Tom Odell: Perfectionism, expectations, and weddings

0:00Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that acknowledges both the really exciting and the more difficult parts of life. Today, I'm chatting to Tom O'Dell. I hate the term perfectionist because I feel like it's so often thrown around and I think people use it as kind of like a compliment often or a good quality. But when you're a slightly obsessive character, it can be really quite torturous. And, you know, I've had moments like at the end of finishing an album, you know, the mixing process, I'll like, I'll kind of lose my mind slightly because I can't, I'll be on like mix 78 and I've changed one thing 78 times and it's just like being able to just let go of it.

0:43Tom released his debut EP, Songs for Another Love, in 2012 and in 2013 won the Brits Critics' Choice Award. Over a decade later, his new album Black Friday is the result of a newfound sense of freedom and creative control. He recorded it really simply, just Tom in his studio with his instruments, singing these songs with the same gorgeous authenticity they were written with. Tom came onto the podcast back in 2019 and it's an episode that really stands out because he was going through a really tricky time of very extreme anxiety, actually, something that deeply resonated with me. that's for sure and we talked really openly about it about his visit to the hospital because of it and his real block with getting on stage the thing that he loved the most and it was an episode that really stayed with me so I was really keen to have a catch up with Tom to see where he was at it was so lovely to be able to speak to him all these years later because his life has changed a lot He left his record label, he's got married very recently, and as we chat about, he also pretty much got on top of the physical side of his anxiety and panic.

1:59So we connected over anxiety, obviously, but also over perfectionism and being unnecessarily hard on ourselves, as well as feeling safe in work environments because we understand the rules and it doesn't feel as chaotic as the rest of the world can. Yeah, there's a lot going on in this chat and I think you're going to love it.

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4:30Just a quick one before we get to Tom. You might have noticed there's another Happy Place episode in your feed today. That's one all about addressing the shitty committee in your mind because I know this time of year has the potential to feel a bit rough sometimes. Might not, but it might also do. So if you're in need of some practical tips to boost your mood, head over to at happyplaceofficial on Instagram where you can watch our Fuck Blue Monday video because it's Blue Monday and we think Fuck Blue Monday and you can join in the conversation there. I'll tell you now that there's an appearance from an iconic boy band member.

5:09Who could it be? The perfect pick-me-up if you're having a little bit of a rubbish one. Can't wait to chat there after the show. For now, though, here we go. Let's chat to Tom.

5:41Hello Tom O'Dell. Hello, how are you doing? I'm really good, it's so nice to see you. I can't think the last time I saw you in the flesh. Possibly the last time we did this podcast. That is depressing. Yeah, it was just before, was it 2019? Yeah. I think it was in the summer, wasn't it? It was. At your house. At my house, I know. Mad, a lot has happened since then. To both the world. we haven't got time for that but in your world you've very recently got married yes that's right yeah got married two and a half weeks ago wow so fresh how was it it was you know I think I wrote this to you in a message didn't I um it was like a few of my friends my actually one of my best friends Max had said to me for years he was like my wedding day the best day of my life and I I honestly was always like slightly unsure whether that would be the same for me, not out of any like lack of love or excitement even.

