiness, I don’t know, you know.

18:24 The bullying side of things I think is probably too small a question for someone like him, um, but we’re certainly, there’s, there’s certainly an energy that I was very opposed to, um, and, you know, they’re just different people, but I, he’s a very interesting character. My god, I mean, fascinating. Do you think every story has to have a nemesis character in there? We were just talking about the UFC and, you know, Conor McGregor without an idea, is this, it’s not something there, and I think the fighters in the long run, they always look back and they’re like, yeah, I’m actually glad that guy was arrested.

19:00 Oh my god, with the irony of the whole thing is that this man who sort of, you know, probably for years afterwards would sort of continue to sort of say things about me, be like, why are you doing that? The irony is he pretty much gave me a career because he gave me this moment. So it’s a very interesting kind of like good versus bad, whichever one’s good, which everyone’s bad, but he kind of, like, gave me, he gave me my moment, um, and I really did, a large chunk of that is accredited to my career, and then it got, you know, exponentially bigger and bigger over time, you know, and that’s now him, whether you, I might not know if he can separate himself from that guy.

19:53 Well, wouldn’t it be great, I think, if you could interview him? I mean, those people are fascinating, um, and I think very smart, you know, he’s very smart, and some of the TV concepts I think are amazing. Yeah. And Pop Idol later then morphed kind of into The X Factor and then now has become this huge worldwide franchise, but you were there in the very beginning. Yeah, I mean, we were, like, if you look at it now, I mean, it’s like looking at Eurovision from the ’70s.

20:20 It looks so, yeah, it looks so, it looks so crap. Yeah, you know, it really of course it wasn’t, you know, at the time it was a big TV, but you know, now those TVs are epic productions. It’s like watching the Brit Awards every night, and I love, I tune in, I tune into those shows to see the artists who are performing because they just put on incredible performances. There’s so little TV for pop singers or, you know, bands, so those kind of TVs provide amazing platform.

20:51 Yeah. So you win Pop Idol, no, two. I still remember that, and I mean, you know, there wasn’t really an internet then, I mean, it wasn’t, you know, not that was we know it now. I remember it, and I wasn’t necessarily watching every night, so I knew about it, but then I also remember your first hit single, and I remember thinking to myself, even though I wasn’t a fan, I wasn’t watching, thinking, oh wow, he’s more than just the guy that won the show, there’s a whole thing going on here.

21:16 Um, is that something that surprised you or you always knew that you were on this track? Which single do you mean? You mean right now or “Evergreen”? Yeah, probably right now. Yeah.

21:28 Yeah. Um, what was it like right after the show and those few months afterwards? It was mental. Now I look back, it was mental. I mean, I didn’t get a day off, I think, for four months, you know, and primarily I’m lazy, so that’s like.

21:43 And your first concert was at Wembley after that. Yeah, which is, we went on tour, it was only meant to be eight, eight days and it turned into 36 dates, and we had a laugh on that tour, honestly. We had security guards when I used to sneak out the window trying to get away from. Um, were you handling the fame at that point? So I haven’t heard of the train wreck stories of Will Young.

22:07 And no, no, I felt very protective of the group of us as a group, and so because we were on the road together, I felt, I don’t know why, I just felt very protective of everyone, and everyone was having their different things with repercussions of their fame, you know, with either a partner or friends or family, whatever, you know, press, and I just kind of locked in on, I don’t know, just sort of being protective of everyone, and I felt a duty to do that, and so I did that for the tour, and then afterwards had to record the record, and there weren’t very many times when I came out, that was hard because there was so many cameras outside my flat, and it was just like, oh flipping out, that’s a lot of people. And much longer after the show did you come out?

23:05 I think it was about two months, two months ago. Yeah. Okay. Oh, in fact it was during that tour, because I remember we had a platform that used to rise up through the stage, and one night someone had written “dirty” on the wall where the stage then comes up. Wow.

23:23 Yeah, and it just come out that day. Okay. Yeah, that wasn’t very nice. What, what was that whole process like? I did a real kind of, like, I did this real kind of film moment and, like, all the crew restaurant, no, you know, I went off on my own, grabbed a towel and came back and scrubbed it off.

23:43 It was like, yeah, I will not be ashamed. The guy, that girl that had done it was probably off miles away. I don’t know, but, you know, 2002 was a different time. I think people forget, you know, churches were still talking about gay marriage, whether it was right or wrong. I mean, it’s a different time than it was now.

24:00 Oh my god. Right. And I think people don’t understand it was still very difficult for people to process. It was a difficult thing for you to do. Slurs on the wall that wouldn’t happen today, would it?

24:11 I don’t think so. Not on a tour, right? Not on a tour. I mean, it was just scary, I like, it was just, it was just the first moment when I felt like I didn’t feel safe suddenly, and I remember, I remember going to Tesco’s that night and I know I had a panic attack, um, because I was just like, I just felt so exposed suddenly, and I just didn’t feel safe because I knew that if you were gay you could get beaten up, and that was, I didn’t like that. Yeah.

24:46 So you had never really been in the closet, but you had never really been completely out. So it was this kind of, you just not publicly. Yeah. You wore floral shirts and, you know. Yeah.

24:55 Okay. I said, I said, I said someone tried to get me to deny it if they asked, and I got very cross and said, um, you know, I didn’t go through coming out the first time, which was hard enough, to then run back into the closet and kind of deny who I was. Um, so I always said if someone asked me then I would say, yes, I’m gay. Okay. But no one ever did.

25:18 And what happened in the media after that, and how was that next few months? I think they just run a few headlines and, you know, then I just get asked about it a lot, and as a gay man I didn’t really know what it was still, I wasn’t, I hadn’t really caught up with being comfortable with being gay, so I was kind of happy to be like, I’m gay, but I’m still friends with your grandma kind of thing, you know. Um, it didn’t really, I was always told to sort of move on from it, and at that stage I think I was happy with that because I think if I had a point it was just like, it doesn’t matter.

25:54 You know, as I’ve got older I’ve become a lot more activist. Yeah. And at the time I’m happy with the way I did it. Okay. Yeah.

26:03 But if you were to advise the 20-year-old Will Young now, would you advise them to do something differently? No. Okay. No, I wouldn’t actually. Okay.

26:13 Yeah. I’d like him to be a bit more comfortable with himself, but you can’t always fast forward those things. You’re quite outspoken about, um, LGBT issues for young people. Yeah. What is it like to navigate that space these days as a young person, you know, and to be, you know, lesbian or gay or transsexual?

26:33 And I know, and why, what are your thoughts on that? Because you’ve read some Huffington Post articles, you’ve criticized some people in the government because they’re just, they don’t get it. I think I have to stop saying myself saying something really then. Um, go ahead. No, it breaks my heart actually, it really does.

26:54 I just, I just think of if you, there’s young LGBT people in schools that just aren’t being nurtured and looked after, and, you know, let’s say, I don’t know, I wear red shoes and people make fun of me at school for wearing red shoes and all my family wear red shoes, I’ll find some solace in that when I go home. When you’re, when you’ll gay or bisexual, transgender, you don’t really have that when you go home, there’s not the support there. So there’s no support at school, there’s most of the time no support at home unless you’ve got, you know, wonderful liberal parents or family, which is not the majority.

27:39 That the level of gay shame that’s going to be piled on, of shame and self-worthlessness, you know, it’s, it just, it destroys young people’s lives, you know. The rate of young gay male suicide is almost twice the rate of heterosexual, and trans, uh, transgender is, I think, another 12 percent more than young gay suicide. So it’s just something that’s not looked at and it just breaks my heart because we’re in such an amazing place now, you know, like the success story in Britain is so cool for adults, and I think we’ve overlooked this new generation.

