Lewis Capaldi: From West Lothian pub singer to international megastar
| Author | Daniel Thompson |
| Published date | 16 June 2022 |
| Publication title | EdinburghLive (Scotland) |
The 25-year-old has spoken of how the runaway success of the song was 'surreal'. He doesn't believe he will ever match it again, either.
In an interview with the Sunday Mirror, he said: "I don't deserve to have a No 1 for seven weeks – no one deserves to have a No1 for seven weeks. It's an anomaly.
"When a song does that, it's so much bigger than you. I felt it was happening to someone else and I was just watching."
Capaldi has also spoken publicly about how much he fears making a follow-up album in case it doesn't live up to expectations. Last year he postponed his scheduled gigs to focus on completing it.
But, with the album expected later in the year, this summer he is back performing live. He was at Parklife in Manchester last week and is set for headline appearances at the Isle of Wight Festival on Friday night and TRNSMT in Glasgow on Sunday 10 July.
With Capaldi back on the stage, we have taken a closer look at his stratospheric rise from West Lothian pub singer to the prince of heartbreak pop.
Lewis Capaldi's early life
Capaldi, born in Glasgow in 1996, is of Scottish, Irish and Italian ancestry. On his father's side, his second cousin once removed is Doctor Who actor Peter Capaldi, who was in the music video for Someone You Loved.
His mother is a nurse, his father a fishmonger, and he is the youngest of four children. He was raised in West Lothian - going to school at St. Kentigern's Academy in Blackburn - and he was a keen musician from an early age, performing in Bathgate pubs aged nine.
He was determined to pursue a career in the music industry from the age of 17 and he graduated with a HND in Music from New College Lanarkshire, Motherwell, in 1996.
Lewis Capaldi's biggest hits
Capaldi's manager, Ryan Walter, discovered the singer through an iPhone video uploaded to SoundCloud. Walter flew from America to Britain a day after contacting Capaldi to watch him perform.
Capaldi's debut EP, Bloom, was released in 2017. Bruises, the first track he released, racked up more than 25m plays on Spotify across the globe - making him the fastest ever unsigned artist to reach that landmark on the streaming service.
But his career really took off when Someone You Loved was released late in 2018. Along with its UK success, it charted in 29 countries around the world.
It even went to number one in the US...
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