S8, Ep1: Rag’n’Bone Man, singer

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08A quick warning, there is some strong language in this episode. I'm Grace Dent and this is Comfort Eating from The Guardian. A podcast where we pay homage to the lesser celebrated foods in life. because even as a restaurant critic, I believe the food that matters most is often that snack you cobble together when you're curled upon the sofa. Each week, I ask my guest to lift the lid on what comfort foods have seen them through their lives because you can tell a lot about a person from what they eat behind closed doors. Hello there. Now, I am just quietly having a massive moment with my framed posters today.

0:59I've been procrastinating for years about putting these up. Whenever I gingerly reach for anything mechanical, noisy and dangerous, I pick it up and there's just a look on my bloke's face that says, Grace, come on, are you sure? So annoying. What I have recently realised is that it's actually not him. He doesn't really think those things. I know he thinks I'm capable. I am using that face and his lack of enthusiasm as an excuse. Anyway, this morning, after watching a 15-minute video on YouTube of an avuncular and very jolly man in Milwaukee explaining the nitty gritty of a hand drill. Listener, I have done it.

1:53Three framed pictures. Look at these beauties. Today's life lesson is do not tell yourself that things are not your lane because with a little bit of help from power tool Brad who I think I fancy you can do whatever you want. Now one man who I don't think will have this problem is my guest today. It is Rag and Bone Man. This Sussex born singer is best known for his gravelly vocals which shot him to fame in 2016 with the song human. A couple of albums later, his back catalogue has 9 billion worldwide streams. I can't think of my head around that. He has collaborated with an incredible roster of stars and now he's got a new album coming out later this year.

2:45It's called What Do You Believe In? I need to know what a man like this eats and drinks to soothe their voice after an evening spent in front of 70 ,000 superfans. But first I'm just going to stand here and, well, admire my art gallery. I think that one's upside down.

3:15Rag and Bone Man, welcome to Come for Eaton. Thank you. Thanks for coming. That's all right. My pleasure. can i call you rory yes please that would be best it's weird it's weird when people call me hello rag and by man it's too weird i heard a rumor that in the future yeah after you have toured the world for the umpteenth time and human has reached probably a zillion streams on spotify you dream of treading a particular path that david beckham ed sheeran yeah ed sheeran god i I sound like my nan when I say that. You're Ed Sheerams. Ted Sheeran. Ted Sheeran. Old Teddy Sheeran. Oh, he's got a lovely voice.

4:01Guy Ritchie, James Blunt and Sir Ian McKellen have all done this thing that's your dream. Do you know what it is? Yeah. Go on. Pub. I've always wanted one, though. I worked in a pub for quite a while and I thought I would really like my own one day. Is it a sticky, flawed pub? Yes, a spit and sawdust music pub with decent food. You used to chef? Yeah, I did. I worked in a pub for about four years. So this is where the love of pubs has come from. See, chef is a little bit pushing it. I cook. I'm not bad. I wasn't bad, but I wouldn't call myself a chef. What's the thing that's... I was good at the pub classics.

