Craig David Opens Up About His Painful Rise, Fall & Redemption
嘉宾：Craig
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§01Transcript — part 1
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(Music Montage) Making moves, yeah, on a dance floor. Rewind, when the crowd say bo selecta! This means so, so much to me. Everything I touched was turning into gold. Everyone wanted a piece of me. How does an 18 or 19-year-old deal with that?
The height of success when it is like, whoa, there's so much of the human part that's being unmet. I felt like I was starting to make music to tick boxes. When I started to abandon myself and started to do things that just weren't in alignment, it was a point where I had dark thoughts. I was just like, I can't live my life like this.
What people enjoyed from me was music, and I realized that from when I came back to London. I feel like the kid again, and trust me, the crowd are going to go off when they hear something soon.
So, 22 years later, if you could whisper in the ear of your 14-year-old self, what would you whisper? Listen, Craig... Without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.
Craig, I've got some lyrics that I wanted to recite to you. It's another day at school, and he's just walking out the door. Got his rucksack on his back and his feet dragging on the floor. Always late, but when he's questioned he can't think of what to say. Hides the bruises from the teachers hoping that they'd go away. Even though his mom and dad, they both got problems of their own, caught in a Catch-22, but he'd still rather be at home. Cries himself to sleep and prays when he wakes up things might have changed, but everything's the same. That's from your record, "Johnny," from 2006.
Yeah, that was a song I had to... it was the first time I think kind of opening up and expressing an experience that I felt I had, maybe on a lesser degree to a lot of other people in my school. I think at school, like in my secondary school, I'd had a very... I had a beautiful upbringing. I enjoyed life, I was a playful kid, I loved music. But secondary school, all-boys school, went to Bellemoor in Southampton. For the majority of it, it was great times.
But when you come in in your early years and you've got the older boys in there and they're like, "Yo, you got two pound on you?" "No, I haven't got two pound." They push you up against the wall, "You got two pound on you?" And then it's not a case of if you've got the money, it's like, "Let me check in your pockets," trying to pull out the pockets and everything.
So, as a less degree of the bullying, I was experiencing it physically in the corridors. When I was starting to write that song, I was drawing from... I had to go to how did it feel when that was happening? It only happened with one guy at one period in the school, but I understood what bullying was. I felt helpless. I couldn't... he was two years older, stronger, could rough me up if he really wanted to.
But then also I was seeing other people who were getting a real... I was getting the psychological element, but there was a deeper side of that psychology of when they say, "Tell the teacher, they'll deal with it." This is the thing with bullying: I agree that it needs to be spoken to someone you can confide in. But sometimes that very rush in—you've told the teacher, they rush in, it's all out in the open—I was seeing kids who would then have the kid waiting outside of school for them.
Or it might be that they are being bullied by someone from a different school even. So they'd be coming out to the school gates thinking, "Okay, well I'm on my way home." No, it's about to start when you get on the bus to go home. So the whole world is now outside of school. You finished at 3:00 PM and now it's beginning for you.
So it was... I felt deeply that I needed to write on that. Like I said, my mom and dad had their own things going on in their lives. I wrote the song while I was in Southampton, I had a studio when I was down there, and I played it to her because I wanted her to also know that, "Mom, you've always been supportive to me. If I needed to speak to you, if I needed to say things..."
With bullying, there is an element where you want to say something to the closest person in your life, be it your family, your mother or your father. I wanted to really portray that in the song properly. But I wanted to have that conversation with my mom to let her know I knew that you would have always, if I needed to speak to you, you would have been there. Because I do say, "You've got your problems of your own and I've tried to tell you so many times, you're not listening." That is the case, a lot of the cases of bullying, that even family aren't listening. So who do you turn to?
Music has been that. That song in particular, I think I was on a journey. My grandmother had passed away at the same time. I just needed to get things off my chest that I felt like this is past a romantic love song. I need to help people in a way that wasn't trying to preach; it was just "let me tell stories, anecdotes," and I do it through music.
And you were bullied for your weight back then as well, right?
Yeah. The weight one was... it's funny because you like to tell the story differently when you're in a slightly different place and position. You'll tell it like, "Nah, you know, it was..." I like everything about this, what you're... your podcast for me has always... and I wanted to tell you off the bat, what I love about you is that you're bringing out so much depth in people. You already know how much love I got for you anyway.
Appreciate that.
The being overweight thing, now I see it actually in hindsight, it actually brought out so many wonderful things that I had to... that have been repressed for a long period of time. But at the time, the social standard was you need to look a certain way. The captain of the school football team tended to be the one that the girls were interested in. You were the slightly overweight one that they'd cry on your shoulder, tell you all their problems. Have this real empathic relationship, you'd be like, "Whoa, this is connection, this is real relationship!" But they didn't want to take it any further than that.
They'd be like, "Oh well, I'll... he's the one. Look at the way he scored the goal, look at..." So then you've already got this early imprint of what society expects of you, and you start trying to conform to that. So there were periods where I'd look in... walking down the high street and I'd look in the reflection in the glass. I'd just be looking like, feeling sorry for yourself, feeling like the jeans aren't fitting quite right and the jacket's not, and you're getting bigger sizes. And then you're just feeling like, "I'm doing all the... I could run." I had some legs on me. Probably boys at school would be like, "Bro, you weren't that fast a runner, which part did you run?" But I'll tell the story, I'm on the mic now.
I could move, but I was just carrying a lot of weight. But not unhealthy. I think there was a point when it became unhealthy was when I realized that my weight... I was like 15 and I think my weight was starting to get to... no, I was 14 and my weight had got to 14 and a half stone. So I was starting to get over my age in weight. And I was like, maybe I need to slightly reign this in a little bit, health-wise.
I ask these questions because I always start with childhood on this podcast. I've reflected on this over and over again and thought maybe I should start somewhere else, but I know from my own experiences that my own childhood traumas or the things that made me feel a bit invalid or insecure or feel shame when I was younger, ended up being the biggest drivers in my life. So when I sit here and I'm trying to find out why you got really into fitness and why you became who you became, I always start with what were the things when you were a kid that made you feel shame, invalid, like you didn't fit in. Those tend to be the pathway to people's greatness in a weird way.
100%. It all... you've got this period where your heart's open, you want to experience life. You're a child, you're a puppy, you just don't know. And then all of a sudden you get the, "Oh, is that... oh, I can't do that. Oh, that's the way to go." And you're getting all these imprints of all these patterns that only later you start to realize in your not even saying teenage years—because I think you're still in the adolescent years at that point—but maybe in your 20s you start to unpack things. If you're conscious, you're starting to recognize that "this doesn't seem to line up with my truth."
And then in your 30s, for me it was like, whoa, I have to unpack all this stuff that was like the overweight thing, because you're exactly right that it started then. And listen, I could eat sweets. Cadbury's Boost bars were getting eaten like crazy. I'd go to the newsagents before I went to school to get on the bus. I'd be... also I was selling chocolate as well. So I had like a little... yeah, I was early days entrepreneur, early days.
You'd find the chocolate that was like had about two weeks left before it was out of date, and I'd work that in my lessons. Like, listen, I knew I had from 9:00 until 11:00 before there was a tuck shop break, so I could just set the tone as to how much I want to sell it for. "Well, you want a Mars bar for... yeah, it's a pound fifty." They're like, "What do you mean a pound fifty?" "Okay bro, then wait till 11:00 then. Or you can go and get it for 35p," whatever it is. "Oh bro, I've got a pound then." "Okay cool, I'll take a pound."
Probably the leverage was incredible, right? So I always had an affiliation and one of my favorite movies is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, so I think that set the tone anyway. I've got a bit of Augustus Gloop in me, I've got... I think we've got all the myriad of characters in that movie is me and ultimately Charlie. So yeah, I've been unpacking a lot of those things and realizing that my health streak that I got when I was in Miami time and even slightly before that, was all to do with this childhood thing of "I've got to have the six-pack, the captain of the school football team."
It's funny how those things like... you're like, whoa! And it wasn't even... and the crazy thing with it is that when I got into the music, when "Rewind" started blowing up, it was people just wanted to hear me sing. They didn't care if my stomach was here, there, six-pack, one-pack, two-pack. And by the way everyone, everyone has a six-pack underneath. So just know that, otherwise your stomach's going to fall out. So if that's just the saving grace for everyone, don't worry about the fat content and your fat percentage, there's a six-pack underneath everyone, so walk out on the street and feel confident with that.
That's great, I'll start telling people that.
You talked in those lyrics, but then also then you talked about your parents. You said there was... I know again that's another dynamic because those are for most people the most formative figures in their life. What was the relationship with your parents? You said they had things going on that were kind of distracting them from the things that were going on in your school life.
My mom and dad broke up, got divorced when I was eight. But the beautiful thing is that my dad always would come pick me up on the weekends, on a Sunday. We'd either be going to like Polton's Park, go-karting, or I'd be helping him fix a kitchen, which I've got to say to my dad, "Dad, like, why's I coming out to fix a kitchen? Can we..." I just remember the tools and it was dry and dusty.
But I loved those times with my dad, yeah. He really made an effort and our drives in his car playing reggae music heavily influenced everything that I was going through. And for my mom, it was like she was working 9:00 to 5:00, so my grandma and my mother were pretty much raising me. My grandma would come pick me up from school when my mom was at work.
So I had a lot of feminine energy in my life, which I'm really grateful for because it set the tone for how I wrote a lot of my songs. Even "7 Days"—I mean, I'm saying "making love" at 17 years old writing a song. Who's saying "making love" on Wednesday? I mean, you listen to the songs now, they're not going to use that kind of language. But it was that I got... there was a respect I had for my mother, for my grandma.
