I’ve lived and been raised in my hometown of Hull for the last 27 years.
You know, it’s not a big city.
It's kind of forgotten a little bit about.
I think one of the main thing we've got from there is that we have this thing called a
patty, which is potatoes, onion, and sage all mashed together in a patty-style that's
deep fried.
I think that's probably the only thing that we have there that you can't find anywhere
else.
My inspiration for “What I Miss Most” was simply missing home.
I'm a complete family guy.
I love my family.
I love my friends.
Home is Hull.
And whilst I was writing this album, I was missing home a lot.
I’d been away from home longer than I ever had before.
It's not anything specific It’s not the house I grew up in or my mom or my dad.
Of course, I miss these guys, but it’s more just my hometown.
And home is where the heart is.
There's plenty of times when I remember all of the highs.
I mean I think you're left with those as the sweet taste in your mouth.
You know, for so long I've had such a normal life and then I've been thrown into this crazy
career.
And one of the noticeable things is that I spend a lot less time with the people I love.
Steel and stone is definitely a reference to my grandma’s house that I spent a lot
of my childhood at.
School, even.
Those buildings are significant to me.
Skin and bone is obviously my mom who’s been there from day one obviously and has
been incredible all the way through the problems I had with my sexuality, through all the issues
I faced growing up as a teenager, and then into my career and all this craziness that
this career has thrown me.
I reference all those people and all those buildings but I didn’t want to be specific
about one.
Also I’m conscious that this isn’t just a song for me.
This is a song for everybody.
This is quite a cool link for me to my hometown
because our city crest is 3 crowns underneath each other.
For people who live in Hull or have lived in Hull, it also gives them a sense of pride.
I’m a very proud Hull man.
Wherever I go, I talk about where I’m from.
I was very anonymous and could sort of just move in and out of people.
I could come and go as I please from the city whereas now I feel kind of a little bit more
restricted in a beautiful way.
I love what I do but I do miss that from my old life.
One of the things that keeps me awake is just not wanting to disappoint my fans.
Sometimes I worry that I’m not going to reach everybody and that people might not
feel like I’m making an effort with them.
So that’s why I try and keep myself approachable.
I try and keep talking to my fans on social media because my fans are so amazing.
They have such a great relationship with me.
I just keep that one to myself and just try and tell myself
that everything will be alright.
You know, one thing with time is that it’s not there forever.
There is at one point a very full table, come Christmas, birthdays.
And that started to get less and less.
And I think that shows you that time goes on no matter what.
And that you know, it’s one of those things that’s just going to continue to happen.
So I think I wanted to reference the fact
that there comes an end at some point.
So I just wanted to make sure that I added in there that time is precious.