4:42Okay. Beef, steak and ale pie and stained kidney puddings. I'm not bad with a bit of suet. I need to find out what this... it's not even an imaginary pub, the future pub, what's it going to be called? I want to call mine the new potato. I don't know why that made me laugh so much. And the sign, this massive sign, but with a tiny little potato. I tell you what, I'm going to be down on day one with my notepad and write 900 words on this. Oh yeah? Yeah. Each week I ask my guests to bring me their comfort food, the one that makes them feel at home. no more press interviews diary cleared for the next few days so you can really settle in and this is the thing that you cook rag and bone man i'm just going to say it now rag and bone man please unveil your snack oh my gosh tell me in your words exactly what it is and what is on what is on the tray in front of me just classic mussels cooking onions and white wine this is my favorite food when i was a kid weirdly it was one of my favorite things because we were always on a budget my mom cooked a lot of terrible food and we had lots of like frozen crap or whatever but the one thing that she did cook that i always loved was mussels oh god you can smell the wine it's so oh god that's muscle for the benefit of the record i've put a japanese kimono on and now i've got two muscles down my sleeve also on the tray now is this is just a baguette it's like a yeah i'm not really allowed too much white bread so i'll have a little bit i'm diabetic so i can't really eat white bread but i'm allowed a little bit oh that's good the fact it's so bad for you i mean bread is just joy isn't it and my missus will always get the butter out as well but if i if you start with like forget i'm good butter it's very difficult to stop that's so good it's such a simple dish though and um it brings back so many memories right because this is quite i'm just gonna say the word posh it's a posh thing right nobody i've had people on this podcast from the most upper class of backgrounds but nobody has ever brought mussels see it was it's it's seen as quite posh but it's very inexpensive to make it maybe not now i think mussels probably more expensive but where we lived when we were kids there was a fish mongers down at this little market one of my mates worked on the on the fish store we used to get massive bags of mussels and it was a couple of quid do you know i mean and that that and some bread fed our whole family this would be like a treat at the weekend because all week it'd be like oh we're having frozen chicken kievs with the little crinkly oven chips that basically either are raw or burnt there's no middle ground and by the time there's no ideal state by the time they're cooked there's no potato left in them yeah and then peas that are like really cheap garden peas so they just taste of nothing i feel so seen when you've said that like you're finally someone is speaking truth to power about looking chips yeah they're either raw or they're just like hard shards of like potato skin yeah i think it's probably especially for people of sort of my age probably quite triggering

8:27home was uckfield am i saying that right uckfield yeah I mean, I say Uckfield. Uckfield. Uckfield. I'm sorry, I don't have that. That's all right. So there's something about. You don't have that sound in your vocabulary. Pretend you're Danny Dillon. Ah, well. So home was Uckfield. Uckfield, yes. In Sussex, your parents weren't together. No. And your younger sister has Down syndrome. Yes. Take us back. Tell us about home life in the Graham household when you are little, you and your sister. so my mum and dad weren't together from when i was very very young so i don't remember them being together yeah my mum kept the house so we even though we had no money we're very like everything was on a budget um especially meals um we still like had what we needed maybe not what we wanted all the time we still had like a fairly decent house in like a not a bad area so outwardly you're all right yeah exactly everyone's looking and going oh that's she definitely struggled for money because she didn't have a job most of the time because lucy wasn't always in full-time education yeah um you know she required more care than i did but she she took herself to college my mum and did um did like social studies and did i remember her being at college quite a lot because her having like a few hours here and there in the week she couldn't really get a job because she didn't have much time but she would still go and educate herself it's really impressive yeah yeah so she had a lot to deal with you know not having that much money looking after a dan syndrome child um yeah with no one else yeah um and me being an absolute little shit most of the time but then i how are you shit go on give me give me give me Give me an example of...

10:21A lot of the time, the attention wasn't on me. So I used to do things, do you know what I mean? Whether it was like robbing out of Woolworths or getting into a scrap here and there. I mean, they were just, they were asking for it with that pick and mix. Pick and mix. And one year they just left the videos in the VHS cases. That's just provocation. And I just went, well, everyone's getting a copy of Gladiator this year for Christmas. Every single person. Oh, it's Gladiator. Oh, wow. Thank you. Brilliant. I got into trouble a little bit. We had the police at my house a few times, but it was never anything terrible.

10:54There's definitely a link between childhood, wanting attention, wanting validation, getting into trouble, getting in trouble with the police and ending up in showbiz. Here I am. Look at me now. You can't avoid me. Look at me. Showbiz, baby. And then I became really helpful towards my mum after that. And I think there was a certain point where I went, do you know what? My mum's had it really tough and she probably deserves a bit of help. So I actually, that was at the point where I started to learn to cook a lot. I remember learning to make shepherd's pie and lasagna, making a couple of different pasta dishes.

