My road trip around America in 2009 was the closest I’ve ever come to a perfect summer. I was 19 and about to head off to university. I assumed that after getting my degree, I’d end up in a proper job like everyone else. I went out there along with 10 friends from school with no aim in mind – but somehow, I ended up working out what I wanted to do with my life.
I’d always played music, starting with the clarinet at the age of nine. But until that point, I’d always been listening, rather than writing. I didn’t think about doing it for a job until that summer. The trip was a musical pilgrimage.
It was also a hustle. I’d saved up £2,000 pulling pints and serving pizzas in a pub in my hometown, which wasn’t enough. So it wasn’t long before we were eating stuff out of tins and staying in $12 hostels with mould and bugs or sleeping on people’s couches.
It never felt like a struggle though – more like a challenge to see how much fun you could have and how few dollars you could spend. We had an Amtrak pass, which was $250 for two months of travelling. So we got about mostly on trains, or Greyhound buses, watching the passing scenery for hours between New York and Chicago, Texas and California.
Over that summer, we had no real agenda. We let the music decide where to take us. We went to loads of festivals and gigs and saw so many of our favourite US bands, and even a few UK acts out there on tour.
Early on in the trip, we went to a big festival in Austin, Texas. We were blagging a lot, putting ourselves on guest lists, pretending to be from record companies.
We also saw a lot of blues and country in bars. I saw some amazing techniques on guitar, some banjo playing and some seamless vocal harmonising that blew me away. It made music seem attainable, like something you could do well without needing to be a huge pop star.
One night, a group of us were partying in a forest overlooking San Francisco Bay and we mistook the orange lights shining through the trees for some kind of amazing light show off in the distance. Actually it was the swirling lights of two police cars, coming to check us out. It was a sobering reminder of how amazing and unpredictable the world can be, but also how fickle our impressions of it can seem.
That image stuck in my head as an allegory for whenever I felt misguided in any kind of situation. The shock of having a police torch shining in my face, when I’d made the mistake of thinking it was something celestial, inspired me to write my new single Californian Light.
For me, that summer was the end of being a kid. When I came back I felt: “I know what I’m going to do with my life now.”
Not long after I returned, I formed a band at university – and called it Childhood.
I’d always played music, starting with the clarinet at the age of nine. But until that point, I’d always been listening, rather than writing. I didn’t think about doing it for a job until that summer. The trip was a musical pilgrimage.
It was also a hustle. I’d saved up £2,000 pulling pints and serving pizzas in a pub in my hometown, which wasn’t enough. So it wasn’t long before we were eating stuff out of tins and staying in $12 hostels with mould and bugs or sleeping on people’s couches.
It never felt like a struggle though – more like a challenge to see how much fun you could have and how few dollars you could spend. We had an Amtrak pass, which was $250 for two months of travelling. So we got about mostly on trains, or Greyhound buses, watching the passing scenery for hours between New York and Chicago, Texas and California.
Over that summer, we had no real agenda. We let the music decide where to take us. We went to loads of festivals and gigs and saw so many of our favourite US bands, and even a few UK acts out there on tour.
Early on in the trip, we went to a big festival in Austin, Texas. We were blagging a lot, putting ourselves on guest lists, pretending to be from record companies.
We also saw a lot of blues and country in bars. I saw some amazing techniques on guitar, some banjo playing and some seamless vocal harmonising that blew me away. It made music seem attainable, like something you could do well without needing to be a huge pop star.
One night, a group of us were partying in a forest overlooking San Francisco Bay and we mistook the orange lights shining through the trees for some kind of amazing light show off in the distance. Actually it was the swirling lights of two police cars, coming to check us out. It was a sobering reminder of how amazing and unpredictable the world can be, but also how fickle our impressions of it can seem.
That image stuck in my head as an allegory for whenever I felt misguided in any kind of situation. The shock of having a police torch shining in my face, when I’d made the mistake of thinking it was something celestial, inspired me to write my new single Californian Light.
For me, that summer was the end of being a kid. When I came back I felt: “I know what I’m going to do with my life now.”
Not long after I returned, I formed a band at university – and called it Childhood.