Ten Tonnes has no regrets and nothing to lose

Barnett is in the business of infectious hooks, chant-worthy choruses and buoyant lyrics that leaves you floating, cushioned and suspended, within his music. A sense of community, of drawing people together, is the hope his music holds found in singing along. In short: the sound Ten Tonnes defines is no less than the sound of summer itself.

Barnett’s meteoric rise to success, since dropping out of university and releasing a smattering of singles in 2016, was achieved with what appeared to be enviable degree of effortlessness. With a sky-high stack of endorsements from the likes of the likes of Huw Stephens and Jo Whiley; selling out The Camden Assembly and The Lexington; and touring alongside Rat Boy, Stereophonics and his brother George Ezra in heavyweight venues like Wembley Arena, 2018 did not fare badly at all for Ten Tonnes. Bear in mind, of course, that at this point he only had a handful of singles to his name.

His eponymous debut album will be a firm statement of intent for 2019. “It’s been done for quite a while now”, Barnett says. “I reached a point where I’d done all I could with it, and since then I’ve just been impatient to get it out. If it were up to me”, he laughs, “it would be out next week!” Whenever the album’s release crops up, Barnett’s excitement is palpable. This kind of optimism comes with a sincerity that is lost to artists after they’ve cleared the debut album milestone. The novelty of releasing an album, and the feeling that it’s not quite real, is charmingly intact.

It’s understandable, really, considering Barnett’s collaborators. Teaming up with ex-Kaiser Chief, Nick Hodgson and Longpigs’ Crispin Hunt who has worked with the likes of Jake Bugg and Florence + the Machine, he is undoubtedly in good company. “I usually write everything by myself,” Barnett says.

His song writing is what he prides himself on; it’s a talent he has quietly curated in his bedroom since being fourteen years old. “Half of the record is me and on the other half I collaborated with other songwriters. It’s useful to be able to take an idea to somebody and have their opinion on it – especially people who obviously have a huge amount of experience in writing great songs. Writing with others makes you try things that would otherwise never have crossed your mind. It’s great because Now we’ve written this really cool song together, but I get to perform it all the time – and at all the end of it all, it gets to be my song.”

“My personal song writing has definitely got better. I think I can safely say I’ve improved since being a teenager!” He laughs, adding “- well, I hope so, anyway.” Thinking further, he continues: “I’m a little more aware of what I want to write about; doing it more and more definitely helps. Sessions with other people have helped me realise that I’m actually kind of half-decent at song writing. The best feeling is when you can make an input without people saying that it’s shit.”

Barnett seems to shy away from reconciling himself with his own virtuosity – unlike many lyricists, he talks about his work without any airs and graces. “At the moment, I’ve been writing new songs ready for after the album comes out. The different styles of song writing that have gone into it have had a massive influence on how I approach writing lyrics these days.”

All he knew, without thinking much further than that, is that he wanted to release an album. When acclimatising to the idea that an album with Warners was on the cards, and that one of his earliest ambitions would be fulfilled, I couldn’t help but ask what Barnett had always dreamed this album would be like. “I’ve been thinking about this recently, what with doing interviews running up to the album coming out.” Simply put: “I wanted to make a really fun, energetic record.” He continues, “I hope it will have a long shelf-life – perhaps that’s too ambitious of me? All the songs I write are songs I want to hear; what I’d want to hear now as a fan right now, or what I’d want to hear when I was younger when I started out in music.”

Despite his hand being open, waiting to be given the baton of indie’s next prized balladeer, Barnett is quick to say that the worlds of ‘Ethan’ and ‘Ten Tonnes’ are not as far apart as one might think. “I still don’t really see myself as being in the same realm as massive artists - I can’t really imagine letting success get to my head because I’m not a wanker!” He laughs. “The gigs are really great, but that’s only an hour once a month. When I’m not doing the music, I’m just Ethan going with my mates to the pub. It would be weird if I started to make people call me “Ten” or something like that. My life is very much the same as it was before - except I get to do some cool stuff on occasion. I still feel like what I do is quite separate from everything else, but maybe that’s my naivete. I always feel like I need to say how thankful I am to be doing this, because it doesn’t feel real”.