6:41I was so excited for my wedding day, but it genuinely was like in every way, greatest day ever, like from start to finish. And it started with I stayed in a hotel in central London with my best men. And it was obviously winter and the sun was, it was just clear blue sky. And I ran along the South Bank, like almost like skipping along the South Bank. It was just so magical. And Georgie, my now wife, just looked unbelievably beautiful and happy. and when she walks into the church with her dad there was light shining behind her it was like something from a dream it was extraordinary how beautiful is that yeah it's so funny the pressure that you have before a wedding because i remember the same everyone's saying it's gonna be the best day of your life and you almost want to rebel against that and go well it'll be okay I'm sure it'll be fine but it is I think it is that amazing alchemy of having everyone that you love that you've chosen to have in one space yeah it's quite an unusual thing that doesn't necessarily happen often I guess the other time it might happen is your funeral yeah it's that that's what I kept thinking it's like I don't know if this will ever happen again and also maybe I'm at that point in my life or we're at that point in life you know I'm 33 free it's like you know my parents are still alive and all my aunts and uncles you know sadly not my grandparents but you know it's just it's extraordinary it's just like unbelievable and I just had a beaming smile on my face all day oh it's so lovely and the next day and the next day and the next day the next day was like we did this little pub thing and then we got home we sat on the sofa and started looking at like some photos that were getting sent to us and I mean Georgie just cries the whole time and she's she's just a crier um she'll cry you know just a picture of an animal you know on Instagram we're gonna get on well this is like me um but she uh you know we then just sat on the sofa and and I cry a bit but I'm not that much of a crier and we cried for like three hours just like processing it all and um looking back at photos and i think i'm it was like i don't think i've ever felt quite so sort of tender than that sunday actually the day after it's so beautiful because i think you also notice on the day having all those loved ones there that there is so much it's a cliche but so much love in the room there's love for you as a couple there's people genuinely want to celebrate that love and that union and it's so overwhelming to acknowledge you do need to process it you're right yes it's amazing when we last spoke in 2019 you had been through a pretty rough period and i really appreciated you sharing your thoughts and your experiences through your period of anxiety that i very much well still do go through myself quite frequently yours was so bad at one point that you were hospitalized and you talked about this back in the first episode when you came on happy place where are you at with it today how how have you navigated it um the uh difficult almost to talk about because it's been such a long period of time since then um definitely probably better than i was then in 2019 i get less physical panic attacks than i did then i actually don't really get them at all now in fact um sort of the heart stuff and the sort of you know the real intense kind of panic attack thing but by no means have i cured myself of of you know any of the you know learn to live with it rather than um I still get quite well I still you know suffer but the I'm I guess what was wonderful about doing that podcast is is actually just talking about it and it was then that I started writing about it in my music that was the first time I'd ever spoken about it publicly with anyone and um actually kind of probably even spoken about it that much beyond even publicly like I wasn't I didn't at all have any of the language or tool to be able to talk about it even with my friends and since then I guess the most significant change is that I talk about the whole time with lots of people and and I didn't I didn't mean I had therapy then either so um and now I do and I have for a while um and that's helped lots as well how do you think you've tackled the physical side of it because it's really hard when there's that physical manifestation sometimes when there's a mental block we can use quite specific tools to rewire the neural pathways when it's physical like that's something that I still really struggle with is being able to stop when I can feel that awful sensation coming over me where I feel like I'm going to faint and my heart's racing and I still can't override it logically.

12:21I still feel like wildly out of control. What has helped you in terms of that? My honest answer to that is that I think it got so bad that I just learned, like there was a point when I was getting panic attacks, physical panic attacks, like three times a day. And actually that was after that podcast. Really? Yeah. that was when I went to live I tried to go and live in LA fuck knows why um I've got bad anxiety I'm gonna go to the most anxiety inducing place ever yeah it was a very odd time and I'd say in a way it was like the apex or the the epitome of of you know when it got really bad and I was sort of living in this weird little house not that dissimilar in size from this house this building here my weird little studio no but that sounds really critical it wasn't like but it was like kind of in someone's garden right it was really weird yeah did they have a cat called simon no this is infinitely more home and lovely and happy uh and um it was a very strange little place um um what i and i was spending lots of time on my own that was not a good time that that was where it got a really really bad and that was sort of when i i then ends up like i'd sit on the beach uh which sounds like a lovely thing to do but um every morning look at the planes taking off from lax and just long to be on one um but then when i got home you know because i was i thought i'd be cured and it's all carried on that's where it got really really bad and um I was gonna I got prescribed some drugs to take and I didn't take them but weirdly getting prescribed them was like the beginning of like the good times how interesting maybe just because your brain realized there were solutions yeah I think I just was like right I think I've really got to stop working and take some time here and I did and it was um it was yeah it was good but that would there it's weird like talking about that time because it was it was a bit brutal it was like I think it was I mean it's quite common I think end of your 20s like beginning I was I guess I was 28 but I was sort of just it was just bad I think also it's not uncommon for people who have a public facing job to experience these things.

