Lewis Capaldi: 'I bought a house. It was sent to me by Ed Sheeran'

Lewis Capaldi joins Zane Lowe in studio on Apple Music 1 to discuss his new song “Pointless” — co-written by Ed Sheeran — from his forthcoming sophomore album ‘Broken By Desire To Be Heavenly Sent'. He tells Apple Music about working with Ed on the song, buying a home after Ed sent him a listing, writing with The 1975’s Matty Healy and what he loves about him, sharing happiness by singing sad songs, being diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome, and more.

Lewis Capaldi Tells Apple Music Ed Sheeran Co-Wrote “Pointless”…

...he co-wrote this next song... so he could have actively helped me write a dud knowing that it's going to end my f***ing career. He's a lovely chap. I do love him.

On His New Album Has Songs About Himself Rather Than Love...

I think there's a lot more songs about the album about me, rather than relationships of love or whatever, and those are some of my favourite songs on the album.

On Buying a House Ed Sheeran Sent Him a Link For...

Oh, I bought a house. I bought a house. It was sent to me by Ed Sheeran. He sent me... He didn't send me as a house, but he… He's got a lot,of f***ing money that guy. No, he sent me the link to it. We became quite close over lockdown, I was asking a lot of questions about second records and blah blah blah, picking his brain a lot. And then I was talking about buying a house and I was like, "Oh, I'm going to move into this place. I'm looking for places around Glasgow." And then he sent me a link, and I was, "Oh, this place looks amazing." I went and looked at it and I'm quite like a... I looked at it and I was like, "This is great." I didn't maybe look around enough, I didn't smell it. Yeah, I got very excited. And I'm here to tell you, the house is a f***ing s***hole. Yeah, it's a money pit, and it has been the bane of my existence for the last couple of months.

On Writing With The 1975’s Matty Healy and What He Loves About Him…

I remember when I first started doing writing sessions there in London or whatever. And 1975 are really mysterious, that was the whole thing. They had the big spaced-out letters, et cetera. And everyone was like, you've got to be mysterious. Got to be mysterious. Honestly, I absolutely f***ing love Matt Healy. Listen, we wrote together for this album. I don't think I've mentioned it before. So I love 1975. I think my favourite band just now. I just love how he is and how they are as a band in terms of the way he is now especially, he doesn't give a f**k… I think the amazing thing about him well is that sort of self-awareness is a massive thing. You don't put simple epicure and philosophy in your song and think why are people calling me pretentious? He knows. He's incredible. I absolutely love him. And I think that was the thing, he reached out to me on Twitter initially and was like mate your class, more talking about interviews and stuff. And he said you make me laugh. He says, it'd be good to get together, write some songs and write some funny lyrics because obviously he puts out his songs a lot more than I do. He's hilarious. I'm envious of that sort of being able to translate that sort of the humour side of him…so basically, he reached out and it was like, all right cool. I thought it was just a nice thing they were saying. And then I was like, to my manager…And then three years later I was like let's f***ing ask, I was feeling myself. So I was like, oh, let's see if he's up for it. And he was. And we came down and I went to the studio in London and he was a lovely guy.

On Writing a Song with Matty Healy That Didn’t Make His Upcoming Album…

Lewis: The song we wrote is really good and I love it. And I listen to it all the time. And he's like…

Zane: Did it make the album?

Lewis: No. Because it's weird. It's because it's proper, proper weird and I'm not there yet. Maybe next record. We'll get a bit freaky with it. But yeah, and he'd sit in kind of silence for a bit and I'd be playing away thinking. coming up with melodies And then I'd be like, is he still paying attention or is he bored of this? And then he would jump up, right? And give you four of the best ideas you've ever heard in your f***ing life. And then he'd sit back down again and you'd go, oh s**t. What he's doing is, and what a lot of pop writers don't do is, he's listening. Sometimes you're in a room with writers, they're just thinking out loud and they're regurgitating and f***ing just spewing shit at you and you're like, right, just give me a space to think, where he's sitting in silence. I think that Matt Healy's got that to a tee because it was such an amazing thing to be in a room with him. And then I was supposed to do another couple of sessions with him and I got COVID so I couldn't do it. But, We got a song out of it.

On Sharing His Happiness by Singing Sad Songs...

I like to feel things, and I really do. I think we all do feel broad spectrums of emotion, and I think for me, most of my life I am very much full of vim. And I'm up for the laugh and that's what I want to do. And I think in terms of music, I kind of get out all my happiness. I have more opportunities to share that with people and bigger than I could ask for. Do you know what I mean? Even playing live shows, even though I'm singing sad songs, I'm sharing my happiness. And I think for me, my sort of sadness or my heartache or my sort of self-reflective stuff where it could be about my anxieties and stuff, when I like to talk about them with other people and do that, I think in terms of writing, I think that feels more interesting to me. I know this come out as about love and being in love and stuff and that's one thing. But in terms of writing songs, I just find it more interesting to delve into that stuff. And instead of when I'm thinking of what makes me happy, I'm not... Well, this song's kind of I suppose about that. I love sitting in melancholy.

On Being Diagnosed with Tourette’s Syndrome…

Well, I just got told. I only got told at the start of this year in March. 'Cause I've always done little things to tick. And even when I look back at interviews in 2017, because I wasn't doing interviews before obviously, but when I first started doing this, it's like I can see little... The movements are kind of more exaggerated now, so I do my neck cracks a lot and I kind of lift my left shoulder up a lot and my face kind of move a bit and I do these deep breaths. I can see them, sort of micro versions of them in the interviews that I've done in the past. And I think I've always done this stuff. And when I went and spoke to the psychologists who kind of diagnosed me with it, whatever. I think that's what you call them, psychologists. But it was a shock. But it was also like, "Oh, that explains so much of my life.” And it was like one of those things where we did some shows over the summer, and I was like twitching a wee bit on stage, which I've got a handle on it a bit more now I think. But I was twitching on stage, and I saw people like, "Oh, is he okay? He's twitching a lot. What's going on there? Blah, blah, blah, blah." And I thought I'll just put people's mind at ease. Things are fine. Do you know what I mean? And it wasn't like a... It wasn't like a press release type thing, but it was like I was on an Instagram Live and I was like, "Oh, by the way, I…”…What do I do? Do you know what I mean? But I was like, "Oh, oh yeah, I've got Tourettes. Don't worry about it." And then it became this thing, but I've kind of always been okay for if something's going on with me, I'll share it with the room. But this makes me feel better to share the fact that I have got…