And the fact even for my dad, I didn't want to... I wasn't cussing out on records, my dad would just be like, "Yeah, we need to speak about this." So I just... I felt I got a really good upbringing, but at the same time I didn't have a great model of family life at home. I got a lot of feminine energy and female love and tension and care and all the things that you love from your mom and grandma. And then my dad was just like, always had my back and "I've got you," but I've never seen them together.
So I think again, looking at childhood imprints and patterns as how they affect you later on, relationship with women was something I've always been really close to, but I also had never had a model of how do you stay together with the relationship part. I'm a romantic, but if you look at your relationships, they haven't really worked out too well, or you've been guarded.
And it's a journey of again of is this story true? There's a point at which you've got to be conscious enough to actually ask that question, and it tends to knock on the door. And the intuition's always there sort of saying, "We can have this convo if you want. I'll present you with the books, I can present you with the click on the right podcast to go to. I'll get you to... we can unpack this. Someone will inspire you to do that."
But there's also what I've seen now, and I feel very... I feel open enough to be apologetic for relationships that I just didn't... my heart was closed on the basis that not only from the family modeling, but also your first heartbreak. So for me it was like I was so open and I had that first heartbreak and it just went from a kid who had had his heart open and thought "this is it and you're into me and it's going to..." and then all of a sudden it just crashed.
And I was like, whoa! That feeling... and I'd never felt anything like that before where I didn't know who to turn to. It was like I felt that after early childhood sweet heart break-up, my heart had kind of closed down. And I feel sorry for the girls and women in the latter stage of my life who tried to open my heart up. And that's all they were trying to do. There was... there was things that went a bit toxic and... but I have to own those situations.
I know a lot of guys are like, "Yeah, well, she... the girl was like this or she was crazy." No, no, no, forget all of that. I walked into that and I stepped in with a certain kind of energy and I gave off a certain feeling. And especially if you're having sexual relationships, there's an energy exchange between two people and you can play it off as like, "No, but we had an unwritten agreement where it was like no strings attached," and you can play that game as much as you want. Get enough karma, you'll start to see that there'll be something, someone who will be your teacher at some point.
And I thank everyone in my life that I've had relations with. I thank you for teaching me in some way. I wanted to go on record with that because I feel like it's something that I've always... I now get it, that I was moving a little bit reckless in the early times with the music and everything going on. And there were people who were trying to get to my heart and I was just like, "No, got this thing, easier to keep it arm's length." And it just doesn't work like that.
Two questions on that then. What was the evidence or the story that your parents' relationship taught you or left you with for better or for worse? And then that first heartbreak—what were the two stories those two incidents told you about relationships?
So, having no modeling of what real relationship is, it showed me early from mom and dad, as much as I love them with all my heart, that being single is the best way to get through life. Just stay single because I never saw my mother with another partner, I never really saw my dad with another partner.
And I have sisters and brothers, but I never knew of my dad's other relationships that he had. And I love them equally, but it's just I never had any clear reason to say that relationship works. And then it reinforces. So the story adds on later on in your life: you start to see how people are with each other who are in relationships, and you get friends who are in relationships and they're maybe cheating on their partner, or you're seeing how... there's been scenarios where a girl says she's in a relationship, and thankfully it hasn't been husband or anything, but there's been relationships—I'm not going to be the guy to say I've never met a girl who was into something—and I tell you a story that "we're breaking up, we're not really in it," but you're starting to... it's reinforcing the same thing of well, stay single then.
Don't get involved in all this, because your heart will be protected and life is good and we can keep it at arm's length. Then link that into the first heartbreak. Heart was open, gave everything. Relationship, I'm all in. I'm going to... as a child it was like, okay, you... it's hard psychologically you don't really understand what's going on in your family, your parents, but you just at school now I'm... you see a girl and you're, "Oh man, I'm falling, I'm falling for you and she's into you and it's all happening."
And it could have been... I think it was only like about a week, a week and a half, yeah. The break. Really! It was... so this is what we're talking early, early days. But when your heart is fully open, the crushing feeling I had after that set the tone for the rest of my life until now I've unpacked that whole thing, which all goes hand in hand with some of the songs that I've written on albums before where I'm talking about breakups. There's a song called "Thief in the Night," which is about a girl who, like, why did you have to end up being with my best friend? Why did... there's moments where I'm looking back thinking, when I was writing that song, what was I feeling? I was feeling the same heartbreak that I had with the same zero understanding of what relationship is.
And now I see it's all about relationship. It's all about opening your heart up again. The same feeling that I think we both share when you said that you had your moments of the trigger points and you're like, I had to open up again. And you met someone who met you at a place to help you through that, which is even better when you meet someone who's conscious and gets it and says, "I've got you. I... baby steps if we need to, but I'm with you, yeah." I'm at that place now where I'm like...
Do you think your heart's open?
Heart's open, man. It's open in a way that I'm... I'm down if it... if something tried to... tried to close it down, I'm open as much as I was when I first had my heart open. And I wouldn't have said that maybe in a few years back. The journey has kind of rapidly kind of entered into a phase where I just know that that's the truth of the matter.
And where are you relationship-wise?
Single at the moment. Single, which is again, you have to... especially as a guy, and I can only really kind of speak on my experiences, we tend to... our actions have to line up with the way that we're feeling. And I felt that there were times when I was talking a good talk, but the way I'm... the way I'm acting is no different than what I was, how I was acting before.
So then there's a part where you have to pull back the faders and be like, "Okay, well this means that I can't enter into things where it's purely..." although this had changed long time, 10 years ago for me, the objectifying of women. That thing, there was something where I had to just check myself and be like, "What is this patterning that you have of a look and how someone's got to be?" And that's all part of the same thing that was happening as a kid.
That it was very dreamy but without the relationship. And now it's flipped. I look for relationship in... I want to have a situation where I can connect with you. Now regardless of the look, if we're not going to a place where we can go there, we can laugh—laughter's one of the biggest values of any relationship. If someone makes me laugh cry uncontrollably, you've always got half of my heart already, yeah. Because that's going to save you when the relationship has its ups and downs.
The downs are when you need someone you can bring that, because trust me the romantic phase, as we all know that's intoxicating, yeah. When you wake up after the hangover and it's real, you're still having the same feeling. And love starts then. That hangover right then, that's when you're going to ask yourself, "Am I really in love?" The romantic thing, that's a bit of sweetness.
Have you had a long-term relationship?
See, it would sound so short for so many people. For me it felt long: two and a half years was probably my longest relationship. Same as me. And even then like, I don't feel like I opened my heart. I really felt that the girl was really trying to get me to break down some walls.
And I go on record that as toxic as things can go, with a little bit of time and separation you look it... look back and you say, "Thank you," because you taught me so much about how I was moving and how it was going on. And I'm a better man for that because now I can open my heart like this, because a lot of guys don't want to talk like that, they want to keep it cool, they don't want to talk about that stuff, so...
One of the other things, talking about things that kind of invalidated us when we were younger or that we were aspiring to, I saw this quote and I actually saw a picture of the estate you lived on and it's... I'm going to say it's not the estate that I would wish to have lived on. I don't want to criticize an area, but it's not... it didn't look... I saw like a gray apartment block and it looked like a... it was a council estate, yeah. And the quote you said was you were a kid looking out of your bedroom window at the estate car park imagining Jacuzzis.
Do you know what, I think to correct the quote even more... okay, the Jacuzzi one, like, it's funny because I was talking about this only yesterday about like when I was speaking about "Fill Me In" and I was like, "Yeah, I was like jumped in the Jacuzzi." And I was thinking, what Jacuzzi was I actually jumping in? Because last time I checked you were in a two-bedroom flat with your mom, yeah. So the only Jacuzzi you were jumping in was your bath, yeah. So let's put that on record.
And you were in a 4x4, yeah? Okay cool, so which driving license did you have at that point? Because you were only like 15, 16 when you were writing that song. There was aspirations. Aspirations. But looking out of that window overlooking that car park, what my grandmother brought to... to the table in terms of like I mean the love that your mom and just for my family, I'm just very grateful for that upbringing.
But my grandmother, as grandmas do, "I want to make sure you you get the right food in in you, make sure you wear the jacket, you know what I mean because it's going to get cold, it's going to rain later on," and you're like, "Grandma!" and then it rains. They just have this wisdom, yeah. But she had a beautiful little garden in the house that she lived, and it was like five minutes away from where I lived. And I was just like, that for me would was enough as an inspiration to say if I could have a house with a garden in Southampton, we're good here.
I mean, little did I know that the how it would cascade from the music into yeah, just that that times 10 in terms of just my eyes being opened. But it was that inspiration from my grandma. And I looked at the car park and it was like... kept me on my... kept me on my grind. Like council estate, working-class family, growing up.
Made me have to make ends meet where secondary school wasn't really setting me up for when I leave here. I was like, I was already doing my market stall selling of chocolates at school, already had that going on. I was already doing mixtapes, so that was my kind of go-to in the barbers selling mixtapes for 10 pound that I'd be doing at home, which would buy another piece of equipment that I'd get another speaker, another pair of speakers, or another mini-disc player to record on, then I was getting a printer so I could print my own covers. Then I was...
Everything I kind of am doing now weirdly enough, is no different than what I was doing when I was a kid. I literally had my whole little factory of making tunes, trying to have a little business going on so I could make ends meet in my own way without having to try and pull money from my mom because she already had her own things going on, and she supported me beyond... like I think she was going deeply into overdrafts just to make my... my life feel comfortable.
You got the Sega Mega Drive right, with Sonic the Hedgehog and those... those games? Yeah, it brought back my memories. Yeah, you got the... but when I think back there was where my money was getting... where my mom was getting this money from. Like she was deeply in debt. So when you look back you say, "Wow mom, the love I have for you. Like 9:00 to 5:00 and making me feel like I was getting everything that any other kid was getting, you know what I mean?"
