Jess Glynne: ‘I don’t know what I want now — to be with a guy, with a girl, be with anyone’

In the past year Jess Glynne has topped the charts three times. But with binge-drinking and relationship turmoil blighting her rise to fame, things haven’t been easy. She talks to Craig McLean about seeking advice from Sam Smith, partying with Taylor Swift and what happened when she fell in love with a woman
Waistcoat, £650, Acne Studios at selfridges.com. Cropped top, £310, 3.1 Phillip Lim (31philliplim.com). Pantalone, £675, Isa Arfen at mnzstore.com. Shoes, £58, Topshop (topshop.com). Picture: Peter Pedonomou
Craig McLean14 May 2015

Jess Glynne is weary. She’s dressed down in ripped jeans and a bomber jacket, her copper curls are piled on top of her head and her freckled face is pale and make-up-free. Having just returned from California, where she was performing at Coachella, she’s still jet-lagged and is slugging coffee. She spent the small hours in her new flat in Stoke Newington watching YouTube interviews with Amy Winehouse, her curiosity piqued by the trailer for upcoming documentary Amy: ‘I saw that a month ago and I literally had tears streaming down my face.’

Glynne counts Winehouse as a major influence. When she was in her early teens, Glynne’s parents returned from an evening in Soho with a signed copy of the late singer’s debut album Frank, having watched her perform. ‘She was such an important figure in me getting to where I am. She really, really inspired me.’

Like Winehouse, Glynne is Jewish and grew up in North London: Glynne, 25, in Muswell Hill; Winehouse, six years her senior, in Southgate. Both are known for their powerful, soulful voices and their songs share a certain tough-but-vulnerable rawness. And both went through the relationship mill — more of which later. ‘Although, to begin with, when she first came out, I thought: “I’m f***ed — another North London Jew with similar influences,” ’ says Glynne.

She needn’t have worried. You might not recognise her face (yet) but you’ll almost certainly know the throaty timbre of her voice. In the past 12 months she’s repeatedly topped the charts thanks to a string of hit collaborations, including ‘My Love’, with house producer Route 94, and ‘Real Love’ and ‘Rather Be’ with classical-dance quartet Clean Bandit. The last, released in January 2014, was one of the fastest-selling singles of the year, soundtracked an M&S food-porn ad and was named Best Dance Recording at the Grammys this Feb-ruary. Glynne celebrated in style: ‘We ended up at Sam Smith’s party, at his house in the Hollywood Hills. It was hilarious. Everyone was there, and everyone was drinking — Charli XCX, Taylor Swift, The Weeknd, Rita [Ora]…’ She’s not about to spill any party secrets, but suffice to say it was ‘a great night. A big night.’

Now she’s set to be the sound of the summer. The upbeat floor-filler ‘Hold My Hand’ (her second solo single; the first was the top-ten charting ‘Right Here’, released last June) debuted at number one when it was released in March: expect to see her on festival stages across the country, from Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Norwich this month to V Festival in August, via New Look Wireless in Finsbury Park in July.

Suede trench coat, £3,995, Burberry Prorsum (burberry.com). Shorts, £574, Vionnet (vionnet.com). Styled by Orsolya Szabo (Picture: Peter Pedonomou)

It would be easy to assume success has come easily — not least because her mother used to work in A&R for Atlantic Records (her father is an estate agent). In fact, it’s been a long, hard slog. As a child she sat in her bedroom listening to Whitney Houston, then recording herself singing the songs, but at her comprehensive school, Fortismere in Muswell Hill, attempts to try out for anything music-related were unsuccessful. Aged 15, she applied for The X Factor, but was rejected.

After leaving school, she spent six months travelling, then drifted through a variety of jobs, including a stint at the Finchley branch of LA Fitness, and sales work at Topman in Brent Cross. There was also, she says, ‘a moment, a party year’, which occurred soon after returning from her travels. ‘I didn’t know where I was going. I needed some sort of structure in my life.’ Too anxious to take drugs (‘I’m scared that I’ll die’), she turned to alcohol. ‘[I] literally fell into a block of… lostness. You just binge…’ Eventually, she sought help from a psychotherapist, who, she says, ‘mentally got me in a place where I felt I could map my life out’.

