COLORSxSTUDIOS

When did you realize you wanted to follow in his footsteps and pursue a career in music?

I played professional rugby while I was at university, but then I fell out of love with sport, so I gave it up. I had a lot of free time, so I returned to music, which I’d always loved. I started to sing songs on a really bad microphone I got off Amazon to beats I downloaded from YouTube and Soundcloud, which was really buzzing at the time. At first, when I shared my recordings on the internet, only my friends were listening. Then, other people that I didn’t know started commenting and saying they were really good. Quickly after that opportunities started to come.

I made ‘The Way That You Move’ with Tom Misch, who I was a massive fan of. I thought that if I put it out straight away, I probably wouldn’t finish my degree. I held off for a year and a half until I’d finished my exams. I released it, and decided that the response would determine whether I’d take music seriously or not—I was also going through the recruitment process for Pepsi to work in marketing. At first, I didn’t get any emails off the back of the song. I was really sad and thought that maybe music wasn’t for me. Then I was DM’d by someone who said they’d been trying to get in contact with me via email. I looked at my inbox, confused, and saw I wasn’t logged in! When I logged in, I had loads of messages about the song, and I realized I needed to get a manager. I found one, and they told me: “Yeah, don’t get a proper job.”

A lot of the topics I sing about are very sincere. I hope that they show people that we’re all multifaceted. There’s not one way to be a man. I am masculine—I have an ego, I play rugby, and go to the gym—but I can also be tactile and affectionate. I’m a son, an uncle, and a nephew. I can be nurturing. I need people to understand that there are so many different versions of being a man that may not necessarily fit the historically imposed gender binary.

Your music is described as R&B and soul-inspired. Do you identify with those genres?

Someone described it to me as “soulternative R&B pop”, which I think is a good term. It’s hard to define it, because I have so many different influences, from David Bowie to Prince, Radiohead, D’Angelo, Taylor Swift, Joni Mitchell, Justin Timberlake, Drake, and Frank Ocean. People aren’t wrong to put me in that category, I think it being there makes my work more digestable. But if my music was a venn diagram, there are definitely other circles that overlap with it.

We’ve talked already about masculinity, but other strong themes in your music include companionship and mental health. 

In terms of companionship, I just think it’s important not to do things alone. It’s easy to get caught up in your own world, but you should always try to support others in both a platonic and a romantic sense. I’ve had the best example of companionship from my parents and my friends, so that naturally comes out in my music. I haven’t got all the answers, but maybe through singing I can help show people what they should and shouldn’t be looking for. Someone tweeted one of my songs and said: “I want a love that feels like this.”

Let’s talk about your EPs ‘Ode’ and ‘Wanderlust’, which were released in 2021 and 2022 respectively.  What were some of the ideas you wanted to express on these projects?

My mental health during lockdown wasn’t great. ‘Ode’ and ‘Wanderlust’ allowed me to work through a lot of that. At the time, I was listening to a lot of Moses Sumney, Sampha, and Frank Ocean. Their music allowed me to connect with a side of myself that I wanted to sing about. I feel so light, happy, and free now, because I got a lot of things off my chest. The projects allowed me to show a deeper and more introspective side of myself.

The reason why I made 11 tracks for Wanderlust was because I can’t do anything unless I’ve done something similar beforehand. To make a 14 song album having only previously done ‘honeycomb’—my 6 track EP from 2019—made no sense to me. There needed to be a middle ground. I needed to know I could carry a listener’s attention span for a longer amount of time. That’s why I decided to make this bigger body of work. I also wanted to challenge myself and improve as a songwriter.

An article on Clash describes you as “as much a storyteller as a singer and songwriter.” Do you agree with this statement?

100%. I tell stories about myself, stories about my friends and the things we’ve gone through… That is a very accurate depiction. I agree with that. Well done Clash.

Tell us about the song you performed for your A COLORS SHOW.

It’s quite tongue in cheek. It’s about trying to come to terms with how my professional life affects my love life. A lot of women don’t take me seriously because of my occupation and the way I present myself. They think I’m involved with lots of other girls, and don’t believe that I’m sincere. The first verse of the song is me saying: “No, I’m not like that,” which is a conversation that I have often. The second verse is the other side of the coin. It explores the fact that, as a musician, you get to go to a lot of cool places and parties. Sometimes people just want to be with you because of who you are, which then puts you in the position of being distrustful just like the girl in the first verse.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 

You know what, I’d like to be living in L.A. There’s a lot of things I could benefit from career wise there. So yeah, in 5 years, I’ll be in America living the high life in Hollywood. Who knows, maybe I’ll do a second COLORS?

What advice would you give to aspiring musicians?

Just keep going. Align yourself with genuine people who actually care about you. People are better than you think. Have faith in humanity.