Materials

Biography

A compelling argument can be made that I should not be writing this.

Biographies are meant to be written by observant journalists, or incisive interviewers – and if you’re not speaking to them yet, it’s recommended to pretend that you have. While I often relish the opportunity to take myself far too seriously, I grimace a little at the thought of a competent writer sketching a figure of alluring mystique, sensitive artistry, and creative genius, and I fear any attempt to construct this captivating auteur myself would leave me with something more closely resembling a thoroughly demented dating profile.

So instead, I’m going to tell you what I do and why.

Music runs in my blood. It’s in my bones, it’s in the pub alleys and gutters of the Medway towns I grew up in. Some of my earliest memories are being taken to local gigs my parents would organise for charity and community, and hating every second of it. I didn’t have the vocabulary to express how it was too loud, how the guitars made my ears buzz and the drums pounded in my head till I felt like I was going to fall over. They’re good people, and I wasn’t a bad kid – I was just sensitive.

I first touched a piano aged 9, and promptly decided it was too hard. I returned to it years later, focused on learning by ear and packing as much emotion into my style as I could, influenced by the drama of orchestral composition. I couldn’t read sheet music to save my life, but after 6 years in musical education and a decade of practice, I still can’t. I started singing at 17, learned the guitar at 18, wrote my first song back at 14, and eventually even wrote a good one.

But all the while, I had no idea how to interact with my peers. I knew I was different; I got upset, scared, overwhelmed easier and in ways they didn’t. I paid little mind to those who thought they could fill a void by showing no sympathy, but most showed enough – and when they didn’t, I had music. I would spend hours listening on my walks to and from college, and it became something sacred for me. The soft introspection and yearning of Jeff Buckley and Elliott Smith among others became my hymns, and they walked me home when I was lost.

But when we ignore them, those small feelings of alienation burrow deeper, and I won’t deny that even as I flourished on the stage, I became unwell. It was terrifying, until it was the only place I felt free, and I’d wake up every morning with a hole in my chest until I chose what to fill it with. I chose love, and words, and pretty things. I chose the moon, and the sea, and melody. I chose every second of this, and I really hope you like the patchwork man I made from my blankets. Because if you do, and you ever have a day where all the pieces are wrong and you’re falling apart and it doesn’t make sense, and you can’t find your way home or even guess what that word means, you can always put on your headphones and give me your hand.

It’s an offer that’s open to anyone, but especially to those like me – those who were ever made to feel like they feel a bit too much. Those who were made to feel broken just because the world isn’t built for them.

Because you’re not broken.

We were just put together a little differently.