Rag'n'Bone Man wanted new music to be "completely separate" to Human album

1 February 2021, 20:15 | Updated: 2 February 2021, 12:09

By Jenny Mensah

The singer-songwriter has spoken about his guitar-laden All You Ever Wanted single and revealed that he wanted his latest record to be a "project rather than an album".

Rag'n'Bone Man confirmed the release of his second studio album Life By Misadventure last week and unveiled its first single was All You Ever Wanted.

Asked about what he wanted to say with the indie-infused track, which is our Radio X Record of the Week, he told George Godfrey: "I just wanted to first of all do something that's, like with this whole album actually, just do something that's completely separate to the Human album and this feels like a project rather than an album".

The singer-songwriter added: "I commandeered all of my favourite musicians, we did the whole album live. It's a real, like a kind of more guitar-led album. Especially this single. And I really just wanted to be properly honest in this album and just not hold back on anything, really.

"So there's a lot of recurring subjects about me being a bit scared about what the future holds for my son and stuff like that, because we live in very dark and weird times."

Talking about the sound of his second record, Rag'n'Bone Man - whose real name is Rory Graham - revealed: "All of the songs were written on guitar in their demo format, so I kind of knew straight away that it was going to be a more guitar-led album, hence why I got Wendy Melvoin to play guitar on it from Prince and the Revolution. She's an amazing, amazing guitarist and put this fully cinematic sound to it.

"I'm pretty lucky to be honest."

Asked if Bruce Springsteen was much of an influence on the single, the Sussex singer-songwriter replied: "Yeah, definitely, Springsteen and I guess a lot of 80s new wave bands.

"I listen to a lot of stuff like The Cars. I listen to The Smiths a lot as well and I'm a big Johnny Marr fan, as well and Blondie, stuff like that. So all of those kinds of influences come through on that track."

Rag'n'Bone Man's Life By Misadventure album is set for release on 23 April 2021.