Pop-Culturalist.com

While working in Human Resources, singer-songwriter Calum Scott dreamt that he’d one day have the opportunity to record a debut album. After a successful run on Britain’s Got Talent, that dream became a reality.

In 2018 he released Only Human, which topped the iTunes charts in over twenty countries and amassed over seven billion streams worldwide. Yes, you read that correctly: seven billion streams! This solidified Calum’s place as one of the most gifted songwriters of his generation. More importantly, though, the record has made listeners around the globe feel seen, heard, and represented.

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Calum about his journey into the music industry, his latest single “Biblical“, and his upcoming sophomore release.

PC: You’ve had tremendous success throughout your career. When you look back, is there a particular moment that stands out to you?
Calum: I’m the guy who worked in Human Resources dreaming of this. Everything that’s happened to me feels substantial. It’s one of those things where I can’t believe I get to do these incredible things, like touring the world. There have been so many amazing moments.

To answer your question, the day that I signed my deal with Capitol Records was a moment of validation, if I needed more of it. I flew my dad out from Canada and my mum from the U.K. to see me sign my deal, which meant a lot. It was really, really special.

Very closely after that would be when I released my debut album. Like I was mentioning earlier, I’ve always dreamt of releasing music. Looking back at the moment when I released “Dancing On My Own,” that could have quite easily been a flash in the pan or a one-hit wonder—you hear it all the time in the music industry. As my team knows, I worked my backside off to make sure that I made the most of the amazing opportunities I was given. I’m so glad to be able to say that I’ve had incredible moments that I can look back at. They’re all “pinch me” moments.

Also, performing live—it’s one of the most satisfying things that I do because you know right at that moment that you’re connecting with people. You can see tears in their eyes, and you can see them throwing their arms in the air to the more upbeat songs. To be able to go around to so many countries around the world and do that, every time I step on that stage, it’s like, “I can’t believe this is my job. I used to make cups of tea and listen to Barbara complain about the dishwater not being emptied. Now, I’m performing live to fans that I have across the world.”

PC: Who or what has had the biggest influence on your career?
Calum: I owe so much to my mum for influencing my musical tastes and my work ethic. My mum and my grandma were the matriarchs of my family. They were very powerful women that had strong morals and incredible taste in music. My grandma used to listen to Vera Lynn, Nat King Cole, and Frank Sinatra. My mum listened to Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson.

It was very eclectic, but it was all about the voice for these artists. The voice and the lyrics were such an integral part of their songs. Growing up, I had my little emo phase where I tried to be rebellious and listen to my own music. I was like, “No, I’m listening to Evanescence now.” But those musical influences have always been in me and taught me the importance of vocals, textures, and lyrics.

PC: One of the beautiful things about music is its ability to make listeners feel seen and less alone, which your music definitely does. For you as an artist, has it always been easy to tap into that vulnerability? What’s that process like?
Calum: Yes and no, I suppose. I’m a very sensitive, very vulnerable young lad. I wear my heart on my sleeve. That helps when you’re trying to create that kind of music, but, like everything else, when you relive those moments, it’s painful. I definitely wanted to talk about my journey with my sexuality growing up and include that in my music. Like you said, I realized the importance of creating music for people to feel seen, heard, and represented. I used my own experiences to immortalize that in music.

One thing I found straight away is that you’re digging into a wound. This isn’t the most lovely of images, but it feels like you’re digging your fingers into that scar and you’re ripping it apart again; you’re digging back in for that pain. That’s what makes it so painful and so emotionally draining. I realized very quickly with the messages that I get on social media that I wasn’t creating music; I was creating stories that people were relating to themselves. My music, in ways, had become a bit of medicine for them. I took that incredibly seriously.

Ever since then, I’ve used that same process to talk about very vulnerable, very personal moments in an effort to try and continue to create music for my fans. It’s easy to tap into, but it’s a lot harder to dig in again and again to craft the perfect way to create that vessel for the song.

PC: Of all the music that you’ve released, if you had to pick one song that best encompasses who you are as an artist, which would it be and why?
Calum: That’s a great question. You’re asking me to pick my favorite child, aren’t you? [laughs] There are so many that have a piece of my heart. It’s difficult to choose. I’ve got to say “You Are the Reason” and what it’s done for me as an artist, but also what it’s done for so many people that I’ve had the pleasure of hearing messages from. It’s one of my favorites to perform live. It’s one of my favorites to receive messages about.

But there are so many other songs. For example, one that stands out to me is “No Matter What” because of the content of that song. Not only have people said to me, “You helped me come out to my mom because of this”, or “You helped me come to terms with my sexuality”, but there have also been people who have used the song in a different way. For example, a lady came up to me in America and said, “I love ‘No Matter What’. It’s a beautiful song.” I said, “Thank you so much”. She said, “My little boy, who’s only four, has had three open-heart surgeries in his short time.” She was like, “He can’t run around with the other kids, but I still love him no matter what.” I was like, “Oh my God.”