11:34It probably didn't taste that great, but it was a meal. Aged 11, you start at Ringma Secondary School. And then just after that, you're up sticks and you move 162 miles to your dad's in Great Yarmouth. Fill in a bit of the story. I was quite nervous and quiet about starting secondary school. A quite sensitive kid. I don't think I was 11 years old. I was nearly six foot. I was big. I think I just got picked on a bit. And I don't remember that much about that time. but I do remember one kid just going at me and one day I came out of school and I think it was before like a half term or something and he just said something to me and I snapped and I turned around and whacked him I was a big lad so I hurt him quite bad I think and then I went to the bus stop to go home and the teacher come running out and she was like shouting at me and stuff and I got home to my mum and my mum was standing there and she was like uh Mrs Warren has said that you're not welcome back at the school after half term they won't accept violence you're not you're not allowed back at school and she was so pissed off she was like you can go and live with your dad and at that point i didn't really know my dad that well because it was like a punishment it was like you can go and live with your dad for a bit he can deal with you do you still know who the guy is that you got into that fight with yes it was rob i don't remember his second name but i actually don't know how i remember his first name because it's in there i was 11 years old so it was quite a long time ago.

13:07I'm sorry I hurt you, but you know, shouldn't have poked the bear. I spoke to Gregory Porter about this. He talked about how much his life changed when he got very tall. You've become tall. The world sees you as like this kind of big hard man, but you're still a child. You know what I mean? And you're a sensitive person. By the time I got to the second year at school, I was 6 '2". Have you grown into that now? I think I was okay with it quite quickly. I think because at that age, especially if you're not only tall, but you're quite a big guy, you become the butt of people's jokes at school and then you start to get a thick skin quite quickly.

13:53That's always going to happen to kids that are different at school. That's never going to change. Oh, no, no, exactly. And you can't blame kids for it. Yeah, you get a thick skin quite quickly. And then by the third year of school, I was like, fuck it, I'm a big lad. I don't use that to my advantage. Do you think there's an assumption, though, that you are a hard, scary, like, hot head? Yeah. I remember when I first started doing stuff that people would, like, review. And quite a lot of the language that was used was, like, he doesn't look like he could sing like that. People would say that to me a lot.

14:23How are you going to sound? Yeah. Are you just going to get up and start offering people fights? I know, yeah. I'm here to wrestle.

14:32This is genuinely the truth, right? I don't know what mistake they made, but there was a festival that I played 10, 12 years ago, and it said in the festival blurb that I used to be a wrestler. They said, Rag and Bone Man, Glaswegian singer, former wrestler, and I'm not lying. You can hear the conversation that's happened in the office as they were putting together that. Who is he? Oh, he used to be a wrestler. didn't he? He used to be a wrestler. He should have turned up with a little cape on. Yeah, I know. Just in your pants. Yeah.

15:21You move in with your dad. Yeah. But you didn't know your dad. I did know him. I did know him. We saw him, but not very often. And I'd never lived with him before. It was a bit strange. Are you similar? Are you similar people? Yeah, we are actually quite similar. My dad's whole life has always been about music. And actually, like, I was scared of moving to my dad's, but I actually quite liked it. I hated the school because it was on a council estate and it was rough. And they all called me Posh Boy. I did not have a posh voice at all. But to them, I turned up in new shoes and a shirt that wasn't covered in beans.

15:59And I was posh. I mean, come on. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Turning up with new shoes? who do you think he is? Prince William. Yeah, exactly. Can your dad cook? It was always very simple food, but he can cook. He was always like a piece of fish, no potatoes, and some salad or whatever. But do you know what I mean? He wasn't like, he was never bad at cooking and he's still pretty good. So quite healthy though. It was healthy food and there was never any condiments ever. What has the man got against? I don't know. What is a pudding? You weren't allowed ketchup or mayonnaise. A little bit of Tommy K?