15:07I was literally last night watching the Ronnie O'Sullivan documentary, which is excellent if you haven't seen it. And to see him sort of battling with that anxiety, even though he is the best in the world and by far the most trophied sneaker player out there, he has this terrible anxiety as he's approaching the world championships. And he's sort of living with that. And I think it is that notion of all eyes on you, the pressure, the fact that you've got to perform. yeah it's not uncommon i think you know that is the anxiety that most people in the public eye sort of deal with having that critical outside voice and commentary constantly how do you deal with that now well i think it's like it's i've i've only just realized how uncomfortable i am in it i think for years i've just sort of accepted the discomfort and not really acknowledged it as discomfort but I think these days I really you know I've come to terms with the fact that the attention that my job brings I don't love like I I don't like I don't think I've ever liked it and I guess there's a sort of it wasn't it's never been I think like my character a part of my character to to want all that attention and so I think I over the years I've dealt with it in different ways and I think on the flip side though I also love performing and I absolutely adore it and and I love writing songs and it's this weird sort of like like obsession with that and at times like rather than my music help me I think it's also not I'm very obsessive with with music and and like um I'm very obsessive with my thoughts as well so I think that there's a there's a kind of um I mean I'm not talking with much clarity here but I think that all the three are sort of intertwined like um so a lot of it I think was to do with my work and just like not being able to let go of things like I hate the term perfectionist because I feel like it's so often thrown around and I think people use it as kind of like a compliment often or, or a good quality, but I think it can be when you're slightly obsessive character, it can be really quite torturous.

17:31And like, I, you know, I've had moments which I look back on where like at the end of finishing an album, you know, the mixing process, I'll like, I'll kind of lose my mind slightly. And I'll, you know, be like punching myself and doing weird things, which I shouldn't be doing, you know, because I can't. I'll be on like mix 78 and I've changed one thing sort of 78 times, just, you know, flicking from A to B to A to B to A to B. And it's just like being able to just let go of it. It's, it's, yeah, kind of madness. Well, again, I was, when I was watching this Ronnie O'Sullivan documentary, I keep going back to snooker.

18:12I don't even know anything about snooker, but I found it fascinating. He's been on the podcast, but this was like a in-depth look, in-depth look. And he was talking about exactly this process and the tendency to beat yourself up and be so unkind to yourself. And I had to actually pause it because I was like, everything he's saying rings so true. And although I've tried all different types of therapy, I'm still really willing to do the work. And also I'm learning doing all this happy place stuff all the time. I know that that is still one of my absolute weak spots is that I am so hard on myself I could walk away from an episode of this and critique everything I've said or didn't say or if I'm writing like when you're mixing the album I'm being so unbelievably picky and sort of beating myself up with the process is that something that you feel you need to change I think it's like a I guess so hard isn't it because the things that make you who you are and make you maybe good at one thing also maybe the thing that makes you like tortured tortured or not so good at life or you know vice versa I think so it's so difficult to to sort of just remove a character trait from yourself because um it also might be being rewarded and that's the thing I think so many of the things that make me not sleep well and at times probably you know not a particularly calm or happy person I think are also the qualities that you know mean that I finish albums and I you know go on tour and I make sure that we're good yeah and you write very honest songs which I think lends itself to those emotions yeah that's a that's something that is um yeah I've always done I think and I feel more and more I've come to understand that the piano is like when I sit down at the piano I'm just like I feel very tender and very compassionate and I feel like I'm able to feel emotions like so much more acutely and like I just feel so like last night I did a thing with this charity called the choir of no name and it's about um rather than just helping homeless people with i don't know food or shelter they also get them in and get them to sing in a choir and it's very sort of innocent and simple and um i didn't know that much about it other than i like i wanted to be involved and we did this gig last night at cadogan hall and they i mean i just don't want to sound like over the top but it was just like singing with them it's like just so beautiful it's one of the most beautiful things I've done this year and they're the happiest people and they totally inspired me and but when I was singing I just you know it's like tears coming out of my eyes it's like but I wouldn't be able to feel feel that I don't think without the music it's there's something about i feel things so much more acutely when i'm at or more um too much in a way um and i think that's why i'm sort of more able to be honest even as i'm talking now i'm like what the fuck am i talking about i'm like saying lots of very good things no but i just like i i can be more i can see things with more clarity when i'm doing it at the piano than i can which is pure magic and why i'm such a music fan and why I love listening to your songs you sense that you sense that there is this ease that you know what you need to say in a song which is such a skill and it's obviously very natural to you and innate to your skill set yeah I'd say it is more I mean I've worked at it very hard but it is more now it's a more natural place for me to be in but that's also a bit messed up because if the stage is a more natural place for you you know just to be then it is in like the pub afterwards you know like things are more ordered I know where everything is in that way in when I'm working when I'm in the studio or when I'm on stage it's like I understand the way the world in a way that I don't think I understand it out of that environment.