28:18 You think, oh, it’s all fine, and it’s just not fine in schools, and I don’t think that two million pounds is enough that the last education secretary, Nicky Morgan, put towards it. It’s not enough at all. Yeah. So we’re almost more liberal than ever, we’re more open as a society, and yet growing up as a young person and being LGBT, LGBT is still harder than ever. Yeah, because the language hasn’t been tackled in schools and people, you know, the use of the word gay is derogatory.

28:48 Um, I heard someone say it the other day. What do we do about this word? You just, yeah, educate people. Languages, the change of language in the, um, in the changing of minority rights, human rights has been fundamental. What do you say to people that say it’s just a word?

29:06 I say, uh, yeah, it is just a word, and I say that if someone comes to me and says, I find that word offensive because of this, this and this, I most likely will, I certainly would respect it and more than likely change my use of that word around them. Um, I think it’s just putting that in a in a comprehensive, simple way, it’s not sort of dictorial, dictatorial or whatever the word is, you know, it’s not coming in with a long stick saying this, it’s just explaining, right, by the way, this and 98% of young LGBT people in 2012 find it offensive. Right.

29:52 And, um, and, um, distressful, they’re distressed by it. Yeah. So we need to respect it and just make sure people feel comfortable, would just be so simple. Yeah. It would just be so simple, and yet I think people can’t, um, and people are scared, people are afraid to go to it in schools, and I think it’s because it’s linked with, it’s linked with sex basically, so they don’t want to go there.

30:17 It’s like, oh god, we don’t want to talk about being gay, and like other people might want to bum each other or, you know, like might want to go with the same sex, and then it’s just awful and we won’t have any kids, you know. I think there’s still that kind of mentality, antiquated mentality, I think. Okay. And they think about sex, not just people being themselves and who they are. No.

30:35 Okay. And love doesn’t come into it, they don’t think about love. So we’ve got another 20 or 40 years to go. Definitely. Okay.

30:41 And they don’t think about, they still think it’s a choice. It’s like, well, you’re, it’s a choice, so we can’t talk about it now because you might change your mind. Right. That’s the subliminal message, is still a choice, and we still need to educate, educate. I think you’re right.

30:55 Um, looking back at your first five years after that Pop Idol, what do you see as things you change if you could go back, or like the great moments and I’m so glad I did this? I think I’d change, the only thing I would change is singing on a program called World Idols when all of us got together from different Pop Idols, and I just didn’t want to do it, and I just, I should have stuck to my guns. Um, and apart from that I wouldn’t change anything. Um, the next record, I remember clearly, Steve Lipson, my producer, came to me, he wasn’t my producer then, he was Annie Lennox’s producer, and I had done The Art of Noise and done Grace Jones and Whitney Houston, and I knew him specifically for Annie Lennox, and he wanted to meet me, and we went to this pub and he goes, I’m going to make your record, if I don’t make your record you won’t have a career, and I was like, cool, okay.

31:52 What do you say to that? Well, he was right. He was completely right. He said they said they’re not going to look after you and you’re not going to have a career, I’m going to give you a career, and he did. And you have to put a lot of your trust into that producer.

32:07 Correct. Yeah, I could. I mean, the thing is, I was, you know, such a Lennox fan, and I loved The Art of Noise, so, and Trevor Horn, so he’d work with all of them, so I was like, I mean, I rang my mum afterwards at night and said, Steve Lipson, you know, and because she’s a big fan of music she knew him, and then he gave me a career, and then I had a song “Leave Right Now” and that was a big hit for me, and then that whole album just took off, and it was really touch and go.

32:35 It was either you have a career or you don’t with that second record, so that whole record was brilliant. I was really proud of the videos, proud of the tour, and proud of the people that I made friends with, that I met through doing all these things. Um, third album was tough, it’s kind of like my second album and that’s normally the really tough one. Um, I didn’t enjoy any of the process, I became a bit of a dick. I’d done a film and I felt I was quite special.

33:03 Right. And I thought, how do you manage the ego at this point? I wasn’t, I wasn’t managing it, I was a basically and desperately unhappy, so I just kind of was a bit of a monster, rude to people, I got very frustrated with things, and I really, one of the things I really got frustrated with was lies. So I’d go to things and people would say, yeah, we’ll do that, and then they don’t, or rec companies say that and they don’t, or a TV show, they do it, and that really started getting to me and I stopped trusting anyone.

33:37 Um, and I just, I just got myself wound up, you know, and then then I started seeing a therapist basically. When you’re in a bad space like that, is it, in your opinion, impossible to create great music and great art, or is it still possible if you’re an ultra professional or you know how to segment? I think it can be part of it really, it can be part of it. I don’t think it matters, you know, but I definitely made a choice after that record: do I want to be the unhappy mad person that writes music, and I thought, no, I’d rather be happy, if that means I just stop, that’s fine, you know.

34:17 My happiness and self-worth became, was like, that’s more important than being a tortured artist. Okay. Um, so I don’t think it affected it, um, sadly one way or the other. What did you learn in therapy? Oh my god, oh my god.

34:37 Well, I remember the first thing my uh, wonderful therapist, who we even, you know, ended our relationship, now come to the end in a very wonderful way, Lois Evans, very punchy Jewish New York lady, Tiffany earrings, the first, I think the first session. Who’s here in London? Okay, hard to find a therapist in London. Uh, well, she’s, she was one of the goodies, and uh, she said, yeah, you, I think you are probably quite unlikable, and I was like, Mr. Likeable, you know, nice Will Young.

35:09 I just thought, this is so, she, you know, famous quotes from her: I think you’re probably pretty unlikable, if I was your boyfriend I’d dump you. Those are my two favorites, which I reminded her in a very good session. What did I learn? I learned gradually to, um, slowly, I mean through many, many years and through guidance from her I guess, find my true self. That’s what I would say, yeah, but within two, two years I sorted out work and I don’t, I don’t have a bad day at work now.

35:41 I just don’t. Explain that, you don’t have a bad day at work because it it doesn’t mean anything. None of it means anything, you know, it’s it doesn’t affect my happiness. It’s like if I have nothing tomorrow and I stop being a performer and no one wants me to perform anywhere, I’m going to do something else. It’s, and once it becomes that, everything is wonderful because it’s all meaningless.

36:14 Right. You know, so then it’s like, wow, what a bonus. Right. Oh, oh my god, you know, I get to sing there, that’s a bonus. Oh, that’s a bonus, you know, rather than putting everything into these external things.

36:32 Once I realized that it was, everything was just meaningless anyway, then I started really enjoying it and stopped worrying about all these things of like, oh, that person’s so much better than me and I’m not as good as that, and just thought, well, I’m just going to enjoy everything. Right. So just, it’s a choice, it’s a choice. I either sit here and go, oh, I’ve only sold five thousand out of ten thousand tickets, or I go, it’s bloody amazing, five thousand people here.

37:00 You know, I did an awful gig the other day and it was so depressing, it’s so depressing, and I thought, well, I’m not going to stand here and, like, get all down about it, because what’s the point? The people here who’ve paid money, is this going to be like the best gig of my life? Like, certainly not. And you’re lucky to be doing it. Yeah.

37:24 So just lower the stakes, don’t put them there, be present, be in the moment, and that’s how, and that’s how great performances happen. Uh, sadly again, I think, I don’t think it matters. I mean, like, I’ve done performances and thought that it was dreadful and people have said best performance ever, and I’ve done ones where I think I’m practically writing, you know, my acceptance speech for a Grammy, and people are like, oh, that wasn’t good. So I don’t know if it matters, I don’t know how any of that, you know, equates, but certainly lowering the stakes, great way, I think great way of putting it.

