Phil Plested is a busy boy. Not only is he nurturing a career as one of British pop music’s hottest go-to hitmakers, but his eponymous solo project has already gifted us with more classic sad-bangers than we know what to do with.
We caught up with him at this year’s Barn On The Farm festival to chat about BBC Radio 1, writing for Lewis Capaldi, and how a certain Little Mix song wormed its way out of his brain and into the charts…
Plested! You’re back at Barn On The Farm! How are you finding it?
‘I’m loving it! Barn On The Farm is the one, y’know? It’s definitely the highlight of my year every time I come here. It’s just so chilled. I feel like I’m at home? It’s the one time of the year when all of us similar writers come together, and we all love emotion and… Crying… And, well everything that’s here, really. So, it’s great to be back.
More importantly, someone’s been all over BBC Radio 1’s Introducing slot this week…
‘I know, right?! How has that happened?! It’s a bit crazy. To be honest, the emotion that I’m feeling the most is confusion. I think my Mum’s finally gonna be like ‘Yes! He’s done it!’, ha! But, it is an amazing thing. I love Radio 1, and I love BBC Introducing – what they do for up and coming artists is amazing, so to kind of get involved with them and then to make it onto Radio 1 is a massive highlight of the year.
‘And, who knows what might happen from there? I think, for me, it’s a big foot in the door.
‘It’s a great time for singer-songwriters, too; you’ve got Lewis Capaldi, and Tom Walker, and a bunch of other guys like that, have kind of paved the way for singer-songwriters again. It all comes around every now and then and I guess that now is the time for singer-songwriters.
When can we expect some more new music from you?
‘A new track is coming out next month – at the start of August, I think. It’s a track called The Least That I Could Do: I played a little version of it at Barn On The Farm this year, and it’s, like, the hardest song to sing on planet earth. That’s why nobody’s heard it up until now, because I’ve been practicing it every day of my life because I’m like ‘I can’t actually sing this, I don’t know what I’ve done to myself…!’. But, I love that song so much, and we’ve just been waiting for the right moment to drop it; and, it feels good at the moment, and I feel like the pot’s bubbling, so we’re just going to see what happens.
‘I think that’s all you can do these days. There’s no point holding them back. Just get them out into the world and people will decide for you whether they like it or not.
Either they love it, or they don’t.
‘OH!
[One on One spent the next five minutes apologising profusely for that terrible joke. Nothing to see here, people. Move along.]
When you’re writing a song, do you tend to consider how you’re going to play it live?
‘Always. And when I’m writing with other people as well, I always say ‘how is this going to be performed live?’. I think that’s the most important thing. Especially within the contexts of a set, too; you wanna know where it’s going to sit in your set; if it’s going to be first, or whether it’s going to be your set closer.
‘I feel like they should always have a story to tell, too. When I write – and this is especially true with my songs – I always start with a concept. Even just one line, or a word, where I’m like “that is solid, that could be a song”. Like, my song Either You Love Me Or You Don’t: we just had that line, and we just thought to ourselves “right, where can we go from here?”.
And, when you’re in a session with other artists, do you ever end up with a Plested song when you were expecting to come out with a song that would end up with somebody else?
‘I generally just go in and see what happens. Like, I never really write for myself, specifically; so, whenever I’m doing a session with other writers, I just go in like “let’s just write a song!” and see what happens from there.
‘When I’m in with other artists… For example, I was with Dermot Kennedy a couple of weeks ago, and it was just an absolute privilege to be in a room with him. So, I said to him, ‘just run with it!’. Like, I’m not even gonna get in your way. You’re amazing, and I’m probably not going to make that any better, so I’ll just sit here and be like ‘oh, that’s cool, that’s not so cool…’ and just pitch in depending on how it’s going.
You’ve had one hell of a couple of years as a songwriter, too. First The Chainsmoker and Calum Scott, then Hollywood on Lewis Capaldi’s album…
‘Yeah! Urgh. What is going on? I never really expect things to go well – I’m a massive pessimist – so I’m just always pleased when things go well. I think, with an industry like music… It’s like swings and roundabouts, but I find that being a pessimist helps because you go in with no expectations. I feel like I’ve succeeded in the fact that I can do music as a day-to-day thing; and, if people listen to my music, then that’s just great. I love that!
You never know when things are going to connect, either. You can release a song to minimal fanfare and then have it blow up nine months down the line.
‘Exactly. I’m good friends with Maisie Peters now – I just did a tour with her – and she’s just had her track played on Love Island, and now it’s going off! She’s on the playlist of Radio 1; and, now that Either You Love Me Or You Don’t is on there, I talk to her and we’re like ‘Yeah! We’re on the playlist together!’.
Can we expect an album from you any time soon?
‘Okay, so: First and Foremost came out at the end of last year, and that was kind of wrapping up 2018. Now, we’re aiming for an album, probably at the start of 2020. We’re going to drop some songs throughout this year, and then basically wrap that up at the start of next year.
‘Also, we’ve just announced a headline tour for October, which is kind of confusing…
‘Like, I’m kind of blown away, and I don’t really know what’s going on, because I never expected anyone to want to come or buy tickets. But, people have been buying tickets – even in Europe?! So, that’s going to be incredible. I can’t wait for that.
How much time do you generally spend on your songwriting career versus how much time do you spend on your Plested stuff?
‘I usually spend about three days a week writing for other people, and then the other four writing for myself. Any moment I can squeeze in, I’ll pick up a guitar. I write 24/7. You just never know when it’s going to come, either.
‘So, I wrote a Little Mix song, called Touch, and it was a good moment for me. The problem is, with that song, I wasn’t supposed to write it.
‘I was going to leave the studio; I was just about to get in my car, and I was like ‘hmm, maybe I’ll stay like another fifteen minutes’. I don’t know why – I just did. I picked up a guitar, and the chorus to that song just fell out of my mouth. That is, obviously, amazing, and I’m very grateful that it did what it did: but, it kinda ruined me in the sense that ‘Aw, no. that means that every time I’m leaving a studio, I’m now going to have to stick around for a bit afterward, just in case…’.
‘But, that’s how you get the good stuff. Good songs just come to you – and, that one appeared to come from the universe. I was just the messenger. Sometimes you go through two weeks where you haven’t written a single thing, and then over the course of fifteen minutes, you’ll write a song and just be like ‘oh! That’s what songwriting is!’