Myles Smith remembers being in his childhood bedroom, turning up the music pulsing through his Skullcandy headphones so he couldn’t hear what was going on in the house.
“Sisters crying, slamming doors, plates are flying / I was born into a fractured family, where a word could start a war,” are the opening words Smith sings on his debut album, My Mess, My Heart, My Life.
Now speaking to Big Issue in the slick Sony Music offices in King’s Cross, Central London, he says: “There was no better place for me to start my debut album than at the place where I started music, which was in that household.”
The 27-year-old from Luton has sold out the O2 Arena in London before his first album is released. The only other person to have done that was Lewis Capaldi in 2019.
Smith built a following on TikTok by posting covers before releasing his own songs. His 2024 single Stargazing was a massive viral success and has been streamed more than a billion times, while his later hit Nice to Meet You has reached more than 360 million streams.
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“To the world, it might seem like an overnight success. To me, it feels like a lot of hard work,” Smith says.
He started out performing in pubs around Luton and Nottingham, where he studied at university. Sometimes there would be an audience of 100 people, and other times it would be one man and his Guinness at 9pm on a Tuesday.
“That’s where you cut your teeth. It’s those memories and experiences which make me appreciate what I’m doing now even more,” says Smith.
While trying to make it in music, he worked ordinary jobs – part-time in Tesco and then in office admin and operations roles, all of which he says are tougher than being a musician.
“Don’t get me wrong, I work a ridiculous amount, more than when I was in an office job, but I love what I do and that’s a real privilege,” he says.
Smith could have capitalised on the success of Stargazing, or his 2025 Brit Rising Star Award, but he has taken his time with releasing his debut album. He wanted to get it right.
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“I’ve had relative success and it was awesome to show a percentage of me, which is the fun, happy-go-lucky side. But I thought it was important to have an album that was rounded and showed more facets of the person I am.”
Smith read through old therapy notes to inspire his songs, a “visceral and cathartic experience” which he says plunged him back into parts of his life.
His favourite song on the album is Grandma’s Place, which takes us to his grandparents’ home, where he spent a lot of time growing up. He describes it as a place where he was let in from the cold, where it smelled like Dettol and oxtail soup, and where his grandmother would cover his ears when his “dad would scream horrible things”.
“My grandparents were super involved because of the situation I grew up in,” Smith says.
He suggests that the song was “selfishly written”. “If no one ever heard it, I wouldn’t care. I’m just happy it exists.”
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Smith speaks openly about the impact of his parents’ separation and father’s absence. He says he reacted “how anyone would when their dad’s not in their life”. He experienced “a lot of confusion, a lot of hurt, and then a lot of unanswered questions when you’re an adult”.
“Going to school whilst figuring out parental separation is difficult, whilst you’re also having to navigate what being sad feels like and what depression feels like at a young age.
“It was a super-complex time, but music gave me a meaning and a purpose and a space to exist where I felt fully like me. I wasn’t good at sport or the cool kid. Music was my calling.”
Music helped him understand the world and navigate relationships and heartbreak. Therapy has helped too. “I’ve therapied, therapied, therapied. I’ve been in and out of the gaff, from childhood to teenage years to adulthood. I’ve done it at so many different intervals in life. Some of the reasons are in the songs and some things are personal. I think there’s a real distinction between something being for me and something being for the world.”
Smith wants to be honest and vulnerable in his music, but he is wary of sharing too much. He is only just starting out and fame scares him.
“I fucking hate it. Fame’s shit. I love the fact that people know my music but, for me as an individual, I would hate to get to the level of fame when people care what I eat. I’ve had some weird situations. People follow me to airports and hotels and all that sort of stuff,” Smith says.
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“I’m grateful people like the music but there are boundaries. That’s why writing this album was always considered. I wanted to share myself but there’s also a line. There are some songs that are now just on a hard drive and maybe it’s a bit too much. I’m trying to find that line.”
But the music, Smith loves. “If I could tour till I’m dead, I’d do it.”
Myles Smith after winning the Rising Star award during The BRIT Awards 2025. Image: PA / Alamy
He enjoys connecting with fans through his music, although he doesn’t like the word ‘fans’, preferring ‘people who enjoy my music’. He also likes calling them his ‘pookies’.
When he won the Brit award, Smith spoke about being raised by a single mum on free school meals, and how government-backed music schemes meant his school got free instruments. Investment in the arts, he says, was “dire before but it’s even more dire now”.
“It’s a really scary time. Grassroots venues are closing. The wealth gap divide is making it more difficult for people from working-class backgrounds to get into music and the creative fields.
“I’m always trying to raise the conversation. But it shouldn’t be on the work of individuals to make sufficient and sustainable change. It should be a nationwide appeal.”
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Luton often ranks on ‘worst places to live in the UK’ lists, with high rates of crime and economic deprivation, but Smith speaks warmly about the commuter town he called home.
His friends were from a diverse range of cultures, which Smith says “gave me a real-world view from the confines of a small town”. “Normally you’d have to travel the world to find so much culture, whereas I grew up with it all around.”
Smith hopes he can help others from similar backgrounds find their place in music. He didn’t set out to become a role model, but with growth in influence, “naturally you take on more roles than you maybe signed up for, but it’s really awesome that I have an opportunity to change narratives”, he says.
What would he want to say to people who look at him as a role model? “Be happy. Be free. Do whatever the hell you want. Don’t be a twat.”
He hopes that the album challenges people to think critically about their lives and actions. One of the tracks, Mary’s Song, deals with domestic abuse, and while he didn’t necessarily set out to challenge current narratives around masculinity and the surge of the manosphere, he hopes he can provide an antidote.
“I grew up with my mum and my sister for the majority of my life. I don’t subscribe to traditional gender roles. My mum was a breadwinner. She’s also the person who helps me understand myself emotionally. I was able to express myself and be emotional. Hopefully in doing that as a young black man in the Britain we live in today, it could show there’s an alternative route to masculinity rather than what’s being presented online, which is absolutely insane.”
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The album’s second half is more hopeful, featuring songs such as Stargazing and Nice to Meet You as well as Stay (If You Wanna Dance). Smith wanted people to leave feeling good.
Smith is looking forward to the album’s release in June but there’s still some nervousness.
He stresses: “I’m at album one. I’m really at the start of the journey. If we’d stripped away everything before this album, would it be the same expectation? I’m still figuring this shit out.”
In one of the songs on the album, Sertraline, Smith asks himself: “Where am I now?”
He admits he still has “no idea”. But at this moment, he says: “I feel good. I feel happy. I feel stressed. I feel tired as hell, but I’m also really excited. I feel human.”
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