37:55 They say, um, you write as well, but I’ve been told that writer’s block is only a process of you putting too much importance on the outcome of what you’re writing, and as soon as you release that then you can write, but when you’re so worried that it has to be this or it has to be that, that’s when people, you know, they stumble or they have problems. It’s very hard to get rid of those worries. I mean, that is where I think cognitive therapy comes into its own, because those things are very natural things, they come from fear.

38:25 Anything that is created from fear, you know, I don’t know, perhaps it’s going to carry that into the work or not. I don’t know, but, um, it certainly makes it a lot easier to block, to mentally learn how to block that fear out. I do a thing with the tennis ball technique that I’ve done with people, so, um, it’s catch and release. So someone throws a tennis ball to me and I just throw it straight away, boom, boom, just throw it through it, and slowly it just got into my brain.

38:53 So you just let things go. Yeah. And then you let emotions go the same way. Yeah. Thoughts can link to emotions, or neurologically, you know, if it’s trauma then that comes to a thought from your body, but it, that tennis ball thing is brilliant, let me try that.

39:10 I’ll have so many mental thoughts in my head, you’re gonna sing, you’re never going to sing again, god, that was a dance move, they’re hating you, I’m just like, get the tennis ball out. Yeah. Well, what is the essence of being a performer? I mean, a lot of people see you on stage, but you know, you’ve done this for so many years and I’ve seen people perform. I had, I had, uh, Matt Willis here from Busted, and I saw him on stage at the O2, and I saw him before, me to all of these people, and I was just like, it was almost like we were plugging into your soul and feeling all the energy you were feeling, and it was amplified to the stadium.

39:46 Is that what it’s like when you’re in a moment where people are feeling you at flow with the world? Yeah. Yeah, there’s something very cool, it, I think it’s like, I think there’s, but I can only talk for myself, but I think there’s a huge need for affirmation that must be in there, a drive, you know, so there is a bit of a monster that as soon as I walk, walk on the stage, ah, I really like the applause. The applause is there. Yes, there is a part of me, you know, I mean I who know, we talked for five hours about that, why there’s a part, why you need that.

40:25 I think so, there must be something, it must be about wanting to voice something, I think, that couldn’t be voiced, and then there’s that amazing, uh, then it becomes about communication, and because the communication is very pure it can’t help but then tap in to something with other people, and then it’s just becomes this molding kind of mass of energy, and it just, it can’t be described, you know, it’s just energy, and sometimes it really kicks off, sometimes it doesn’t, and it’s spiritual. I mean, it is completely spiritual, and that is something that is beautiful and really, to be honest, having that, that probably, probably having that, probably I would almost go as far as saved my life. Yeah.

41:20 Knowing that authenticity and knowing that kind of sense of true connection, that very much in has pulled me through, um, having PTSD definitely, but I think being a performer is about communication and is about communicating from here, you know, not being afraid to be vulnerable, not being afraid to be angry, be sad, be happy, and just go, wow, here you go, and that’s what they do, those, you know, great performers, David Bowie, I mean, unbelievable. What did he say? He said, would you say I’ve always written about the same things?

41:58 It was something, I’ve written about fear, something else, and something else. I thought, oh, you’re such a dude. So the performances you remember in your life, you probably don’t remember them, were you just out of body, were you with all this energy? Some, yeah, some, it’s really, yeah, I, it does go out of body, and then what’s amazing is with the musicians, because we all feel it together, and it’s just like going on this sort of, it, there’s no drug that can do that, no drug.

42:27 It’s just, it’s, it’s like, it is out of body, it’s shamanic, it’s shamanic, and and I guess why wouldn’t it be, you know, lots of people in the room sharing energies, using music to kind of go to a different place. Right. It’s a ceremony basically, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah. And the audience picks up on that, they feed your energy, it comes back to you.

42:54 I guess that’s why, that’s why people go to these things. Yeah, that’s why I go to them, definitely. Yeah, yeah. And this got you through the harder moments, the tougher moments? Definitely.

43:03 Talk to me about PTSD, about anxiety, something we’ve talked on the show a lot with performers as well, that sometimes have this, uh, this gut-wrenching anxiety that most people have no idea they’re dealing with, because, yeah, for them you make it look easy. Well, oh well, for performers, um, well, PTSD is a thing that I learned about because I got it. Um, I had it, break down, um, and sort of after my sixth album it was kind of like the album that I always wanted to do, so it was called Echoes, fifth or sixth album, and then I moved into this perfect house, my life was perfect.

43:44 It’s always the death and all the perfect. Yeah. And I mean, I was like, this could be pictured in, you know, um, Wallpaper magazine or whatever that other one is. It’s amazing. Um, and I just was at a loss, you know, a number one album, number one, top five single, everything, blah blah, and I thought, oh, this is not good.

44:07 Um, this is not going to be easy, and then just slowly began to unravel, um, quite quickly after doing this course, and then I went into the theater, did Cabaret for the first time, and then I, then I got PTSD and got depersonalization and derealization, which is when your body can’t cope with the flooding of emotions from the past, so it shuts down, and my, I couldn’t see my face in the mirror and I couldn’t recognize places or family, all friends. Um, was there a specific trauma or was it a recollection of me? It wasn’t, it was at that stage it was about almost, actually I diagnosed myself with the depersonalization, but I was taking medication and so I thought it was a medication, and then so many people get misdiagnosed for bipolar, particularly when actually it is trauma.

45:07 Um, and then I, you know, been through the, gone to the only trauma place for civilians in the UK, which is Kieran House. Um, and luckily had incredible therapists. It was my therapist Lois Evans that said, I think you’ve got trauma. If it wasn’t for her, I honestly don’t think, I think I’d probably be on a cocktail of medication and I probably would have killed myself. Wow.

45:31 Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And so by diagnosing that as trauma and the PTSD, you dealt with it in a different way. I then, yeah, exactly, I went to a specialized trauma place and had to go through a number of things in my life that were very traumatic and to do with abandonment, so boarding school was a huge thing for me, my first boarding school, and, um, you know, being a twin and being born and not being around, we were ill so we weren’t together, you know, so it’s been in my nervous system for my whole life, and it takes a long time to get that out, and I still get it.

46:10 I don’t have my depersonalization, which is just so nice because I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy, and it all started happening after that 56 album. You got the house. Was there any one thing that triggered it, or was it just this weird plateau in your career? I went on a course, I went on a thing called the Hoffman, and for me I cleared a lot of stuff, but then I opened myself up. It’s an acting course?

46:32 No, it’s a, it’s a 10-day or nine-day sort of experiential therapy course. Okay. Um, residential, and it’s heavy. Um, it was great and I, I, I, it cleared everything, so suddenly I was had to deal with my co-dependency, at certain addictions, you know, blah blah blah, and once I got rid of those and I was then, I really hit the crap. There’s an amazing book, and I read three, two amazing books, you know, all the ones by Pia Mellody and John Bradshaw and Shane, and he has a, um, you know, there’s concentric circles and he puts behavior and then family role patterns and then addictive behavior and then this, and then right at the thing is core shame slash trauma, and you’ve got to get through all these, peel the layers, peel the layers off an onion, and it is bloody difficult, but the singing and knowing that I could, knowing that I could, I had an idea of what being authentic was and being my true self and being powerful and empowered and, you know, not thinking and just being.