16:36No. A little bit of brown sauce? Now, if you look at my fridge, it's Condiment City. In your face, Dad, basically. Yeah, he still doesn't like it to this day. If I'm making him a bacon sandwich at home now, I'm like, what do you want in it? Do you want butter? And he's got nothing, just bread and bacon. He's a simple man. It feels like one of the things that defined your childhood and eating was just a quest for some sort of moisture. A quest for some flavour and some moisture, yeah. Before we start to talk more about your glittering music career, you had a number of other jobs to make sure you could pay the rent.

17:18We've talked about chefing. Yeah. You were a carer for young people. Yes, for about five years. How I started off is because my sister's Down Syndrome, I was around a lot of other people with Down syndrome and different disabilities because she went to a club down the road I used to sometimes go and walk her back so I knew all of them someone just approached me one day I was like Lucy's friend's mum said they're looking for a carer would you think you'd want to ever do that and I was like yeah I think I was like working at a car garage at the time and it was pretty shit and so I started care work from there They're going to essentially work for the local council.

18:03Do you think the perception of Down syndrome has changed, say, over the last 20 years? Yeah, it's 100 % changed. It's seen as something so positive now. There's a bigger understanding of it. Regular kids are mixing with Down syndrome kids. Yeah. Were there particular places that you'd take these young people when you were caring for them for the day? I used to look after two kids. I say kids, they weren't there. Late teens. On an evening, on a Friday night, they'd want to go like, oh, we want to go bowling tonight or we want to go for something to eat. And in the town that I lived in, there was a little like American diner sort of place.

18:42Yeah. And they had been there for years. And I'd take them there pretty much every Friday night. It was about routine and they really enjoyed that kind of routine. If it wasn't open, there would be like health care. They're like, what are we going to do? Do you know what I mean? If you were going to sit down with, I'm thinking it's a lad that you're taking there, if you're going to go in with this guy that you're looking after, what's the order? Oh, every time he would have hot dogs. I reckon he could eat, because sometimes he'd eat a hot dog and chips and then be like, can I have another hot dog?

19:14Yeah. So sometimes I don't really like hot dogs, it's not my thing, but I sometimes would order myself just like some chips, but I'd order a hot dog and chips for myself, knowing that he would want that hot dog. Do you know what I mean? Oh my God, that's like that proper Jedi mind trickery, but with hot dogs. Yeah. I saw him at Christmas because I found, I was out somewhere and I found these, he used to love Jim Henson, you know, like the Muppets and stuff like that. I was absolutely obsessed by them. And I found it and I was like, I've got to give it to him. So I went to the home where he lives now and to give it to him.

19:49And it was so weird because I hadn't worked with them since 2012, 13 maybe. And the first thing he said to me is, are we going to the diner tonight? I don't think he even said hello to me before he said, are we going to the diner tonight? And I was like... This is a man that knows what he likes. Yeah. He's like, no messing about, I'm having the hot dog. Yeah, yeah.

20:24you're known for your very soulful voice, but you were a drum and bass MC. Yeah, for a little while. We had a little night in Eastbourne that we did every other Saturday and it was like a drum and bass night in a club in Eastbourne and I was the drum and bass MC for that. If I had to go on a drum and bass MC tonight, right? Yeah. Absolutely put on the spot. Yeah. I've got... what couple of phrases is going to get me through it? You can just say anything. As long as you say it in an MC voice. Oi, oi. I'm here to get you hyper.

21:12You just turned into a totally different person when you did that. We went to a drum and bass night the other night. so I don't really go to them anymore but Ronnie Size was playing just down the road and I said to my missus look we've got a night off from the kids let's go see Ronnie Size and there was one point where my friend Lauren was like you should go up there and MC and I was like absolutely not not in a month of Sundays 30 minutes later

21:44it was a bit of a grown up drum and bass rave I'm sorry I don't know what you're saying I was going to say Ronnie's size Ronnie's size was my era I was like was it like were they pushing people in No not quite Pushing someone in their back chair There was not many people under the age of like 30 I guess Let's just move on now I'm joking about the MC and the MC voice It does take guts to get up there You can either do it or you're going to absolutely tank right but there's clearly something inside you did you know you could sing yeah well we used to go to a jam session uh every sunday at the sussex pub in east grinston i remember getting up there and singing and my mum's friends who were like heavily into jazz and blues and rock and roll were just like they were all like fucking hell i did not realize you could sing like that and it It was like an instant reaction.