22:48I get it. I'm asking people that I don't know sometimes at all such deep questions on this podcast and they're questions I haven't even asked my own dad. It's a strange thing when there's the order of work and you understand that there's some sort of system at play and then outside it's all chaotic and nothing makes sense and there's no rules. and yeah I totally hear what you're saying there I read recently that you have stopped performing in your real life and I mean that in the sense of like not with a piano I mean in terms of we're all performative to an extent we want people to see there are best sides we want people to feel comfortable so we keep talking whatever it might be but you've tried to have an awareness around that recently I try yeah but I think it's so entrenched in I think because I started performing when I was like 13 14 and you know probably younger in a way like I remember the first time I wrote a song you know I was like seven and what was it called it didn't really have a total it was like uh something about the stars and I think I wrote I was like I was like I love you but it was like probably about my mom I sort of love my mom um but the you know my parents was very impressed by that and I think that stayed with me you know that sort of like oh I do this and people are really impressed by it like and I think yeah there is a performative I think any anyone that gets up on stage and and spends enough time you know schlepping around the country you know trying to be a performer there's gonna be a it's gonna come off stage as well isn't it it's it's very difficult to segregate that but yeah and also I guess you then end up sort of having this sense that people have an expectation of who you should be when you're in a social setting oh he's the guy on stage with the piano like he's super confident yeah that you have to turn up with a certain face on and acting in a certain way I think I also it's funny because I I guess this goes back to the other thing.

25:01I think sometimes like I'm like, although there's a sadness to it, it's like, you know, I'm more comfortable sometimes in that role, like of being like Tom, the performer, than I am just Tom, the person. Like, you know, like everyone wins. But that's not to say it's right. And it's not to say that it's good for me. And actually like, you know, it's interesting. I mean, I guess these conversations are probably like every performer has it, you know, and I guess it's a role to play. But you must get it as well. Yeah. Oh, my God. Honestly, it's been one of my I'm intrigued by it. I'm intrigued by I've just literally probably after we finish this podcast, I'm going to finish editing this fiction.

25:52I've been working on for about two years. And it is very much based on this topic that even within a family, even if you're not a performer, you fit into a role of you're the people-pleasing one or you're the one that causes a bit of drama or you're the one that always gets your own way. And it's kind of set in stone really early on, but it ends up filtering into adult life. And I'm really fascinated about those roles and when we start to break them, what happens and how other people react when you start showing up just as yourself or trying to figure out who you are because that's a whole other bag of onions.