47:49 I knew I could do it and work, I knew it was there, so I could understand when a therapist would say, like, I used to say psych therapist, I was like, I know I’m brilliant, I say to it, I know I’m brilliant, but I just feel horrific and I can’t even leave the house, you know, things like that. But I would, I mean, but trauma, people don’t understand, in my understanding of trauma now, I mean, my gosh, you know, I want everyone to know about it because the therapy is so different. Our nervous systems hang on to things and it, we wires into our body, and we concentrate so much on the mind, which is great, we don’t concentrate on the body, and this, these body therapies aren’t weird.

48:32 They’re a chap called Peter Levine that discovered somatic re-experiencing in the, in the ’60s, you know, it’s normal physical behavior. We were talking about stretching earlier. Yeah, yeah, you were doing a calf stretch. Yeah, it opens up. Yeah, yeah, I do a lot of kind of dynamic meditation and movement to free the brain because using the body.

48:56 Yeah, we hold so much in our bodies, we don’t realize. Yeah. And we do do things to get it out. I mean, we go dancing. Yeah.

49:05 Okay. Normally we have to go into a dark basement to do it. Yeah, you know, we do yoga, we go running, we laugh, um, you know, all these things. So look at the mosh pit. What’s that all?

49:16 Yeah, exactly. Oh my god. Right, you know, you were talking about shouting earlier, weren’t you, going out just shouting or screaming, all from our bodies, and just discovering this therapy, I mean, thank god really. So if people are listening, they should just be open to the fact that they might have traumas, or they probably do, just to whatever degree, that are down there in their bodies. I mean, I I think people like Russell Brand have said it, but you know, um, people, we treat the symptoms, we don’t treat the causes, and our trauma, I would say is, and I now firmly believe, is behind 99.9% of addictive behavior.

49:54 It just has to be. Yeah, there has to be something there. Just getting to it can take years and take pain and everything, but who wants to get, who wants to do that? I mean, you know, well, if you look at the alternative sometimes. Yeah, yeah.

50:09 People say it’s when the pain of the pain of facing it becomes less than the pain of living in the situation you’re in, so that’s certainly what happened to me. Are you past it? It sounds like you put a lot of that behind you. Yeah, I’d say I’m about, it’s a good day for me today. Um, a few days ago was tough.

50:30 Um, the thing is, it’s very hard to explain, it’s very, it has been quite isolating because it’s not depression, I don’t get depression. Um, it’s extreme hypervigilance of the nervous system, so there’s a part of my brain that is basically telling me, you’re about to die, you know, so you either shut down, freeze, you know, you run, um, or you leave your body. Right. And luckily I don’t do that, but it’s very hard to manage, uh, and it’s, it’s, it’s very hard.

51:01 And you don’t describe that as anxiety, that’s more just trauma that you’re kind of dealing with? I mean, it is anxiety. Yeah, it’s hyper, it’s hypervigilance. Okay. Um, and I, the only thing I can do is go to bed, but I have a lot more compassion for it now and a lot less shame for it because I just think, right, this is, this is where I’m at.

51:24 This is where I’m at. Medication still necessary sometimes? I’ve got a view on medication. I mean, I’ve written this article that I want to publish, um, when I was, when I couldn’t sleep because of PTSD, it’s like I was going to bash this out, and uh, for me I’m, I’d be my own walking experiment for medication, and I have a brilliant psychiatrist who will not put up dosages or change things, it’s only touched certain things, it’s taken the edge of things, it hasn’t touched the traumatic energy at all.

52:03 I’m like a living example of that. Yeah. It cannot do that, and and that’s why I wish people would just look more at trauma, you know, because I think that we just throw out pills and then people can’t understand why they’re not working, so they take more pills and it’s like, it’s in your body. You can’t get rid of that, you know, and I went for a year and a half, two years was changing medication, um, they still probably took the, they definitely took the edge off, and I mean, there were times when I was so suicidal, um, I mean, I just dreadful times on the floor, just, I mean, really thought you could do something now, so maybe they helped.

52:51 I always knew I had the Samaritans. Right. Oh, the Samaritans. Yeah, which is a UK organization, right? Yeah, and they’re just there for you for suicide watch and prevention.

52:59 I just knew that I had them. Yeah, it was very weird. Good shout out to the Samaritans. Well, yeah, it was kind of, they, yeah, it’s interesting. Normally people hear PTSD, they think of soldiers coming back from Afghanistan in Iraq that have had these, you know, kind of brief moments of IEDs, death, that kind of thing, and now they’re dealing with it in many ways, and we’ve had a lot of doctors here that talk about different therapies for PTSD.

53:23 They’re looking at MDMA and psychedelics and all these other things of looking at a therapy-based. Yeah, just a prescription. Yeah, that’s interesting. I mean, I mean, anything that’s experiential can take one back to a time. Um, uh, I didn’t know MDMA was on the cards.

53:40 Yeah, have fabulous. Yeah, we’re fresh. I’ve got PTSD, I want MDMA. The, uh, there’s a, well, so on the show early on we had experiences with ayahuasca, we went on these experiences and we confront a lot of these deep down issues kind of head-on. No, that’s not the best solution for everybody, um, but it’s a really difficult way sometimes of facing a lot of issues that are deep down inside you and affecting your behavior, and I’ve done this and it’s not usually the nicest experience, but I get a lot of clarity afterwards.

54:07 Now there’s a group called MAPS in the U.S. I think it’s, I’ll think of the acronym, but they use an MDMA therapy where they sit down with two therapists, usually a male and a female, and say they take a soldier from Afghanistan, give them a dose of MDMA, and they actually talk them through the experience, so they re-experience that trauma, but they do it when they’re in a mindset where they’re not shutting down, and they actually re-experience it because I think we’ve proven that memories, they’re not actually a version of what happened, they’re actually, sometimes we actually reconstruct memories in the present about what happened, and so they actually relive the experience in a better state of mind, and the idea of dealing with that trauma, and hearing you say that, it’s reminding me of the somatic therapy and the EMDR that I’ve done.

54:47 Okay. Changing an experience, being able to go back there, being able to handle going back there, because it is like time traveling. I’m going to take your body back to when you thought you were about to be killed, and it, that’s interesting about him, MDMA, that can help the body relax to do that. Yeah, more comment on that. Can I say quickly, there’s a shaman that got rid of my depersonalization.

55:09 Oh really? In one session. Okay, two and a half years traumatic, but no, I asked her. No, I wouldn’t, I don’t think I would do that. Okay.

55:18 Now I feel like I’ve had enough trips maybe, but if shaman was there and they had, like, an emotional physical ceremony where they walked you through, I went to see her and she got rid of it in two hours. I didn’t expect it. I walked out and it went bloody grateful. What’s your name? We might have the same shame.

55:38 Oh okay, I’ll say it afterwards. Okay, cool. Um, talk to me about your other artistic endeavors. You know, a lot of people when they get into the music business, they stay in the music business. You write, you go on stage, um, and we, I want to at some point talk about this whole idea of the voice and how that came back to you.

55:55 Why go to these other performance arts? I don’t know, I just, it just, I mean, the acting thing was another premonition that I had. I had a premonition and I wrote it down, I’d do a film in the 1940s, I think I said, with Judi Dench, and then it happened. It was really hard. This is your second out of a total of three?

56:18 Yeah. Okay. And then my third was to do a Noël Coward play, and that happened as well. Okay. Yeah.

56:24 Um, next time you get a fourth one, let me know. I haven’t had any, bet on it. Oh, you’re going to be on London Real was your fourth? Oh, I do have, there’s potentially one. Yeah, I can’t remember what it was now.

56:35 Oh, it’s something to do with America. It is, I don’t know what it is. Okay. I don’t know what it is, it’s something to do with America. I don’t know if it’s work, I don’t know, it’s weird, but I keep on having it’s weird anyway.