22:42So I knew from then that there was something, you know, not just normal about my voice, if you know what I mean. Do you ever start to sing when you're in singing? I did a little bit, yeah. It was actually through that and at the same time sort of learning songs at home and sometimes going out and playing covers in pubs and stuff. I called up a mate of mine who I knew from school and I said, look, I know you've got a studio in London. Can I come and record some songs? I only had like two or three original songs. But he was like, yeah. And I didn't realize, but he was working on recording with Bastille at the time.

23:18Okay. So he was doing all right, but he just made allowances. He was like, I know you're from school. Come up and spend a couple hours recording. So I recorded this CD. I call it Blues Town. It was a mixture of a couple covers, a couple of original songs. and the reason I did that CD is because I'd sent a song off to BBC Introducing and it was there was like a not competition but Joan Armatrading was looking for people to support her and just because I sent in this one recording that was like one minute 30 she picked me and I didn't have any other music recorded at that time just come along and do your set I was like Mark I know you only know me from school but can I please come and record some music because I've got this gig coming up on i've got a nothing to promote and b nothing to sell on the night so it'd be quite nice if i could give people a cd i love it when things happen backwards yeah like instead of touting around 10 songs for four years yeah you got booked yeah i know but the first song i recorded i've got booked to play the support in joan amitradian one of the greatest singers songwriters of all time yeah i know and it was at like brighton dome the most prestigious It's like venue in the South, pretty much.

24:34How many sleepless nights did you have before that? A lot. A lot. And I was like, I'm not good enough. My guitar playing was terrible, which isn't that great still. But I did the gig and it was awesome. And I sold all my CDs on the same night.

24:56Before I get into the birth of Rag Environment, man can i just take you back to raving yeah the jungle jungle basin yeah how big a raver were you well i started going when i was 15 and i and i told my mum this before she passed away i was like um you know all them nights that i used to say that i was staying at my mate damien's house and she's like yeah yeah you used to stay there quite a lot and i was like yeah see i was basically in stratford or like King's Cross. And not being from London, being from like a tiny little town, coming out of Stratford Rex on that mile end road and being like, this is not, this is not, we're not in Kansas anymore.

25:43So hang on, you're coming out. Yeah. First train, well, trying to get back to Victoria. By the time you get to Victoria. Yes. It must start to feel sometimes like, sometimes like it's a good idea to get some food in you. I remember eating Burger King at 8 o 'clock in the morning in Victoria Station and it not being the most happy experience of my life because Burger King is one of the worst fast food chains that exist. Delicious flame-grilled taste. Flame-grilled microwave burger. The only thing that used to be good from Burger King was the chips and they had a nice crispy coating on them and they've got rid of that now.

26:24What I always want to know is when you get back from the rave, Yeah. You try to sleep for a while. Yeah. And then at 7.30, 8 o 'clock at night, you wake up. Yeah. What are you ordering to get delivered to the house? I lived in this very small town with nothing. You couldn't order food. My chippy was like four minutes walk at best. I used to put my hood up, go in, go, just pie and chips, please, and then I'll wait outside. Just like that. Where did Rag and Bone Man come from? When is this part of your life born? My granddad lived in this little house in Worcester Park. And we used to go out there sometimes at the weekend.

