28/06/12
Saturday nights in May were a good time to be from Norfolk; while ITV and BBC were in a ratings war, it was our fine city that was winning overall; BBC’s The Voice had local lad Bill Downs and BGT presented Sam Kelly, also a Norfolk boy, to us and millions of people across the country took him all the way to the final. This month he returns to Norwich to play a show to his fans, new and old…
It’s been a whirlwind couple of months for you, but you’re coming back to Norfolk to play a gig at OPEN this month… Yeah, I’m playing at OPEN on the 21st, but I’m also doing a fundraising gig at my cricket club as well.
Ah yes I saw, Frettenham… Yeah, that’s going to be at Frettenham Village Hall on the 4th of July.
Are you a sporting man, Sam? I am, well, I was quite good at football, not so good at cricket, but I love playing both of them, so it’s just a thing I love doing really.
You’re a big canaries fan I know, and I saw on the news earlier that where Paul Lambert goes, Grant Holt may follow – what do you reckon to that? Well I think it’s absolutely rubbish! But whatever happens, you can’t deny what Paul Lambert’s done for the club; he’s been absolutely brilliant and hopefully we can get someone else in that’s not quite as good, but can do a good job.
I saw on Twitter that you started a rallying cry for support for you to take on the position… do you think that may happen?! Well obviously it’s been a serious recommendation from all my Twitter fans because yeah, I think I’d be really good at it, haha!
You may struggle with your schedule at the moment though, because you’re not having the quietest of times – I read you’re performing at Hyde Park this weekend for the Jubilee Celebrations… Yeah, I am, that’s tomorrow and Sunday. It’s with this choir that I’m in, that I’ve been doing for a while and I just didn’t want to give that up.
So it’s something extra then? What’s the name of it? It’s Youth Music Voices Choir and I auditioned for it last January, I think, or maybe even the January before that. We’ve been doing stuff for the Olympics and it’s a choir where all manner of people can join, you don’t have to pay anything, or be from a musical background or anything like that – it’s really cool.
As I said, you’re busy this weekend, but how have the energy levels been since finishing Britain’s Got Talent? Have they been on a constant high, or have you managed any down time? I’ve actually been quite ill; for the week after BGT, my body was left just sort of catching up with what was going on and I had a bit of a cold for a week, but I’m kind of cracking back on with it now and getting as many bookings as possible.
You’re a Norfolk boy as we know, and in the programme you said that you didn’t quite fit in with the working bracket of your family. Let’s give your folks a moment of fame – what do they do? Are they Norfolk born and bred? My dad is yeah, and he’s a teacher at Sheringham High School and my Mum, her family are from all over the world. She’s not from Norfolk, but they’ve both lived there for years and years and it’s home for all of us, really. My mum’s an occupational therapist at the hospital.
So big props to the schools and hospitals of Norfolk! Yeah, yeah!
Since Ed Sheeran has been dominating the spotlight, it seems as if it’s illuminated Norwich, in a way. We already knew Norfolk was brimming over with talent, but the TV world is now getting to see too – there’s you on BGT and Bill Downs on The Voice – - Yeah, I’m good mates with Bill; we both used to play at the local pub in my village and it’s just really funny that we both used to play there and now we’ve both been on two of the biggest talent shows in the world!
Yeah, it’s bizarre – there must be something they’re selling on tap there, like talent on draught! I was watching your first audition back and when they gave you a standing ovation, it must have been one of the most phenomenal feelings ever. You looked very humbled and kinda baffled when it happened… Oh my god, the thing was I’d been there all day, I’d gone with my sister and my mates and we were there for a good laugh. I wanted to see how it all worked, and so did they and we were having a good laugh at the other acts and I think it’s just that I never actually thought about my audition. I never actually thought about whether I was going to go through or anything. I didn’t expect it at all, none of us did – they were as baffled as I was! It’s just because we were there to enjoy the whole process and weren’t expecting me to get through or anything, and I think that’s why I was really kind of surprised. I’d never had anything like that reaction before.
You said you wanted to see how it all worked, and I can’t begin to imagine how that whole format works, but was there anything that surprised you about it? Erm, well I think the main things that surprised me about it was how much filming there was, I mean, there was lots of background stuff, and rehearsing you do for just five seconds television. There was a really massive crew – I really liked the crew and got to know them well. When you watch it on telly, you don’t think about all the production and that was really strange for me, to be treated as a bit of a celebrity for a while! It was all a very strange experience!
You put yourself into their world, but then I imagine one of the strangest things is when you were filmed at home because you live there everyday, then suddenly you’re inviting them into your world – - Well they came back a few times to my Mum’s house in Hainford to do some filming and I think they were sort of expecting me to have this weird, quirky musician’s life, but I was just like, ‘I go down for a walk by this river with my Mum sometimes…’, and I think it was weird that there wasn’t much weirdness about me! Apart from the fact I’m a weirdo sometimes anyway! We just went for a walk in the countryside really, and that was about it, but yeah, it was very strange to be in these environments that I’d been in my whole life, like this calm countryside, then have these film crews there – I think the locals found it quite weird as well.
One of the things I was impressed with is that you progressed from doing an Adele song, to Goo Goo Dolls, to then doing a Rascal Flats song that I hadn’t heard of before. I really applaud you for sticking to what you were passionate about; were you at all worried about alienating the masses? Well there’s a lot of rehearsing and back and forth of ideas before each show and something that I’m really proud of is that I stuck really firmly to what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to have a big production behind me and a big backing track, just ‘cause that wasn’t me at all and obviously they didn’t want me to play that song in the final just because – well not that they didn’t want me to, but rather they’d have preferred me to do something else because no-one had heard the song and they didn’t know the song. I just thought that I never expected to get through to the final, and I never expected to win, so I just wanted to play a song that I love to play, by a band that I love and just think they deserve more recognition over here and luckily it worked out, I mean, I think it got to number 20 in the charts or something! They should send me a cheque, haha!
Yeah, it’s amazing that you can support a band so far by buying their music, but you’ve done the ultimate by offering them the UK on a plate! Originally I wanted to play my own songs, but they already had Ryan and he is one of the best songwriters of my age that I’ve ever heard and I think there’s no shame in not being as good as him, but I’ve been songwriting in the studio since the competition and they seem to like it because now I’m writing, not just for me, but for other people as well.
I read that you’re not gonna rush a release, which is sensible, but are you going to be putting something formally together soon, do you think? Well I’m gonna wait until my contract with Britain’s Got Talent runs out, then maybe I’ll just release an EP of my songs, just to judge people’s reactions, because it’s not really that mainstream. It’s the stuff that I’ve always played with my band and it’s more kinda folk / blues inclined, I guess. I think I’ll release an EP but the last thing I’d want to do is just get as much success off the back of the competition as is possible and just release an album of pop songs just to sell as many copies as possible. I know that in five years time I’d look back and think, ‘oh, that was rubbish.’ Just from my point of view, I’d much rather make something I’m happy with than something that’d make a lot of money… I may say that and end up being homeless though! I just think that money isn’t nearly as important as everyone makes it out to be!
No, it’s just handy, is the only thing! Now Sam, I have to ask because I often wonder – what does Simon Cowell smell like? He smells of money, hahaha!
That’s exactly what I was thinking he’d smell like! No, I only met him off camera a couple of times and I didn’t smell him because he was often escorted by a burly bodyguard, who might not have taken kindly to me smelling him. But yeah, he smelled like power and money.
Emma Garwood