56:48 Well, I want to get back to what you think of America, but yeah, talk to me about these other performance pieces. What was it like? Well, the film is amazing, um, and I learned a lot from that. Um, quite mad and surreal to suddenly be doing this film you know, with these amazing people, Stephen Frears. I went, Stephen Frears was casting it and I thought he was the casting director and not the director, so when he came up to me at one of the auditions, because I did about seven auditions, um, he said hi and I went, yeah, no, hello, no, I’m just waiting.

57:18 He said, what are you doing? What are you doing here? Talk like that. I said, I’m waiting for the director. He goes, I thought he is the director.

57:28 Oh yeah, I know. Um, that was really cool. And is it intimidating to be on set with Judi Dench? It was very, I was terrified, absolutely terrified, like super duper just terrified. She’s the real deal.

57:40 Yeah, like first day at school terrified. Um, Bob Hoskins was amazing, amazing man, and he just was so cool. What do those actors think of a pop star on their set? I think there’s a bit, I quite enjoyed being the pop star actually. I did quite enjoy that character.

58:04 Yeah, because it was like, oh, and here he comes, you know, this pop star. Um, and I was doing a tour, I was rehearsing for a tour at the same time. Um, I think they loved it. I got told off by Judi Dench, sort of. She said, you know, Norma, I was late.

58:21 She said, in all my career I’ve only ever been, I’ve never been late, I think she said, and I thought, shh, okay. That was a shot across the bow, um, and rightfully so. Uh, it was an amazing experience and it was such a beautiful film and so much fun because we were in, the set was a theater, so they built this theater, so it was like going to the theater every day, and I would wear a different outfit every day. Um, and I learned from Stephen Frears to keep it small.

58:49 Um, I’m not a brilliant actor, I’m very good at some things and other things I just will never be able to do, and I learned that from him. And then doing the play was terrifying, uh, but incredible, doing it in the round in Manchester. Um, it was a very difficult time for me personally, I was just, I mean, to be honest, most of that time was, and I slightly unraveled, but then I met someone later on that did the same play, The Vortex, in London. He played Nikki, who’s this kind of disgusting, diabolical upstart, you know, of a person, and he found it really hard.

59:28 He said. How does it equate to performing, you know, singing versus acting in a round stage? There’s a lot more relief in many ways because there’s less pressure because I’m playing someone else, so there’s a lot less fear, weirdly, in one sense, but in another sense there’s a lot more focus because there’s no noise. You know, concerts you’ll get some noise, there’s no noise in the theater, and it’s just me speaking and it’s a bit like, okay, that’s weird, but I do have the protectiveness of being a character.

1:00:02 So once I sort of got around that, the kind of energy that you can get from an audience in the theater, I don’t think anything else touches it. I don’t think anything else touches it, the way that one can manipulate an audience once you’ve got them and you’re up and running. You can get them and it’s just, it’s just incredible. You don’t get the rush of a pop concert. Pop concert is like, yeah, you know, and often you’re like, yeah.

1:00:30 Play theaters like puppetry. Yeah, and I have to say I’ve never done with their emotions. Yeah, happiness. Yeah, anger, sadness. Yeah.

1:00:40 Okay. And that’s, it’s super cool if you get it, not super cool if they’re hating you. And I was kind of, all right, in the play I was as good as I could have been, um, but I learned a lot. And then there’s nothing more terrifying than a press night, I can just say that, there’s nothing more terrifying. And then doing Cabaret was just like life-changing, life-changing, probably one of the biggest things ever in my life.

1:01:04 Why do Cabaret? But before I ask you that, why do you push yourself into so many uncomfortable experiences as an artist? I just, I don’t know, I just want to do them. I want, I was having a conversation today and my manager said, what about going with this producer, and he’s a very well-known, very good producer and he’s done a lot of people, and that’s like, yeah, but he does everyone, you know, and I was thinking, am I just, like, sabotaging? Why not just go with an obvious choice, that someone who might be great?

1:01:38 Why haven’t to choose someone, you know, but I think with the performance it’s just in me, I don’t, I genuinely don’t think it’s forced. It has just sort of happened, um, and it’s just, I just want to do it, you know, it’s very much a kind of path thing. Um, and it just must be in me that I just want to do these things, I think, and I don’t, I feel quite vulnerable in pop. You know, I feel, um, I feel like with acting I’ve got my job, I’ve got my pay packet, I’m doing it for this long, I’m in the routine, I don’t need to worry about anything else actually really apart from just doing a good job.

1:02:30 I really like being, I never thought about this, I really like being pointed and just go, wind me up, point, go, and I’ll do it, you know, I really do it. I find it hard in the pop world to sort of be across everything so much. Right. It’s almost too much room, too many different things you have to be. It’s a lot, but then at the same time it’s also amazing.

1:02:55 Yeah. So, but I feel more vulnerable in the pop world, and so having these other avenues now is really lovely. Yeah. What is the music business like today, and also and what was the music, except is how does it compare to ’02? You’ve seen it change, um, and you know, you must have young 20-year-old versions of yourself come up to you and say, I want to be in the music business.

1:03:27 Do you always say to them, look, this is a lot different than when I got into this in ’02, the rules have changed, you have to do so many things different? What’s it really like? I think still the basis is a good song, so that’s never going to change, you know, whether it gets out there or not, whatever, but a good song is a good song. What makes a good song? Oh my god, I don’t know the answer to that, I genuinely don’t know the answer to that, because I think some songs can be written in five minutes and no one even cares about them, and they’re a massive hit, and some songs can be pained and pained over for years and they’re a massive hit.

1:04:05 So I just, I genuinely don’t know if there’s an answer to that, but I think, yeah, so that sort of flaws the whole thing. Well, the music, it’s got to be about the music, the center has to come from the music. How it’s changed, um, is I think actually there’s far more avenues, even more to discover artists, you know, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing, and I also think that you can almost become your own label. Um, the avenues for when I started was when there was, like, there was still Top of the Pops, um, which is just hysterical, Top of the Pops, CD:UK, SMTV, T4, MTV, Graham Norton, Jonathan Ross, Michael Parkinson, there’s so many shows that were just regular shows that we would do.

1:05:03 I mean, there’s none of those now, none of those, you know, that, like, Top of the Pops, CD:UK, T4 would be every week. Yeah. And they’re gone, so those avenues aren’t there. YouTube basically put a YouTube kind of at the beginning sort of killed videos, but then videos went up again. My rep company on the fifth album were gonna think about not making a video, and then the one they made for the first thing, I think, is probably the one that’s been watched the most for me.

1:05:31 Um, and now, now I think it’s the social media obviously is a hugely different thing. That’s no bad thing. I mean, you never get to, are you a master? To be honest, I get to do more interesting things than I ever used to, different shoots, you know, great, something like this, great talking. Um, so there’s so many wonderful things that an artist can do, and I like that, because for someone that didn’t just want to sort of talk about, you know, my favorite carrots, it’s great because so there’ll be a website be like, right, go and dance around and we’ll film you, and that will be, I think, yeah, brilliant.

1:06:17 There never was that because everything was so more squeaky clean, can’t do that on Top of the Pops. I’m like, yeah, I can go and do that on whatever.com, you know. But making money is harder today. Yeah, probably. Is there still money to be made in the music business?

1:06:35 Yes, it comes from live. Right. And your live is never touched, live has got better and better, and live, I life can never be recreated. You can’t digitalize that, you can’t virtual reality it. People do.

