Your debut single What God Would Keep Us Apart was released on August 3, how has the track gone down?

It has only just been released but people have had a really lovely response to it. I played the song twice at Brighton Pride this weekend and there were a few tears. My mum also left a voicemail crying down the phone to me on release day!

How long was the song in the making, and can you discuss the story behind it?

When my first girlfriend’s parents found out about our relationship, they locked her away for two weeks until she pretended she was straight and swore to end things with me. That kind of treatment and rejection, when you are that young, can mess you up for years and I can’t speak for her but I hadn’t really dealt with it. It all poured out of me on the train journey between London and Brighton about six months ago and I just knew that recording and releasing the song was something really important that I had to do.

How did you find mastering your debut single at Abbey Road Studios?

I never really understood mastering until they did it to my song. It was actual magic. It was also nice to be around such musical history, they have these tape machines that look like ovens – they literally cooked up The Beatles there.

What God Would Keep Us Apart was played on BBC Introducing The South. What was it like being played on the radio?

The whole band were over the moon, it is nice to know that the song will be getting played in cars, hairdressers and teenagers’ bedrooms. The idea that it could connect to even one young person going through a similar thing is amazing.

You recently played on the BIMM stage at Brighton Pride, can you tell us what the experience was like performing at the festival?

It was such an honour to be asked and I’m so grateful to BIMM, they have been amazing. I opened Pride on Friday with an acoustic set in Old Steine Gardens but the whole weekend was building up to that performance with the band and it was incredible to end on such a high. If you could tell eight-year-old me that I’d one day be playing at the same festival as Britney, I would have lost my mind.

As you’re based in Brighton, do you think the city has good opportunities for music artists?

We have been lucky enough to perform at The Great Escape and Brighton Festival too this year so I would say yes. London is the centre of the music industry but it is easy to get lost in the noise and it does not always allow artists to grow at their own pace, my whole life has opened up since I came here.

You often go busking, what do you enjoy most about it?

I busk in front of the London Eye which is very close to St Thomas’ Hospital. Friends and relatives of inpatients and sometimes patients come to watch and I think it’s often respite to whatever they’re facing. It is nice to know that I can make someone’s day better with what I do.

Are you currently working on new music?

Yes, we are putting finishing touches to an EP which will be released in December. The title track is called I Killed The Bees, which is quite a psychedelic song based on a dream I had.