Tom Grennan: 'My family is from Offaly. It was like going to fairyland'
Tom Grennan has a new album, What Ifs & Maybes, and an upcoming Irish gig.
Tom Grennan is looking forward to an Offaly big adventure. The English singer is in Dublin to promote new album, What Ifs & Maybes, but can’t wait to get back to his family’s spiritual home in Ballycumber, 16 kilometres from Tullamore.
“My family is from Offaly. It was like going to fairyland,” he says. “I loved it. It was another world. It’s a place that I call home. I know Offaly like the back of my hand. I sort of grew up there too.”
With a mass of tousled hair and a face pleated in scruff, Brennan has the aura of someone who has just fallen out of bed as he shoots the breeze at his record label’s Ballsbridge headquarters. This is the persona with which he has conquered the charts: that of a sleep-eyed guy next door whose music is full of heartache yet also has a lived-in and approachable quality. Think of him as a super-laid-back Ed Sheeran, the Harry Styles who doesn’t look like he might secretly be an alien on a mission to collect all the earth’s feather boas.
“I’m just a normal fella whose got himself into a position that is unusual,” he says. “I’ve found this thing where I’m pretty good at in writing songs. I’m also good at navigating the way I’m feeling. That’s what some people aren’t good at. And then they listen to music and they think, ‘oh that’s actually how I’m feeling too’.”
He lays his feelings once again on What Ifs & Maybes – a “post pandemic” LP written in early 2021 and inspired by his relationship with girlfriend Daniella Curraturo.
It’s big-hearted pop, full of hooks and heart-and-sleeve lyrics. And it also brims with the self-doubt that is Grennan trademark: he’s happy to admit to vulnerability and to scrapping and scraping his way through life.
“I don’t know what to tell you, I don’t know what to say,” he sings on the single How Does It Feel, a weepy mid-tempo number that cuts to the heart of what he’s about musically. It’s emotive – if never quite drippy – and features production so polished you can almost catch your reflection in its contours.
“I started the album in the countryside,” he says. “I wanted to get away from London. Take a breath – the album is doing exactly that. It’s taking a deep breath and jumping into unknown water. I’ve always made records in the hustle and bustle of London. It was like, no no, no – I need too to be away. Really knuckled down and make a record in a different away.”
Grennan grew up in Bedford, a town of 170,000 on the distant fringes of London. He was a useful soccer player and was signed by Luton Town and Aston Villa at various points. But injury cut short his career, and he poured his work ethic and ambition into music instead.
“I feel like I’ve grown up,” he says of moving from soccer to music. “Every year, in my understanding that this is what I good at, this is what I do.”
Grennan is a pop star signed to a major label. But he is also a grass-roots musician with a young fanbase. For that reason, he has gone where other artists are sometimes unwilling to venture by putting a cap on his ticket prices.
“We’ve worked hard to pull the cost of ticket down, and dismissed all VIP and platinum ticket options as it’s just bollox in the middle of a cost of living crisis,” he tweeted when ticket prices for his latest tour went o sale. “The pinch is real, and I take it very seriously. Others should take note.”
“I saw a lot of artists ripping your fans off , doing stupid VIP meet and greet for a hundred quid. It’s out of order – especially when we’re living in a time of crisis when people can’t afford to turn their heating on. It’s hard for people to say, if I want to go to this gig... then I can’t pay my electric gig’. That’s not on. How do I make it possible that people can do both? I’ve put my ticket prices as low as they can go. At the moment, that’s where it will stay.”
- What Ifs & Maybes is released Friday, June 16. Grennan plays Fairview Park, Dublin, on Friday, June 30