1:06:52 You can’t, it’s the energy that we’re talking about. So life will never go, and that’s what’s so brilliant, the tangible, the tactileness of going to a concert, the connection, you can’t get that through a camera. Right. And that is the lifeline of many an artist. And you love performing live?

1:07:16 I love it. Right. Yes, I mean, sometimes I’m terrified, but you know, it is, it’s where it came from, I love it, I love doing it with the musicians, you know, my pointings if they’re there. Yeah. Hello.

1:07:29 And are you incorporating some Cabaret, Cabaret aspects a bit more? Yeah, I think I have got a bit, which is somewhere in between theater and music. Yeah, I think so. It sounds fun. Yeah, a lot of it’s in the outfits.

1:07:42 I mean, I’m really into this designer called Craig Green, he’s just a brilliant British designer and he makes incredible outfits, so I wear this kind of, like, mental samurai outfit that sort of looks like it’s made out of an idea down. I mean, it’s that for me, I’ve got more of an armor now, I realized that from Cabaret, because I wore incredible outfits on Cabaret, mental outfits, and I need that, I don’t know whether people get it or not, and it’s really important for me to bring in more of that kind of theater. Um, I come out at the end on a disco mobility scooter with a keyboard, singing a David Bowie cover, you know, microphone, and it’s hysterical.

1:08:26 You know, they’re people in the audience and some of them are mobility scooters, I’m like, hi. It’s kind of like mocking, mocking things and yet respecting at the same time. Right. And that, if so, and if you have the performance like you said that cannot be digitized, replicated. No.

1:08:43 And people will always pay for that experience, won’t they? Yes, thank god. Yeah, because I never know what happens with record sales, what happens with. No one does. But I think the live thing is there, there’s such a yearning for it still and I just think that’s brilliant.

1:08:57 It makes me so happy to go to festivals and see all these people wanting to see all these different acts. It’s like, yeah, that’s what it’s all about. Yeah, yeah. You surprised me earlier by saying you’re a fan of the UFC fighter Conor McGregor. Oh my god, he’s amazing.

1:09:12 He’s amazing, his movement’s amazing. Yeah. Why are you attracted to that, to him, to fighting? It was his movement. Someone, I think, sent me a link to him about three years ago.

1:09:25 Um, I think it might have been someone from Cabaret actually, Sharla, who’s a movement person, and I was just astonished by the way this man moved, it’s like, bloody hell, he’s like silk, you can’t. Anyway, so it was through that and then I got into him as a fighter, and then I started doing my Thai kickboxing, um, yeah, and so I went to Thailand for the last two years. Yeah. And it’s brilliant, and you kick pads and, yeah, you go all out. Yeah.

1:09:59 I don’t spar, I did one spar with my brother and he punched me and I didn’t like it, so I was like, I don’t want to do that, I don’t need to do that. You don’t need to do that. No, there’s plenty of to do with Thai boxing without getting punched in the face, there’s like lots of technique, it’s a great art, it’s just like, it’s made me feel so centered. And I think there’s something beautiful about watching any sports person that is great in their field, and that kind of motion of martial arts, mixed martial arts, you know, I know some people can be a bit sort of anti if they’re like true, you know, into their, like, um, one kind of technique and all that, but I just think watching something like Conor McGregor’s, watching that movement is astonishing, and how athletic he is, you know, I mean, he just looks incredible, and I just think it’s beautiful, it’s like watching a ballet dancer except he’s kicking this out of someone.

1:10:50 Yeah, you know, when I see Conor sometimes I see a man with, you know, so much pressure on him as well. Now he put this pressure on himself, he welcomed it, he is the champion or one of, you know, uh, many great champions, but you know, so he lost a fight, he’s still the man, but I see sometimes that it’s almost, you know, it’s hardening him as a person, and you’ve been there before, you’ve been where you’ve been at the very top and launched very fast into being a celebrity, and I’m wondering when you look at Conor, departed as part of you thinking, everything’s gonna be okay, brother, I know how you feel? Like, you probably see different things in him than I see.

1:11:24 Oh, that’s interesting, I hadn’t sort of, I do look at people and I’m interested in the passage of, from the beginning to then how you’re going to cope with all that stuff, and I suppose having got through the other side, um, you know, and really with some bloody good people still by my side and do it on my own, um, I am interested by how people, whether they manage it or not, manage to see the madness of it all. Um, it definitely can harden you. I remember my brother actually saying to me, you’ve become really tough, and that was really upsetting, quite soon after Pop Idol, he said he’d become really tough.

1:12:10 Yeah. And I didn’t, and I hadn’t, and he was really upset. Um, so yeah, I think it probably can harden people, but I like seeing it, I don’t know if I’ve thought that with him. I mean, I do, like, I like seeing him become more and more successful. Me too.

1:12:24 It’s always interesting to see how, uh, a fighter like that deals with a loss, you know, or even a singer or a celebrity deals with something bad in their lives, and it tells you a lot about them how they come back. Yeah, I know. I’m sure you look for that, or you should notice it. Well, if I think of that, I suppose I think, um, you know, I think it probably is genuinely harder for fighters because there is, like, win or lose, for in my business I don’t really see it so much like that.

1:12:53 I’d like to eradicate the word failure from the English language, I think it’s like a non-entity of a word. I don’t really know what failure is, you know, um, that’s failed, why has it failed? I mean, well, it either did that or it did that, it’s like, not a failure. So, but I guess in fighting it is actually very different, you have literally won or lost. So you’re saying with a failure, usually we try to judge ourselves, and failing is a judge, isn’t it?

1:13:22 You’re a failure. I mean, that’s a judgment. Um, it’s not, it’s an assessment of an action or something that’s happened. I don’t, you know, I don’t see why it’s there. It denotes something negative.

1:13:38 Right. Whereas it’s really a learning experience, it’s feedback, it’s just something, isn’t it? Yeah, exactly. It can be used as feedback, and, you know, I don’t even get too, like, obsessed with it, you know. I wouldn’t, like, say to driving tests, right, you can no longer say failed, you know, you’ve passed or you’ve, I’m interested in feedback about how that happened, you know.

1:14:01 I think they’re limited, so I certainly for my job, I think, yeah, there’s a. Did you see that movie Birdman? It was that crazy. Oh my god, amazing. In his dressing room mirror at the very bottom it says, um, it’s written down there, it says, a thing is just a thing, not what is said about that thing.

1:14:18 Oh yeah. And it’s like, I’m sure something that’s like on a lot of actors’ things before they go out on them, and it’s kind of what you say, you know, it’s like, it is what it is, it’s not what people say it is. I think this is, that’s that movie is amazing. Um, I that’s funny, that’s funny. Yeah, probably it’s, I tell you a funny story when I did this play, um, a guy, he was a voice coach from London, sent me a long letter, and I didn’t expect it to, I didn’t look at any of the reviews, um, and what he did is he was like, I’m a voice coach, I think I could really help you with all these things, and then he picked out every bad phrase and sentence from every bad review from every paper and then told me what he would do about it.

1:15:04 I couldn’t stop reading, so I was like sucked in, and I read all the hideous things that was said about my performance, and I mean, I was just in shock, like for about two weeks I was just in shock, and so I just can’t see how people can manage to read reviews while they’re doing a run in the theater. I mean, I had him, it would send it, sent me loopy for two weeks. And you’re hardened? And I was hardened. Yeah, I was, I actually rang up for.

