George Ezra chats new album Staying at Tamara’s as he reveals how he suffered from anxiety after his tour
FOUR years ago, you couldn’t turn a corner without hearing George Ezra on the radio.
His song Budapest was everywhere and his debut album Wanted On Voyage became the third biggest-selling album of 2014, behind only Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith.
Ezra is still coming to terms with his success.
“It’s crazy the album was that big,” he says.
“It was so much sweeter because I wasn’t expecting it. It’s hard imagining people out there enjoying something you’ve done.
“It’s hard to get your head around. I’m still not sure I have.”
It was a case of his music doing the talking. You couldn’t avoid hearing Budapest and Blame It On Me, but the spotlight on Ezra himself was gradual.
He says: “You start on the open mics. Then you get a support slot. Then you do your own headline tour. Then you support someone bigger. Then you do your own headline tour again. Everything was a gradual step up, so I was not thrown into the lion’s den.”
I meet Ezra in a pub in East London where he is trying to find time for lunch in between a photo shoot and interviews.
He flies to New Zealand then Australia in a few days and says he can’t complain about being busy — it is a sign people want to hear from him again.
Ezra, 24, is now back in the limelight with the release of his follow-up album Staying At Tamara’s, out on March 23.
Ezra made the record in a “similar way” to his previous one, he says, by “recording in the same place with the same producer” (Cam Blackwood) and his writing partner, the former Athlete singer Joel Pott.
He says: “Some people get a successful first record then they go and make their next album in the Caribbean or somewhere.
“I’m more about taking baby steps, as hopefully this is album number two of many.
“I think it sounds a different record. There are more vocals on it. And there’s more experimentation and definitely more confidence, although I only realised that listening back to it.
“I feel I’ve improved and these songs are stronger. I love my first record but I am better on this.”
There has also been a lot of growing up done while making Staying At Tamara’s.
Ezra says: “I am transitioning into being an adult. I am 24 years old so that’s when you’re not a boy but not a kid and not a man. You’re somewhere in between.”
Staying At Tamara’s was fuelled by Ezra stepping out of his comfort zone.
Just as Wanted On Voyage was inspired by travel, at the start of his second album Ezra decided to take a trip.
He says: “I am not very good at being creative when I am comfortable. There are too many distractions back home. It’s too easy to say yes to going to the pub, especially if you haven’t seen friends in a while.
“So I booked a month in Barcelona and instead of getting myself a hotel or an apartment I found a room to rent in a flat owned by a lady called Tamara.
“I said to myself, ‘If she’s crazy I can always escape and if it’s uncomfortable I can leave’.”
Instead, the stay at Tamara’s place was what Ezra needed to reinvigorate his writing.
“Tamara had vinyl records everywhere and her friends were artists, musicians and designers. Her boyfriend was in a band and it couldn’t have been better.
“I felt like I was a student again,” says Ezra, who studied at music college BIMM Bristol.
“It was great and I started to write. The culture there insists that you slow down. It’s a great way of life and I kept diaries and notebooks of everything.
“There was a point halfway through where I realised how important it was to be staying at Tamara’s. The songs were taking shape and a lot of them are about escaping and taking yourself away from the world around you. And Tamara sounded like an exotic name to me. I’ve certainly never met a Tamara before.”
The first songs written for the album were Shotgun and Pretty Shining People, which Ezra says he wrote after spending time up Montjuïc hill in Barcelona.
He says: “Halfway up, there is a hotel with a nice garden. A lot of days I’d walk halfway up and just sit in the beautiful garden.
“I looked around and everyone was just doing their own thing, trying to figure out their lives.”
Ezra rediscovered the vibrant new single Paradise on his Dictaphone eight months after he recorded it.
He says: “That song started life before the end of the first record. We were on tour in California and someone got a cold on the bus. If one of you gets a cold, we all do.
“I remember being in my bed feeling sorry for myself and I just started singing and had that melody. Then I forgot about it for a while.”
As well as Barcelona, Ezra also visited the Isle of Skye, a pig farm in Norfolk, a former cornflour shed in Kent and a converted cowshed in North Wales to write.
Other standouts from Staying At Tamara’s are Saviour, which sees Ezra team up with Swedish sisters First Aid Kit, and Get Away, which deals with the anxiety Ezra suffered from when he finished touring his first album.
He says: “I’m extremely fortunate to tour and travel but when I came off tour, I struggled with not having any structure.
“I didn’t understand properly what it was that was going on but I knew something wasn’t right. I had anxiety and I need to be busy.
GEORGE EZRA Staying at Tamara's
Review: Four stars
1. Pretty Shining People
2. Don’t Matter Now
3. Get Away
4. Shotgun
5. Paradise
6. All My Love
7. Sugarcoat
8. Hold My Girl
9. Saviour (ft. First Aid Kit)
10. Only A Human
11. The Beautiful Dream
“It made me think and wonder how many people who I have contact with day to day are going through something that others are not aware of. You can be sad and still smile.”
It was this that led Ezra to get involved with Mind and in December he played a one-off gig in aid of the mental health charity at London’s Union Chapel.
Another song, Don’t Matter Now, deals with overload in the smartphone era.
“People reading headlines but not the article. I am guilty of that,” says Ezra. “Everyone is expected to have opinions on stuff and everyone jumps to conclusions. It’s good to switch off.”
I used to have some s**t jobs when I was growing up but found a way to love all of them
George Ezra
Ezra laughs when I ask if he is more comfortable being famous this time around.
“I don’t really go there. When I’m back home with my friends, I don’t talk about the people I’ve met or what I’ve been doing as it’s not important.
“When I was growing up, the people I was into, I just cared about their music. I didn’t wonder what they are having for breakfast.
“Playing the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury and saying ‘hi’ backstage to Adele might seem weird but that becomes the norm in this job.”
Ezra recently started a podcast, George Ezra & Friends, and has interviewed Ed Sheeran, Rag’n’Bone Man, Craig David and Hannah Reid of London Grammar.
“We just chat and they tell me their stories, which are nice to hear,” says Ezra.
“I love it. It has really helped me really fall back in love with music.”
The rest of 2018 is going to be a busy one for Ezra and he says he is looking forward to touring and playing new songs.
And he never takes his success for granted, even when he is away or missing his family and girlfriend. “Let’s be honest, I’ve got nothing to moan about,“ he says, smiling. “I’m doing all right and my girlfriend understands this is my job and I have to tour.
“Yes, when I feel ill, I get annoyed that I have to convince ten people that I am actually ill before someone says, ‘He should have the day off’.
“Things like that are frustrating and I used to have some sh*t jobs growing up.
“I’ve worked in a cafe as the pot washer, in a sweet factory packing sweets and I’ve worked in a pub — and I found a way to love all of those jobs.
MOST READ IN MUSIC
“But now I get to make and play music and I love it, so I really have nothing to moan about.
“Success came as a huge surprise and I’m not in any hurry for it to stop.
“Occasionally I miss funerals, weddings and babies being born, but that’s a very small price to pay for having the coolest job in the world.”
- Staying At Tamara’s is out on March 23. The single Paradise is out now.