27:09And I remember just, we were super young, maybe like seven or eight years old. I remember sitting on his front room carpet on a Saturday morning and watched reruns of Steptoe and Son. Love it. And I found it hilarious. I don't know why. I think it was his stupid face. And then. I'm going to cut in right now and say that I absolutely know what Steptoe and Son is. But I know there'll be so many people. You don't know. Who have no idea what Steptoe and Son is. I tried to explain it. Yeah. The other day to someone as a dirty old man. A dirty old man. I knew. I wondered whether you could do this. That's the whole show.

27:56Yeah. A father and son living... Living together in like a scrapyard where they go and collect people's scrap and try and make money from it. And basically just don't get on with each other. It's a bit like Only Fools and Horses or something like that. It's that era of comedy, yeah. So hang on, how do you get from watching that to being rag and bone? Well, my mum had a really big collection of records, and a lot of that were blues records. And I remember picking them out and reading the names and thinking, there's some weird names, like Sonny Boy Williamson and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Always, yeah.

28:38Bessie Smith. Do you know what I mean? And just these names that I was like, there are always really weird names like that. And I remember thinking, what's a name that I could go with? because I was still kind of making blues-inspired music. So I chose Rag & Bone Man because I thought, it's like this sort of British equivalent of a blues name. Yes. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. And I know it's a stupid name for an artist. No, it works. And it works. I know exactly what you're saying. But it works and people remember it. I could have gone with my own name, but Rory Graham sounds like a Scottish folk singer.

29:25in 2016 you drop the song now some people might have heard of it yeah it's called human yeah number one in four countries the album went platinum four times in the uk multi-platinum in a further 27 countries. Do you have a point in your head where you remember going, holy God, this is going out of control? I got a phone call from my mate Mark and he moved to Australia. I think he phoned me or he texted me and he was like, I'm at work and your song is on the radio four times a day here in Melbourne or Sydney or wherever he was. I was like, oh, that's mad because I've just been to Belgium and it's on the radio all over Belgium.

30:17Is it scary? Is it nice? I didn't feel scared at the time. I felt really excited. Yeah. I was only scared when people started to recognise me. I mean, going back to you being so tall and recognising being noble, did that kind of push buttons with you? Because you can't hide. No, I can't hide behind a lamppost. What if we were going to do a Rag and Bone Man disguise? Big hat. big hat it's my first day at disguise school a big hat but then i like a big hat and a poncho yeah what do you call a poncho thanks very much yeah you've um worked with some amazing musicians over the years you've worked with carven harris yeah gorillas professor green you recently supported pink yeah i did i made a song with pink and um i never thought she'd say yes and then we got to perform it live together so we did two nights and i was meant to perform the song with her both nights but something happened on the first night where i got to the stage and they went you we can't do the song tonight something's happened technically there's so much that happens in a show that one thing fucked up and they had to cancel two of the songs and mine was the one And they had to...

31:32So you're all amped up to do it. Side of stage. And the tour manager came over and said, I'm really sorry, Roy, but we had to cut yours, your song. I was like, oh, it's not going to happen tomorrow either then. And then suddenly she was like, the tour manager come and got me and was like, she wants to do the song. So come up and get ready. Honestly, it silenced 70 ,000 people. I never seen it before. There was a whole stadium just absolutely fucking... Is it a love ballad? No, it's not a love ballad, but it's a very kind of gentle song. You know when you're doing a ballad with somebody? Yeah. Do you look straight at them or is it a bit awk?

32:12See, that's the thing. When you're doing it with Pink, I'm like, I don't know how to do it. So I looked at her a couple of times, but I didn't want to do it for too long. I don't want her to feel awkward. Do you have a rider? Yes. go on what's on it what do you put on the rider that you make sure that it's there because then you know they've read the rider yeah so i well at one time there was for some weird reason there was an onion on my rider i don't know why so i had a rider originally when um my my um my booking agent was like you could put something silly on your rider if you want to and i was like oh okay I couldn't think of anything that rock and roll but then I put a signed photo of an EastEnders class member on my rider and for about a year a year and a half everywhere I went they would get me a signed photo of an EastEnders class member yeah they're all in my loft