On Vernon Kay’s BBC Radio 2 show this morning, Rag 'N' Bone Man performed for Radio 2 Piano Room’s autumn run.
The three-time BRIT Award winner, accompanied by the BBC Concert Orchestra at the BBC Maida Vale studios, performed his huge hit, Skin, the first performance of his new single, Put A Little Hurt On Me, and a classic cover of Christine Aguilera’s Genie In A Bottle.
Talking to Vernon about what it was like to perform with the BBC Concert Orchestra, Rag ‘N’ Bone Man said: “There’s a certain weight that it brings your songs and, honestly, when where there’s a lyric that really hits me and these guys are playing behind you, quite difficult not to cry if I’m totally honest.”
On his aspirations following his initial success, he said: “At different points in your career you have different goals and I remember thinking, ‘Ooh, when I play Scala in Kings Cross, that’ll be that, that’s amazing. And then the goalposts move and then it’s like, ‘Oh they want you to play [Later with...] Jools Holland’, and I rung my mum and said they want me to play Jools Holland and she’s like, ‘That’s amazing’, and that’s like, there’s different points and I constantly am surprised by the things that I get to do and I’m very lucky and I’m very grateful... but no, I didn’t imagine that I would be here, it’s insane. If you’d have told my 12 year old self that I’d be in Maida Vale performing here with an incredible orchestra, it’s ridiculous really.”
Vernon also played out a question from the previous Piano Room performer, Marc Almond, who asked: “What is your guilty pleasure?”
Rag ‘N’ Bone Man replied: “Do you know what I really like at the moment is watching Project Runway [laughs]. I don’t know how I got into it, I think it was just lack of sleep or I’m just going to go back downstairs because I can’t sleep and I’ll watch whatever’s on TV and that was the first thing that came on and I just found myself sitting there going, ‘You know what, that’s really clever, that’s so clever’, and I just carried on so....”
Following his performance, Vernon announced that Paul Weller will be next to perform for the Piano Room with the BBC Concert Orchestra at Maida Vale on Thursday 7th November. Known as The Modfather and one of the most revered songwriters and performers of the past five decades, he will be performing one of his previous hits, a new single and a classic cover.
From starting out as frontman of bands The Jam and The Style Council, Paul kickstarted a successful solo career in the early 90s and is now hailed as one of the most influential and inventive figures in modern British music. He’s released 28 albums to date, and his 17th solo album, 66, was released this Spring.