But... and my dad, you know what I mean like, he supported... he would... he would never no one could cross me. No one could do anything bad to my dad had me. They'd have to cross my dad and that was the kind of... and that protection is good to a certain degree but then when you grow up, dad's not there to do the thing. So how... where's that part? So you're having to understand... I've got so much feminine energy in me and that part, but I need the... speak on your truth, action now. So it's...
The Yang.
The Yang, my man. The Yang, the Yang.
So you talk about music there and it's one of the things that was really remarkable reading through your story is how early music came into your world, and how early you started like selling mixtapes and... I sat here with many musicians and it tends... tends to happen a little bit later in life. Even Diplo sat here last week and for Diplo it was, I don't know, he was 25 or something before he really started going in music. But you were... you were young. I know your dad had an influence in that because he was very into reggae and he was in a reggae band, right? But where did music show up in your life and then and how did that obsession kind of take hold?
I mean it was early... like I said when earlier when I said like your little high-five when you come into the world, I feel that and you lose sort of the cognitive understanding as to what's going on and why we're here and what but there's something intuitively that's pulling you in certain directions. And as a child you very much honor that, you just go in the direction.
So I was always intrigued by the little high-five setup my mom had at the flat with a big box of records and I'd just be flicking through them. And there was a vinyl in there, there was Ebony Rockers, which is my dad's reggae group, which more recently there's a mural now in Southampton that they've put on on Ogle Road, huge mural that that says about Ebony Rockers and I'm thinking, "Wow, so proud of my dad." I was like, "Yes dad, because you are a musician at your heart, bass guitar player."
The group were talking about social issues that were going on in the 70s, 80s, and being able to put that on record and talk about injustices that were going on in their lives in Southampton and having it on record but now you're getting recognized for that... Oh man like I just love... love my dad for that. It's like I'm just so happy for him.
So I was looking at records and I pulled out his record and I'd be like, "Ebony Rockers," and my mom would say, "Yeah, that's your dad's group." And I'd be like, "Whoa my dad's like..." Early door, I'm talking like five, six years old looking, "What my dad's in a group?" So I know that there's definitely there's some lineage there, there's DNA that comes through musically. My mom was always into Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson. My first ever 7-inch I ever bought was "Human Nature."
Oh really, what Michael Jackson?
Yeah, because it was on a 7-inch, it was in a little... it was in a small little box next to the the 12-inch. It's the first one I bought. That's... let me tell it right, it was the first one I bought, first song I ever bought. So that's why and the I mean look at the lyric of the song. I mean it couldn't be any more perfect as a song of like being conscious and understanding the world.
So yeah, so I had a bit of Donny Osmond in there because my mom was a big fan of the Osmonds which was a big group back in the day, mixed with the Stevies and the Michaels and then also I had my dad's reggae, deep reggae from Beres Hammond to Sanchez, Terror Fabulous, Buju Banton, Beenie Man, Bounty Killer... early! Like I'm a sound man at heart.
I think when I'm in the studio people are like, "You literally are Buju Banton but no one's actually like hearing you do this, yeah." Because I go into this reggae Kilimanjaro, David Rodigan, Black Cat Sound System in me. So when I hear see Carnival, I'm just like it's me sitting up, posted up with a little bit of rice and chicken, a little Budweiser by a speaker and I'm good, talk good. So yeah man, that music started off early and then I just I felt like I just was gravitating towards it, toy.
When was the first time you made music in any kind of context?
First time I made music was my dad got me a hi-fi system called Studio 100. For anyone who knows that, it was a big box like huge like box with loads of faders on the front. He came home one day like he just came into the house and said, "Craig I got you the Studio 100." I was like, "Whoa what am I supposed to do with this, I have no idea." Except it had loads of faders, loads of microphones with different colored foam capsules on the top. It looked the... the business, with a... with a record deck on top. Two twin cassette decks and lots of switches that I didn't understand what was going on, but I was excited because I was like, "Wow, this is the first time I might be able to record something."
So I was just fully invested, and when you're a kid you learn all the things, you know all... So I started to record I would have said I was 11, 11-12 years old when that came through and I'd... you'd put a TDK cassette tape, there was a D90 which was like the basic one, or you if you were feeling kind of saucy with it you have like a chrome or a or a metal. They were 2 pound 49 those ones, but if you went for the normal D90 it was like a little 69p one.
I'd buy two of them, you record into one tape, so I put the first lead line of something. And a lot of my early songs were just sounding like I was literally just lifting the vocals from every other song that I was listening to and didn't quite get the memo of "Oh we have to change the melody that much for it to not be sounding like I'm singing Jodeci 'Freak'n You' or Boys II Men." "Why does it sound like you literally just changed like the road to street on end of the road?" You have to do a bit more than that, which I kind of you'll learn quickly if you don't get the memo, yeah.
But yeah, so I started to bounce the the vocals down. So you'd sing onto one cassette, you put that in the bottom tape cassette, you then put a fresh one in the top and you let that play and you record on top so you were dubbing on top of your vocal. The quality was diminishing every time you did that, yeah, because this is old school stuff. But I was starting to finish a song and I was feeling very very proud of myself that I could actually write a song.
How old?
I would have been like, yeah like 11-12 years old.
11-12 years old.
But yeah, that kind of led into a world very nourished with R&B, Reggae, but also the the Pop Soul element. Terence Trent D'Arby was the first show I ever went to at the Guildhall in Southampton. It blew my mind. I saw this guy, I was front row, I just saw him like he was moving like Prince with Marvin Gaye. He had the voice of like a Stevie Wonder with Michael Jackson. "The Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby" album was like it was like 7-8 million albums, it was a huge record for him with the breakout song "Sign Your Name Across My Heart."
Again, look at the the messages—"Sign Your Name Across My Heart," yeah. I'm like finally we're getting the message now. I need to let someone sign it fully, you know what I mean, and capital-told-then. But changed my life. I was like, if I can I'd love to do what that guy does.
From 11-12 where you're messing around with those cassettes, to... I think when I've heard you kind of recount it, your first break was winning that songwriting contest with Damage, wasn't it?
Yes.
Was that what you would consider that to be your first kind of break opportunity?
You know what, it's like it gave me it gave me the first taste of of reinforcing that I could actually do this. Like I I thought it was going to be my big break, like I was going to... we've done it here. I've written the song "I'm Ready," it's on the back of... it's on the B-side of "Wonderful Tonight," the Eric Clapton cover which was the lead single. I'm telling everyone in Southampton it went to number two in the charts, I'm telling all my friends it's because obviously of my song "I'm Ready," not the classic "Wonderful Tonight" that they've covered, right?
But I thought it was off the back of and they and I actually sang vocals on that, did BVs on the song. They let me come up to London, met the guys, I was just like, "Wow, this is like a dream come true." But I didn't off the back of it was like, okay it was in the shops for a few weeks but nothing. It went quiet after that.
How old were you when you won that songwriting competition for the boy band Damage?
I would have said I was 14 around then.
So you start messing around with music at about 11-ish you said, right? And then at 14 you win the songwriting competition for the boy band Damage. And that's what, like three years of just continuing to mess around and develop and practice and just play around with music, right, between that time?
Yeah. Yeah, it was and my and again my support of my mom and dad in in ways that now I'm just like so thankful for of buying that Studio 100 piece of equipment that for me to record, you know my first record deck. All all those things now. I was the kid looking through the music store like, "Oh wish I could have that. Wish I could that one if I could get that one equalizer, oh would I could mix it." I was just I was nerdy with it. And they would always somehow have a 10 pound and a 20 pound ready for me to help me out. And I had my my chocolate thing going on so start...
There's something really interesting about you saying "nerdy" with it. Because the guests that I've sat here with specifically the musicians, it always seems to be the case that when they were younger or just before you know maybe in the 10 years before they blew up or whatever, they were just like really nerdy with music. There wasn't really an intention of being the greatest or getting the number one albums, they were just like obsessed. Even Wretch 32 when he sat here it was the same thing, he was just clearly just nerdy with it from a very very young age.
And I think that's that's really important to point out because the pathway to getting to where you got to in your life isn't doesn't appear to be or at least the starting point doesn't appear to be this obsession with becoming a superstar, it's this kind of nerdy fascination. Because you spent three years between 11 and 14 just messing around with cassettes on some piece of hardware that your dad bought you.
Yeah of course. It it did feel that my obsession with music like when I look back and it's different now because I have the the same kid in me that wants to do the same thing that I may have done in those periods of time specifically when I started collecting vinyl. Like I knew every producer, I knew where the snare on this track was taken from a Changing Faces song over there, and this record over here used the kick drum from there, the bass is used...
I was in it. Like I and I had everything in alphabetical order with the plastic sleeves that they all went in. Room was getting to the point where I couldn't fit in my room for records. So I was really living it, to the point where I'd swap shop with records. I'd be like like other DJs would say... I'd go up to London get records, bring them back. Those days DJs were the go-to. Like it wasn't like you go on New Music Friday and you get thousand songs to kind of to look through.
It was like if a DJ played in the club, you better go speak to the DJ, find out where he got it from because he he's got these 10 copies maybe and there's a promo that's not going to come out for six months. Like literally songs were like you had time because it was physical. Where you going to go, you can't copy this unless you've got a lathe and you're going to start to print acetates in your house. So you had to wait.
So I when you went out to London especially because this was like the hub for where everything was being made and printed out, I'd come back sometimes from Southampton to Southampton with some record. DJs were all like, "Where you get that Craig, where'd you get that?" I said, "Yeah, you know what I'll swap you a Faith Evans 'I Just Can't' and a Jade for the tune that you got." I said, "Hmm, maybe give me a little 10 pound extra for that." You could you could it was all vibes, man. I just it was such a fun time because things were slower. And I love it now but it's just it's a lot to get into there's a lot of music being re...
