Sound of 2025: Stargazing singer Myles Smith comes fourth

Rising pop star Myles Smith can nonetheless keep in mind the primary time he felt well-known.

“This would possibly sound trivial,” says the singer, “however I used to be enjoying a live performance the place I requested the viewers, ‘Does anybody have cookies?’

“And inside about 10 minutes, the entire dressing room was filled with cookies.

“It was the very best factor ever.”

Since that gig, the 26-year-old’s profession has solely grown greater.

Final yr, he scored his first main hit with Stargazing, a feel-good foot-stomper that grew to become the biggest-selling British single of 2024, and even featured on Barack Obama’s end of year playlist.

Now, he is been voted into fourth place on PJ Radio 1’s Sound of 2025, marking him out as one of many yr’s most promising new skills.

And in March, he’ll obtain the Brit Awards’ Rising Star prize – following within the footsteps of Sam Fender, Adele and Rag ‘N’ Bone Man.

Smith confesses he discovered in regards to the accolade whereas within the grip of a ferocious hangover.

“The evening earlier than, I would tried to go drink-for-drink with some individuals who have been much more skilled than me, and we truly needed to name a physician to my Airbnb,” he cringes.

“Discovering out I would obtained a Brit Award introduced me again to life greater than any vitamin C ever might.”

It was, he says “essentially the most LA I’ve ever felt”.

It is actually a great distance from his upbringing in Luton.

Born to a working class British-Jamaican household, he was a brilliant and glad child, who grew up singing alongside to his mum’s Motown data.

His first true musical discovery was Coldplay’s Yellow (“it resonated with me, despite the fact that I did not perceive a phrase of it”) however Luton’s social and cultural variety meant he was uncovered to tons of of various genres.

“I went by means of numerous levels,” he says. “I used to be an enormous Inexperienced Day fan at one level. I even went by means of a little bit of a Screamo part.”

Earlier than lengthy, he was writing his personal songs – initially by dreaming up melodies and lyrics to instrumentals he’d discovered on YouTube, then creating originals on a guitar he’d been given for his ninth birthday.

“I keep in mind penning this tune referred to as Dream Lady, after I was 11,” he says.

“It was a couple of lady in school, and it was bloody terrible – however I sang it in school meeting anyway.

“Horrible choice. She realised it was about her and averted me each day after that.”

Undeterred, he began enjoying at open mic nights across the metropolis – overlaying artists like Ed Sheeran and Marcus Mumford whereas fine-tuning his distinctive folk-pop model.

For a very long time, nonetheless, music was a facet hustle. After finishing a sociology diploma in 2019, Smith arrange his personal enterprise, specialising in administration and strategic improvement, and was turning a wholesome revenue by the point he was 23.

“I used to be fairly snug,” he says. “However I understood fairly early on that simply because I am good at one thing, it does not essentially imply I am keen about it.”

He ploughed his earnings into studio classes, recording an eight-track album referred to as Scars in 2020. However it wasn’t till his haunting cover of The Neighbourhood’s Sweater Weather went viral in 2022 that he felt assured sufficient to pack in his day job.

“Cash has by no means been the best way I measure my success, nevertheless it was positively scary,” he says.

“It began off very very like plunging into an ice tub and feeling the shock. Like, ‘OK, that is actual. I haven’t got a constant wage coming in, and I haven’t got the safety of realizing how lengthy that is going to take.’

“However it was a matter of switching mentality – so I wasn’t what securities I had misplaced, however what alternatives I would gained.”

Any apprehension was short-lived.

With a rising on-line fanbase, he began interspersing TikTok cowl variations with snippets of originals.

The one which made everybody concentrate was Solo – whose devious wordplay was so clearly memorable (“Why’d you get me so excessive/ To depart me solo“) you could not fairly consider no-one had considered it earlier than.

Launched independently in 2023, it earned Smith his first UK chart hit and, subsequently, a cope with RCA Information.

However he continued to construct his viewers organically, gigging always whereas posting on TikTok and YouTube.

He is obtained an attention-grabbing tackle social media. Whereas artists like Halsey and Florence Welch have expressed frustration at report label stress to create viral movies, Smith calls TikTok a “meritocratic system” that rewards the trouble you set in.

“There is a distinction between the chase for virality and constructing an viewers,” he causes.

“In case your goal is to go viral, you then’re all the time going to be combating a dropping battle. But when your goal is to determine a group and a spot the place your music belongs, it turns into much more rewarding.”

When he isn’t sharing music, there is a considerate tone to his social posts. In a single recent note, he addressed individuals who mentioned his music had “saved their lives”.

“I want you to know, it wasn’t my music, it was you,” he wrote. “I do know this as a result of I have been the place you’re. I’ve clung to songs at midnight looking for one thing – something – that made me really feel like I might preserve going.

“However music did not save me. What saved me was the smallest a part of me that selected to remain, even when it damage.

“My songs would possibly stroll beside you, nevertheless it’s your energy that carries you ahead.”

That empathy is baked into Smith’s lyrics. His most affecting songs, resembling River and Wait For You, are covenants of assist for a good friend who’s drowning of their troubles.

His breakout hit, Stargazing, can also be a couple of second of human connection – wanting into the cosmos and realising “the individual we fall in love with has been there our complete life”.

He is beforehand claimed the monitor was impressed by a sundown in Malibu, nevertheless it seems that that is somewhat white lie.

Smith truly got here up with the folky, clap-along refrain and its central lyric (“You and I stargazing/ Intertwining souls“) whereas consuming tacos and salsa together with his co-writers, Peter Fenn and Jesse Fink, early final yr.

They have been so impressed that they demo’d the tune in simply quarter-hour – simply because the solar was setting over Malibu.

“By some means, that second gave the lyric a which means,” says the singer. “It was an afterthought, nevertheless it was a really useful afterthought.”

He began posting snippets of the tune on-line virtually instantly, and “from the very first publish, the response was explosive”.

There was just one downside: they hadn’t completed the verses.

For a month, they frantically traded voice notes and Zoom calls, pulling the tune into focus in time for a Might launch. Since then, it has been streamed greater than 600 million instances.

“It is fairly wild,” says the singer. “It is nonetheless getting performed, seven or eight months down the road, which is superior.”

Smith ended 2024 with a clutch of honours – from his first Brit Award, to being named PJ Introducing’s Artist Of The 12 months – and the discharge of his new EP, …A Minute.

In the beginning of 2025, he is juggling writing classes for his debut album with a busy touring schedule that sees him enjoying 36 reveals in 60 days in 16 international locations. But when that sounds daunting, he is ready.

“It is so much, for certain, however I used to face on the sting of my couch and faux I used to be at Glastonbury. So with the ability to tour, at no matter scale, is simply such a privilege that it does not really feel like exhausting work.”

What’s extra, he is assured to get free cookies.