Rag‘n’Bone Man on his new album, plus watch his live session

Virgin Radio

30 Apr 2021, 14:28

Rag‘n’Bone Man joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky to play a brilliant live session, and to talk about his upcoming new album. He also discussed working with Pink, and performing at this year's BRIT Awards. 

Rory Graham, aka Rag‘n’Bone Man, performed an incredible live set this morning (Friday 30th April), which included All You Ever Wanted, the first single from his new album, Life By Misadventure. He also played his massive breakthrough hit, Human, as well as Crossfire and Fall in Love Again, and delivered a stunning cover of the Radiohead classic, Fake Plastic Trees.

The performance comes in the build-up to the multi-award-winning Sussex musician’s new album, which is released next Friday (7th May).

He told Chris, “I’m just really excited about people hearing new music. We’re just excited to get out and play today. 

“The way we engineered the album is kinda how I would play it as a live set. So it grows. It’s very slow and intimate at first and it gets much more rock ‘n’ roll towards the end.”

There is another familiar voice on the new album, which was written and recorded in Nashville. Pink appears on the song Anywhere Away From Here. It was necessary though, for the collaboration to be totally virtual due to the pandemic. “It was one of those things,” Rory explained. “Neither of us could travel where either of us were. We had to do it via email.” 

The two artists will perform the song live at this year’s BRIT Awards on 11th May, although Pink will be appearing virtually from the US. This means there won’t be any of her trademark acrobatics on the night. “There’s going to be no aerial stuff this year. Well, I’m not doing it!” Rory joked.

It won’t just be Pink and Rag‘n’Bone Man performing the song though. They will be joined by the NHS Trust Choir, “I haven’t met them,” the singer told Chris. “The arrangement has kind of been done already, so the first time I am going to meet them is when we’re going to be singing together.”

Rag‘n’Bone Man hits the road for his own headline tour this autumn, playing venues across the UK and Ireland in October and November. When discussing having to down tools for so long because of the pandemic, he said, “We’ve been together as a band for such a long time now and it feels like a really weird experience, having that much time off.” 

An illustration of how much Rag‘n’Bone Man missed singing live was that the police were called to his house on his last birthday, as they thought he was having a party, but when they arrived they discovered the noise was just Rory and his housemate Chris doing some rather enthusiastic karaoke. “We weren’t doing anything wrong, he laughed. “The police were really embarrassed because they said our next door neighbours grassed us up and said we were having a party, but we weren't. It was just me and Chris.”