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...least, just to to keep up with the flex of it.
Between 14 and 18 then, what what happens then for you?
I'd gone from the the songwriting competition a moment where it was like "Okay, this is the this is the thing," but then it carried on where okay this wasn't necessarily the big breakthrough. Heavily into the into collecting records. I started to DJ early on. I was MC at first for another DJ called DJ Flash, who I respect so much because he brought a lot into my life to to be able to be a chaperone for me really. He knew my dad, and he was 10 years older than me.
And I at 14 I looked a little older as well so I I can kind of I could style it to get into clubs with him and he'd let me be his MC so I would be called MC Fade and I was just like, you know what I mean the fade was crisp and I just thought that was the... I don't know, it's crazy. And then he'd give me like a he'd give me a little slot to to play maybe a little 15 minutes at end of his DJ set.
So in Southampton he was playing most of the the kind of big clubs there and he introduced me to the Cajun Zoo in Bournemouth, and we'd do a couple shows in in Portsmouth. So I was like his I was his MC and also his box boy as well because trust me the back was getting like smashed picking up those heavy boxes, yeah. It's different when you're wearing the chain with the MP3 on it, it's different when you're picking up those boxes, right? Your your squat game's got to be really on point, your glutes are going to be... they'll be fired up.
But I'd always do this thing with him where I'd be like, "Flash I think there's... look at that girl over there." I'd always just try and find like a girl he had his eyes on he'd be watching all through the night. I'd be like, "I think she she keeps looking at you man you need to go... you need to go and speak to her." He goes, "Yeah but..." I go, "Don't worry I got you. I'll let me... you go speak to her man because she's going to go and it's all going to get..." "Okay cool, leave... handle the fort." "I'll handle the fort don't you worry."
So I play like a little half an hour thing yeah, he's skirting around should I go and speak to her should I and he's just standing next to her. He goes over for the for the move, she blows him out completely because she was never looking at him at all for the whole thing right? I've got a 30-minute DJ set in then he's come back like, "Craig it's like she didn't even..." I go, "Oh no, she was looking at you all the time I'm not sure." You got to find your ways yeah, but I I learn from between that 14 to to really to 16 was a period of DJing intensely then.
I started to go off and do my own DJing sets with MC Alistair who was part of the Artful Dodger, he goes and does MC sets now. And then it was kind of it was moving I was at college I'd gone from secondary school now I was at college at City College. I was doing a MVQ Level 2 in electronics. It was like the closest thing I could get to music because there wasn't like production courses like they do now, which would have been great.
Back then it was like how do you forge a trumpet out of metal and how how do you make a guitar from from scratch with wood? And I'm like, "You know I just want to know how Timbaland makes that or Rodney Jerkins makes the the vocal sound so good, can someone show me that?" And there wasn't a course. So I thought let me do electronics because at least that gets me closer to circuit boards. Richer Sounds was around the corner, had some wicked equipment in there, I thought even if I got a job working there it would be great I'd be near Technic decks I'd be near twin tape cassette decks, maybe I can get a little discount.
So that was my road. I was going down DJing, MCing there. Never thought it would necessarily mean meeting Mark Hill and Pete Devereux from the Artful Dodger, which is where it it really then transcended.
Tell me about that.
So, in one club it was called Old Orientals, 10 minutes around the corner from where I was living with my mom. Was DJing downstairs R&B Hip Hop set. Upstairs was House and Garage night. Mark Hill and Pete Devereux who the original Artful Dodger, were playing upstairs. Now this early doors for Garage music. So you're hearing like "It's a London Thing" was playing, Scott Garcia which was like a classic garage tune from them days and it was even like the "Lessons in Love" was coming through Robbie Craig and there was just tunes playing.
And I'd always pop my head up and be like, it wasn't packed up there, but I was just like, "This is a vibe. It's got like it's like R&B..." They're layering R&B stuff now it felt over this skippy... I don't know what do you call it was it a one-step what was it a two-step? It was like the Speed Garage. It was some weird like some eclectic thing that's not House but it feels UK.
And then all of a sudden we got into conversation and I was talking about all these songs that I've been recording at home where I didn't have a producer or someone who could create the music for me. I was using instrumentals and stuff to just sing over like you'd hear a freestyle. And literally the I mean this is where so divine like the serendipity of it was so beautiful. Mark Hill who ended up producing the whole of "Born to Do It" album said, "I've been looking for someone who writes songs. Like I do music, like I've got the music thing locked down, but I need someone who writes songs, you can sing." And I was like, "Oh this is a perfect marriage."
And he says, "Oh I got studio it's like five minutes from here at a place called Ocean Village." And I was like you can't be make this up like it was the clo like my flat the the Old Orientals place that we met, the studio was literally within a 10-minute walk. It was like all perfectly planned. And then from that, the next thing I did was record a song called "What You Gonna Do," which was the first release from Artful Dodger.
And I remember it being printed up on a on vinyl, they did their own thing, boxed it all up. It felt sweet. When you're on a vinyl I thought I'd made it at that point. I was on vinyl yeah! And they got up in a van and they took it up to London they go into the record stores and they say, "Look we got them to take two boxes here at this record store and so in Darby Street in Soho Records there and Brixton we've got some." I was like...
And something started to build, my man. Like I can't I was like just happy to be on a record but then all of a sudden I was getting people saying who they'd come back down from London saying, "I'm hearing your tune getting played on pirate radio stations you know." I'm like, "What?" "I'm hearing like it's going off. Drop the funk drop the bass hit..." and I'm like, "What you are you..." and they like and random people saying, "Oh I went I was come back from London it's getting played. Like I went to a club it went off the DJ spun it like four times back to back."
Something was bubbling. Next thing you know I got a call from Public Demand who were the label that were that had got invested in that in that record, they'd done a licensing deal for that song. They said, "Do you want to come up to London start doing some some PAs, some some performances for this song?" And so I'd love to. So I call up my mate Clinton in his yellow Fiesta. Remember clearly, got the Jamaican flag in the back yeah, just like he had it proudly there, he had like the the sub speaker in the boot going crazy, the thing was tuned up like he was coming going to Notting Hill Carnival yeah, the sound system was way more than the car, right?
Sounded crisp. So up there I'd slip him like 50 pound to to get me up there get me back. And literally I go up, I was getting like two 250-300 pound for a PA, which was good money. I'm like, "Wow, this is real money now from selling chocolates to this kind of money. I can buy this record I can buy that." And I go to the Coliseum in Vauxhall, "The End," and I start to "Twice as Nice" was the the big big name at the time.
And I go out then sing "What You Gonna Do" and I just I'd go on stage and I was this young 15-year-old kid, I was just 16 at the time. Walked out and I the DJ it could be any DJ could play because the Artful Dodger we had this sort of agreement that if Artful Dodger were with me performing, we're doing a set together we'd sort half the amount for the for the fee. And if I was going off doing a performance then I would just take the money and if they did a DJ set somewhere they'd take it.
So we just had a nice little agreement going on. So I'd go up there and the DJ would you say, "You ready, ready?" "Okay yeah I'm ready, ready." And he'd be like, "Drop the funk drop the bass hit..." And as I for the first time walking out seeing it go off, I was just like, "This is mad!" And before I even got to sing, the guy they're spinning it up and everyone's going, "Bo bo bo bo bo bo!" which is where led to "Bo Selecta" with "Rewind." Why I was saying that in the song it's like, "Bo bo bo bo selecta!" that was the phrase as a cultural reference for that music.
And I think that that's where it kind of it just it was exponential after that. It just went from "What You Gonna Do" then "Rewind" was starting to go do its thing and people were just losing their minds to that song. Like I remember my first person perform PA of that song, I wasn't sure if the crowd were feeling it because it goes into this this baseline in the chorus which is very it feels like a halftime R&B record.
Let me hear it. So it's like "Dum do-dum, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-dum do-dum." So it's like "Re-e-wind, when the crowd say Bo Selecta, re-e-wind." And you've just got the baseline "dum do-dum." It's halftime. You could just be slow jam "do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-dum do-dum." And and I saw people literally they were standing like... and it wasn't like "We're not feeling it," but it's like "We don't know what to do here." Yeah. Like because the the verse is "Making moves yeah on a dance floor." You got the Garage thing it's cool. And then it goes "dum do-dum... do-do-do-do-do-do-do..." and people are like... and then when it and that was the USP in the end.
People were like, "You know that tune that does that half-time I don't know what baseline thing but it goes slow..." and it set the tone for the whole thing. That song right there, still. It's like my baby. Because I felt it when I walked home with my Sony Walkman with my headphones on, on my Jack Jones. It's like walking back like just listening to it thinking, I don't need some songs where I don't need any feedback, I don't need some tell me what they think about it how they feel. I know in my soul, this here is the one.
And it wasn't the one from "It's going to go off in a club." It's just going to go off when I go back to my flat. I had a huge sub-speaker that was probably bigger than me, yeah, that I had in the corner, bigger than most of my room. I had to squeeze my bed out almost to to get it in. When I pressed play on that and it came through that speaker, I was like "This... no I'm good." I got the the full feeling that I needed. So from then I was like if this is the same for anyone else and they feel like this then it's gone clear and it end up being go-lightly.
And that is a a timeless timeless record. I mean I listened to him before you came in here, so I was listening to it and I was like, "Fuck it this could have come out last week." You know what I mean, it feels like that. Do you see what I mean? Like I played it and I was like this could be this would be a hit now.
Bro, I appreciate you, 100%. Yeah. It's that it's a it was a cultural record, it was it feels very timeless. Like I did a show the other day, even yesterday last night, and I drop it and the Millennials are going crazy for it, the day ones are there going like crazy. It's just that it's it's one of those ones, you know what I mean?
