Tom Grennan on wake-up call after finding himself in a ‘bad place’: ‘I was doing all sorts of s**t’

Tom Grennan has reflected on an urgent wake-up call that came after his manager told him there would be “100 more of him”.

He’s on the cover of this week’s magazine to herald the arrival of a “new chapter” of his music, and also to promote an exciting new live performance – a Big Busk later this month in aid of Big Issue.

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“My attitude wasn’t the best for a bit,” Grennan says in the new issue on sale today (Monday 13 September). “Then I had to flip my life around and say, I’ve got this chance, don’t do what you did with football and fuck it up. That’s what I did, and what I’m trying to do now.”

Grennan shared details of a conversation with his managed John, adding: “People say you’ve done it, you’ve made it. I haven’t made nothing. [John is] the guy who said, ‘There’s going to be 100 more of you, you’ve got one chance of this, like what are you doing?’ That shifted my mindset. I look up to him so much.”

Grennan changed who he hangs out with and started “training my bollocks off at the gym” from 6am, keeping to a set diet and sleeping during the day. “I don’t know how far I can go into this without me sounding like I… I was just in a bad place, you know what I’m saying,” he admits. “I was doing all sorts of crazy shit, and now I’m not, and they’re just the changes I had to make.”

With this new chapter comes a renewed desire to do some good. “I just feel like music and things like that can help people who are in need,” he says. His upcoming busk for Big Issue will take place in his adoptive home of Coventry on 26 September.

“The Big Issue is an important magazine,” he adds. “I think it helps a lot of people get back on their feet. It also highlights a lot of the things that are going on in the UK and across other places.”

More details about Tom Grennan’s Big Issue Big Busk will be revealed later this week – but it will take the singer right back to the very start of his career, when he gigged in pubs around London. He tells Big Issue that he relishes the “instant feedback” from the small crowds: “Can I get people turning round and singing?”

You can read the full interview in this week’s Big Issue, out now. Find your local vendor to buy a copy or subscribe online. 

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