Example Instagram – Absolute beauty of a day down at Bute Park in Cardiff yesterday. Thanks for all coming out to see me.
‘Watch The Sun Come Up’ came out in 2009 and was my first chart hit. My first UK Top 40. It came out at a time when I was thinking about giving up on music and moving into filmmaking, which was always my original dream. Shout out Dave Dollimore at Ministry for giving me a second shot at this game after my first album ‘What We Made’.
If you heard my mixtape ‘We Didn’t Invent The Mixtape’ in 2006 (shout out The Beats and Mike Skinner!!!) you’ll know there was a song called ‘One Night’ which sampled José Gonzaléz’ ‘Heartbeats’. Rusher aka @lastgard flipped Heartbeats into something pretty special. I wrote the song about a one night stand I had in Oslo after a gig. One of my earliest ‘rockstar’ moments, she was absurdly beautiful and I did take one of her gloves as a souvenir, as the lyrics state. (Go find ‘One Night’ on YouTube).
2 years later I met an incredible producer called Alex Smith at Metrophonic. He played me this beautiful, timeless beat and chorus which was the bare bones of ‘Watch The Sun Come Up’. I reworded and tweaked the verses I’d done on ‘One Night’ to fit the tempo and groove on Watch The Sun. I then added a bridge and middle 8 myself and the song was done. Lots of people always thought the song was about a night out in Ibiza because the music video was filmed in Ibiza. But the song was essentially about a snow covered night in Oslo. Let’s face it – no one wears gloves in Ibiza 😂
We followed with ‘Won’t Go Quietly’ the single. And then ‘Kickstarts’ came. ‘Kickstarts was the song that changed my career and life forever. But ‘Watch The Sun Come Up’ was the one that signalled my arrival as an artist for a wider audience. Pete Tong & Zane Lowe both played a huge part in breaking Watch The Sun on Radio 1 and I’m forever grateful. Those were the days when a radio DJ could really change the trajectory of a song and a career. Sadly radio isn’t what it used to be. It’s too safe and there’s not enough exciting new voices being championed. But times change. And I love the fact that Greg James still plays Watch The Sun often and bigs me up.
E x | Posted on 12/May/2024 14:31:42