So that leads up to the to the point where you start to release your first solo single, "Fill Me In."
Yeah.
Talk to me about that and that whole process because that went straight to number one. From what you've said, I know it changed your life right, from going doing these PAs in clubs to doing I think you did Wembley three nights in a row or something crazy crazy in the space of a couple of months as well.
Yeah. It it mean it went like from like zero to a hundred literally. That's why it was kind of like behind the scenes funny enough, even though I say zero to a hundred, there was a lot of learning curve that I was learning. So then doing the DJing, doing performances in front of a a club a club PA or even before that when I was doing my DJ and stuff as an MC, when the the vinyl skipping and the crowd are looking at you like "Yo what..." and you've got to improvise quickly.
So man's going into some kind of MC like... some of them made some of them loved some of them are holding the mic a hopeless... trying to find another bit of vinyl to put on because this one's going to keep skipping. My hopeless hopeless when I ride bo bo bo bo like this jump around in my Adidas... crazy! And everyone said "Whoa!" and then I get it to mix somehow perfectly, yeah. And I'm sweating, yeah, because I'm thinking I nearly mashed the whole thing up. And after people come up saying, "Craig, that was sick when you did that thing, how did you do that? Why are you sweating so much?" It's like it's not even hot in this air conditioning is busting it was like if only you knew.
But it it teed me up for performances going forward. So when we got to "Fill Me In," I can just remember something happening when I was doing there was a a club called Sound I think it was on Leicester Square. And at this time now, "Rewind" had been released, it'd gone to number two. People didn't really know who I was, they knew the name which was you know what I mean you can get that see that was always the using the name was always like a like a tag, the DJ tag thing. Like you you put your name—DJ Khaled would do it, it'd be like I'd be like "Craig David all over your so..." so you knew who was on the record just in case you you were confused, yeah.
And then that then became sort of my intrinsic trademark thing that I did throughout that "Born to Do It" album. So it just would have been Craig David, "It's another one," like all all that kind of stuff. But yeah I'd remember doing a performance I'd I'd had a interview in in Capital FM and I had to get across Leicester Square to go and do this another performance of it in Sound, which Capital were doing like radio performances from there.
I knew something had really changed when the security there was a security guard and he had to put me up. I went there with it just being calm. I went into Capital did the interview. The security guard had to put me up on his shoulders to get me across Leicester Square to Sound, because there were fans going crazy. Like real I could for for a moment in that period of time, the Justin Bieber thing, the even before the Drakes, I mean it's like it was that fever point pitch where it was just like whoa!
BTS flex! It was like madness, like pandemonium. I was just like whoa, ripping pulling like it was whoa I was thinking something's changed. And then I went and did the performance and then "Fill Me In" was was building up to be my first number one. And it was my first solo single that went to number one and and it was a song that was released the same day as as Destiny's Child "Say My Name."
So to have a number one in the charts with a group that I'd grown up with posters on my wall and like thinking "This is crazy," "Say My Name"'s one of my favorite R&B songs of all time. So to just for "Fill Me In" to do what it did, I knew something had changed. I I just knew well, it was quite obvious. And I was on this wave. It was euphoric. There was nothing I can I can put my finger on it was like it was it was everything but more.
It went from everything I touched was turning into gold because it's like everyone wanted a piece of me and I was doing acoustic performances, which was to give a different feel for for "Fill Me In" which I think was a really clever move from at the time my record label was was half owned by my now manager, Colin Lester. Telstar and Capital were involved. And he was just like, "We want to find ways that it just didn't exclude me from other radio stations and make it feel like it wasn't just this this radio thing."
So we did performances like on Radio on TFI Friday and on Jools Holland which were acoustic. And all of a sudden I went from the rising Garage quote-unquote star to "Wow, this is actually a song here, he's writing songs." And then the next songs I think kind of reinforced that it wasn't just just Garage, and then from "7 Days" and then to "Walking Away" because "Walking Away" it gone clear at that point. Really had gone clear.
Like we were I was in France and the every other week in Paris doing radio interviews and I'd be in in doing the whole Scandinavia then I'd be in Germany then we'd be getting a flight over to America and it just started the whole...
How old were you through this period? So "Fill Me In" was when you were 18.
Yeah, so yeah, so with and the album dropped the same year, so 2001 was when I went over to the States, so it would have been like 19 like...
How does how does an 18 or 19-year-old deal with that? Because you know with all the attention comes a lot of negative stuff. It's like unavoidable it comes with the territory. Even with the like the fame and people clambering on you and stuff, it it changes your psychology takes a shift. Or you find out who you really are, right? They say that a lot like you find out all your demons, right? Because now you got the money, you got the power, you got this admiration, so talk to me about like the the other side of that that meteoric rise.
I'd say tuning in of how I or tuned in to how I was at that time. I I say the it was euphoric. There was I was like whoa! Everything's new. You're doing new places going to the best restaurants and your eyes are wide open you're on a plane to this country and I went I was at the House of Blues in in America doing we had three nights there and the first night and and I tell this because it kind of just to give context to how bizarre it was.
So remember I've come from "Yo Flash I think that girl actually over there, let me do a little mix for you over here get a little half an hour in the set." Jump forward a few years later, House of Blues three nights in a row, first night Missy Elliott is has come to to watch the show. I'm looking up thinking "This is crazy, like... 'I can't stand the rain' and it's Missy Elliott just the hot..." Next night I'm there I look up in the same balcony, Jennifer Lopez is there. I'm like "Wow." And I know it sounds like I'm name dropping but I want it to be to give context, I'm just these are facts, yeah.
The the the following night... How am I missing this? It was it was Missy and Beyoncé. Fuck off! Then it was Jennifer Lopez. Then on the last night, I look out into the crowd and there's a lot of kind of attention on one in particular gentleman that's in the crowd who's singing and I couldn't quite work out because the lights were too too dark. So I got the front house to turn the lights up, and I look in the crowd and I'm singing "Walking Away" and I look over and I see Stevie Wonder singing "Walking Away."
You're joking!
And I'm just like... I mean what do you say at that point? I would didn't I I felt emotional, I felt because it was Stevie Wonder from the record collection for my mom's stuff, Beyoncé I've got Destiny's Child on my wall, Jennifer Lopez on my wall, Missy Elliott I'd been listening to before I come out. It was just like you can't make this up. It was almost like "Yes you you've behind the scenes and bam here it is." And then I got to meet him at the end and he'd come with Quincy Jones who we all know is the producer of all of the huge hits for Michael Jackson. And then Quincy said, "You know like MJ and..." he said it even more like coded, he was like, "Yeah M... it was like M he said. M's got your album like it's just like vibing..." and I said, "Who's M?" "Yeah you know MJ and Michael, Michael's got the like he's got the album he loves 'Born to Do It,' he's been listening gave it to his friends," and I said "Stop this! If we can if this is if this is the thing, we've arrived we're good I've got my fix like there's not much more I could ask for."
But it was literally the start of an incredible rollercoaster ride which the later years I think which we get into it it harps back to that and I can feel where the cracks were starting. Because when to answer your question about the other side of it, it was so euphoric and I was so swept up on it, it was like getting on a surfboard and actually being on the wave and you you're doing I don't know if the I'd never use this word but like the most gnarliest like you're the gnarly wave it's gnarly, you know what I mean you the the it's a rip rip-curl and it's going crazy you're through the middle the eye of it you're on it, you're not coming off.
But then there was a point when the next album "Slicker Than Your Average" dropped, which was only like a year or so later, 2002. Had great success with "What's Your Flavour" and the and the songs were hitting. But there was this "Born to Do It" had now done 7 million albums. Six times platinum! Oh six times platinum. It's it's still still crazy. And when you said about the Wembley Arena three times sold out, I'm standing outside the the sign I've got it in my mom's house like there's a picture of and I'm like you just can't make it up it's it was so beautiful and I'm so grateful for those times.
But I started to see from the "Slicker Than Your Average" time where the record label had already started to quota "Oh it's going to do 10-11 million obviously Slicker Than Your Average because now the trajectory is going to be it has to go higher than this." So then when the album ended up coming out, it ended up selling 3.5 million albums. 3.5 million albums! Yeah, at the time I remember that there was this feeling in the company of... "Right, only 3.5."
And I'm I'm impressionable I'm a young kid I don't know I've just got into this the music business and you're telling me that that's not a good thing? Because last time I checked the feeling I'm getting is I just sold 3.5 million albums. Give 3.5 million to any artist now, like we're good! We're we're you're at... So I'd already started to buy into there was something it was the trajectory was starting to go in a different place that I wouldn't even know about figures, I didn't really care about albums sales, I was just like I'm happy to be here and I'm making music and I'm doing what I love my dream.
But that was the first learning curve of the the defining of defining of product and defining of you being a commodity that has to achieve something now that you've set it up here, whereas I thought it got fun when you start to do I thought it got more playful. No, no, no it got more serious and there was more cooks in the kitchen and everyone's got an opinion of the song you should be releasing and everyone's...
Expectation.
Beyond beyond. Expectation the curse of all happiness and joy and you must know this right. You're just trying to equate what yourself worth through so many other people's expectation of you like you said. So I'm trying to say, "Okay cool, well we're here, I'm a songwriter." I'd always I'd always had a really great rapport with my manager, Colin Lester, who's been with me like for I got I love the conversations that we've had over the years and and him even saying early doors that, "I can't guarantee you success, but I will do everything in my power to to protect you and keep you safe so you can do your thing."
And having those kind of confidence and in the people that you're working with is is is paramount when you do start to get these the feedback trickling through. Because I never was like, "Oh yeah what are today's midweeks?" I wasn't really too interested like finding out all the stats because what happens is, and today and you can get this now and I say this to any aspiring artist who's putting music out now and you're having success, is literally just enjoy it fully, be immersed in it.
