On the day of his 19th birthday, Lisa Klein caught up with Callum Burrows, better known as Saint Raymond, shortly before his performance at legendary Southampton venue, The Joiners.
Tell us a bit more about your new EP, Ghosts.
I’m super excited, the lead song ‘Everything She Wants’ was actually on my first EP but I felt like I wanted to do it again, and there is ‘Brighter Days’, which I’ve been doing for a long time now live, but never wanted to release. ‘Ghosts’ is a brand new song which I was never really sure about but then I did it live and it worked.
Although 19 seems terribly young to already look back, what has changed over the last few years, say, since you first appeared on BBC Radio 1 at the age of 16?
Pretty much everything. I mean, last year I hadn’t released anything, this year, my third EP is coming out. Generally life just got more busy with gigging, going on my own headline tour and all that. It has been a bizarre year for me. But I enjoy it, it’s cool. And even coming home to Nottingham isn’t that bad anymore. I used to hate Nottingham, but after living in London for a year or so, coming home is now really amazing.
What tips do you have for young musicians?
For me it was very important that what I put on the internet was the best possible thing. I think a lot of people just put a lot of things out there which is cool but for me I didn’t want to just put stuff out there, I wanted to make sure it was the best. Apart from that, make use of Twitter and Facebook, which is so important these days.
This sounds like a question from a job interview, but where do you see yourself in five years?
Honestly, life’s been so busy lately with touring and recording that I don’t really look that far ahead. For me, literally, it is what happens next week. The next step will be the release of my first album hopefully later this year, but further than that? No idea.
What is the most interesting part about being on tour?
The tour bus! Definitely, it’s wicked. I used to party a lot, well I still party a lot, but being on a headline tour I’m really scared about letting people down, like turning up with no voice but it’s been good so far. Playing in my hometown was pretty cool too, all of my friends and family were there, made me a little nervous.
Speaking of friends, some of yours are in the music scene as well, do you think you influence each other?
Yeah it’s wicked, it’s always cool to have friends in the music industry who do things a bit differently from me and who are looking out for you.
So when you appeared on BBC’s The Beat three years ago, you appeared as a duo, but now you’re solo. Why is that?
I always wanted it to be a solo thing. I always wanted to make music, just me and my guitar. Of course when you’re on tour you can’t do everything on your own, but Saint Raymond is a solo project. But this video with Elliot on BBC set everything in motion actually, those ten minutes were really important out there. Dean Jackson, the producer, was really influential as well.
Festivals or indoor gigs, what’s more fun?
I really really love festivals, drinking beer and partying all the time, but I like the small gigs very much too, they’re just more intimate.
Saint Raymond’s Ghosts EP is now available to preorder on iTunes.
