I did a residency at the Wynn in Vegas, and because North America is not acquainted with what I do pervasively, I had to sell myself to the people who book the acts. I was like: Mate, I’m a swear-y Frank Sinatra with tattoos.
I’m in these stadiums doing these massive shows, but people at dinner parties are asking me if I still do music.
I feel as if I’m a brand-new artist again, and I’m about to experience my business in a way I didn’t the first time around because of mental illness and drugs and shit.
I played the Artful Dodger in a play when I was younger and got a standing ovation every night when I came on. It was intoxicating. I wanted whatever that was.
Dad and Mum split up when I was four. Mum kept the records: Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr. That was my library. For my ninth or tenth birthday, my sister bought me Pink Floyd’s The Wall and a collection of electro music. I didn’t get Pink Floyd at all, but this electro stuff was like Oh my God, I want to eat and drink it. So the music I heard growing up was a weird mixture of Glenn Miller and Afrika Bambaataa.
My Nan taught me what real unconditional love looked like. Without her, I wouldn’t know.
I learned how to charm a room from my dad. He worked on holiday camps—the closest thing you’d get in America is the Catskills, but it’s a trailer park. I learned that a life in the entertainment industry was possible.
I learned how to work from my mum. Real work looked real depressing, because my mum worked all the hours that God sent her. The way my mum moved up out of her economic background—the wife of cannon fodder—to owning her own shop is equivalent or bigger than what I’ve achieved.
I left school when I was 16 with no qualifications, nothing higher than a D.
If I had been good at math, my mum would’ve pushed me to be a mathematician. As it happens, I was good at showing off, so my mum pushed me in my showing off capabilities. I’m good at getting eyes on me. If I was born in the creator generation, I’d have been a YouTuber.
I didn't even dream of music. I auditioned for a boy band, Take That, and got in. So this life in music has happened by mistake.
Literally a hundred girls would book themselves in a hotel to be with me. This is not normal, so my idea
of sex and my sexual relationship with women is warped.
You spend the second 20 years of your life sorting out the first 20 years of your life.
I don't think I’m a musical genius. There is a never-ending supply of melody that I find very natural. The tapper hasn’t turned off, touch wood. How do you write a pop song? Practice and get lucky. That’s it. I am one of the luckiest people on the planet.
In my particular line of work, it’s not about you; it’s about them. I don’t want to get up and do the same songs every night, but I also want to facilitate the best evening possible because people have paid good money.
Money isn't the top of the mountain, and the top of the mountain isn’t the top of the mountain. When you get to the top of the mountain in any profession, you have an existential crisis because it didn’t fix you.
Fame won't fix you. Success won’t fix you. Purpose kind of fixes you.
Money gave me the ability to sit on my sofa with a cashmere caftan on, growing a beard, looking like a murderer, smoking weed, watching Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and looking for UFOs. It made me lazy. But it also gave me enough space to realise, man, you need to do something with your life. I was 32.
No f***ing way I was getting married; I have, it’s been the making of me. No f***ing way I was having children; I have, it’s been the making of me. What have I learned from marriage? That I can keep my c**k in my pants.
I thought that was impossible. So far, so good.
When my first kid arrived, it was terrifying for so many different reasons. I couldn’t look after myself. How on earth was I going to look after a precious soul?
This might be incredibly wrong and sick, but there’s something to die for other than my wife and kids, and it’s the job. I don’t know why I find that empowering, but I do.
To read more stories from Esquire India's March 2025 issue, pick up a copy of the magazine from your nearest newspaper stand or bookstore. Or click here to subscribe to the magazine.