Because if you start to check for what's going on next week, your moment when you're supposed to have the number one and you're enjoying life, you're already going to be able to see by Tuesday Wednesday that your your numbers are already showing that you're already number three now. You've slipped off and they're number one. So your moment of glory was actually there was the curve and at the point where you got the thing which is the beautiful metal number one, although you already know you're already kind of on the decline.
So it's that I had to ride that for a few more albums if I'm being honest to... I was making songs and they were connecting, but if it was a number four in the charts but it wasn't number one like it was before, haven't got the same amount of time that I had to to make those songs. I've got haven't got enough life really. All this those first albums they are seminal because it's all your life up until that point right? And then after that the expectation is we need it on a deadline and we need it this time and you got to hit this in the mix of the fact you're doing a hundred interviews and you're doing you're flying all over the place but still you got to conjure up that thing. I don't know any artist that that won't feel that. And hats off and kudos to anyone who is able to sustain that. But as a human being I know that's a tall order for anyone to to continuously do.
And you start to see with any of the artists who we put in from from the Amy Winehouses to the Michael Jacksons to the Whitney Houstons, the height of success when it is like whoa! Like otherworldly, there's so much of the human part that's being unmet that it it gets to the point where a breaking point and then something happens. Be it it's drug addiction or if it it moves into mental health issues and depression, which are all so real, that no human can vibrate at that level for that amount of time.
And I I'm thankful for those moments that kind of shaved off a little bit of the it being all go-go-go because I think that it kind of made me have to go back to a lot of things that were like when my grandmother passed away which on the next album story goes, I was back in my heart again. It's like I'm writing a song like "Johnny" about bullying or I'm talking about "Let Her Go," a song I wrote from about my grandmother to my mom to say, "Look I know it's crushing you we lost your mom and I've lost my grandma who's pretty much raised me, here's a song and I want you to hear it." And those things it starts to get back in my heart because we can get heady and when it starts to get heady you're out of you're not in sync with this. This is the real brains, and I've learned that now. It's it's not this this is a is a loyal servant to the heart, but if you go from here and then the the you can find the ways to get to A to B but it has to start from here, you know.
And you described that journey as a as a rollercoaster. So at what point did that rollercoaster start heading down from that place you describe as euphoria to a place where you weren't euphoric? Talk talk to me about the the down part of the rollercoaster.
I'd say when I released the "Trust Me" album in 2009. Um it just felt that there was from where I'd started off with very cultural records like "Rewind" and "Fill Me In," which is why we talked earlier how these songs you can play them now and they still seem to hit. When I when I look at 2009 and the "Trust Me" album, I I felt like I was starting to make music that was to please please people and to tick boxes.
It was like I was there's a song called "Top of the Hill" which is a lovely song, I love the song, but if you listen to that song to how it started off it was very far removed. The type of music was becoming very live and it wasn't as wasn't as synth-based and and so which I drawn all my inspirations from as a as a kid. And that's not to say that you can't experiment. But I knew at that point I was entering into a new space.
And then by the time I'd released that album, which I was proud of, I'm always proud of the music I put out, but it wasn't connecting as well. "Signed Sealed Delivered" was a an album that I did just after that which was I was out of a deal at the time, um just because I'd run the the tenure of my my deal, so it was kind of a fresh start I could look at different record labels. Universal were were excited, so we did a deal with Universal, then I was put out this album called "Signed Sealed Delivered" which was an a covers album.
And I was singing like "Dock of the Bay" and the title song "Signed Sealed Delivered" from Stevie, but verbatim like the originals. It wasn't some chopped and screwed, it wasn't an R&B version, it wasn't a Garage thing, it wasn't like your... it was like the same song. And I felt like it was time that I needed to just sort of check myself and be like, are you getting the fun out of this like you used to? Do you want to continue making music like this?
And thankfully the the the world always the universe always sort of mirrors everything that you're going through, so it mirrors your state of play of where you are. So I always felt that I was if the feeling I was gaining was being mirrored back, "I'm not quite feeling this," so the world says, "Cool, I'll give you more of you're not quite feeling this in your circumstances that happen around you." Whereas when I was the kid growing up making the first album, I was feeling everything. I was feeling the song on the way home from the studio, I was feeling it on my sub-speaker at home, I was feeling those rides up in the car to do the performance. It was feeling.
And now I check in with that deeply because I know that any time I'm not feeling it, act from that. Not from the head saying, "Well, I don't know, Seal had a big covers album at the time." I think that was a good reference point. He had a huge covers album and was doing serious numbers, and that was the sentiment that Universal were presenting like, "Do a covers record, no-brainer, you can sing these songs, Motown, gonna be good, it's a soul thing, and then off springboard off the back of that with your own album." That was the the play. It was never really worked out that way because it didn't really work out the way that it did as an album it didn't hit the way it did, and there was no next album that came from off the back of that. There was a period of time where I was like oh I was out of the scene for a second.
And and what did you do then? This is when you moved to Miami, Florida?
So I was in I was in Miami from 2010, so it's like about a year after that album. And I was there for about five-six years. For the first two-three years, the best time probably of my life being out there. anything and everything that you could possibly think of Miami being and what it was representing.
But the latter period of that period of that time was where something was ringing inside of me of "You're in the wrong place." And this is what intuition is, it's very quiet and it it creeps up and it's just a gnawing it's like you hear it and you just I don't want to hear it. I want to it's all it all looks great over here, you know what I mean? It looks so aesthetically pleasing from the you know what I mean at the car and the apartment and the parties and the women and the just it was like the parties that were just like every day of the week something going on.
Music isn't really getting recorded now because the voice is is just destroyed from like shouting in a club and doing a nonsense. So music's getting pushed to the side, all the fancy toys and the vibe starting to be come more important. You know what I mean? It's like I my balance of of actual supply and demand of music that got me there was way off. I was literally creating hardly anything.
Is there shades of like you you going up on this trajectory when you were a like a younger man 18, 19, etc. and then going into this place where you almost abandoned your like your essence and your roots? And then that kind of culminates in you making this covers album, which is almost it's quite it's almost a bit of a metaphor because then you were really being someone else. Like being doing cover albums is by definition you're covering other people's music in their style.
Totally.
And then almost this um this period in Miami where you get into partying as kind of seems like a bit of a distraction maybe or whatever trying to explore trying to get some other pleasure from another type of life. And then kind of going back to your your roots in a way where where all of that you'd tasted the shit. Yes. You'd had the Dom Perignon, you know and you and that wasn't it. So now you go back and ask yourself, what is it? What is it? And and then it seems like with TS5 you you created a new kind of expression of who Craig David is and who he always was or maybe who you had lost sight of over the years because of all these temptations and your own success.
Isn't that the truth. It's when you start to realize that actually going back to the things that and it's all back in childhood this is the thing when I tune in it's like the decks and the DJing and the mixtapes. That was all I was trying to do when I was doing the TS5 house party. I just wanted to feel that again like I'm mixing now with my little Pioneer DJ setup and I'm on the microphone being the host of the mostest and I just want everyone to feel that feeling that I got into the whole thing for and I...
If someone doesn't know what TS5 is, can you explain just give an overview of what exactly what it is?
Yeah, so TS5 is like um it's when the the performance now from the house party that it was is I'm able to because I used to DJ when I first started off as we spoken about before and I was at that point then DJ Fade. So I grew up honed all my skills on on using vinyl and Technic 1210s. The TS5 set is the name came from the apartment in Miami and it's a show where I'm able to DJ and mix other people's records as much as drop my ones in and able come out of my DJ booth and sing and do a performance.
In a way for me that is giving me all the feels I got from when I was a DJ but also I can do the performances and drop some gems in there at the same time. Like I can play a TLC 'No Scrubs' or I can play 'Say My Name' and then go into 'Fill Me In.' I just love it and taking that to pool parties I did in Ibiza, I think I was trying to set the tone of like this isn't a DJ set where I can get away with playing some songs, doing a few shots of tequila with my mates, and get paid for it and go home.
I just can't like I get that can work in certain and I have no judgment, it's great, do your thing. But for me as a performer, mixing the tunes is like it's so easy now like with vinyl it was that was a mission but like now, so I can mix the tunes that's nothing, but to come out of the booth, perform, do an MC thing, and hit the marker back inside to get to the next song—that for me I I pride myself on it's given me a whole new lease of life for for festivals. So that's really what TS5 is.
And it's become a phenomenal brand. Phenomenal brand for for music, partying, and it's funny because it's such an it's quite rare that you have someone that has that kind of skill stack of all those different pieces that can do that. I think that's probably why it's been such a such a hit, is because you rarely see someone who can drop their own records, who can sing, who can perform, but then who can also DJ. It's like a really interesting new thing.
Appreciate it. I I felt I felt it in I got a little touch of it in the party when I was in in my house parties. I mean and I didn't even start to put... see this is it's beautiful when you look back at the puzzle pieces when the picture starts to become a little bit more clearer as you put, "Okay, that puzzle that piece there meant you needed that piece to happen for this one to happen."
So when I was performing in my house, I wasn't actually performing any of my own songs at all because I just felt like I don't want to start dropping my own songs in the middle of the thing. And then I have people come over and be like, "Bro drop that Fill Me In, drop Rewind." One girl came over and said, "Drop 7 Days," and I was like "Nah," she goes, "Please it's my favorite song," and I was like and then I looked was like, "Maybe I might do a verse, just one one little piece of the verse."
