Born in Hampshire in 1974, James Blunt is a singer-songwriter. He studied at Bristol University and became an officer in the British army, serving with Nato forces during the Kosovo war in 1999. He left the military in 2002 and released his debut album, Back To Bedlam, in 2004. The record, featuring the global hit You’re Beautiful, sold 12m copies. His seventh album, Who We Used To Be, is released on 27 October. He is married with two children and lives in Ibiza.
I’m aged nine and in the mud at low tide in the River Alde in this photo. My parents have a tiny holiday cottage on the estuary and we would go when we were children. To get to the river, you had to slide through the mud. There was no heating or hot water at the cottage, so when we got back we would have to have a cold bath outside.
My childhood was incredibly fun and hearty, but it wasn’t luxurious. Dad was in the army – he was a colonel and a helicopter pilot – and as the pay was not great our holidays were simple. The cottage was essentially an oversized shed we shared with all kinds of creatures. There was a rowing boat and a windsurfing board without the sail. My mum would cook and we’d have friends over, but the biggest excitement would be the night out at the fish and chip shop in Aldeburgh.
Because my father moved around all the time, and because the army helped pay for my fee, my parents sent me to boarding school at the age of seven. School gave me stability through education, but you also become emotionally stunted. Some may call it independent. I spent the first few days not knowing what was going on, and asked the matron: “Excuse me, when are my parents coming back?” She said Christmas time, which was a shock as it was September. I soon got used to it. It was all boys, and teachers became parental figures instead.
I enjoyed music as a boy, but I wasn’t particularly gifted. I made a din on the recorder. I played the violin and the piano, but found it pretty miserable. What child wants to say to their friends: “Hey, come and listen to this!” and proceed to play Mozart’s Sonata in F sharp minor? What I really wanted was to be a rock star. I learned the electric guitar, teaching myself Money for Nothing by Dire Straits – a cool riff. Then, when I didn’t have enough friends to form a band, I decided to become a solo artist. I picked up an acoustic guitar to write songs along the lines of: “Poor me, I don’t have any mates. Here are my sad songs.”
I decided to get into music to lead a different life from the one dictated by a disciplined system ordained by the army. I had a blind, naive conviction that I could do it, and after leaving declared to myself: “I’m going to become a rock god – one who lives in Ibiza and Verbier.” Instead I became a pop star who lived with Carrie Fisher in Los Angeles.
This wild rollercoaster ride began in 2003 when I was invited to the restaurant 192 in Notting Hill. I was going out with a girl whose parents were family friends of Carrie’s and I sat beside her at lunch. I had just got a record deal and was moving to LA. Carrie’s first question was: “What do you do?” I said: “I’ve left the army to go to make an album in LA.” Question number two was: “Where are you going to live?” I said I didn’t know. Her reply – the third thing she ever said to me – was: “Well, you’re going to live with me.” So I did just that.
For the first month, I didn’t see her. I’d get up and her mother, Debbie Reynolds, would shout: “Hey Charlie – you wanna drink?’’ and I’d say: “No, I’m James, thanks very much,” then head to the studio. A month later, I started to see Carrie more. I came home one night and sat on the end of her bed and we talked until morning. After that, whenever I got back from the studio I’d go into her room to talk, no matter if it was 11pm or 3am. She became my best, best friend. I’ve got a song on my new album called Dark Thought, describing the moment when I went back to her house after she had died. I put my hand on her gate and started crying. Moments after, one of the open-top Star Map vans that drive tourists around LA turned up. Over the PA, the guide said: “On your left, you’ll find the late, great Carrie Fisher’s house … As you can see, some fans are still deeply moved by her passing.” That was me. I wanted to tell them to fuck off, but eventually found it funny.
I always found the music industry a strange place. It’s quite childish. It’s all about image and perception – what’s hip and hot, and what’s not. I wrote a dissertation at university called The Commodification of Image: Production of a Pop Idol, so I knew before I even entered the industry that I was never going to be considered cool. I am earnest, and aspire to greater things than the mundanity of regular life. I want to write songs that are honest, about my frailties, failures and flaws. I have spent my life as a lonely man looking for “the one”; trying to find my soulmate, to varying degrees of success. You’re Beautiful is about walking past an ex-girlfriend with her new boyfriend. Gene Simmons once asked: “Why don’t you write more balls-out songs – you’d maybe have more dudes at your shows?” I thought: “Why would I want that, Gene?”
When I was younger, my goal was to be the guy playing Alice Cooper-style guitar solos with big hair and a band. As it is, I have to pay those people to be in my band, to be my friends, and I stand with an acoustic guitar. I tour the world and play arenas rather than stadiums. But I have had an amazing time. The sweetest thing is that I am a normal human being. I’ve got a family and a wife, and that, for me, is the greatest achievement. My dad left the army at the same time as me and became my bookkeeper. The people in my life give me immense grounding.
Because of that, I believe that little boy and I would still relate. I may have a house in Ibiza with a club at the bottom of my garden. I may own a pub, and live a nomadic and nocturnal existence. But I am still the same person as I was when I was nine and covered in mud.
