Los Angeles – “Food, food, food,” four-time Grammy winner Sam Smith said when we asked him what kind of tourist he was.
“I am obsessed with food,” the 23-year-old singer admitted. “The first thing I do when I travel is I try to taste the food that has been made in that certain place. But I also love walking around and seeing things. My main priority is always the fans. I make sure that in each place I go to, I stay behind after the show, meet everyone face to face and thank them.”
You should try balut when you go to the Philippines, we told the award-winning singer. “Bah-loot,” he carefully repeated it in his crisp English accent. “I will try to remember that.”
Talking to Sam was like a breath of fresh air. He was candid, charming, open, charismatic, and very witty. He looks forward to visiting the Philippines for the first time for his sold-out concert on Nov. 21 at the Mall of Asia Arena.
The concert is part of “The Lonely Hour Tour,” which takes its name from his latest album.
“I fell in love with someone a few years ago who didn’t love me back and we weren’t in a relationship. It was very depressing. And so the only way that I could get over him was to write an album about it… Music became a whole different type of therapy for me during that process.”
“Before I made this record, I had never had a boyfriend,” he confessed. “I fell in love with someone a few years ago who didn’t love me back and we weren’t in a relationship. It was very depressing. And so the only way that I could get over him was to write an album about it… Music became a whole different type of therapy for me during that process. So that is why the album is called that.”
Known for such songs as “Stay With Me,” and “I’m Not The Only One,” Sam was supposed to sing for us but he was on a doctor-ordered vocal rest. He also had to cancel his performance at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s annual Art + Film Gala the night before because he was not feeling well.
He had vocal surgery early this year “so whenever I have been feeling ill, I have been told that I just can’t sing because it could damage it.” At least he was allowed to talk to us.
Sam sang the theme to the latest James Bond film “Spectre” titled “Writing’s On The Wall,” which he wrote with his friend Jimmy Napes after reading the script “from start to finish.”
He shared, “I was also given a steer in the right direction with my first meeting with producer Barbara Broccoli and director Sam Mendes when they told me the title of the film. I said I cannot write a song called ‘Spectre.’ There are not a lot of things that rhyme with ‘Spectre.’”
“It’s really difficult and I find it hard to think of myself as famous. All of that sometimes, it freaks me out. It’s massive.”
After much discussion, they focused on writing a huge love song, “a massive, classy, epic, classic love song,” he said.
“And you all know the ending; it’s the first Bond in a few good years now where he actually ends up with the girl and everything is happy… That’s what I wanted to concentrate on. I think in every Bond film there is an underlying theme of love. I write love songs, so I thought it was right to do that.”
Since love figures in a lot of what he does, we asked what it means to him. “Love to me is everything,” he explained. “It’s the meaning of life to me. Last year, I was everywhere traveling and getting so depressed. I didn’t have a boyfriend and I needed to have a boyfriend if I am going to write my second album. I am just being stupid and it was right in front of me – snap, bang… what should be inspiring me, and it is my family. That was the relationship that I wasn’t concentrating on. So when I had my vocal surgery, I rectified my relationship with my brothers and sisters and now we are all good. So it will all be good for Christmas.”
Sam bought his first-ever house which he describes to be like “a Beatrix Potter house.” He says he bought it “purely because it’s going to look great at Christmas.” He added, “I think anyone who is British takes Christmas insanely seriously.”
The singer is also into films. “My obsession with movies is ridiculous and I love films,” he shared. While doing film studies for his A levels, he recalled, “my teacher actually said to me, ‘I don’t think you should sing, I think you should carry on doing film studies in the university.’ She said, ‘It’s more likely you will be more successful in that than singing.’” She was a little off the mark.
Sam found fame in music, so we asked him how he handles it. “It’s really difficult and I find it hard to think of myself as famous,” he confessed. “All of that sometimes, it freaks me out. It’s massive.”
He admits his music is so personal, “but at the same time, I want to be as less personal as I can because I don’t want my life to be intruded on like that.”
The singer added, “I am still finding my feet and I think that’s what next year is going to be about – finding my feet… where I stand in the music industry and in my personal life now that I have become different to the person I am.”
Credit: Manila Bulletin, Janet Nepales