And it started me the idea of putting a couple of my songs in. Then we started to record the set, I'd start to record the set and put on SoundCloud so people could listen to it after because people were like, "Oh where can I get I'd love to listen back to that set," or "We did sang a happy birthday to someone and it was a moment that they wanted to hear again and no one caught it," and I was like, "Well let me capture this now." And that was actually where it flipped back into mixtape land that I then got my manager took it into Kiss, Kiss originally were like "We can air this," put it out as a as a show, and then it went onto Capital, Capital aired it as well and Capital Extra. So all of a sudden it was like it's gone from a house party to a thing.
And then we did a couple of early shows one in two shows in Hackney to see if this house party would translate into an actual thing. And when I saw people it going off in the same way I thought, "Wow, this isn't just a Miami thing, you know, it's not just in my house, it's actually people connecting with it." And since then I guess Glastonbury was probably the the one of the pinnacle of it because you're there in front of a crowd who are there for a myriad of different artists and you're there performing a band set and then going into a DJ set and to see it going off I was like this is... I people from Miami who were early doors when we first did that party which was like nine of us just messing about having a couple of shots with playing off iTunes...
To Glastonbury.
To Glastonbury there was that was crazy. So it just but it's always there the pieces are always there but time sometimes you just need to have time and patience in this.
It's so interesting looking at your story as as like an outsider and watching that journey of you being this like huge megastar, then the the downside of the rollercoaster as you describe it and then watching you over the last like five-six-seven-eight years come back out with as almost like this completely new character but with a proposition that's as resonant as what you used to do, a very very different proposition. But you like again from my like not really paying attention to what's going on in the world because I'm not really that into pop culture, you know I used to listen to you on my Walkman and then there was a gap and then you're back in again where everyone's talking about Craig David again but for a completely different propo- what appears to be a completely different proposition.
That's not common or easy. The question I actually have for you is because it's a rollercoaster, your mind goes on the rollercoaster as well. And this kind of brings me into to the topic of mental health. Be honest with me, what was the the mental health journey throughout that whole period of time?
You know, where I sit in for a long period of time I I guess that those um those words of of "man up" or or just just roll with it, just roll with it, just man up is the most amount of nonsense that I have ever heard because it's that in and of itself is what's caused the crazy suicide rates that we see, especially in in men. And the way in which it's spiraling out of control because it's like keep it inside, repress it, put it under the carpet, don't talk about it, that's what we do.
That real alpha way. And thankfully, and this goes back to my parents, my grandma and my my mom in particular, it was all about open and conversation and and speaking and have have open conversation and be able to get it out, have a convo. And I think that there were periods where I just I rode through it. And I think Miami was kind of just was a a break from a lot of things and me being out there and being in a different climate a different culture enjoying those things but that still wasn't fulfilling what I was really looking for.
What I really wanted was connection and relationship in a way that I'd experienced almost in those kind of early doors before the first album and at the when it hit. So the rollercoaster ride is you find character in your lows. 100%. You you ask the questions the real questions, "Do you really want to do this? Are you really about this?"
And I am a musician through and through, um and I love it but the the depression is real. Mental health in in the multitude and myriad of different ways that that can come about is real. And it's the and it's something that you can only half the battle I've always spoken about that you it's talking to being able to express that to someone you can confide in. And even if it's not someone you can confide in in a phone line that you can pick up and just speak to someone you don't know, maybe in some ways that can be even better, you can just get off your chest and they're giving you they're hearing you they see you.
But that's only half the battle. The rest is then a journey of, they call it in more spiritual circles the dark night of the soul of going through into a place where you're going to uncover everything that was put under that carpet. Having to bring it to the light and having to bring it up and work through it to find a place where you pull the carpet up and all the dust goes up everywhere and then you start to see where it lands. You start say, "Okay, this was a story that I was telling myself. The things I was defining myself of my self-worth through how I looked and the approval of others, this was authority figures feeling like they had something over me."
The power I had when I was the entrepreneur selling chocolates and and making the songs—that's really who I've always been, but I had abandoned you used that earlier, abandoned yourself. When that starts to happen, it can spiral out of control. And I had injuries and and physical injuries through all the training and stuff that I did as well that spiraled me into different depths of depression where I was just like whoa, I've never experienced... it's when things happen that you've never... they cumulatively build up but then there's something that breaks it, just snaps it.
And at that point it just feels like whoa and you're trying to you're in free fall. That's the feeling I feel with depression. I've experienced it I know how it is and I haven't really been as vocal I guess as as today about like that and I feel it's necessary because it's I want to be the one who's telling the story. I want to be so authentic and I want to open up like you said you spoke about things that you needed to get off your chest and let people know the other side of all this.
Because in that is where all the beauty and empathy really is and people can connect and they say, "Oh what so you went through that? Ah so it isn't this thing that only me." And all of a sudden we're all connected and I'm thinking, "Yes!" And then I'm I'm inspired by people who kind of wear the heart on their sleeves now.
§02Transcript — part 2
So yeah I I feel like it was a combination of a lot of those things building up to being in the wrong place being away from my family missing being able to just make music in the way I did coming back to the UK and then as soon as I did that and I felt I felt my first huge hug when I walked in and saw Big Narstie, Kurupt FM, Mr Jam, Stormzy was in the building, Shola Ama and I did a this one extra performance which was really I was going to rock up and vibe 'Fill Me In.'
And I ended up singing it over "Where Are U Now" the Justin Bieber-Diplo-Skrillex instrumental. There was this moment of love I felt. Big Narstie giving me a hug first when I came in wearing his heart on his sleeve, "Booty Man's my tune! Oh my god Craig, Booty Man is my song!" And I'm like, whoa, like really wearing his heart on his sleeve.
And then sing this song, sing 'Fill Me In' as a remix vibe over this instrumental and it went so viral that I'm looking on my phone and I'm seeing Justin Bieber like saying like, "Whoa that's amazing that you need to check it 45 minutes in of this show." Then I'm seeing Skrillex on the on my timeline, I'm seeing Diplo on the timeline, I'm just thinking something's happened here. But it was more than just it needed me to play my part and get back home and and get and go through that Miami phase of what that was all about.
I I find that really interesting that that's the... so is was that that Miami phase the first phase in your life where you encountered what you believed to be like depressive symptoms? Where you felt fell into a depression?
In the in the latter stages of Miami. Yeah, because I got I got injured out there my back went like in my my lower back. And I never felt a pain like that in my life. Like I felt aches and pains of of training incidents and different things I've had like anyone who's had like a blowout in the back. But this one in particular was just like it was a feeling that just wouldn't give up.
So I was my movement patterns was went from, you know your 100% you're doing the last kind of leg leg press and it these are deadlifts! Amazing move, but when your if your back goes on one of those, I promise you you will there's a feeling that you have which is like putting your hands in like 240 volts in the wall that it's just it's different. Like it's a nerve pain which is not like an ache or like "Oh it feels a bit sore like you got DOMS from doing too many kind of like glute work."
So when it went, I was like I've never felt anything quite like this and it made me have to check myself in a whole different way before the fact that every movement I did felt like I was getting that same spasm. So it wasn't just like one spasm. It wasn't like, "Okay we've locked up we're good." At that point you know where you're at. I've had those before we we all had in our life we'll have a sporadic moment where you have the thing. This was now it's happening now it's happening now it's happening now! Like it was continuous nerve spasm. I was like it was spiral for me.
It was it was a point where I had dark thoughts. I was just like I can't live my life like this. So I understood really at that point the first time depression hit me and I couldn't reframe it as being positive. I couldn't say this is put a positive spin on it. There was nothing. So I had the mental thing, so I was getting over I kind of signed that for a good um for to be someone who you have to experience certain things to be able to speak on it.
And I get that now. So it's like, okay, well you've come here to to to mission to do this, you're going to have to feel pain physically, you're going to have to feel heartbreak, you're going to have to feel anxiety and abandonment of of your body. You're going to have to feel all these things. And then I hope that you get to a point where you get the memo, which I've now fully understood the memo. I don't need to be doing deadlifts and I don't need to be training like the way I trained before. I can stay healthy and more importantly what people enjoyed from me was music, that it never had changed, and I realized that from when I came back to London.
It was like people just want to hear music and they were cool they were just happy and this version of me and I love all the other versions because they all played a part. This isn't a judgment thing like, "Oh yeah well an album comes out you're like yeah it's no good anymore this is the one." No, they all played a part to me sitting here today with you and being able to break down things and unpack things and as a as a as a man now to be open enough to say I know what depression feels like, I speak differently on things now and the more I can open up and speak on the pain that I felt.
And that back thing ran for years. It was like a couple years two three years I was like... and even to and even to this day I'll put my hands up I'm still working out like, you know what I mean do we do surgery do we not do we... like I'm it's dialed down incredibly, but it was a defining moment it's pivotal to me and it just was like whoa! Like I said depression, you'll have dark thoughts. Dark thoughts. You'll start having thoughts so you're like if this pain can continuously goes on like this then I I can't it sounds crazy for me even saying this because I'm like I was always like the nicest guy and you're so positive and you like how could it... but I was like I just can't live like this I can't live like this.
So you start not thinking about ways that you would say take your life or to to dip out but you start having thoughts of something has to happen. Like this this pain is intolerable, like I can't even style it out there's nothing for it. And I think that that when it started to dial down and we've done it from injections and all different kinds of things conservatively and strengthening the the multifidus and my paraspinals and the glutes—I know my body so well now, it got me back into my body more importantly. I started to understand the mechanics of how my body works. I never really listen to things. You know when you get a little ache and a pain or you get a little thing, tell-tale sign that's 10 years ago? You got blowout and then it blows out again and you didn't listen you keep going.
