Rag’n’Bone Man on His ‘Emotional’ Brit Awards, Returning to Live Music After COVID-19 Blocks, and Possibility of Bake Off | Ents & Arts News

When Rory Graham, the artist better known as Rag’n’Bone Man, performed onstage at the Brit Awards earlier this year, he was wearing the same sunglasses as in our interview.

He needed them, he told Sky News. Singing Anywhere Away From Here, his duet with Pink, in front of an audience filled with excitement and expectation for the first major live music event in over a year in the UK – and alongside an NHS choir to mark the period in which the officers health care programs have saved thousands of lives and been pushed to their absolute limits – it was an emotional moment.

“I had these glasses on when I did this, ”Graham says. “And at the end of the performance, I was really struggling with the tears. It was an amalgamation of things: to be at British playing, having Pink – not there, on screen, but it was amazing – and also having this NHS choir. It was probably the most touching thing I have ever done on stage. It was amazing but a little difficult at the same time. I will never, ever forget it, it was a beautiful moment. “

Graham, who himself worked as a caregiver before his music career took off, working with people with autism and Down’s syndrome, may have a better understanding than many of what healthcare and care workers have been through since the COVID-19[female[feminine pandemic has taken hold. “That’s why I have such a deep respect for them,” he said, “and why it was so much more emotional to have them on stage with us that night at the British.”

It’s been a tough time for the music industry, but live shows are slowly coming back. Some the festivals are advancing – many, like the Brits, in government test events – and Graham recently performed three back-to-back intimate shows at London’s Jazz Cafe in Camden, performing songs from his second album, the record-breaking Life By Misadventure, for the first time since its release in early May.

“It was really, really nice to be on stage,” he says. “It was really nice to be back with the band. I mean, kinda weird to have people sitting down all the time and I had trouble once asking people to dance because you aren’t allowed to do that, apparently. ” However, you cannot stop people from singing. “If I was singing on stage and they weren’t allowed it would sound pretty strange.”

Like millions of English fans across the country, Graham applauded Gareth Southgateon the side of all along Euro 2020. While it was “amazing,” he says seeing fans cheering from the stands only highlights the disparities in how different industries are reopened.

“I guess everyone is a little bit frustrated because they see on TV that everyone is jumping and going football crazy, but still live concerts we are not allowed to dance. So that part is quite frustrating. ” Is this unfair? “I think that’s definitely unfair, because, you know, what’s more important? You can’t say one is more important than the other. So, yeah, I think it’s about time. “

For musicians, it feels like the government has neglected the arts, he says. “It’s like that for us because we have the impression that the arts are like a last-ditch saloon. Everywhere else seems to open up apart from the music industry, the live industry. So they must hurry. “

Graham has gigs on his schedule and is keeping his fingers crossed, eager to perform in front of “a suitable crowd” after the little shows. He can’t wait to present Life By Misadventure, the sequel to 2017’s platinum debut album Human, and the debut single of the same name, which propelled him to stardom. His life has changed a lot since then.

“No one knew this was going to be the kind of phenomenon it was,” he says. “I mean, one week we were slowly releasing stuff and the next I had friends calling me from different countries around the world to tell me, you play on the radio and… it hit so fast, you know, that really, totally changed my life in a very short time. I had a career before Human, it was a life, but it changed so much. people in Brighton ‘, at’ I’m playing in front of 12,000 people in Paris’. It really changed things forever. “

Now in his mid-thirties, Graham is happy for fame, and success didn’t come earlier in life. “I don’t know if I would have been mentally able to handle this. Actually, I know I wouldn’t have been. So I’m glad I was a little older …

“I probably would have celebrated myself to death, I think. I feel like I’ve done quite a bit already, so my feet were firmly on the ground and I couldn’t believe my own hype or whatever. I think traveling around this stuff, going around the country with a guitar on your back, or doing shows for beer, those things make you appreciate the greatest things. “

Since Human made him a household name, Graham has been through a lot in his personal life. He married his longtime girlfriend and mother with her three-year-old son Rouben in 2019, but the couple split soon after.

The title of his second record, Life By Misadventure, sums it up, he says. “All the songs seem to be kind of a timeline. I’m going to talk about a lot of things from my childhood and my teenage years and how my teenage years were pretty wild. But also, around the time Human came along, this was a few crazy years and then I became a dad … so I went through a lot of emotions and tried to grow up pretty quickly and be more responsible. So … the title makes sense to me. “

Graham was determined not to save a breakup, he said; only one song on the album, Talking To Myself, addresses the breakup. Instead, a lot of these songs were inspired by the struggles of other people.

“It must have been a thousand times that she told you that your body is getting old, don’t you know? he sings on the new single, Alone, which was born following a conversation with a friend about body clock pressure. This may be an unusual subject for a singer to bring up, but Graham says he felt compelled to address the different ways men and women are treated when it comes to having sex. children.

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“It seems like a problem that men don’t have, I’ve never had that pressure on me,” he says. “It seems a lot of women are under this kind of pressure from family or friends or whoever is saying, like ‘isn’t it time to settle down?’ “When are we going to have grandchildren?” That sort of thing. It just seemed a little archaic. I had never really written a song like that, it was a little hard to put into words at first, but I think it went well. I hope people will understand it. “

Graham loves being a dad and the time confinement has given him with his son. He has spent the day in the garden with Rouben and is about to take him swimming, he says, after the interview. But confinement has also taught him that he has to keep busy. “I’ve learned that I’m not necessarily good with a lot of free time. I like to work.”

However, he discovered a new love for baking, so cakes kept him busy. “My son loves cakes, like a lot of three year olds. So we got down to baking all kinds of different cakes, I got pretty good at baking, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

Looks like Celebrity Bake Off could be on the cards.

“If they want me, I’ll be there,” he said. “I don’t really like the idea of ​​reality shows, but I think I would try Bake Off. If Big Narstie can do it, I can do it.”

But before Paul Hollywood and his colleagues knock on the door, Graham hopes more than anything to get back on stage properly. When these big concerts, in front of big crowds of people able to sing, dance and kiss again, just like the Brits, it’s going to be “incredibly moving again,” Graham says.

“I feel like the Road Runner right now, right there. But we’re all so ready to do it. We’re ready to go.”

Rag’n’Bone Man’s New Single, Alone, and Album, Life By Misadventure, Now Available