You just announced your tour with Ed Sheeran, which is in a completely different setting. We’re talking about stadiums! Does that bring anxiety knowing you’re going to perform in front of so many people?
My dream, from a really young age, has always been playing at Wembley. That was pretty much my first word. My dad always grabbed me from the kitchen table with my air guitar and me going, “Hello Wembley!” I didn’t think it would happen this soon, and it wasn’t even a question in my head whether it would happen. And now it’s happening. I just wanna make sure I give my everything. That’s where the anxiety comes from. Not from getting onto the stage, but it’s more that I want to be the best I’ve ever been because I don’t think I’ll play there for a while.
Earlier this year, you released your first EP No Romeo. How special was it to release this first body of work?
It was a relief because it took me two years. I’m very quick at writing, but it took me two years to get it right. I was really struggling with my sound and who I was as an artist for a very long time. I was constantly having an identity crisis, and it was a nightmare for my tour manager. Every other day, I was changing my set. Over lockdown, I wrote so many songs so that forced me to go back to the stuff I was writing when I was fifteen. It was so much easier, and it just felt like me. “Nineteen” was the first song that I wrote where I felt that it was right, and we’ve added so many guitars. That’s my childhood: rock’n’roll! Having that out, it’s finally a body of music where I really like the songs and feel like I can perform them hundreds of times without getting bored of it.
