George Ezra spent two years playing and touring with only his sister for company.

She sold the merchandise and he did the playing, as the duo travelled the country with Rae Morris, Lianne La Havas, Adam Green and Tom Odell.

Now, a month before his debut record is due, he has employed a band for the first time.

Anyone who knew him as the troubled troubadour, inspired by the melancholic blues of Robert Johnson and Woody Guthrie, might have a surprise when he rattles through the best of his forthcoming long-player, Wanted On Voyage, with a full electric band behind him.

“I’ve always heard it in my head with a band so the whole point of the EPs and the production was to get people ready for album,” he says, speaking to The Guide after two sell-out nights in his adopted hometown of Bristol.

He’s not worried by those who’ve become accustomed to the paired-back folk of the four-track Did You Hear The Rain? and its follow-up Cassy ‘O. These two productions secured him a place on the BBC Sound Of 2014 list as well as positions on MTV’s Brand New For 2014, Vevo’s DSCVR Ones To Watch 2014 and iTunes New Artists 2014, but he remains focused and single-minded.

“There might be some people who prefer you on your own. But to be honest, whatever, this is how I like it.

“The truth of it is when you are recording and writing you have to be selfish. If you’re not enjoying it then there no point in doing it.”

Ezra calls the years spent with only a guitar and a train pass his mental preparation for the job.

“It’s all well and good taking people on the road but you can only learn if you are doing it yourself.”

Many of the stories which fill the lyrics on the debut album were penned on an inter-rail trip around Europe before he starting gigging seriously. He took a guitar, but barely played it.

“That’s when I wrote a lot of the stories from the EPs and the album. It’s not like a documentary of my time around Europe. But in my head when I sing the songs I see that trip. I think the songs all come from the same place and that is important.”

The 12-track album has two songs from each EP. Fan favourite Budapest is going to be re-released. It was initially a free download, but after big singsongs at shows he wants to put it out properly.

The song has nothing, however, to do with a first hand memory of the Hungarian capital.

He was meant to visit the city of baths on his travels but never made it.

Instead it is about the things you would or wouldn’t give up for somebody.

He says: “I still love singing that song. I think it’s a very natural song. Honest.”

The trip taught him how to be alone.

“When I went I realised how often people go off and spend a month by themselves. I learnt I could spend time by myself.

“I became more alert. My senses were heightened to things going on around me.”

In Vienna, halfway round the trip, he remembers learning how to relax. “I’ve taken that into everyday life.”

The eight newbies on Wanted On Voyage, due out on June 30, includes the opener – and another one touted as a single – Blame It On Me.

“I wrote that about moving to Bristol. It was about me blaming things on me. It was the realisation you have to get off your arse to do something otherwise nothing is going to happen. And if you don’t do it the only person you can blame is yourself.”

A heavy tune, Spectacular Arrival, closes the album.

“The whole mentality behind that track is I wanted to give myself room to go wherever I wanted in the future.

“I don’t want it to be a surprise if I alter the sound. It’s a trick Bob Dylan used to do. He often used to put one track at the end of the album which was just a bit different and gave him leeway to go somewhere else.”

He wants to show people his outlook is more than Bob Dylan and the American bluesmen he grew up listening to, though.

“Soundwise, I wanted to marry contemporary lyrics and productions with old, unavoidable influences.”

So while he reveals the first bands he listened to were Vampire Weekend, Arctic Monkeys, Maccabees and Kings Of Leon. He calls Paul Simon’s Graceland and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours the finest examples of perfect albums.

Dominic Smith

 

George Ezra
Concorde 2, Madeira Drive, Brighton, Tuesday, June 17