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For some, the road to success is long and tiresome, although if you have ageless talent like John Newman, you can tell the journey is going to be indeterminately shorter.
With debut single 'Love Me Again' already woo-ing the masses nearly a month before its release, achieving national radio play and steadily rising YouTube hits, one can’t help but think the only road this 22 year old has to worry about at the moment is the M4, which is where he is when we speak on the phone in the midst of a promo tour.
Newman first had ears pricked last year when his distinctive soul vocal fronted Rudimental’s breakthrough hit ‘Feel The Love’, which has since been viewed by 20 million people and sold over 620,000 copies in 2012, “It was more surreal than anything” says Newman, “When you write a song in a small room you never expect it to be played by millions of people around the world”.
Stepping into the spotlight himself, ‘Love Me Again’ is a huge slice of modern soul, as Newman finds the middle ground between the Motown artists that boomed through his household as a child, and the dance/hip hop he produced as a teen to originally separate himself from parental influence “My mum used to listen to a lot of soul music, and it wasn’t until I moved to Leeds and they were playing the same songs as in the bar I worked in that I realised she was cool, and I started listening to those records myself”.
Watch the video for 'Love Me Again' below
It would be fair to say Newman’s introduction to Motown flourished into an obsession, as we begin to assume what the singer’s ‘specialist subject’ would be if he were to go on Mastermind “I could listen to certain Motown records now and tell you which studio they were recorded in and what equipment they used, but maybe that’s a little bit too much.”
This sense of meticulous detail is something that underpins the album he will release in September, and has seen him take complete control of the process “I like to do cool little things like record guide vocals in car parks (which nearly gave one of the producers a heart attack), we also threw parties just so we could record the atmosphere”.
Also a fan of The Black Keys and Queens of the Stone Age, Newman’s broad musical taste is based on making a personal connection with music, and the raw emotion of artists that inspired him like Otis Redding bleeds into the honesty he strives for in his lyrical content. “I always think how you are meant to believe someone if they’re lying?” Newman ponders, “You can’t get into a song if you don’t feel it’s true to the artist.”
Watch John Newman's Rudimental collaboration, 'Feel The Love' below
Despite his views on authenticity, Newman saw success as a songwriter before the start of his solo career, and co-wrote the two Rudimental tracks that implemented his breakthrough. When asked where he would like his success to take him in the future, the 22 year old is setting his creative sights on the big guns “I’d love to write with Emile Sande, Naughty Boy and Kid Harpoon who are all brilliant.”, he continues, “…and I know it sounds really out there, but I would really like to do some writing for the next Adele album, because I just like her music so much.”
For now however, Newman will be focusing on the forthcoming release of his debut single at the end of the month, and the various festival appearances that await him both as a solo artist and special guest. Needless to say, a lot of people are going to be feeling the love for John Newman this summer.
‘Love Me Again’ is out June 30th via Island Records.
