Born in 1995 in Bedford, Tom Grennan found fame as a guest vocalist on Chase & Status’s 2016 track All Goes Wrong, which led to his inclusion on the BBC Sound of 2017 list. Known for his blend of soul, pop and indie rock, he released his debut album, Lighting Matches, in 2018 and has since had more than 1.5m album sales and 2.5bn streams. His new album, Everywhere I Went Led Me to Where I Didn’t Want to Be, is out now. He tours from September.
This was taken in my mum and dad’s first house in Bedford. It must have been Halloween but I’m not sure what kind of monster wears socks on his hands or a Tom and Jerry T-shirt. I look very happy but boisterous, too – that graze on my face was probably because I’d fallen off my bike.
My childhood was rich in love: my mum was a teacher and my dad is a builder, and while they worked hard, they were always there. Mum played a lot of pop like Madonna and Robbie Williams in the house, and my dad liked Irish music and had an accordion. It was a very working-class background, and while we didn’t have a lot, I wouldn’t have noticed. We lived on a quiet street, we had a back garden and all I needed was a football. As well as being a handful, Mum says I was a kind boy who was quite emotional, too.
I was popular at school, and although I wasn’t exactly a jock, being good at football does help you make friends. Socially I did well, but I was pretty naughty in class. I was dyslexic so I’d muck around and wouldn’t pay attention because I didn’t understand what the teachers were on about. They had this mad system at our school where they segregated our classes based on how well you behaved. There were about eight of us naughty kids who did lessons together. I didn’t do any work for four years. I got excluded a few times, too – mainly for being a pain in the arse. My friends who got excluded would just go home and play the PlayStation. Not me: my mum took me to the school she taught at and made me sit in isolation.
I had no idea I could sing until I was 18 and at a party. It was just after our A-levels and I’d got properly drunk for the first time. Someone put Seaside by the Kooks on to the stereo and I started singing along. People were like, “What the hell? Do that again without the music on!” The reactions I got that night gave me this confidence and fire in my belly. After that I went from being the popular boy who played football to the guy who sings in a band. Then there was a turn.
Bedford is a lovely small town, with its good sides and its bad sides. Everybody knows everybody. Which can be nice, but not always. Once I started singing, there was this general attitude of, “Who do you think you are?” Friends became jealous and also resentful of what I was doing. Then the attack happened. One night, outside a chicken shop, I was beaten up by a group of strangers. The injuries were so bad, I had to have surgery on my jaw; they put in metal plates that I’ve only just had taken out. It wasn’t only my body that changed – the attack made my brain feel as if I had been rewired. I went from thinking that I was loved by everyone, this golden boy, to being someone hated by the entire world. It felt like even people who didn’t know me hated me.
Pretty quickly, I became chronically depressed. It felt as if I was being suffocated by all these dark, negative thoughts. I didn’t know whether I was going to kill myself or go out and do something stupid to the people that had messed me up. Before the attack I was an extrovert, someone who loved going out, finding adventures and never thinking of the consequences. Now I was an introvert who was terrified of leaving the house.
Because my character was so different and I had become a recluse, all the friends that I had at school didn’t want anything to do with me any more, apart from two, who are still my best friends. But in that loneliness and isolation is where I met my pen. I started to write down how I was feeling and I picked up a guitar and taught myself how to play. My mum was always asking me how I was doing, but I found it impossible to articulate it to her unless I put it into a song. Writing songs to process how I was feeling kickstarted the next part of my life. Every time I had an evening spare, I’d go to London and do open-mic nights. I was really naive and had no idea what I was doing or how to get discovered, but I knew that I loved performing my songs and meeting other musicians on the circuit. I looked like a proper indie boy – I had a shit beard, two nose piercings and wore skinny jeans, a hat and charity shop jumpers. It wasn’t until I put a song online, and then did a show in a pub afterwards, that someone from a record label reached out, asking, “Are these your songs?” I told him yes and he said I should come and see him. It all propelled from there.
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Being in the music industry in London meant that nobody knew me or what I had been through. I realised I could create another persona, one that wasn’t still struggling mentally. I became the guy who’s always smiling but has a lot of problems underneath, and I found myself surrounded by the wrong people. There’s probably more awareness about drugs and alcohol now, but nine years ago that rock’n’roll lifestyle was normal and encouraged around artists. Suddenly I was the person who would get the most fucked up, the guy who was the loudest in the room. Professionally, I had about five years of coasting. I was lucky: I put records out, I did all right, but I was close to getting dropped at one point because I was just self-destructing all the time. I would go on massive nights out that would end five days later. I’d disappear on my own.
At the start of 2020, Mum came to my house and stayed with me for a few days. She quickly realised that the way I was living wasn’t good. I was lost; I wasn’t taking care of myself as I had been going out too much. In the end, she told me: “It’s time to come home.” Then lockdown happened. I couldn’t go back to London as it was clear to my mum that I needed to be around people who knew and loved me. So I stayed in Bedford. I got fit, mentally and physically. I spent time with my brother and parents, and I reconnected with old friends on Zoom.
Now I only drink alcohol on special occasions and only if I’m around good people. I got married last year – my wife is a pilates instructor, so she understands about keeping healthy, and always keeps me grounded. Writing songs and being in the studio brings out the best in me, too. I sound so boring, but it’s true. For a while I stopped being the kind, emotional kid that I was when I was little. It’s taken me a decade to figure it out, but I’ve done everything I can to get back to him.