26:27Like, who am I without the piano? Who am I not on a stage? Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's, yeah, we become sort of calcified in these characters. Yeah, 100%. But yeah, I'm also, I always have this person in my head going like, stop complaining as well. like it's like I also feel very lucky to do it and I love it as well like but do you know I think it's so healthy to talk about everything in a full spectrum way like yeah we all know that it must feel amazing to sit at a piano and play in front of thousands of people and for them to be singing your words back that is a given but I think if we just put those sorts of jobs on a pedestal and go, these are the only ones that count because they're so special and you only feel amazing doing them.

27:20It's just doing a disservice to everything else because there's always going to be problems. There's always going to be difficult areas, challenges. Otherwise, we've seen so many countless people who are so successful or incredibly famous take their own lives as a big extreme. So we know that the facts aren't straight. There has to be more complexity to having a public-facing role or being a performer and having those expectations or having perfectionism. I think it's really healthy to talk about. I know what you mean, because I often think I should only focus on the positives and talk about them.

27:54But I think it's actually very healthy to dig into all areas and be honest about it. Well, one of the great privileges and the most amazing things about my position is that since I've started being more open with how I feel and also even more open in my songs like there's this amazing community of people that come to my shows and that you know contact me online and like there's a such a connectedness I feel with them through our sort of brokenness and it's so extraordinary and and like it's sort of I can't you know, it's really like a more recent thing that I feel like that community's happened.

28:43And it's so I mean, I know you must have it as well. I know you have it with with everything you're doing. It's it's, it's extraordinary. And also, I just say, you're because I'm quite like positive about social media. Like I know that there's so many things wrong with it. And there's so much. I mean, we could go on and on about all the terrible things. But also, there's so much good. there's like a bunch of your posts that I have saved on my notes that like about like compassion and stuff or self-compassion um I mean I can literally tell you that is so lovely to hear that Tom I can't tell you because sometimes you do think no I I agree I like social media because of the connectivity and I also think like you're saying with your music you can connect through struggling and pain maybe more easily than yeah something that's just sort of happier and more but i'll um but i mean i mean i've literally got like five but like i you know and i i it it's there is so much good that it also does i think i agree and and and it it you know it makes us all feel slightly less alone and um it's certainly done a lot of good to me at times i think when we assume that everyone else is just coping yeah that's a very lonely place to be yeah and it's also really dangerous because then you're not going to act authentically in terms of you know what your set of values are and what you actually want for yourself if we're constantly and we're all constantly looking at other people now the market's uncertain revenues tied and hiring on hold that's why results driven companies are using upwork to keep work moving go to upwork.com today and start hiring proven freelance talent fast no bulky overhead no rigid long-term contracts Just the right expert, right when you need them.

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32:13I've got to talk about your new music because I've heard a few tracks from your new album now. And again, it's just utterly beautiful. I love that you've got that really sort of underproduced sound in the best possible way. It feels very raw and like you've just sat at the piano and it's all poured out of you. It's really gorgeous. Black Friday is a song that you wrote on your birthday, which was a year ago. A year ago. It was the day before Black Friday. Yes. What thoughts came up on that particular day and why? Yeah, I mean, that was like not a great few weeks. I don't know I can't particularly say why but like it wasn't so great I think I'm so like reticent to like give periods or like I'm so reticent to say like I'm a depressive or like I don't know why I'm reticent to say that but I I guess like I went through a period where it was a bit like I was a bit low and I felt a bit withdrawn and that's where that song came from and I think it's like a mixture of feeling like looking at those around me in my life looking at Georgie and just having this unbelievable sense of adoration and admiration um and but then looking inwards and going and having the sort of opposite feeling towards myself and I think that's where that song ultimately stemmed from I don't like I'm really proud of that song though because I think it's really um it's really like real it's it's a real feeling and um you know you always try and make real feelings and real songs but sometimes for whatever reason it's difficult to get it to land you know and I think with that one it does land really well and it was a real feeling at a real time and it came from not feeling particularly good which is always a silver lining exactly that's what I think about when I'm having a shit period like oh there's a book in this yeah yeah exactly or at least a podcast episode yeah but it's great to be able to channel it and move through those feelings and I'm wondering if after you've written a song like that where you talk about your proclivity to being mean to yourself if you've actually if you can step back and see it with a fresh set of eyes and go why am I doing this because you know we all do it there's only there's a single person out there listening to this yeah who hasn't at some point if not like I do it sometimes all day every day pick holes in parts of my personality or myself or my work ethic or whatever it is I'm trying to achieve We're so awful to ourselves.

