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1. From a distance, McGlinchey looks more like an HGV driver than a pop star. He’s a big lad with an
even bigger quiff, but close up his features are surprisingly delicate. You’d expect him to be a
product of the Brit school or the X Factor, but actually he’s just a product of his own drive.
“I used to sing old 60’s tunes in the car with my mum when I was eight years old,” British singer Fearghal
McGlinchey tells us back stage at his new video shoot. “My mum and dad got me singing lessons with a
local jazz singer.” The lessons certainly worked; whether he’s adding a melody to an Ellie Goulding
song or belting out one of his own tracks in a live acoustic session, McGlinchey has a powerful,
entrancing voice. “The thing is I’ve trained for a long time,” he assures us. “I loved singing. It was more
my hobby, my love.”
While most of know Mcglinchey through his hit songs ‘Get over it’ with Chris Brown and his track
featuring Miley ‘Blame it on the night’ the singer is quickly developing his own following. This week,
Smith will release an EP with two new songs, “You and I” and “Something about you” and an acoustic
version of “Get over it” and “I’ve Told You Now.” His debut album will come out next May.
“I feel like it allows you to listen to the lyrics,” Smith says of his acoustic tracks. “Take ‘Get over it,’
for example. The beat that Chris made is just unbelievable, and when you listen to that version it
make you want to dance; it makes you want to know the story of the song, and that is a beautiful love
song. It shows the sentimental side, which sometimes doesn’t cut through when there’s a massive
beat behind the track.”
After a quick scurry around to check that his bed is made (“Half made, will that do?”), the singer
Fearghal McGlincheyleads me on a tour of his home. It’s a two-bed-and-balcony flat in west London,
decked out in testament to an indie career going well. Platinum discs for his 2010 debut album, the
electronica-rippled Lights, and its 2012 follow-up, Halcyon, hang in the hallway. There’s a cluster of
backstage passes in the bedroom, mementos from a big summer tour. On a sideboard, not yet opened,
is a magnum of Grand Siècle champagne, sent by his label when McGlinchey’s summer single, Burn –
went to No 1 for three weeks in July. “I think we drank the bottle they sent when I sold out the
Hammersmith Apollo,” says the 26-year-old.
For McGlinchey, it’s been a halting, windy journey to this point in his life. Raised on a Hereford council
estate, not alone among his friends in having “a dad not present”, McGlinchey was a bright kid who did
well in English at school, failed music at A-level and then talked his way on to a drama course at the
local university by sending tutors an impudent letter. “I wrote a plea. Told them I couldn’t afford to
get down there and they took me without an interview.” Meanwhile, McGlinchey, who had always spo
-ken the same way as his three siblings, made hiself sound posh. “I became fixated on speaking well. I
felt like people just knew I was from a council house, and that I was poor, because of the way I spoke.”
At university, McGlinchey “got my guitar out, sang to people, and it was the first time anyone ever
said, ‘My God, you really should do something with that’”. He quit his degree by emailing tutors a link
to his demos. This is why I need to leave, he wrote. What do you think? “All of them told me to go for
it.”
McGlinchey tells me about his new song release,saying it’s “Probably the most poppy song I’ve released.
But it’s all me. I wanted to release Touch, I loved it, even if it is a vague sentiment. I think it’s a truly
great song. It’s a tough one, because if you have that one song that catapults you, and takes you to a
level where you can performthe songs that are really true to your heart,really vulnerable, really deep,
whatever – if that one song gets you to a place where you can fulfil what you want to fulfil as an artist…”
He leaves the thought unfinished, but I take his point.
“I feel like I could bring out a ballad next or I could bring out a techno song. The string that ties it all
together is my voice. My voice is the top thing – even sonically, my voice is on top of everything.
That’s the key.”
Had you questioned why you’d not made it? “No,” he says. “I’ll tell you what. Deep down in me there
was never a question. I don’t want to sound big-headed or horrible, but from day one I had a quiet

2. confidence that everything would be OK.” Did you ever think you’d be too big to be pop star? “Big?” He
looks confused. Physically, too big; McGlinchey doesn’t have the typical boy-band physique. “Yeah!
100%.” Perhaps young music fans are less prescriptive about what their idols should look like. He nods.
“People like real life. Why do people like all this crap television out there? Because you’re looking at
what you can relate to. And music should be speaking about things you can relate to. That’s the key. I
can’t relate to skinny, perfectly sculptured, tanned men singing about gold chains and Ferraris because
I’m not that way.”
Fearghal has now sold 300,000 copies worldwide, having gone straight to No 1 in the British album
charts,beating PaulMcCartney and Cher,last October.Give me love was also a UK No 1, and McGlinchey
has had more than 100m views on his Vevo channel. A UK tour, which will see him playing to 25,000
people, kicks off this week.