With report by Edwin P. Sallan
“Say You Won’t Let Go” is among the 12 songs to reach 1 billion streams on Spotify, a record UK artist James Arthur would not have expected after winning The X Factor UK back in 2012. With lyrics that describe unconditional love and a black-and-white music video to match, it’s understandable how this Middlesbrough-bourn Brit touched the heart strings of the hopeless romantic Pinoy identity.
Coached by Filipino-American Nicole Scherzinger, it almost seemed like destiny to have links to the country even before his hit singles reached the other side of the hemisphere.
He shared how Scherzinger gave him a general picture of the Philippines.
“I’ve had endless amounts of love from Nicole, It’s probably from her Filipino side why she’s very humble, very loving and respectful. Even today, she doesn’t have to be my friend even beyond the X Factor, but she remains to be someone who comes to see my every show, whenever we’re in the same town, I’ve got much respect for her.”
Arthur won a two year record deal from X-Factor and dished out amazing singles and his self-titled debut album and his subsequent release, “Back from the Edge.” He reflected on some of the difficulties of being a solo artist and reminisces about his band days.
“I have a band with me now, although we have different dressing rooms and it feels weird at times, I like to present myself on stage and on my shows like I’m in a band,” he said, “it would be cool to have four other guys to answer some of the questions and share the media obligations [because] I’ve never been good at getting my true personality across to the media. I’ve been burned by certain questions in the past and it has made me very cautious during interviews. To have other people to bounce off of and to show my true personality, I would probably benefit from that.”
Arthur shared what was going through his head during a hiatus in his career and the eventual success of Say You Won’t Let Go, two years after losing his contract with the record company.
“I definitely wanted to quit, because looking at the statistics of people who won the X Factor before me, especially men, their careers were over in the first attempt when they lost the record label, like nobody would think that they would come back and do anything of any note– I had that at the back of my head while I was trying to keep going. Why would the radio ever play me again, why would the X Factor ask me to perform again. I not only lost my record label, but also tarnished my reputation because of this public meltdown, so I had to work with that on my mind, but I’ve always been a fighter, luckily that paid off.”
Just three decades into his life and somewhat of a fresh start to his career, Arthur has witnessed quite a lot of traveling the world and touching the hearts of his old and new fans. More than his physical growth, this young pop acoustic balladeer has matured in terms of his emotions and in his music. He shared the motto he has kept all these years during and after X Factor.
“Know thyself,” he beamed, “joining a competition like that, it’s very important to have an identity, to know what kind of artist you want to be. I always knew what I could do and what I was capable of. The X Factor was good to show people I could take any genre of music, any song and make it my own.
“A dream for me would be to leave behind a legacy, more than just somebody who wrote ‘Say You Won’t Let Go,’ I want to be here and be someone who just makes honest music, I want to help people through my music.
“I don’t want to make pop music any more. I feel like I don’t have anything left to prove it, and I’m starting to get known as a guy who writes ballads, at least people know who I am. I’m very happy for the platform that it has given me but the price that I paid is that the music industry wants to put me in a box straight away and once you’re in that box, it’s very hard to break out of it. Now that I’ve done my thing in pop music, it’s time for me to make music that I really, really love.
To lighten the mood, he noted that having a six pack abs is also in his bucket list.
Image credits: Patrick Lasanas