All it does it just amps up the sound till you get the one you got the memo now? Okay cool now you got the memo. That's how the universe works. So I'm really in tune with my body when it starts telling me stuff I'm like I need to check for this early because in I don't want that five-year thing and the things going to let me know the hard way. Amen! It's dialed down thank God but all part of the plan because it's put me in a place where I can physically go out there and do my shows like I love, I can go out there and perform like I love. I don't need to be putting the extra work in in a gym to to satisfy anything that's I can go swimming I can move my body and and I can feel the thing is I can dial it up and we can get whatever do you what what we looking for but who's it for? It's not for anyone anymore I don't need that.
But you are back, you're back in the UK now.
Back in the UK.
Back in the UK. And you said this you said this quote you said to a lot of people, "I'm at my destination, I've arrived, I'm back." But no, I'm still on my journey and I'm not taking my foot off the gas. Now that that phrase "foot on the gas," right, it it kind of sounds it has hints of a former Craig.
Yeah, when you even said foot off the gas yeah, I don't know what day I was saying that or what I was feeling...
It didn't resonate?
Yeah, when you when you said it to me then, I knew exactly as you were going to say like "What's this foot on the gas thing?" because that would suggest that you're headstrong running into running for something.
Yeah, yeah. I I get the sentiment but then also the the terminology's a little bit...
It's troubling right? Yeah yeah, it's like we're not down to take the foot off the gas. Just relax there no need for the for the save your petrol. Just just calm yourself stay sometimes staying still weirdly enough is actually the one. I recognized when I stayed still and the world moves, it's like wow.
Pandemic.
That I've got to say had for for everything and the the pain it caused and the people who lost their lives and families that were that were suffering so deeply and still are. Um when you look at just how it was a pause on the whole world and it just had people recognizing that one they had to relinquish control because it got to a point where "Well I can't control this so okay break open the Monopoly board, let's let's let's have a game then."
All of a sudden back into kid back into the child again. The child was seen, play started to happen. And as much as like we we all like to say that we need to be the thing of doing doing doing, but sometimes doing nothing... don't think that the world isn't working for you behind the scenes yeah when you're doing nothing. Like having a good night's sleep, resting. Trust me for all the working out in the gym and all those kind of things, the rest was the actual thing where all the growth happened. So why would that be no different for the way that we are when let me let me sleep on this, let me slow down. And like man, it's it's a blessing to see someone as inspired and conscious as you putting it out there and allowing people like myself to come through, speak our truth, have people have a platform to speak and feel open and not feel like they're boxed in having to kind of you got the media training here I have to be the open out. Because that's what we need! We've done that. The old patriarchal system is crashing down, it's not working anymore. No one wants the divide and conquer and fight—it ain't going to work. We want love, we want a heart-based relationship.
That failed us, right? We tried that and it failed us.
Failed failed deeply man, it really did.
And as we look forward you've got this album coming out which I'm really excited about called "22." And it's coming out on the 24th of June this year. Talk to me you know throughout this... it's been 22 years since as well since your your first album "Born to Do It." So 22 years later, your album "22" comes out. What can I expect from this? What what is the inspiration, what is the art, the creativity, the pain? What is what is what is it?
Okay, so we we know "Born to Do It" was was my baby it broke out everything for me. It was the moment where everything I built up into that point it was me getting the the golden ticket. Let's say it's the golden ticket we're entering into the the chocolate factory now, excited, but not the ending, right?
Then I had to go through life a little and now I'm landing at this place in my life where and during the pandemic gave me a lot of time to write a lot of songs. I got a studio at home so I was just I was writing a lot of songs and I had no rush. It felt like how I was when I made my first album. If I wanted to do a verse today, cool; if not, I'm going to go downstairs to the kitchen or maybe I'll throw on a movie and maybe I'll come back up.
I was grateful that I had that and privileged to be able to do that and to make home a as productive as I wanted it to be or as relaxed as I wanted it to be. It feels like it has all the feels—it feels like it has all the feels—of my first album "Born to Do It." I feel like the kid again. And I keep using the word "feel" because I think that's the most important that's my that's the only thing I can really gauge things. How am I feeling?
I've got a big sub-speaker in my in my in my in my home in in London again. Same thing. Literally I got to I literally just patterned the same thing with a couple of blue lights to make it look just a little bit like I was a 2.0 version of the same, but same big speaker, I can play it loud. I've had people come over and I've said, "You you need to understand what bass is, like really." Because they think they know what bass is you got a little Sonos system and it's all cool you got a little couple subs. No, no, no, no. Listen to this and you'll get that "oomph" and it's it's different.
So I feel like I've got the R&B on there, I've got the the Garage on there, I've got songs that I feel that weave a beautiful journey of where I am at now. I feel I'm speaking on things that it's coming from a place where I can still have the lingo and the languaging that doesn't set you off as being like "Oh you you were back in the 2000s and you're bro no one says that anymore." No one's saying "tipsy" in the club anymore, no one's even really saying "getting wavy" anymore that's sort of like a bit a couple years back.
You know what I mean, what's the new? So working with young artists, working with young fresh songwriters, they'll give me languaging that allows me to get my messaging across but in a way that it can get the most broadest kind of reach. I just feel like we've... yeah, I I don't want to gas it because I feels like every artist does that right for you? Yeah, it's just it feels really true to where I am at right now and I've got I listen to it and I'm excited to listen back to this album and as I have done since really the "Following My Intuition" album. Since I came back 2016 did that one, "The Time is Now" and this one.
But this one feels like with that "I'm a journeyman," that's the the cover album cover is me on a journey. And I feel like that journeyman of just 22 years in now. And as I said to the Willy Wonka element, I feel like Charlie who's now going through the test. He got a little caught up, which if you clock it it was his grandpa who kind of got him to take that fizzy lick... fizzy lifting drink and he started to go up into the thing. It wasn't really Charlie, he was calm, he was actually being the good one across it was this granddad that kind of got him right?
To get to the end where the everlasting gobstopper part, where he has a choice to sell himself out, go sell it for 50,000 pound I think to the the competitor chocolate maker of Slugworth, or does he go back and put and put it back on Willy Wonka's desk and do the right thing knowing he's going away with nothing. I feel like I'm at that place where I'm in a creating an album and I'm willing to I'm willing to trade in all of the things that I'd up until this point this pretense that I maybe I had behind the scene that people didn't really... oh I was always giving 80% of me but there was a 20% and that's enough or 10% of me that's not, is enough.
It's like the "The Princess and the Pea," trust me it's underneath there and it will keep getting you. It's like the thorn in the foot, it's like it doesn't have to be big, not some big drama, but it's get it's getting you right? I want to pull the thorn out I want to find the pea, right? I want to I want to say I want to sleep on my night in my mattress where I'm not feeling slightly uncomfortable because I know there's something underneath there. There's a there's a needle in a haystack—nah I don't want it I know it's in there, yeah, we got to find it.
I'm at that stage where I'm dropping this album that I feel I've put the everlasting gobstopper back, and I have no idea if Willy Wonka's going to turn around and say, "Charlie! You did it! I knew you'd do it! I had to test you, I had to test you!" "It's like what what the chocolate?" "No, more than the chocolate." "What is it?" "You got the whole chocolate factory." You got the whole chocolate factory and his family can move in and everyone can be part of it and that's how I'm feeling now everyone can be part of this. This is this is different now. So I'm excited, man.
I'm excited. And do you know what I'm I was excited before but hearing your description of it and feeling your energy about where this is coming from and it's coming from that place of like your intuition, your wisdom and your maturity and over those 22 years all of that unbelievable twisting journey that you've been on to create a record now... um which encompasses like which collects all of that wisdom and all of that emotion and truth and pain and experience is is really something to be um to be excited about as a as a Craig David fan. So thank you for for giving us another project. I I've not heard it yet, they wouldn't they wouldn't let me hear it but I but I can't wait.
Oh, I'll listen you know what? On the real though not just the because I always feel like these these moments of are always more than like you've done your you've done your moment together, but I just feel there's a friendship building here anyway so I'll we'll hook up and I'll I'll play the album we'll get some food and we'll vibe. So it's calm, you'll be well ahead of the game.
No, do you know what? From the minute you walked in the door I felt like I'd known you a long time. And that's a credit to you because I meet a lot of people here, right? So sometimes people come in and maybe they're a little bit colder and like there's a lot of things going on in their lives which I'm unaware of, so I've got to have empathy for that. But the minute you walked in the through the door it was like you were my brother and it was like we'd known each other for a long time. And that's that's honest it's a credit to you. So look thank you, thank you so much for your time.
We have a closing tradition on this podcast, which is the previous guest writes the next guest a question. So I'm going to... and I don't get to see what it is until I open the book.
Nice, nice.
So the previous and this is a very good one in fact, very fitting. The previous guest wrote: "If you could whisper in the ear of your 14-year-old self, what would you whisper?"
Oh that's nice good. That's good that's good. (Pauses) Listen Craig. I know this might freak you out because you're hearing a voice in your ear right now, but trust me I'm a I'm a little older version of you and everything you're about to do right now is going to change your life in the most beautiful way. And I want you to just enjoy every moment. And know that there will be times that will be quite hard. But know that I'm here. Know that I'm always there holding your hand along the way and I promise you that once you get through them, the feeling you will have will be like the euphoria you are just about to experience in a couple of years' time so get ready and trust me the crowd are going to go off when they hear something soon. Okay? Love to you my man.
It was like a prayer. Thank you so much Craig. Honestly.
My pleasure, listen.
Honestly it's a huge honor and your vulnerability and openness—you don't know you won't ever get to see the impact it has. I probably will, I'll get the comments and the messages and you will as well, but the impact of you being being self-aware enough and and man enough to be vulnerable I think is is really something which I I applaud you for because you just don't re... you you know the impact you're going to have on a lot of young men specifically is profound and uh yeah long-lasting so thank you.
Thank you, thank you bro. And feel is mutual man, really genuinely appreciate. Thank you.
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