TOM GRENNAN

PHOTO CREDIT: ASHLEY VERSE

TOM

TOM GRENNAN’S HIGHLY ANTICIPATED SECOND ALBUM ‘EVERING ROAD’ DEBUTED AT #1 ON THE UK ALBUMS CHART WHEN IT WAS RELEASED IN MARCH. THE ALBUM IS GRENNAN’S BOLDEST ARTISTIC STATEMENT TO DATE. A COMING-OF-AGE TALE SHOT THROUGH WITH RAW EMOTION AND SEARING HONESTY, IT’S THE HUB OF LOVE, HEARTBREAK AND REDEMPTION. DESCRIBED AS “ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S BRIGHT YOUNG MUSICAL TALENTS” BY BRITISH GQ, AND SIMPLY “EPIC” BY THE NME, THE SUN PRAISED TOM AS “THE ULTIMATE GEN Z ROCK STAR”. EVERING ROAD’ INCLUDES THE SINGLES ‘LITTLE BIT OF LOVE’, WHICH HAS BEEN STREAMED OVER 30 MILLION TIMES AND IS NOW TOP 10 IN THE UK SINGLES AND UK AIRPLAY CHART. IT’S ALSO ON ITS WAY TO BECOMING A HIT ACROSS EUROPE, WHERE IT’S CLIMBING AIRPLAY, ITUNES AND SPOTIFY CHARTS.

‘Evering Road’ marks the follow up to ‘Lighting Matches’ -Tom’s breakthrough album that cemented him as one of the UK’s most vital and exciting new artists, and one of the Top Ten best-selling debuts of 2018. A Top Five UK Gold-certified record, ‘Lighting Matches’ has amassed over a quarter of a billion streams, seen sold out headline shows at The Royal Albert Hall, O2 Academy Brixton. streams? When you’ve sold out shows at The Royal Albert Hall and Brixton Academy, what’s next? If you’re Tom Grennan, you start again. You go deeper, open up yourself in ways you never thought possible and re-emerge with music to blaze you into the arenas and torch listeners’ hearts along the way. Welcome to Evering Road. It’s a hub of love, heartbreak and redemption. It’s also the uplifting, welcoming community everyone needs right now.

Tom Grennan’s second album documents the break-up of Tom’s relationship of three years, and its aftermath. But Evering Road – named after the couple’s former home in Clapton, East London – is the polar opposite of a self-pitying break-up album. Instead, its 14 masterful, redemptive anthems form “a sorry letter and a thank-you letter” to Tom’s ex, as well as the soundtrack to your own universal euphoric escapism.

Although the album was completed weeks before lockdown, songs as comforting as ‘Something Better’ and ‘Little Bit Of Love’ or the defiant holler of ‘If Only’ and ‘Amen’ have the communal widescreen emotional impact to bring everyone together, even when crowds can’t yet happen. And once regular shows can happen again, Tom Grennan’s second album will explode even further. “It’s an album that can help people out with their own situation,” states Tom. “Once it’s out in the world, these songs belong to other people, who can take them on. Once a song means something else to someone else, amazing! They’ve created their own story. That helps them and me move on, and that’s what an album is for.”

Of course, Tom already knows the impact an album can have. His Gold-certified debut

Lighting Matches was one of 2018’s Top 10 best-selling debuts. Huge tunes like ‘Found What I’ve Been Looking For’, ‘Barbed Wire’ and ‘Something In The Water’ propelled Tom to sold-out headline shows at Royal Albert Hall and Brixton Academy, where Tom headlined for the second time in October 2020 in an online VR spectacular that both said farewell to his debut and introduced a rapturous audience watching at home to Evering Road. “It was an honour to play Brixton again,” enthuses Tom, who also headlined Newcastle Virgin Money Utility Arena at a show as ecstatically received as social distancing allows. “It was sad, not seeing anyone bouncing around and singing along with me at Brixton this time, but it was just great to be singing again and I loved it.” extent of this rare talent’s ambition. “We had a whole show set up for when the album was meant to be out last year,” Tom explains of his new plans to create an immersive theatrical experience involving different rooms from Evering Road’s setting. “I’m going back to the drawing board, because I know I can do better. You can’t take shows for granted anymore, and I want to go one step further, to make the shows even bigger.”

If Tom’s tour is as big as the songs on Evering Road, it’ll be a true classic. Being honest about his break-up has led to an album far more spirited and emotionally open than the vast majority of pop in any era. “Noone is really sounding like this album at the moment,” Tom points out. “I’ve had a long time to live with these songs, and every time I listen the songs get better. I’m buzzing for people to hear it, because I know it’s a strong album and that I’ve done a good job.”

