James Blunt on married life, having a nightclub in garden & his cheeky method of getting punters out of his London pub
HE owns a West London pub, has a nightclub in the garden of his Ibiza home and a new book packed with wild anecdotes – but James Blunt insists his wife is to blame for his high-octane lifestyle.
The pop supremo returns this week with a radio-friendly album and a hilarious “non-memoir”, which he admits as he takes over Bizarre for the day is “partly true”.
James, who splits his time between the capital and his six-bed villa on the White Isle, says: “People have always asked me, ‘When are you going to settle down?’.
"And I’m lucky to have met someone who worked at a higher tempo than me and instead of settling down, I had to speed up.
“I wish I could say I was still in the Ibiza clubs all the time.
"But maybe that’s why I’ve put a nightclub at the end of my garden, so that the 30-yard stumble back to my bed is more manageable.”
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In 2018, James and wife Sofia saved their local pub in Chelsea, The Fox And Pheasant, from closing.
Of his 2005 ballad, the hitmaker jokes: “I play You’re Beautiful at closing time to clear out the locals.”
He adds: “My pub is the real passion project, it’s just amazing.
“I’ve been in this business for 20 years and I love it, of course, but you do get on a path of album, tour, album, tour, so just to have something new and fun was a thrill.
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“But the pub is the best thing I’ve ever done in my life.
“It’s like a little country village in there, in London.
"It was my local, I’ve got a little house in that street and the pub was up for sale.
“They were going to turn it into flats, which was absolutely tragic.
“Surely it’s the job of any minor pop star to save your local?
“I felt it was my job, I’m the holder of that for a short period of time.
“I’m not allowed in the kitchen. I’m mainly kept in the pot wash, out of the way and out of sight of the public.
“But it is in the license agreement that there’s no music by James Blunt!
“It’s been the best thing I’ve ever done. I really love it.
"When I go out on the town with mates and they say, ‘Where are we going out tonight?’, I go, ‘Well, I own a pub’.”
But James insists he doesn’t miss his wild youth.
He says: “I still live in Ibiza and have great, great fun. Is it quite the same thing? Probably not.
"But I have a wonderful life and I’m not missing an old life in that respect.
“I get to do a job I love, I live on a holiday island, and I’m pretty good at separating work from home life.”
NEW ALBUM BOTH UPBEAT AND SAD
JAMES’S latest record, titled Who We Used To Be, features a mixture of his familiar style with more dance-influenced tracks, alongside personal lyrics that document his life with wife Sofia and their children.
He explains: “I’ve been recording in the UK and I’ve been doing stuff in Ibiza, too. I suppose Ibiza is rubbing off on me a bit.
“I’ve done dance tracks with the likes of Robin Schulz and Lost Frequencies, and I was in a studio where David Guetta had been working next door.
"Maybe I felt it through the walls. I’m in a good place and I’ve got a lot to celebrate.
"That’s why you can see it here – some celebrations in those songs.
“Don’t worry though – there’s still the misery people love, too!”
His latest single, Beside You, tells the story of his enduring marriage, while Dark Forces documents the tragic loss of his close friend, the Star Wars actress Carrie Fisher.
He adds: “It’s fairly diverse – it has some upbeat stuff and some misery.
The song that means the most is The Girl That Never Was and I’ve talked about how we can relate.
We all have ambitions to start families at some point – sometimes we have success and sometimes we struggle, which is what the song is about.
“Dark Thought is about Carrie.
"She died in 2016 and the book tells you the story, too.
"In the song it’s a serious story about when I drive to the house and see a For Sale sign outside and shed a tear.
“But in real life, it was a funny moment when a star tour bus came along and the tour guide said over the Tannoy, ‘And on the left you can see the late, great Carrie Fisher’s house and you can see some fans are still paying their respects’.
“And that was me blubbing by the gate.
"The music takes a serious look at things and the book is not so serious – it’s an exaggeration of my Twitter feed.”
BEING BLUNT
ON Twitter James became well known for his pithy putdowns and self-deprecating quips – and as a result he has found himself a regular sounding board for fans’ problems.
So I invited him to launch this Being Blunt Agony Uncle column, by calling on readers to send in their issues for some no nonsense advice.
READER: I’ve got two kids but I much prefer one to the other, and I’m worried this is becoming obvious as a few friends have commented on it. Should I be honest about it?
JAMES: My advice would be to sell one for parts
READER: I was on the tube the other day and this weirdo would not stop staring at me, the whole time.
I think he was on drugs! How do I escape such a creepy situation if it happens again? I hope I never see his face again.
JAMES: Yes, OK, it was probably me and you probably left just shortly before I broke into song – sadly.
READER: I haven’t spoken to my nutcase in-laws but now they are coming for Christmas what can I do?
JAMES: Book a holiday overseas immediately
READER: My girlfriend is in the final stages of Love Island – should I end it now or stay with her for money?
JAMES: I think you should enter . . . enter yourself.
READER: How do I stop my boyfriend from having a wandering eye?
JAMES: Ah, yeh tricky isn’t it that . . . it can’t be done.
READER: What’s the benchmark for success?
JAMES: To put a tour on and for it to sell out!
KEEPING ME GROUNDED
JAMES’S book includes a series of outrageous anecdotes – which he jokes are a mixture of truth and embellishment – but insists he won’t reveal which ones are totally accurate in order to keep fans guessing.
Tales of drug use and debauchery feature often – including a phone call to his mother and Army colonel father admitting he had failed a drugs test while serving in the military.
He jokes: “As a kid, I had to call both Mum and Dad, ‘Sir’.”
He adds: “I also joke that my parents dropped me off at boarding school when I was seven and I never saw them again until I got famous, and my mum called me and said, ‘Now that’s not true and you know it’.
"The real way round, really, is that when You’re Beautiful hit big and the album Back To Bedlam hit big, the world went mad for me.
“I was exposed to such a kind of madness, such a rollercoaster ride being so visible in the public eye, that actually, that’s when I called my parents and said, ‘Hey, I could do with some grounding here’, and they were the people who swept me up, looked after me and kept my feet on the ground, in a sense.
"Actually my friends and family really cared for me at that stage, and it’s exactly what I needed at the time.
"I’m so lucky to have parents who looked after me.”
The famously thick-skinned star, who often engages with jibes and banter pointed towards him on Twitter, explains: “You can lose your mind very easily.
“The world is littered with bands who have been picked up by the music business and spat out.
"I got into this business later than many musicians.
“We take some kids and put them in the music business, throw them in the public eye and they make their mistakes very much in public.
"So I’m lucky in many ways that I had a proper job before this that put things in perspective.
“I was 28 when I got into the business and I was told that you shouldn’t be older than 25. So I would go on my Wikipedia page and change the date of birth.
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“When things were tricky, I could call my mates in the Army and say, ‘I’m having a s**tty time’.
“And they’d tell me what was going on and where they were in Afghanistan or Iraq and that put things very much in perspective.”