Fitting words for a musician who says his work would be better suited as a soundtrack to Hot Fuzz – “I could say something cool, like Pulp Fiction, but I don’t think that would work.”

Though Barnett talks about his career with shoulder-shrugging insouciance, it hasn’t fell into his lap without risk: some may call it foolish, others may call it necessary – either way, it was brave. “When I was at sixth form, there was much more of a push for us to go to university than pursue anything else.” He explains. “I started studying music production. At the time, I was still doing music but I didn’t have the conviction to make that leap to becoming a musician. Like many people, I went to university to just give myself a bit of time. I got there and it was fun, of course, but I quickly realised it just wasn’t what I wanted to do. I was already on the gig circuit back at home, but when I went to university, I hadn’t done any for the whole year. I thought, This is rubbish. I’ve come here and I’m wasting money - and I’m not doing any gigs.

"It made loads of sense to me to drop out. I just thought, Fuck it. If I don’t try to become a full-time musician now, what’s the point in ever doing anything? I realised I had nothing to lose. It was my opportunity to do something I really loved, so I thought I might as well give it a shot.”

When asked if there is anything else in the world he could imagine doing, he says, with a steely certainty: “No. I don’t want to do anything else but this.” Then he jokes, “If I’m honest, I’m not really any good at anything else!”

Barnett is quick not to lay the blame on university - but himself - for his musical inertia: “I didn’t play any gigs because I didn’t apply for any. I was being lazy and just not focusing.” He admits. In the same breath, he wanted to make it clear he has no regrets for deviating from the well-trodden path: “Dropping out of university and returning to my hometown gave me no option but to try. I was emailing people all the time, phoning promoters up and trying to get as many gigs as I could. During all that time, though, I never stopped writing.”

Ten Tonnes has played to arena-swelling crowds and has become a staple for just about every festival line-up, but his beginnings are far humbler: from the hospital radio that wouldn’t allow any reference to heaven or hell (“No covers of ‘Stairway to Heaven’, then!”) to the dishearteningly empty venues that dog all burgeoning artists. “Any gig I got at that time felt like such a success to me, because it can be hard landing them when you’re starting out. Whenever I did perform, I always had a lot of support from my lovely family and friends who would come down, so there would always be that reassurance a room would never be completely empty.” Thinking on, he says, “It never feels like you’re wasting your time. It took me ages to feel comfortable on stage, though. I would always struggle looking people in the face – especially at a smaller gig when they’re right there, and there’s no avoiding them.”

Barnett’s deference and down-to-earth mindset is all a part of his winning charm. For a person who, by his own admission, feels at his most comfortable with his mates at the pub, how does he grapple with the time-bending, often disorientating life on the road? “90% of the time I absolutely love it,” he says. “It’s basically like going on a school trip, except I get to do amazing gigs every night. You get to go to cool cities and meet cool people - but it’s always going to be tough being away from home. You miss your friends and your family. There are times, believe it or not, where you wake up and wish you were at home rather than in the middle of Germany in the back of a bus. I have a really good relationship with my tour mates and we all support each other – it’s like a little secondary family. When you’re playing such amazing gigs, no matter what you do in the day you always know the highlight is coming at the end.”

The release of his debut album has prompted Barnett to toy with the idea of success. “I feel successful now, to be honest. Being able to do what I love is the biggest success of all to me.” He thinks on, “I suppose, in terms of quantifiable success, would be the album doing well and selling out tours. When I sold out a date that felt like a real moment of definite success to me. Stuff like that always gives me confidence that I’m on the right track. As long as music as my job,” he decides, quite simply, “I feel like I will be okay.”