Despite his swift and meteoric rise to fame, James Arthur still comes across as just a lad you would meet down the pub.
I first met the former X Factor star briefly at a behind-closed-doors listening session for his new album, Bitter Sweet Love (which is out tomorrow), just a matter of days after he had sold out a few arena shows for his upcoming tour.
Once he’d performed a few songs at the launch party, Arthur diligently made his way around the room and shook hands with everyone, introducing himself as if we hadn’t just watched him sing.
A cynic (me) might think that was just a very PR-driven way of keeping people sweet, but when I later spoke to him, one-on-one over Zoom, to discuss Bitter Sweet Love, he was exactly the same. Pretty… normal. Friendly. Approachable. Sometimes even (almost) physically weighed down by his own expectations.
It will only take one listen of Arthur’s fifth album to recognise that Arthur has dealt with a lot of emotional grief in his life. But it’s something he will readily admit, as well.
Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, Arthur explained: “I think I’m quite… quite good at tapping into heartbreak. I think that’s something that’s been a theme in my life, anyway. I’ve felt a lot of heartbreak in my life in various, different ways. And so that comes easy to me.”
When asked if his new, sadness-drenched tracks in Bitter Sweet Love (Blindside, and the titular track to name a couple) were in any way based on his own life, he softly deflected.
“I think it’s partly sort of diaristic or autobiographical,” he began. “But more so in terms of, like, the feelings are very authentic that I’m putting in there. They are drawn from real, real experiences. But I find that starting out by just trying to write stories, and try to understand the story and then, you know, sometimes that story is kind of elaborated on, or it’s not entirely true to what’s going on in my life at the time.”
He gets these authentic songs out of him by utilising a tried and true songwriting method that somewhat bucks the trend with songwriters. While some artists will endeavour to pen one song a day, Arthur explained, he feels it’s far more worthwhile striking while the iron is hot, so to speak. Once he’s in a bad mood, or not feeling his best, that’s when he forces himself to write new music.
“I feel like, in order to make music that’s really going to move people, you’ve got to sort of really capture when you’re feeling it,” Arthur mused. “I mean, I tend to go in the studio when I’m feeling down. When I started writing this [album] I’d just come off tour and I felt a little bit down, I felt a little bit depressed. And, for me, that’s always the best time to get in the studio and start making music.”
Why was he feeling down, depressed and downtrodden after his last album? Forever opaquely transparent, Arthur explained: “I think I was a little bit, sort of, just losing my way in life a little bit. I was a bit sort of… I don’t really know where. I didn’t really know if I wanted to continue this pursuit of recognition for my music and things like that.
“I just was in a place where I was just like, you know, I made an album that was a little bit experimental. There wasn’t really that many sort of sombre … big piano ballads and stuff that you get on this record. It was just something a bit different. And when I went out on tour, I realised that, actually, I didn’t really present the songs in the best way possible.”
With a breath, Arthur added: “I just felt like I had something to get off my chest.”
Arthur seemingly has had plenty more to say in the months which have followed, as he also noted how a new album is already in the works.
Arthur revealed: “Towards the end of every album cycle – like in terms of the promo and touring – I seem to be given the next idea. So, somehow, it seems to be in the air or whatever. I kind of knew what I wanted to do once I finished writing this one, it just sort of came [to me] – ‘Oh, maybe the next one is this,’ and the loose concept. Everything kind of came to me.”
Struggling not to give too much away, he tenderly added: “The next one is… yeah. I suppose a little bit more… I don’t know, but it’s probably more kind of [inspired by] Bon Iver, Phoebe Bridgers, [artists] like that.”
Chances are we won’t be able to get our hands on that conceptual album anytime soon, but fans of the 35-year-old star will be able to see him play live in the near future, as he embarks on his arena tour this March, beginning at Dublin’s 3Arena.
You can buy tickets to James Arthur’s massive UK tour here.
Buy James Arthur – Bitter Sweet Love from January 26, 2024.
