We love ourselves a good teenage success story, and British newcomer Tom A. Smith seems to be the next in line on the fast track to fame. And well shit, he might even already be there, with the Sunderland 17-year-old’s self-posted online videos leading him to festivals like Glastonbury and Kendall Calling (hand picked by Tim Burgess), shared stages with Sam Fender and Catfish & The Bottlemen, and earned praise from James’ Tim Booth, Morrissey, Blossoms, and David Bowie’s widow Iman, amongst others.
“It’s never normal. Every single time it happens it’s surreal,” says Smith on his increased recognition. “Music is always what I wanted to do. I just fell in love with it. I asked for guitar lessons when I was four. It’s all I’ve ever known.”
So what’s all the fuss about? We catch a glimpse of it this week with the release of Smith’s debut single “Wolves”, a glistening guitar-pop tune that feels like it’s been in our playlists for years. If this striking first impression dropped a few months ago, it might be in literally everyone’s upcoming Spotify Wrapped.
This track, and more surely on the way to help craft a breakout 2022, were written during COVID lockdown at the start of 2020. Shifting from covers to originals was a natural progression for the pop prodigy.
“I’ve just kept sticking at it, but it is never something that I 100 percent just thought was going to happen,” he says. “It’s a competitive world and I’ve just kept at it… At the start of 2020 I probably had about 11 songs, but then I thought, ‘OK, right, I’m really going to go for it now…’ I spent seven hours a day every day working on and recording music. I think I’ve got about nine albums’ worth of songs now.”
Prepare for liftoff.