George Ezra’s new album is his “most personal” yet.
The ‘Green Green Grass’ singer – who suffers from a form of OCD and has been open about his struggles with anxiety – has admitted his two previous records, 2014’s ‘Wanted on Voyage’ and 2018’s ‘Staying at Tamara’s’, contained stories he’d “pinched” from other people, but ‘Gold Rush Kid’, which is released on June 10, is the truest reflection of the real George.
Speaking to OK! Magazine, he said: “With the first and second records, I could just pinch other people’s stories and be the bubbly kid that writes about travelling around Europe.
“This is without a doubt my most personal album.
“It’s the record I hear myself on the most.”
Instead of travelling abroad, George found himself staying in a camper van on a friend’s farm amid the pandemic, after suffering from loneliness while living alone in the London flat he had shared with his ex-girlfriend Florence Arnold.
He recalled: “For the first five weeks, I was able to convince myself It was an experience.
“Then one day I just woke up and I knew I had to get out.
“It wasn’t good for me to be alone much longer.
“So I got this camper van on to my friend’s farm and I lived there for a further six weeks.
“It was a heatwave and there were dogs that needed walking, fields that needed mowing … We almost lived in paradise – if there wasn’t this undercurrent of anxiety.”
The track ‘Being Alive’ on the album deals with that loneliness and wanting to meet someone, and George admits he would have “censored”
himself from “writing that kind of emotion” in the past.
George had threatened to quit music in 2020 and admitted he felt the pressure to maintain his success.
He said: “With the first album, I felt like a chancer and had no expectations.
“It was just fun.
“With the second, I realised there was something to lose so I really pushed myself to continue operating at that level.
“There’s a healthy amount of stress and pressure, but I used to overindulge it.”
That’s when he’d get intrusive thoughts and it kept him awake at night.
George added: “I lived constantly feeling intimated and overwhelmed.
“If I had a negative thought, I’d keep going back to the thought … it really affected my sleep.
“I’d be awake at 4am most nights.
“It became a terrible cycle.”