I sort of became a singer by accident. When I was starting out in my early bands, Give Way and FBI, making it was still just a dream on the distant horizon. Although I sang in the school choir and always used to get picked to sing in school plays, I had red hair and freckles and that was enough to kind of make me just think, I’m just gonna, you know, fit into the background and let the cool dude take the lead.
I turned up to rehearsal and said, “I’ve written a song”, and everyone went, “OK, OK, big ‘ed, you are singing it” – and so I did. From then on, I never really looked back.
So it’s a huge wonder that this weekend, I’m playing at Glastonbury on the Pyramid Stage. I was originally booked to play Glastonbury in 2020. It’s pretty amazing that they asked me back. It attracts such an eclectic, wide-ranging group of musical artists today that it feels like a bit like a feather in your cap.
I’m not sure there is always an appetite for my music, although there’s become a bit more of an appetite now. It’s about timing. Sometimes people are ready and other times they’re not. There’s no way you could plan the whole “Rickrolling” stuff with “Never Gonna Give You Up” and everything that’s gone with it. It has to be organic.
The internet has changed everything. The headline act the night before me is the Arctic Monkeys. I’m on at 12 o’clock and Elton John – a man who, along with a few other of his peers, basically wrote the book for us all to read from and follow – is headlining that evening.
Does it make any sense? It doesn’t. But that’s the way the music business has changed. Look at streaming and playlists, or the way that you go on YouTube looking for a song by Frank Sinatra, and then before you know it you’re watching Slipknot live at Download Festival. It’s mad.
Performing now is comfortable – but then again, over these past six or seven years, showcasing new music has been a test. A couple of new records have thankfully done OK. One in particular – my 2016 album, 50 (I called it that as a bit of a joke because obviously, Adele had 19, 21, and 25) – was number one, which was absolutely bonkers. I did it just for the fun of doing it. And I just thought, well, no one – besides my mum and a few friends and family – is going to hear it anyway. But when I play live now at my own gigs, I feel I can play a bunch of those songs without people going to the bathroom. With the old songs, it’s almost like they’re part of the wallpaper of certain people’s lives. I don’t see it as a negative in any way. I’m just lucky to be able to do gigs that people want to come to.
I wasn’t that nervous when I first performed on stage at the start of my career. By the time I actually did real shows – not just PR things where you’re singing one or two songs, but when you’re actually doing TV performances – I was so ready to do a proper gig.
I wanted to prove something because a lot of people thought: “Well, if it’s a Stock Aitken Waterman act, it’s probably all make-believe and they’re not really any good anyway.” I wanted to step foot on real stages with a real band and actually go and do it. To say to people, look, this is what I actually started doing when I was a kid.
What drove me away was realising that while I had made a hit record, I was actually quite removed from music. Live music and touring pop artists now are way more normal than they were in the eighties. Today, you make an album so you can go out and tour it and make some money doing it. It’s completely reversed.
So, when my daughter was born, I was just looking at the way I lived and I just felt, “I don’t think this is for me”. Don’t get me wrong, although I enjoy it now and am relaxed and comfortable doing it, if the offer back then would’ve been playing in a great band as a drummer, I probably would have taken that instead.
And I’m not going to try and bluff anybody. I wasn’t at the peak of my career when I walked away. It was a bit 50/50 as to whether I could hang onto it. I just thought, well, if no one’s that bothered, I’ll just leave. And that’s what I did. I had 10, maybe 15 years of not doing music at all.
The industry has gotten better, however. I’m really thankful to my record company – they’ve done an amazing job with a middle-aged dude. And managers in the industry are more aware of what being an artist does to a human being.
I’m also lucky enough to have my wife – who also produces movies, commercials and all sorts – manage me. I credit a lot of the past 10 years to her because she’s had more belief in it than I have. She’s got a lot of experience, but I also think we understand each other and we’ve experienced certain things that you can’t unless you’re married or live with someone. We’ve shared some great glasses of wine over some great moments in some fantastic parts of the world. Not many husbands and wives get to do crazy shit like that.
I’d tell younger people trying to get into the industry – well, first of all, maybe don’t take advice from me – but also, be as sure as you can about what it is you’re doing. It’s a bit of a heavy thing to say, but when I look at some of the people who’ve gone through the industry and it has literally kind of killed them – we all know about the 27 club – it’s worrying. You need to be at least aware of the fact that you need to be as comfortable within yourself as you can be before you get into it.
My mum and dad got divorced when I was about four. Our house wasn’t a very cosy place to be when I grew up. And I think without me knowing it, I kind of wanted music to fix that. There was a bit of a black hole in my life and I kind of felt that being famous and successful was going to help. And it doesn’t. People might find that hard to read and listen to from a guy who had a song called “Never Gonna Give You Up” and “Together Forever” and seems to have a dream-like sort of existence, but it is tough at times.
At Glastonbury, I’m staying for the whole lot. I wouldn’t ever be so presumptuous to call Elton John a friend, even though he’s been very friendly. But I am very good friends with his guitar player Davey Johnstone, who has been with him for about 50 years. Our kids have known each other growing up all their lives. So that’s going to be quite emotional – it’s the last British gig Elton’s going to do.
It’s nice to see that respect for older artists is stronger than it’s ever been. I’m not talking about me – I mean the absolute greats. I’ve made friends with some younger bands – Blossoms and Bastille – and when I talk to them sometimes about music, I’m quite shocked because it’s gone full circle: bands like the Rolling Stones aren’t just seen as old men – they’re the elders of the community.
I’m 57 and believe me, I feel it sometimes in my body and what have you, but I don’t in my heart. Music is a very strange thing. When you first have that rush of success, something within you is locked in the time of that moment. And I think you carry that with you for the rest of your life.
Don’t get me wrong, when I walk to the coffee shop, I think, “wow, my knees are hurting today”. But when I’m getting dressed to go on stage and I’m going through the set with the band, something inside of me produces energy from somewhere else. Despite my age, the minute someone plugs a guitar in, I’m right back to being a kid.