Tom Odell: “I am no longer that of” Another Love “, fortunately”

The parable of Tom Odell, the eternal young promise of the new British songwriting, can be summarized with the list of titles of the seven records that has affected to date. In 2013 the debut with “Long Way Down”, literally “long descent”, the one that the path of the artist of Chichester, a city of 29 thousand inhabitants of the West Sussex, between Portsmouth and Brighton, in the southern area of ​​the United Kingdom, seemed to have undertaken after a long apprenticeship. The “Wrong Crowd” (“bad companies”) in 2016 seemed to have taken it off the road, but in 2018 he found Odell seemed to have found the “Jubilee Road”. This was not the case: in “Mosters”, in 2021, the singer -songwriter told his monsters, before “Another Love” – ​​3.1 billion (!!!!) of listening to Spotify worldwide – became viral on social media redeeming a career that unjustly risked crawling. In 2022, therefore, the rebirth with “Best Day of My Life”, followed in 2024 by “Black Friday”. Now to tell the new maturity and awareness of Tom Odell, who at 34 years old seems to have found his size and place of his in the rock songwriting scene of Oltramanica, thinks about “Wonderful Life”: he leaves September 5 and will be followed by a tour in the European arenas, where Odell has also recently performed as “Opening Act” by Billie Eilish. He will go to Milan on November 27, at the Unipol Forum. “By writing these ten songs I recovered myths of my adolescence such as Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, Chris Cornell and Soundgarden,” he says.

What kind of charm do you feel for artists with turbulent lives such as Chris Cornell and Jeff Buckley?

“I’ve always loved their records. As a boy I consumed them. I imagine that a lot has made the nostalgia that I feel for that music. And then I wanted this to play like a band’s album, not a songwriter. Also in this I have redone a lot to that sound imagination. My drummer, Toby Couling, had a great influence. I left him a lot of space and there is a lot of his identity on this album ».

Am I wrong or “a Wonderful Life” is a more sunny and bright disc than “Black Friday”?

“It is. It is more positive, but also proactive. Starting from the title ».

Have you definitively made peace with the ghosts you speak of in the past, between depression and anything else?

“I would not know. In the life of an artist there are good days and others more difficult. This record is a reflection of what is my life today. I feel more positive than in the past and I feel, for this reason, a sense of gratitude. I haven’t stopped for months. I play all over the world together with my band. It’s nice to always see so many people under the stages. I have a repertoire that I am very proud, composed of songs that I love singing every evening. The fact that many people who come to concerts identify with those songs means a lot for me. It means that mine has become a universal writing. With this album I do not self -blemly, but I celebrate the fragility of life: we are all on the same boat, to fight and suffer for a variety of things ».

Yet mental health continues to be a theme also on this album. In “We can just go home now” describes a crisis before a concert, with the voice that goes away and the mood that becomes black. When did you write it?

«Last year while I was on tour I crossed a period when I couldn’t sleep. The situation worsened day by day, until it went out of control one evening in Vienna, Austria. I had the feeling of not being able to rest the mind. When you don’t sleep for a long time and maybe to help you also take sleepy, the situation can become strange very quickly. That song was inspired by that experience: everything I wanted at that moment was to go home to rest ».

Did you learn to manage the dark side of success?

“I do everything I can, to fight it. Meditate, for example. I have learned to really understand something about this job only in recent months ».

Is there a bit of frustration in “Why Do i Always Want the Things i Can’t Have”?

“I’m not entirely sure what inspired that song. There is talk of finding life unsatisfactory in a big city. In the text there is a verse who says: “Why no one realizes that we are at the gates of Paradise?”. I like the idea that there is always something just beyond our reach, but that we will never be able to get or reach. There is something, in human experience, that resonates me in this. We can never really arrive where we want to go. Often when I write songs and I make records I don’t want to find the answers I look for ».

How much did the “Another Love” exploit take you by surprise?

“He took me completely by surprise. I could never have imagined that that song would become so big. At the time I was a twenty year old with a broken heart. Today I am no longer that person and I have no desire to rewrite another “Another Love”, to repeat that job ».

What is the message you want to transmit with your music today?

“I don’t know if there is a message to transmit. I don’t think music is a political campaign. I made a record. Now I hope it reaches people. And that emotions. Today we live in an era in which topicality makes people “desensitize”. I want to do the opposite. I want to invite people to try more, whether they are anger, sadness, melancholy, joy or euphoria. Amia music is an invitation to experience emotions. When I was a child, I didn’t understand how I felt. And I could not consequently communicate my emotions. Then one day I sat on the piano and I felt all the music flowing through the plane in my body. And suddenly I understood how I felt. I just want people to live that same experience with my music ».