Although the powerful ‘Sweeter Then’ and ‘If Only’ took less than an hour to write, Evering Road was a tough record to make, as Tom faced up to owning the problems, he’d helped create amid the whirlwind of Lighting Matches’ success. “I knew what I wanted to say, but I was afraid to say it,” he admits. “I was happy living my dream as a singer. But, as soon as my first album tour finished, I thought ‘I’m not really happy.’ Shit was going on at home, and I felt I was the cause of all the unhappiness. I didn’t really know what to do. Then I dived into my head, opening doors I never thought I could, as I was too scared to open them.”

Tom admits “There were demons around” before the break-up. “I was caught up in a web of stupidity and I had to leave, because I was doing her wrong. I was hurting her, and I was also hurting myself. I knew when I left it was best for both of us.” The powerful video for ‘Little Bit Of Love’ sees Tom examine the toxic masculinity he’s trying to avoid. “The album is about how I’ve grown into a different person. The people I was hanging around with, the area I lived in, all these different influences led me into a bad territory. I was doing silly things and not thinking about anything. But I’ve got my head screwed on now. I’m 25, not a young kid anymore.”

Tom’s emotional, careworn voice is the perfect vessel for songs that embrace maturity and the struggles of self-acceptance, while resolutely refusing to wallow in the fallout of lost love. “It was important the album started straight away with a very stomping song like ‘If Only,’” explains Tom. “I wanted the album to sound euphoric and hard-hitting, as that represents the emotions of the story of how I’ve changed. I felt low and rough before writing these songs, but I didn’t and don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I’m saying sorry, that I know I was an idiot, that I just want to admit it, become a better man and move on.”

As part of the process of moving on, Tom gave up drinking and smoking for recording his vocals. He should become a poster boy for clean living, as his voice is even more affecting second time round than the instantly identifiable growl that made Lighting Matches so addictive. Tom has stayed sober since, the stresses of lockdown easier to cope with on a clear head. “Exercise has been my escape,” says Tom, who is running 100K during January for War Child’s Peace Band campaign. “When I tour this album, I’m going to be clean living. I want to give myself a fighting chance and not be slacking. I want to be an athlete for this album, bring the best of everything I can to everything for this record.” That sporting mindset continues with Tom’s goals for Evering Road’s success. Comparing his status to the Premier League’s most unlikely title winners, Tom laughs: “I feel like I’m hiding away in mid-table, but I’m going to be like Leicester City and take the crown this time. But I don’t think of music as a competition, because we can all share the glory. I’m on my own path and I’ll always be proud of what I’ve achieved in making this record.”

The record was made with legendary writer/ producer Eg White (Adele, Amy Winehouse, Sam Smith), Mark Ralph (Hot Chip, Plan B), Bastille producer Mark Crew and Dan Grech

(Liam Gallagher, Lana Del Rey, Mumford & Sons) – like Tom, Dan is from Bedford, four doors down the street from where Tom would later grow up.

Having spent the first part of lockdown back with his parents in Bedford, Tom is keenly aware of the importance of community, especially during the pandemic. He became a dog walker and got groceries for vulnerable neighbours. He also regularly chats with fans on his social media, a warm and empathetic presence. “Community is key to getting us through coronavirus,” he reasons. “We’re all going through the same struggle. I try to be as vocal as I can with anyone who’s invested time in me. It’s only doing your bit in the community, to see if everyone is OK.”

Once the pandemic clears, Evering Road could become a musical pilgrimage. The album’s dynamic sleeve – designed by Hales Curtis and Mark Mattack, the pair who created Stormzy’s album sleeve for ‘Heavy Is The Head’ – sees Tom staring down his future, literally in the middle of Evering Road. “If Evering Road becomes the new Abbey Road for fans going there, cool!” reckons Tom. “I couldn’t change the name of the road for this album. It needed to be honest, to be what the songs are about, and Evering Road sums it all up.”

If one song sums up Evering Road, it’s the beautiful closer, ‘Love Has Different Ways To Say Goodbye’. It’s a moment of peace that draws together the different threads of Tom’s personal and musical growth. “It was very emotional in the studio for that song,” Tom recalls. “I knew it was time to say goodbye to the person I wrote the songs about, as well as goodbye to the person I was. It was time to start a new journey. I knew ‘Love Has Different Ways To Say Goodbye’ wasn’t a single, but album songs can be just as important. It wraps the album up, saying ‘This is how it was – and this is how my life has to be now.’”

It also demonstrates just how much Tom Grennan has developed as an artist – a term he was wary of applying to himself before. “I’m not learning on the job anymore,” he reasons. “I’ll always love Lighting Matches for what it did for me, and what it did for other people. But I’ve definitely become an artist with Evering Road, and I never would have said that about myself before. I’ve always been a grafter, and I still am, 100%. But I’ve grafted on this record in a different way – I’ve got into the nitty-gritty of what’s been going on in my head.” Come on in to Evering Road: there’s a warm welcome waiting.