Tom Grennan: "I’m not from a family who were in the industry. I knew nothing about it and, yeah, I got swept up in it a little bit"

Tom Grennan is on a well-deserved break in Spain, enjoying some poolside downtime with family.

“I’ll take it all day, man,” he laughs, soaking in the sun in his bucket hat. “A lot’s been going on and I’m in a very good place at the moment.”

It’s a brief interlude of quiet for the 30-year-old singer-songwriter, who’s spent the past few years building a reputation as one of the UK’s most distinctive pop voices.

More recently, he launched his You About? podcast, which he hosts alongside his close pal Roman Kemp. More importantly, Grennan wrapped up his fourth album, Everywhere I Went, Led Me To Where I Didn’t Want To Be -  a title that captures the chaos and clarity of his twenties.

“It’s a title that could be looked at as a negative one,” he explains. “But it’s not. I’ve navigated myself from 21 to 29 through the music industry, finding myself down wrong turns and whatnot.

“I’m not from a family who were in the industry. I knew nothing about it and I think, yeah, I got swept up in it a little bit, probably just like everybody else who jumps in not knowing what the hell’s going on.

“It’s a title that says there’s always going to be a brighter day. To keep going, keep moving and don’t get stuck, keep trying to better yourself and that’s what it really means to me.”

That resilience has defined Grennan’s evolution. He grew up in Bedford, a market town north of London, in a working-class Irish-English household. His first dream was football. He played with Luton Town and had trials at Aston Villa, even considering a scholarship in the States.

“The honest answer is I wasn’t good enough,” he admits, when asked why he never went down that route. “I was a realist. I knew I wasn’t ever going to be a professional. And then I found music and I really enjoyed it and never looked back.”

Was there an exact moment Grennan realised he was a songwriter?

“Probably when I started to play guitar and I couldn’t play anybody else’s songs,” he laughs. “I realised I love being creative with words. I like to tell my story,  and I like telling other people’s stories.

“So that’s when I realised that maybe I’m going to give songwriting a go.”

Not all his early tunes were hits…

“Definitely, I do [remember],” Grennan says, reflecting on some of the first songs he wrote. “One was called ‘Charlie’. One was called ‘Boys In Blue’. One was called ‘Happy Days’. There’s loads of different ones. Loads of shit ones.”

Grennan pivoted towards performance in his late teens, studying acting at St. Mary’s University in Twickenham. In London he was playing small acoustic gigs around pubs, for almost three years, until an A&R person at Insanity Records lent an ear and a contract was offered.

Grennan’s breakout came in 2016, providing vocals on the Chase & Status single ‘All Goes Wrong,’ introducing the soulful, gravelly voice that’s helped him earn two UK No. 1 albums since.

Now he enters his thirties more centred, which is reflected on album opener ‘Full Attention’, where he sings, “For the first time I feel alive.”

“I just know who I am,” he says. “I think I’m going to keep changing and evolving. But I think right now, I’m very much in a place where I’m cool with it.”

What got him there?

“I don’t know, man,” he replies. “Getting older, life experiences, figuring things out for myself and being around good people. I’ve had some big milestones happen in my personal life.”

One of the album’s standout tracks, the ‘80s-hued ‘Boys Don’t Cry’, deals with those shifts, reflecting on the silence around emotion in male friendships, something Grennan knows firsthand.

“I come from a little small town, where my friendship group’s very alpha male,” he shares. “We don’t talk about our problems, we kind of make a joke of them. I’ve always been a pretty emotional person. I remember going back to my hometown recently and it was the first time me and my friends could really have an honest conversation.

“It’s important for me to show how I’ve learned a lot about my friends and myself, being a 30-year-old man now.”

It’s a refreshing outlook in the age of the manosphere, though Grennan is quick to bat down any suggestions of him being a moral example.

“No, no,” he states. “I don’t see myself as a role model at all. I’m just doing music and talking about things that I’ve experienced. People are relating to it and I love the fact that they are, but I don’t want to see myself as a role model, because it’s fucking weird, isn’t it?”

Another one of the album’s emotionally weightier tunes is ‘I Won’t Miss A Thing’, written during a health scare with Grennan’s grandfather.

“I came to terms with what passing away actually is, and how it was going to make me feel when I lost my granddad,” the singer says. “He went for a big heart surgery and was basically on his deathbed. There was a moment where I thought this man who’s been in my life, someone who I look up to and somebody who I love dearly, is going to die.

“So it all happened in that time when he was going through that. But luckily enough, he got to hear the song and he’s still kicking and breathing and being as moody as hell.”

Not all of the album leans heavy. The project blends soul, pop and funk, with big choruses and crisp production, topped off by bursting refrains of joy and release. Grennan brought in songwriter Justin Tranter (Dua Lipa, Chappell Roan) to help shape the sound.

“I wasn’t going to a room saying, ‘I want to write an album that is this or that,’” Grennan reveals. “The sound was very much pop with an essence of soul. It’s just a feeling, man. And a very good feeling. I listened back the other day and thought ‘this is a good album’.

“These songs have all sorts of genres running through them – different DNAs.  I’ve always made music like that.”

Speaking of DNA, Grennan’s Irish background remains a central part of his identity. His father hails from County Offaly, and a grin emerges when the songwriter spots a poster of The Pogues in his interviewer’s background.

“I love it, man,” Grennan says. “It’s home for me. I was born in England, but all my family are Irish. And I’m very proud of that. My dad is very proud of his roots. We go back a lot. It’s the best place on earth.”

Recently, he and his dad were spotted alongside Paul Mescal at Croke Park, watching the All-Ireland hurling final. Grennan will soon be the centre of attention down the road, with a headline date at 3Arena penned in for September 13.

“It’s an iconic venue I’ve always wanted to play in, so we’ll sell it out and have a good time,” he beams. “It’s gonna be one of them shows where people go, ‘Fuck me, he’s the real deal’. That’s what I want.”

Everywhere I Went, Led Me To Where I Didn’t Want to Be is out now. Tom Grennan plays 3Arena, Dublin on September 13.