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In conversation with: Rag ‘N’ Bone Man on new album, featuring on FIFA and Northern confidence

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Danny Jones - 29th October 2024

We recently got time to chat with UK solo artist Rag ‘N’ Bone Man around the release of his new album What Do You Believe In?

The Uckfield-born soul and pop singer, best known for tracks like ‘Human’, ‘Giant’ and ‘Skin’, dropped his third studio album earlier this month and is ramping up for a UK tour this November.

Real name Rory Graham, the 39-year-old has entered a new chapter both musically and personally, and that evolution can certainly be heard in his current sound.

We covered plenty in our recent discussion over on Audio North.

Rag ‘N’ Bone Man interview

So straight off the bat, your new record What Do You Believe In? is finally here, how buzzing are you for the world to finally get to grips with it?

Well, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve released an album and, you know, I just really hope people take it in as as a whole record. I think it’s hard in this day where people consume music totally differently and you know people don’t have much patience when it comes to music.

It’s all about like 40-second clips and stuff like that, but I think that I have this great fan base where you know they’re into vinyl and stuff, so I’m hoping that those people at least take the record as a whole.

That means that I can go and play the record as a whole and when I come out on tour they might know some of the songs I don’t know.

Yeah, it’s one of those things, isn’t it? I feel like the album experience is sadly dying off a bit – with that in mind have you made it to be enjoyed as a start-to-finish piece?

I mean, I would like it but I didn’t make it like that; I just try and write the best songs that I can. The album does take a bit of a journey and it’s very different in parts but it does have an overall vibe to it.

There’s kind of early 2000s neo-soul mixed with a bit of hip-hop and then later on it gets very dancey with some disco and funk in there too, but you know, I’m always the same: I just want to write good songs regardless of what the genre is.

What a great mix. Who are some of the artists you’ve been listening to lately and do you think they’ve left their fingerprints on the sound a little bit?

Well, the first person I worked with on this record was Jamie Liddell and he’s f***ing genius. When I explained to him what I was trying to do and how I wanted it to be sample-based but to try and make our own samples, not just so we don’t have to pay anyone, but like so even the samples are original.

It very much harks back to the era of hip-hop samples that pull from ’60s kind of soul music. You even hear it later on in the record on ‘Rush Of Blood’, where we sampled our own first part and put it in a tape machine and slowed it down, so I think it carries on like that throughout the record.

I think I referenced a lot of kind of early 2000s neo-soul people like Angie Stone and stuff like that. Some of the horns were referencing Rick James and Heatwave and stuff like that, so yeah, it takes some twists but it’s just got a real air of like sunniness.

Even in the songs that are a little bit deeper and are maybe a little bit sadder or whatever, they don’t really feel that way musically: they still feel quite positive and uplifting – not that I was trying to make a happy album on purpose or anything, yeah, but I guess your life and the way your soul feels at a time kind of reflects, you know, on what music you make.

I’ve been very content in my personal life so, you know, touch wood everything’s been going pretty well and that’s definitely reflected in the record.

Although Rory is recently engaged and is clearly enjoying his life both in and outside of music lately, he’s not been without hardships to write about:

@thesun The hitmaker, 39, opened up on the hugely poignant meaning behind his new album #thegrahamnortonshow #ragnboneman #grahamnorton ♬ original sound – The Sun

Yeah, there’s always been that uplifting gospel feel to your sound too, would you say you were trying to push in a different direction this time or is it more just a continuation for you?

No, there is a continuation a little bit but I think with this one, especially, I was thinking about live [performance] way more when I was writing it.

Sometimes I’ll play like three or four songs and I think f***ing hell, they’re all in a minor key and, you know, I think all the time I’m spent writing and in production of the song I’m thinking ‘How’s this gonna sound live?’ That’s where I am most of the time when I finish a record.

Absolutely. And speaking of live shows, you’ve got a whole bunch of Northern shows coming up in Manchester, Leeds and Glasgow – is it a region that you feel like affinity to playing in?

I mean, I love playing down South and obviously Brighton’s like my home crowd and London’s great albeit sometimes tough, but I don’t think I’ve ever found the North like a difficult place to tour because I just always feel like I have confidence going into places like Manchester.

Whether it was like playing like Gorilla or the Ritz or whatever, because I’ve spent so many years coming back I never seem to have had a bad crowd.

Yeah, we don’t do bad crowds. What about favourites off the record then?

I really like ‘Hideaway’: it’s like the second song that I wrote for the record and the one where I was like this is it – this is the sound that I feel like is going to kind of eke its way through the rest of the record.

There’s a really great horn sound on it that I actually just recorded doing whilst doing a stupid little impression with my mouth to try and explain to my trumpet player and then we ended up using it alongside real instruments, which I just think sounds really cool.

It’s got a great sort of super happy vibe, so it’ll be great to play live, especially in a sort of summer festival situation.

The opening track [‘The Right Way’] is something that’s actually been knocking around since 2018 too. I went to Nashville to play a festival called Bonnaroo; me and Jamie decided to record some stuff and came up with a song which I’ve been in love with ever since but I didn’t fit on the second record, so I just needed to wait for the moment. This record was the right time for sure and it’s got a great sample too.

Ace. Just out of curiosity, you were famously on the FIFA soundtrack a few years back and plenty of artists have spoken about the impact that has had on their careers in the past. Is it something you recognised at the time or was it just flattering?

No, it felt like a massive deal at the time and I understand what artists are saying about that because I remember discovering songs through it and even remember hearing ‘Pumped Up Kicks’ for the first time on FIFA.

I mean even football in general: I must have had some friends at Sky Sports or something because every time I turned on the channel when ‘Human’ was first out it was always on. Hopefully one of the new ones will end up in the next few games, who knows?

And lastly, if you could sum up the new album in three words, what would they be?

Full of love.

Read more:

• Sum 41’s sensational Manchester send-off: a bittersweet goodbye to a big part of our youth
• Lidl pokes fun at Liam Gallagher’s £400 jacket with brilliantly well-placed advert in Manchester
• More than 50,000 Oasis tickets set to be cancelled and re-listed for sale

You can grab tickets to see Rag ‘N’ Bone Man in Manchester at the O2 Apollo HERE.

Featured Images — The Manc Group/Fiona Garden/Press Images (supplied)