It wasn’t until she enrolled in a year-long course at the British Academy of New Music in Bromley-by-Bow that her dreams of being a professional musician began to take shape. She struck up a rapport with fellow student Jin Jin (Janée Bennett) and the pair began writing together. Their demos — and Glynne’s distinctive voice — quickly attracted attention from publishing companies, and Black Butter Records, the London label that first released Clean Bandit, Rudimental and Jessie Ware, signed her up. In August 2013, a record deal at Warner’s Atlantic imprint followed.

It sounds like a dream come true — except for one thing. ‘I was actually broken-hearted,’ says Glynne. She’d recently come out of a relationship and was, she says, in ‘a dark place’. ‘[It was] the most horrible situation I could have been in. She just f***ed me over. It was the first girl I’d ever fallen in love with.’ She stops, surprised by her own candour. This is the first time she’s discussed her sexuality in public. ‘I’ve never said that to anyone…’ she says, before ploughing on. ‘It was a relationship that was so new to me. Someone I met working.’ She’s reluctant to define her orientation too narrowly. ‘I don’t know what I want now — to be with a guy, with a girl, be with anyone.’ For the moment, she’s relishing her independence. ‘I’m so content with just doing this and seeing where it all takes me.’

Sleeveless jacket, POA, Balmain (balmain.com). Top, POA, Christian Dior (christiandior.fr). Pantalone, £675, Isa Arfen at mnzstore.com. Sunglasses, £560, Thom Browne at mrporter.com. Styled by Orsolya Szabo. (Picture: Peter Pedonomou)

The confusion and heartbreak inspired much of her writing. She says her song ‘Don’t Be So Hard’ describes her state of mind ‘at the beginning, when I started doing everything’. It was a bittersweet moment — professionally exciting, personally tumultuous. ‘The first lyrics are: “I came here with a broken heart that no one else could see/I drew a smile on my face to paper over me…” That’s literally what happened.’

Still, for all the angst, her album is far from a woe-is-me confessional. Instead, it mixes the house-flavoured pop with which Glynne made her name with reflective moments of songcraft. A standout track is ‘Saddest Vanilla’, written with Emeli Sandé and produced by Naughty Boy. ‘That was one of my favourite sessions. The three of us went out for food and were just talking for hours about life. She’s a really lovely girl. We were talking about growing up and school and bullies, and what we both went through…’ While Sandé was picked on for the colour of her skin in the Scottish Highlands, Glynne had the mickey taken for the colour of her hair. ‘Emeli and I were both these people who were a bit odd... I wasn’t really bullied as much, but I had that segregation — people trying to make you feel a bit different.’ The song — a lush, thoughtful ballad — was inspired by their shared memories of being the only one sitting alone in a school dinner hall: ‘We thought of that person sitting there with their ice cream or cake, crying.’

Celebrity friends, a string of hits, high-level collaborations… It would be easy for success to go to Glynne’s head. But she still seems to view it all with wide-eyed glee, excitably recounting tales of nights out. After the Brits, she tells me, she attended the Warner Music party at Freemasons’ Hall in Covent Garden, at which Ed Sheeran was photographed looking more than a little the worse for wear. He’d been celebrating with Glynne. ‘I was saying to him, “You need to stop drinking — seriously!” And he was like, “Ahhh… no…” The next day, she had a photo shoot: ‘I did turn up to that photo shoot feeling really rough, and I felt so guilty!’ she says.

She’s been asking her new-found industry friends for advice on how to stay grounded. ‘Emeli was amazing to talk to. She really helped me see a different perspective. She’s obviously gone through a lot,’ she says of the singer whose own debut-album success story was followed by divorce. Sheeran is another confidant, as is Sam Smith who she recently messaged, asking: ‘Dude, seriously, how do you do it?’ She laughs at her flashes of insecurity. ‘You’re like, “Everyone else is fine… and I’m sitting here having a panic attack!” But you talk to them and we all go through it. I wake up every day doing something completely different from the last.’ Which is not to say she’d have it any other way. As she acknowledges, success is ‘a great problem’ to have. ‘It’s not an easy life to live but I would never change it.’

Jess Glynne’s debut album I Cry When I Laugh is out on 14 August. Photographs by Peter Pedonomou, styled by Orsolya Szabo

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