Luke Sital-Singh: "A testament to sticking to what I want to do and to what makes you happy"

“I was born and brought up in New Malden,” he explains, his folks only recently moving west. “I just went to Brighton for Uni and stayed in Brighton for four years. And now I’m sort of flickering around, sort of based in North London but I don’t actually live anywhere, just sort of stay on sofas and floors.”

The homeless, touring troubadour is a romantic notion, but it’s something of a change, Luke having previously played with a band. Despite gaining a new manager and having ‘refreshed everything’ you can still watch footage from his Glastonbury 2010 appearance on the BBC Introducing website under the name Fellow Stranger. “Yeah, that was part of my old project,” he begins. “I think it was just a bit confused. I think it was the right decision to strip it all back because it was getting a bit lost as well. There’s a kind of intimacy there and it has to work with me on my own and at some points in the past I was playing with an eight-piece band with cellos and keyboards and backing singers and stuff. It was all fun and games and it was fun for me, and I think it sounded quite good, but the songs were getting a bit lost and a bit of a distraction.”

Nothing could prove Luke’s point further than the success of ‘Fail For You’, a song he actually wrote six years ago. “I did it in the best part of an hour – just wrote it and threw on all those harmonies and it just came out this finished thing and I was like, that’s pretty good. It’s been sat around and it has been online before and it’s not like I’ve been hiding it away, but it’s taken this long to find an audience.”

One thing to say of the enigmatic Mr. Sital, this is certainly not a quiet reinvention of any kind. There is no hiding of previous endeavours, nor does he get awkward when it’s mentioned. Luke freely chats about his past because, in all reality, it’s not that different from what he’s up to now. “It’s just a really fragile thing – all at the right place at the right time,” he explains when asked if he was surprised when the Fail For You EP received so much positive attention. “I think I made my first CD in 2006, maybe before that… I’ve been writing and playing for a long time, it feels anyway, and then suddenly something happens, this thing just falls in to place, and OK, this is strange – why now?”

“I think ‘Fail For You’ particularly is a song I’m most proud of and I never thought it would ever be played on the radio. I always thought radio would be my downfall ’cause I’m not particularly interested in writing songs that people nod their heads to and dance or whatever, which to me is what radio is all about. I have to keep pinching myself that there are people playing ‘Fail For You’ on Radio 1.”

“It’s bittersweet ’cause of all the hours I spent knocking my head against the wall trying to write radio songs just to see if I could, to see if it would help and not doing very well. To think that I could have just, not bothered. It’s a testament to sticking to what I want to do and to what makes you happy.”

So with all the hype, how has Luke found the live shows? Has it yet equated to feet through the door, or just a lot of folded industry arms? “The live shows haven’t been the most enjoyable thing,” he offers with a nervous laugh. “We’ve been doing showcases and my manager was like, ‘Do you want to see the guestlist?’ And I’m like, no. I don’t want to see it. I just want to play the show. But we’ve got two tours now confirmed which will be awesome.”

At the moment Luke plays solo without a band, having learnt from his time as Fellow Stranger and taking advantage of the minimal costs and quick changeovers that make him an attractive tour support. I ask him if he’s worried about being heckled when playing for another act’s crowd on tour. After thanking me sarcastically he continues, “I’d almost think I’d find the heckler entertaining because as long as you’ve got the majority of people on your side, you’ve got a little team.”

“I like it when 95% of the room is into it and there’s just a couple of guys at the bar talking really loudly and you watch everyone getting more and more angry with them and it kind of makes it better ’cause you know that they really are enjoying it and they’re annoyed that someone else is ruining it for them. And another thing that’s satisfying is conquering a crowd. They start off ‘blah de blah, who is this guy?’ And then by the end everyone’s quiet and I’ve won and I can sleep sound at night.” He ends with a pause and I can hear him smile, “But I’m prepared for going up North.”

Luke Sital-Singh’s EP Fail For You is available now via this link, and he’ll be performing at the following tour dates.

November (w/The Staves)

18 – BRISTOL, Thekla
19 – LONDON, Village Underground
20 – BRIGHTON, Komedia
21 – LEEDS, The Wardrobe
23 – EDINBURGH, Pleasance Theatre
24 – BELFAST, Limelight
25 – DUBLIN, Whelans
27 – MANCHESTER, The Ruby Lounge
28 – BIRMINGHAM, Hare & Hounds
29 – NOTTINGHAM, The Bodega