Celebrity Search Engine is back this week with a brand-new episode. This week, Abbie is joined by a singer-songwriter who couldn’t be prouder of his Bedford roots. He’s a keen footballer and huge Manchester United Fan (to Abbie’s dismay). With one of the most distinctive voices in British music, his second studio album Evering Road rocketed to the top of the charts this year. This week’s guest is Tom Grennan.
Tom will step up to be quizzed by host Abbie McCarthy, with a selection of questions based on the most popular, frequently looked-up, weird and wonderful searches on the internet, about Tom himself.
ON COLLABORATING WITH CALVIN HARRIS
“Do you want the honest truth?! I was on the toilet, scrolling through Instagram and I went onto my messages and I see that Calvin Harris has messaged me. And I was like, what?! And then he was like ‘I’ve got this tune, I’d love to do a tune with you’. I rang my manager, still on the loo and I was like ‘Calvin Harris has just messaged me, what should I say?!’ and he was like ‘say, er, yes!’”
“Then we got on the phone straight away and just had a good old chat. He’s just amazing, I always said I’d love to work with Calvin Harris.”
ON FINDING HAPPINESS
“I’m happy, I’ve met someone and she’s amazing and she really grounds me. My family are amazing and things are just good.”
“It was working out what was important. I sieved out the shit and got the gold.”
TOM TALKS FINDING HIS VOICE, WITH HELP FROM ALEX TURNER
“When I first started singing, my favourite band and one of my favourite artists was Alex Turner.”
“When I first started singing and getting into music, we created this band in Bedford. We were doing loads of Arctic Monkeys covers and stuff, and so I started to sing with a bit of a Sheffield accent which is so cringe!”
“It did take me a while to find my voice. I feel like I had to go on that journey to find the voice.”
WHO WOULD TOM GRENNAN LIKE TO SUPPORT ON TOUR?
“I would love to support someone like Harry Styles to be fair. That would be great. I love Harry Styles and I love his record and love his work. I just feel like that’d be a sick tour.”
ON SOCCER AID 2021
“I don’t know if I’m allowed to say it but yeah, I’m doing Soccer Aid.”
“I’m playing for Rest of the World though. But like, Roberto Carlos is on my team, Henry, yeah, mad.”
TOM TALKS BEING DISCOVERED BY CHASE & STATUS
“Chase & Status got in contact with me when I was at university. They heard one of my songs on a Soundcloud link that was sent around to different labels.”
“They invited me down to a studio in Chiswick and I was like, in my second year of uni, and I was like … what?! No way!”
“I had this song which was just the bare minimum of All Goes Wrong and I brought it into the studio.”
“They were like ‘this is wicked’ and we just wrote it together in the studio.”
“I just got back on with what I did at uni and stuff, and then I got a call up saying we’re going to go with it for our first single.”
“They were like ‘we’re also going to play it out at Wireless Festival. Do you want to perform?’. I was still at uni at this point and I was like … er … yeah!”
“Nobody knew the song, this song had not been released yet. Nobody knew the song, and nobody knew me, so I was kind of like walking out to 70,000 people. It was like I was naked. That was the moment where I knew, I’m doing this. And I remember leaving Wireless Festival and there were loads of people running up to me and stuff.”
TOM’S MOST EXTRAVAGANT PURCHASE
“I bought a car yeah, two months ago. Sick car. I walked out of my house two days ago to find out it’s been stolen.”
“I had a tracker in it, they took the tracker out and must have just put it straight on a ship and shipped it out. So, the most extravagant think I bought has actually been stolen!!”
WHAT IS TOM WATCHING ON TV RIGHT NOW?
“At the moment I’m watching Below Deck. It’s sick, I love it! It’s so good.”
Celebrity Search Engine, hosted by Abbie McCarthy, releases new episodes every Wednesday. Produced by Create Podcasts.