It makes you realize that there are so many people that interpret music and use it in the soundtrack to their own lives beyond what you intended. That really drums home to me about the importance of the music that I create as well.

PC: You’ve got a new single out now. Can you tell us about “Biblical” and the inspiration behind the song?
Calum: It’s my first release since my debut album. It was a little bit scary to put out, I must admit. I had quite a lot of sleepless nights before its release because I cared so much about what people would think of it.

“Biblical” came to me during a rough time. We were all going through a pandemic. I had actually come home from a writing trip early—I was in LA for two weeks and then Nashville for two weeks. I was trying to finish off the second album. There were all sorts of pressure with the second album: “Am I going to be relevant? Are they going to like this music? Am I going to be able to come back with another song that’s going to resonate?”

I was facing all these pressures, and then the pandemic hit. I left LA and flew straight into lockdown in the U.K. I was living on my own, isolated, and like everybody else, was stuck inside my house for months without seeing anybody. During that time, I became a little bit destructive with my mental health. I was tearing myself apart with all the anxiety that we all suffer from.

I was searching for that song. I wrote “You Are the Reason” with Jon Maguire, who was my producer across the second record. He was like, “Look, I’ve got this idea. You’re going to love it. Let me send it across.” He knew how I was feeling, so he sent it to me. As soon as I heard the opening piano, I was like, “This speaks to me immediately without any lyrics.” Then, the lyrics that they’d been working on, I was like, “This is perfect. It speaks to me so deeply. A love of biblical proportions in a time when that was the one thing that we were probably robbed of the most.”

I don’t know what it was like in the States, but when we could visit people, it had to be through a window; you couldn’t be in a room with them. It was really, really hard, and yet this song spoke about love in a way that made you forget about the pandemic and made you realize how much those people mean to you.

I said to Jon, I was like, “Please let me be part of this.” He was like, “Of course.” I was so quick to get involved and collaborate with them. We presented it to the label, and they were like, “There you go. You found your song.”

I understand when you hear the word “biblical”, for some people, that might have a spiritual connotation, but for me, biblical is epic; it’s immeasurable, unquantifiable. If I think about how much I love my mom, my friends, my family, I wouldn’t be able to give you a number or a measurement or compare it to anything because it’s infinite. I think “biblical” is such a perfect way to describe that.

Not only that, but it’s also such a catchy word. You hear “biblical” and you’re like, “What is that about? I felt so strongly about it. That’s why I wanted it to be the first thing that people hear when I came back with new music.

PC: You’re gearing up to drop your sophomore album later this year. How will this next body of work differentiate itself from Only Human?
Calum: The second album was an opportunity to grow from the first album. Like I was saying earlier, I was working a Human Resource job in Yorkshire. I was tapping away on my desk with a dream. To have the opportunity to write an album, I was like, “God, this is crazy.” I was pulling all these inspirations and all these messages together that I wanted to perform and collecting them into an album. It felt incredible. But looking back, it was definitely me trying to find my footing. I was a bit like Bambi on ice.

With the second album, I’d had that tranquility to write the song. At the beginning of 2019, it was as if somebody had held a mirror up to me and was like, “What do you want to say now? You’ve talked about your coming out journey. You’ve talked about the hardships of growing up and suppressing that. You’ve talked about the relationship with your mom. You’ve talked about your best friend. You’ve talked about heartbreak and all these things. What do you want to say now?” In that way, it made me mature.

Having heard the reaction to the songs on the first album, I had a much clearer idea of what my fans loved. The easy thing for me was that it was what came naturally to me. I want to write from a very vulnerable and honest place, because if I can be vulnerable, it’s going to speak to vulnerability; if I can be honest, it’s going to speak to honesty.

The second album was very much me strapping in and going, “Now, I’m not just Calum from Human Resources; now, I’m Calum Scott. I’m a beacon for some people. Somebody will put me in their headphones when they’re having a bad day or when they’re about to have a funeral service or when they’re about to have their first dance at their wedding.” With that mentality, I was like, “I have a responsibility to my fans.”

I had to put my big boy boots on and strap in. I would argue that the music that I’ve made on this second album shows growth. It shows development. I feel like my writing has improved. I feel like my music has improved. I know what I want to say, and I know that I’m able to choose what I want to be vulnerable about. I chose what I wanted to say.

It definitely feels like a collection of songs that I was in control of. That excites me because this my best work yet. I believe that. I mean, I’m terrified. I’m always going to be terrified of what people think. It’s a new album. There are a ton of songs on there. There are some subjects that I go into that I would never have thought that I would have shared with the world, but I feel that I trust that when I put it out there that people will resonate with it.

If I had to sum it up in one word, it would be maturity.

 

To keep up with Calum, follow him on Twitter, Instagram, Apple Music, and Spotify. Pick up or stream “Biblical” today.

Photo Credit: Tom Cockram