1:15:32 God, you mentioned voice, um, we should talk about that because when you were experimenting with your voice for the stage, I think you started to think about how the voice can really be a tool to link us to our personalities. Did I understand that? Yeah, yeah. And I think can free us. I mean, when I was, uh, I to do Cabaret, I went to see a voice, um, a voice coach, um, Barbara Houseman, and as I learned to kind of get into different areas of my voice and really find my true speaking voice, because I speak actually higher, I mean, now I’m kind of in it, um, but a lot of the time I’ll be higher up than actually is where my true voice sits, and so I found, as I sort of found my true speaking voice and, like, using the depth and breadth of my diaphragm and around my throat, I started feeling far more centered, and even now I’m thinking about it I’m feeling a lot more open suddenly and I’m feeling calmer and I’m feeling stronger.

1:16:35 And I was just fascinated by this, and particularly going through all the PTSD stuff it was a real, like, anchor for me, and not only, and then I was reading, you know, studying all this stuff about finding one’s true voice, and I thought, well, the two are just so connected, you know, if I need to find my true voice and state a boundary, I need to say, I don’t like it when you do this, I can also get into my voice more and really go there, you know, I really don’t like it when you do that, and I’m purposefully becoming more authoritative without being angry, and the two together, you find your physical true voice and you then find your actual true self, authentic true self, your voice spiritually, and you can start stating boundaries and use it, I don’t like it when you do that, you know, use it in relationships, use it in work, use it in friendships, it’s an amazing tool that goes far beyond just physicality, it starts coming into your whole being, you know, and I’ve used it, I used it today, I was telling you.

1:17:43 Yeah, I’m in my garage, right, it’s like I really am getting crossed now, you know, it sounds so pathetic, but it is true and it works, and people then resonate, people feel it because they know. My dad’s got an amazing voice, and when he’s angry, which is, I can’t, I can only count the times on one hand, wow, his voice, it’s his voice, I’m like, okay, now I know he’s angry. And how can we experiment with that, just play around with different tonalities, exercises?

1:18:11 Yeah, up and down. I was telling you about a former guest we had on, Julian Treasure, he’s given five TED Talks about voice and tonality, and, um, should people just play around with those things and just use those to open themselves? Yeah, emotionally. Yeah, physical exercises, which then, you know, I carry a lot of tension at the back of my tongue, which is usually sadness, and when I do a certain tongue exercise I normally cry because it’s just held there in the back of my mouth, and then that goes.

1:18:36 Trauma. Trauma, yes, trauma, and then I, then it goes and then I feel this space and I feel lighter and around here feels lighter, and I’m like, wow, I’ve just done, like, 10 minutes on a voice exercise and now I feel amazing. So those physical actual exercises can really open up and release things. Um, and there’s so much color in my, in our voice, we use so much color in our voice, you know, it can go everywhere. Yeah.

1:19:03 But we rarely use it, but we really use it. Yeah. So I I really learned so much. Give me the Will Young TED Talk on this. You promise?

1:19:12 Well, I wanted to do that. Yeah, I just need to work out how to make it so people can understand it. You can take a course, we’ll take your time. I want to do, I want to do classes. Yeah, definitely.

1:19:24 I’m going to do some test classes, like in my local area, just to see they’re going to be really, because I did some talks but really it’s more a physical thing and you’ve got to get in the studio because you things like lying down, because I’ve learned it also, it’s so lucky being a performer, like I learned it with, from this osteopath, it was giving me different exercises, and suddenly all of it was coming together, I thought, wow, you know, that exercise that he does with a tennis ball rolling on your foot, that exercise that Barbara does with your tongue, it’s gonna all, like, come together. Yeah. You should do this talk and then show these different actions on the TED stage.

1:20:00 Yeah, 16 minutes. Yeah, maybe that would be good. It would be fascinating. Yeah, coming from you people would pay attention. You know, maybe that would be the way to do it.

1:20:09 Yeah. All right, well, we’ll talk afterwards, we’ll get you set up in 10 weeks. Yeah. Um, what’s next for Will Young? What do the next five years look like?

1:20:17 I know for the next month you’re going to be doing this crazy tour promoting the new album, but like if you look at, you know, 2022, what’s happening with you? Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know where life is going to take. Family. Yeah, I really want a family, I really want a partner, you know, like a relationship’s been hard. Um, is it hard, is it hard because of the fame?

1:20:36 No, no. Is it just hard? It’s been hard, but then, you know, I’ve got abandonment stuff, so that’s why it’s been hard. Right, because you push people away. Yeah.

1:20:44 And um, and I really, I’ll, I if I have kids it would be great. How do you do that now, do you adopt? I don’t know, I started my. Okay, you think, I don’t know why. Yeah, I don’t know why, I just think there’s so many kids out there that, yeah, you know, could, um, god knows, I don’t know, I could still be doing this, I could be um, a teacher, I’d love to be a teacher.

1:21:14 You spent time teaching in schools? Yeah, not outside of London. Uh, you know, I think where you grew up or other places? Yeah, well, I grew up in Bristol. Yeah.

1:21:22 And the thing that you did is it a lot of times celebrities when they go do these things they make a big deal of it, you didn’t, you went out to really teach young people and it wasn’t a press event for you. No. Can you explain what it was? Because I just love it. Well, the first thing they started at my old school, which was a very fantastic time for me, from 13 to 18, Wellington College, it was just it was a haven, it’s just wonderful, um, and I’ve discovered a lot myself there, and that was thanks to them, you know, I loved sport, beautiful grounds, just really appreciated the whole thing.

1:22:00 Um, and coming from this horrific place, Horris Hill, you know, just being able to wear normal clothes and be helped to be called by my first name rather than my surname was nice, you know, not having to have cold baths and listening to classical music at night was nice. This was some boarding school stuff, this is a prep school. Yeah. So Wellington was like, oh my god, thank you. Um, so I went back to teach there, and and then I sort of done other bits around.

1:22:29 My last thing I did was at BIMM in Bristol, it was, it’s just great. You said you loved the students because they were so honest. Oh, they’re amazing, tell you exactly what they think you, regardless. They’ve probably never heard of Pop Idol. No, they don’t care.

1:22:40 No, I remember one, I think, and they were like, where can I hear your music? That’s like, oh, Radio 2. You listen to Radio 2. They’re fine, you know, I’m fine with that, but the thing is what I love about them is finding this talent that is just, it’s in age, it’s innate because they’re young, they haven’t been working for it, and just seeing it in people and going, okay, that’s really interesting, you’ve made that choice there completely naturally to do that, okay, you’re really interesting, and then talking in a language to a singer, if they’re a great singer and or if they understand their voice, then you’re talking in the same language to them because they know what they’re doing inside, and it just, because it becomes a two-way thing, I get so excited by the students.

1:23:30 You’re learning from them. Oh my god, I’m learning every time. You’re communicating on a non-verbal level. Like 100 percent, I would so happily, if you said, right, you’re stopping now, I’d become a teacher or a therapist. Yeah, that’s the other one, but that’s quite a lot of studying.

1:23:45 Do you still need to have another number one single? Okay, I believe you. Uh, right, I do, but I love it. Yeah, I love it if it happens, like I love the fact I’ll get in a taxi, I mean, you know, I can’t help it, my ego will go, he’ll go, cause if people don’t listen to a certain, if you’re not on the TV the whole time they’ll go, how’s work going, Will, you know, and you know, someone the other day said, so, you know, is it quiet for you at the moment? No, no, my last album came out, went to number one, I thought, even as I’m doing, I thought, you don’t need to say that, you know.

1:24:21 Of course there’s part of me that still wants to rule the world, you know, and I will put everything, I won’t really, I won’t do it if I don’t believe in it, I won’t put it out and just go, oh it doesn’t matter, you know, I’m a carefree pixie, you know, it matters within that context, it matters, but in the grand scheme of things, you know, no, no, no, it doesn’t matter for my happiness. Right. Yes, you put everything into it but then you let it go. 100, I can let it go, but I won’t put anything out, I won’t do any work if I don’t believe in it because there’s no point, you know.

