Lewis Capaldi speaks to Ken Bruce ahead of Radio 2 In Concert

Lewis Capaldi had an open and honest conversation with Ken Bruce on his BBC Radio 2 show today.

He was there ahead of the broadcast of Radio 2 In Concert presents Lewis Capaldi, tonight on the station.

Lewis revealed to Ken why he prefers intimate concerts to arenas, the country with the most tickets left to sell for his 2023 tour, and why he wishes his flatmate would move out!

Ken asked, although it went well, if he’d been concerned about things going wrong when the single Forget Me was released?

“I was terrified. Because I have a basic level of like, sort of, pessimism anyway,” Capaldi admitted. “I’m always assuming the worst, things are going to go horribly. Even when I’m proved wrong by things going well, I think, even now, I’m like okay well, Forget Me went well but this next one’s going to go horribly. Do you what I mean? I’m always in that – I live in that space,” he told Ken.

He added that he thinks it’s a good place to be because it stops him from getting complacent.

Playing live has always been important to Lewis and Ken asked if this was the case for the In Concert programme which airs tonight on Radio 2?

“100%. To do things like that as well when it’s like really intimate,” he replied. “Someone said to me earlier on that like the bigger the crowds get, the easier it is to play to them and its scarier to play to 300 people than 30,000 people. And that’s nonsense! Right, a room full of 300 people is a much less intimidating thing than hordes of people at 30,000. It’s mad! I’m very much a fan of the more intimate thing.”

Intimidating or not, Lewis has an arena tour next year and Ken asked about it. Lewis answered: “Big arena tour in the UK, and they’re going to hear us in Europe for the first time which is selling well, except for Germany. People in Germany really not vibing with my music I have to say at the minute.”

He continued: “Ticket sales are abysmal. That’s a word that I don’t get to use often. Everywhere else you’re like, ‘Oh that’s going to sell out, or that’s going to sell really well’, blah blah blah, and you can kind of see them going up.

“The show in Berlin is 17,000 people that arena can hold. And I have sold 1,373 tickets!”

Away from the tour, Ken then asked: “You’ll be feeling great next year. In terms of your whole life, what would make you just think, ‘This is it. I’m living the life’? What element is not quite there that would make it perfect?”

Lewis found that easy to answer, he said: “I’d like my flatmate to move out. That’d be nice. Niall, he’s a friend of mine from school.”

Ken joked: “WAS a friend!”

Well, he still is. He’s just taking up a lot of space is what I’m realising,” Lewis responded. “This is a very personal gripe that I have with Niall. But I’m glad I get to air it out here because I know he listens to Radio 2.

“So Niall, when I was away on tour in the summer, I came back and he’d decided to put up a dartboard in one of the rooms.

“He’d decided to hammer nails into one of my bedroom walls, because I own the flat. And he’s paying rent. He’s the lodger. And he put up all these pictures in his room without my consent! And you might say I’m being a control freak there right but I feel like I have a say if you’re going to put up – and by the way, it’s not like he’s putting up Picassos or lovely pieces of art.

“It’s like he’s printed off a picture of Henrik Larsson from the internet and put it up on his wall and I’m like, this looks awful. This looks rubbish,” he added.

Radio 2 In Concert presents Lewis Capaldi on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds will air on BBC Radio 2 tonight at 9pm.