Look out, Ed Sheeran: Tom Walker’s your Brit rock competition

If you happen to’re on the lookout for the subsequent Ed Sheeran, he has arrived as one other ginger troubadour from the UK: Tom Walker, a Scottish singer-songwriter who comes off like a grittier, growlier model of the “Form of You” crooner on his debut album, “What a Time To Be Alive,” out Friday. Final week, Walker adopted in Sheeran’s footsteps by profitable breakthrough British act on the Brit Awards — the UK’s reply to the Grammys — in London. “I had, like, 5 or 6 beers earlier than accepting the award, so I used to be fairly tipsy once I went up there,” says Walker of selecting up the celebrated prize, which has additionally gone to the likes of Sam Smith, Dua Lipa and Arctic Monkeys. “I wasn’t anticipating it, so I simply began pounding beers once I obtained to the Brits. It’s a free bar, so why not? I kinda simply obtained pissed [slang for drunk].” A unique form of buzz has continued to construct for Walker, 27, within the US. Earlier this week, he carried out on the “As we speak” present and at an unique business showcase on the Decrease East Facet’s Ludlow Home, throughout which he captured the gang with a soulful, stripped-down intimacy. Walker’s first live performance expertise, along with his dad, was way more of a headbanger. “I can keep in mind going to see AC/DC in Paris, once I was, like, 9,” he says. “After that, I begged my dad for a guitar.” Whereas finding out songwriting on the London Centre of Modern Music — now referred to as the London Faculty of Inventive Media — Walker didn’t initially wish to be a singer. “It form of all simply got here collectively [because] I wanted anyone to sing the songs I used to be writing,” he says. Certainly one of his most romantic songs, “Simply You and I,” is about his fiancée, Annie, whom he proposed to in Sri Lanka final August. In the meantime, Walker’s UK hit “Go away a Mild On” places a robust concentrate on mental-health points — and helped earn him an invitation to carry out on the Royal Basis dinner in November 2018. Chatting up Prince William and Prince Harry, plus their wives, Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, respectively, the London-based Walker bonded most with William: “He was [making] jokes with me, which I believed was cool. It humanized the entire state of affairs. He appeared like an actual good man.” Walker, who later acquired a handwritten letter from William thanking him for performing on the dinner, remains to be “fairly shocked” about the entire thing. “I can’t imagine I’ve met the royal household,” he says. “It’s, like, a kind of belongings you by no means anticipate to do in your life.” [embedded content] Share this: https://nypost.com/2019/02/28/look-out-ed-sheeran-tom-walkers-your-brit-rock-competition/ The post Look out, Ed Sheeran: Tom Walker’s your Brit rock competition appeared first on My style by Kartia.