1:24:56 Yeah, no point. All right, so maybe another film, maybe another book, uh, music thing? Yeah, yeah, actually I would like to do, but there’s a couple of quite cool things actually, I’d be really happy if this TV show gets off the ground, it’s a musical TV show, and I’ve been doing it with my friends for about two years and we’ve shot a small sort of pilot thing of it and it looks amazing, so I think that would be super cool, and then there’s a, there are actually a lot of playing a lot of things.

1:25:26 There’s a musical that I want to do which I’m not going to say what it is because it it, I don’t want to jinx it. There’s a play that I want to do and I don’t mind saying that one. I really, I might be too old for it, but I’d love to do Edward the Second. I just think that Marlowe plays amazing. And when are you going to America?

1:25:43 I don’t know, but something’s going to happen with America, I don’t know, I don’t know, it’s really weird, it’s the fifth premonition. I know it involves, I can see it now, it’s really weird, it’s in LA, and I don’t know what it is. Okay, well let me know, we’ll back it. You have good premonitions. Um, uh, I think it’s a good one, it feels like a good one.

1:26:06 Yeah, it does feel like a good one, I think so. Yeah. Um, well, I always ask everyone who comes here a couple simple questions at the end. I’m going to ask you, and this is really interesting to ask you this, um, if you could make a phone call to the 20-year-old Will Young, and it’s always 20, so I’m not pushing you out, and give that young man a bit of advice, I guess this would probably be right around Pop Idol, before, during, before. Yeah.

1:26:31 If you could call the gentleman that went on before that first show and give him a bit of advice, what would you tell him? Oh my god. Well, I tell him, on a one level, I would say, for god’s sake, don’t let them use those hair straighteners on your hair, because it’s, you might think it’s a good look, but it’s not a good look, don’t do it, and don’t bleed, don’t bleach your hair, you’ll think it look good, it doesn’t look good. I thought your hair looked pretty good.

1:27:03 No, it did look awful, they did all those things. Uh, otherwise I think I would just let him do his thing because it wouldn’t make a difference if I said so. I’m trying to think of pearls of wisdom, but you’ve got to learn, haven’t you? Yeah. And you were on, you were in a good zone there, you said in the very beginning that you had that kind of premonition.

1:27:21 Yeah. You were gonna win it. Um, not necessarily even for egotistical reasons, you were just like, I’m going to do this. Yeah. And I think all the other stuff about personal development and all that, I don’t think I could make a difference by saying, you know, I’d have to learn it anyway.

1:27:37 Yeah. But certainly the hair straighteners, like, they have to go, they gotta go. Second part of that question, best advice you’ve ever received. It could be, uh, in your music career, in your theater career, it could be from Simon Cowell. What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

1:27:51 Treat people how you expect to be treated. Who told you that? I think it was my dad, and I like a phrase that my dad says, he’s quite, he’s quite cool, he said, life isn’t fair. You say that life isn’t fair, it’s like, no, you’re right. But, um, definitely treat people I expect to be treated, I remind myself that every day.

1:28:15 Oh, there’s one more, uh, don’t worry about things that haven’t happened yet. Right. Yeah, which is the basis of all anxiety. This anxiety is living in the future, depression is living in the past. How amazing.

1:28:25 Oh my god, that’s so true. Right. Yeah, and so again, don’t worry about things that haven’t happened yet. That’s a great way to not be anxious because you can’t do anything about it. Are you still close with your father?

1:28:35 Oh, I love him, he’s mental, I honestly absolutely love his son, like his son, he’s really eccentric and I am sort of turning in, he’s, he’s so brilliant, he’s so, like, he’s so intelligent. Um, he’s got a very, a great intelligence about him, so he’s, he’s great, uh, focusing in on something very quickly, so I’ll ring him for advice, you know. There’s not many people that I can have that kind of insight with, but funnily enough Steve Lipson, my producer, um, is like a second dad to me, and he’s so funny, my dad.

1:29:12 You know, he’s really happy, he’s retired, he’s really happy, and he’s worked hard to have a relationship with us, I know that he works at it and I like that. It’s really good, you know, he won’t just text, he’ll go, I’ll call because I don’t want to just text, and that’s really cool, and that’s not easy to break, kind of family, you know, systems. Yeah. And my mom’s great as well, she goes to Glastonbury and she loves her music, and I mean, they do infuriate me, by the way, we’re not Swiss Family Robinson.

1:29:49 Uh, final part of that question is to that 20-year-old that’s out there listening to us on iTunes, watching us on YouTube, who knows where they are, China, South America, who knows, who wants to grow up and be like Will Young. Oh god, I know. But who wants to break into the music industry, who wants to go perform, do all these great things, I’m sure you meet these people all the time, what advice do you give to them? You’ve got to be yourself. You can’t copy someone else because it just doesn’t work, so it’s about, it’s a, it’s about being yourself.

1:30:26 Um, and the people that sort of do get there normally will tend to be, and sometimes it takes a while to find your singing voice. Yeah. Um, that’s the key. It’s funny how you said singing voice, which ultimately is kind of your own deep down personal voice. Right.

1:30:46 Yeah. And know, and you’ve got to, and got to set your stall out of what you will and won’t do, you know, there’s a line I think for everyone. Mine was porn, I just wouldn’t do it. They said, do it, I was like, I won’t do it. When did they say to do porn?

1:31:05 They didn’t actually, you know, I don’t know, you know, I think, I think be yourself and set your limits and that is, that’s key. Yeah, well, don’t straighten your hair, don’t straighten your hair either. Uh, well, I just want to acknowledge you, um, as, uh, as a person that I think a lot of people should look up to. You have a firm line in the sand, you know, that you draw, and I see it, and I was researching for you, there’s so many different things you’ve done in your life where you’re just like, no, this is wrong and I’m going to say something about it, whether it’s mouthing off to Simon Cowell when you probably, the worst career move you could make, whether it’s, you know, calling out the government when they’re just not paying attention to these, you know, LGBT issues for teenagers, where there are so many points in your career you’re just like, no, no, no, when something’s not right, you know, you draw that line in the sand, whereas someone who was thinking of their career or thinking of a successful piece might just choose to be quiet and let it ride, and so just want to say thank you for, you know, for saying those things and putting your opinions out there.

1:32:08 Thank you. And, uh, thanks for this conversation, how awesome is this? Um, you know, it’s fascinating to me that there’s no, there’s no long conversations, proper ones, uh, out there that people can watch of you. There’s five minutes here and six minutes here on the show, and, you know, people have a snippet version of William, and, uh, so much stuff we talked about today, and my gosh, so much stuff, and I really appreciate what you said. Thank you.

1:32:30 Um, and yeah, I’m actually going to watch this back because I can’t remember now, but it was the beginning, we must have covered so many things. Yeah, we went through quite a, quite a, quite again a bit. So we always have a tagline here and it’s London Real and it’s about the journey, that’s what we always say, and so uh, it’s a great way we try to look at life, you know, and not to get caught up too much in the successes or failures, uh, as we would say, because it’s all part of this experience and really to try to judge it sometimes is missing the point, you know, and you seem like a man that’s still on this journey that wants to just go do amazing things, create beautiful art, give back to humanity, teach students, you know, start a family and all that great stuff, and I think it’s what we like to do here, it’s why we have these long conversations so people can appreciate that.

1:33:16 So, uh, I wish you well on your journey, please come back and see us again sometime, drop by whenever you want, we do this a lot, and yeah, all the best to you. Thank