35:09But once you've got it ink on page or you're hearing it back as a song, does that give you a bit of distance to go, wait, why am I actually doing this? I think so, yeah. I think it's very, I think it forces me to face it rather than to run. And I think there's always a tendency to run rather than to turn and face it. And I think that if that's very helpful, it definitely doesn't feel like it's helping at the time. But I think it does help. And weirdly, it's months later when I sing it that I feel a weird amount of compassion for myself because I get a perspective. I'm like, you know, you were really in a bunk then.

35:59Yeah, it's quite it's yeah, it's quite sort of there's a line in that song that's like, I look in the mirror. what is happening to me and that like weirdly of all the lines just sort of gets me because I'm like ah I just like I remember that like I remember that sort of being in the back of a taxi and sort of you know you're sort of you haven't slept and your mind is running at a million miles an hour and everything feels dark around you and you catch a glimpse of yourself and it's almost like you haven't caught a glimpse of yourself for a while it's you because you may have looked in the mirror but you've seen everything else but yourself and i think there's always a tragedy and in that moment or there's a when you go oh it's you it's you it's me or i don't know it's it's it's this horrible but also moment of perhaps compassion where you you sort of ask yourself how did how did you you know what are you doing or how did you get here you know it's like I don't know I think we've all had that I think yeah of course um god especially in you know your job you're if you're constantly touring traveling from city to city or country to country you don't stop you don't get that time to pause and actually go wait a minute am I enjoying this how do I feel yeah I mean knowing that you've got a tour coming up yes how do you create a level of balance where you don't end up in that place where you're racing racing racing and not actually stopping to take stock um make loads of plans and then achieve none of them yeah I don't know I guess um I mean I do lots of like exercise and stuff that I run uh sometimes I don't stop running and like what the hell am I doing so far from

37:57um but yeah i don't know i i sort of what do i do um i write you know like i write lots i find journal before gigs right yeah i do yeah and i find that really really is like really helpful and i i like writing it's just like always i don't know what it removes but it removes something i mean it helps in some way oh yeah we had um julia cameron on yeah who wrote The Artist's Way a great book and her thing is the morning pages you get up and I was in such a good habit of doing that all the time I've obviously fallen off the wagon why do we fall off the wagon? I know it works for me after we've had this chat I'm going to set myself a goal from tomorrow the morning pages are back it works it's so difficult to keep those practices I have so much admiration for people that manage to do all that stuff and and keep it going because i'm not great at keeping stuff going um i quite i think i get into like fads and then i do them for a bit and then you know i this i seek salvation in them for three weeks it's solved all my problems yeah i'm fine i'm cured yeah and you're telling everyone you must do the morning you must do your journaling and then you stop doing it yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah I used to for a while I used to carry around that book by Eckhart Tolle Power of Now?

39:22Yeah. Lovely book yeah even just having it close to me it would be like wow it's really powerful that book and I like there's another chap as well I like who's similar to that what's it called? Joe Dispenza? I'm looking at my bookshelf now I'm sure you probably got it it's something about the soul Oh, Michael Singer. Michael Singer. Yeah. Great guy. Similar vibe. Similar vibe. But really helpful. Yeah, I really like it. But I find all reading, to me, also helps. Like, I try and, like, every morning, rather than read the news, which, you know, just fills you with anxiety, I try and read, like, some fiction.

