MUSIC: CALUM SCOTT

With artists such as Will Young, Adam Lambert and Sam Smith, the music world has been the playground for many new artists to step out from the shadows and be openly gay without experiencing a drop in success. Introducing Calum Scott…the 29 year old UKborn singer who used to be a recruitment worker and who rose to fame during the ninth series of Britain’s Got Talent.

Calum was born and raised in the city of Hull in the northeast of England. Initially he was a drummer, but his sister saw the potential in him. In 2013 she secretly entered him into the Star Search competition run by a local newspaper, which he won. After this he joined a local Maroon 5 tribute band called Maroon 4, before forming a dance-pop duo with another local guy called “the Experiment” in 2014.

In 2015, both him and his sister competed in Britain’s Got Talent but she was stopped early on both of her songs by Simon Cowell and received three no votes. With an overflow of emotions ranging from disappointment to anger, Calum continued to perform a cover of Swedish singer Robyn’s Dancing on My Own. This gave him a standing ovation and Simon Cowell gave him an automatic place in the live shows. Cowell said: “I’ve never ever in all the years I’ve done this show heard a guy with the talent you’ve got. Seriously. And the version was sensational, and that shows to me that you’re more than a singer, you’re an artist.”

Already then, Calum was hinting at the fact that he was gay. He sang the song with the exact words as what Robyn wrote it: “I’m in the corner watching you kiss him”, putting a whole different perspective on the song. He didn’t win the competition, but continued to release his version of his audition song independently. Initially it was a slow hit, but the momentum kept growing and before he realised, it went platinum and he was signed to a major record company. After releasing a duet with Leona Lewis (You Are The Reason) which pays tribute to his grandmother, he announced that his next single will be If Our Love Is Wrong which he credits as his official coming out song. The lyrics beautifully says it: “If it’s me, and if it’s you, and if our love is wrong, then I don’t ever wanna be right”. The song goes further to challenge the prejudice of society: “It’s in my DNA, suffocating just to fit in, why do I care what people say”.

In an interview with Billboard he says: “I was trying to wrap my head around my sexuality and was starting to learn about songwriting, and that my honesty and my authenticity came from my personal experiences and writing about stuff that genuinely bugged me or upset me. It was really difficult because I lived a very normal life. The press obviously want to know your personal life, your romantic life, so it made it a little bit more difficult. It felt like a magnifying glass. I’d always been a little bit uncomfortable talking about my sexuality just because it took me a while to fully accept it, I had a bit of a traumatic time with my friends when I was younger and it kind of just put me off talking about it. I was thinking if I talk about it I’m going to lose friends, lose people’s interest.”

Calum said that he never used to be comfortable with his sexuality. If that “straight pill” existed, he would have taken it. But all of this was symptomatic to the fact that he had a rough time growing up. Like many of us, he thought it was a phase, but in the end confided in his best friend who told

“I’d always been a little bit uncomfortable talking about my sexuality just because it took me a while to fully accept it”

SUPER CALUM FRAGILISTIC

By JACQUES BOTHA

every guy in their group of friends and they all abandoned him. But with music and songwriting, he had a platform to start talking about his experiences and sexuality. He even wrote more than seventy songs for his debut album.

He never came out to his dad by the time that he came onto the show and realised he needed to do this before it came out in the press. He wrote a song about the anxiety of doing it and casting one’s fears aside, only to find out when he actually did it, that his father was so much more accommodating and accepting than he had thought.

With the release of his debut album, Only Human, Calum said in an interview with Adam Greenberg: “You are bound to get upset. You are bound to feel jealous. Just embrace those emotions. Because we are only human. Don’t get down on yourself. We are who we are. Love is love and there should be more love in the world.” Listening to the album, it is clear that Scott poured his heart into the lyrics and this is probably most noticeable on the track Not Dark Yet, where he talks about the times he struggled to find his inner peace: “Well, I’ve been to London, and I’ve been to gay Paris. I’ve followed the river, and I got to the sea. I’ve been down to the bottom, of a world full of lies. I ain’t lookin for nothing, in anyone’s eyes.”

So the album in a way is a diary of his experiences, everything from falling in love with a straight guy to falling in love with the wrong person, coming out to people, going through the coming out drama with his friends and family, being thrusted into the public limelight and much more.

What the album is not is melodramatic. Yes, there are the power ballads, but there are also amazing upbeat tracks with electronic beats, all the while being very organic. As an added bonus, the album finishes with the Tiesto remix of the track that started it all, Dancing On My Own… something that Calum is probably not doing anymore.