40:08You know, just for, like, ten minutes while you're having a coffee or whatever, you know. that I like I'm reading a Cormac McCarthy book at the moment and I read that for 10 minutes I find it just rather than putting you into the the sort of caffeinated kind of slightly neurotic world which is the news it puts you into a a a fantasy or you know or some you know Cormac McCarthy it puts me into the midwest and in 1945 or whatever great place to be it's um so it's like um you know i like being there um it's nice to be somewhere other than you know yeah that's why i read before bed because i can only sleep if i've read yeah something that takes me out of my own head basically my own weird thoughts yeah or the or sometimes me and georgie watched we love watching animal shows oh yeah like planet earth yeah all that but we just watched a new one which was like um it's had um god i forget everything the guy he's american morgan freeman oh yeah rex is watching that at the moment oh he loves it and they're like all the animals that went extinct incredible oh my lord we got through it in like three nights it's so good series um and they've created these animals out of ai or i don't know artificially but it's like so good and really like that takes you to another world yeah it's great we've got to get out of our heads we have to get out of our heads yeah the other thing i'm imagining is tricky to navigate being a musician today versus when you first came on the scene and i met you for the first time and you came in the live lounge even since then the music industry has changed yes almost at times unrecognisably yeah the thing that seems really prevalent now is this crazy focus on numbers stats yeah how many views on tiktok how many billions of streams have you had you know before it was like yeah that you'd want to chart well it'd be like in the charts and you'd want to sell out a tour but there's this real obsession now with stats and numbers and it having meaning you know at the end of the year how many billions of streams each artist and song had how do you not get caught up in that or do you get caught up in it um no I do get caught up in it I think maybe the you know I've always managed to to some degree I somehow I've always managed to separate my like artistic endeavor and like the business of it um I'm not like the business of it is important but it's definitely not the reason I do it and it's never been the reason I do it like um you know I have to remain successful enough to be able to keep going but you know my career has gone up and down and like there's been periods which you know all you everyone wants to be a friend you know in the music world and then there's periods where like people are slightly less interested and you know and you know it comes back again and I and I think the the important thing is to be able to like not put your self-worth in that and hard very hard and I've seen some awful tragedies in that in the music business of just people being chewed up and sort of spat out and just it's very merciless merciless merciless how do you say that word Yeah, you said it and nailed it.

43:46But yeah, so I don't know. But I think I managed to separate it. Probably not as much as I'm sounding like I do, though. Well, it's a tricky one, isn't it? Yeah. Like you've got, you know, your album's out very, very soon. Yeah. How much pressure do you feel that it has to deliver, whether that's pressure from your management team, your record label, family having opinions? How much does that affect you? well i used to be on sony right and when i was on sony they always kept me in a state of like you are unsuccessful like that was just the the sort of base level sort of vibe with everything was like that that i mean that is just their modus operandi like that's to keep you supposedly motivated i don't know i think they all themselves live in that it's it's there's a feeling of doing things out of fear rather than sort of we must do this because otherwise we will fail rather than we must do this because we we we could win you know and we could create something so beautiful and and so my time there at the start on sony was really good and then the sort second half of it was very unpleasant and it got you know and i i i don't want to i don't want it to dominate our conversation because i it's just such a sort of age-old story of like the artist leaving the major label and but it wasn't nice and they they didn't make me feel particularly good and maybe there is you know it's not such a coincidence that you know when i saw you in 2019 and i was through that that was really at like the worst point of my relationship with them and i think i felt very lost in my career like i didn't know like what the future held and i and i i didn't really feel like any of you know the people that i was working with were that bothered by it was just the market's uncertain revenues tied and hiring on hold that's why results driven companies are using Upwork to keep work moving.

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47:24so anyway but fortunately i managed to get out of that and i'm i work with a very small team now and it's it's it's much more independent and like i love every member of the team i work with and you know a lot of them i've worked with for over a decade and we've been through a lot and you know i do more now it is in that there's less slightly less delegation in in terms of like i don't have a massive label working for me so we but i take that because i just feel that everything i'm doing i'm doing with total integrity i want to put everything out that we put out and i put such great care and detail into everything we do and for that reason i think my relationship my fans as as or the people that listen to my music it's deepened and i feel like you know i've never felt closer to them in that in that way so yeah and also i guess it's so interesting because again another big change in the music industry is tiktok yeah whether you like it or don't like it i'm sort of i don't know confused by the whole thing i'm probably that bit older and don't really know how it all works but obviously songs but they have like they take off and have a life of their own outside of you so your music has had huge success on tiktok and been viral on certain videos and given you a whole new audience that might have not been there when you started out that must feel quite liberating to know that your songs are standing the test of time and are testament to how good you are because you're not out there on the promo trail please listen to my back catalogue these songs are just whizzing off on their own yeah it's nice I mean like yeah I'm I'm not gonna yeah it's been really great it's been so lovely and this whole like new generation of people have discovered the songs of which you know came out a few of them came out when they would have been very young so it's like it's it's really lovely um and I think in a way it's given me a creative freedom that has meant that not that I didn't have it before but there was always a battle to get music out like it i always managed to get it out but i always remember this one song called streets of heaven which i you know it's not this successful song but it's a song that came out on my fourth album um monsters and columbia sony they they sort of almost refused to put it out it's quite a delicate subject it's about um i wrote it with my a friend of my american friend about about school shooting and it was something the song that we're you know the writers were very proud of we put a lot of care and attention into the words and like it's a very delicate subject matter obviously and it deals with something very politically kind of divisive and Sony kind of were like we're not putting that out like you're not that artist you don't you're not the a serious enough artist to to be able to do that and it's funny because like the like I wanted to make this up this animation to it and it's something I really cared about and so basically like after once I left I then like spent a year looking for this animator and eventually it came out earlier this year and i can't tell you like how much of a victory that felt like of just like being told you can't do something told you can't do something and then you know and i know it's a sort of sob story but like um it's so great right now to just feel like i just have this free channel to be able to just put music out and people are going to listen to it and yeah it's absolutely incredible i love it that's why you got into it yeah exactly yeah you get to go back to basics almost like what floats my boat yeah yeah but the music industry yeah it's i can't believe i've managed to survive it for 10 or 11 years or whatever and it is it's all the sort of horror stories and cliches they're all they're all true they're all true they are it's mad it's mad yeah and and you know people do you know that it's full of sort of you know reprobates and people trying to rip other people off.

51:47And, you know, it's a bloody, bloody nightmare. It is. It's a bloody nightmare. It's a bloody nightmare. We need to put that on a T-shirt. Yeah. Well, I'm thrilled that you're in this amazing creative space. Thank you. You've got this new record coming out, which is just sublime. I've heard of it. I can't wait to hear the full thing. And I'm just glad to see you in a really good place. Oh, thank you. It's a beautiful thing. Thank you so much, Tom. I'm glad to see you in this happy place.

52:21Oh, Tom, thank you for that chat. And just being a bloody great human being. It's so lovely. I just love how articulate Tom is and how thoughtful. I love the fact that any question asked really led to some proper rumination and real digging deep honesty. I love that. So that chat we recorded a couple of weeks ago. Have I done my morning pages like I promised? Yes, I have. And partly because my dear friend Rangan Chatterjee sent me his beautiful new diary and I've been using it and I'm back into it. So Tom was the catalyst for that. Thank you, Tom. Anyway, if you want to see Tom live, which you should.

52:59Oh my God. His voice live, his piano skills. He's playing a huge headline gig at Alexandra Palace on July the 19th and new dates have been announced in Halifax and Dublin too. And you can stream his brilliant, brilliant new album, Black Friday, from January the 26th. Is perfectionism something you struggle with? Come and carry on chatting about this over on Instagram at happyplaceofficial. It's a big subject we need to dive in. And also, if you, like me, watch the Ronnie O'Sullivan documentary over the festive period, it's so brilliant, then you must listen to our Happy Place episode with him last year too.

53:38It was such a brilliant one. All right. A huge thank you to Tom, to the producer, Anushka Tate at Rethink Audio and to you. Chat soon, lovelies.

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