His upbeat songs have won him legions of fans, but beneath his sunny lyrics George Ezra has a nihilistic streak that nearly ended his career. He talks about coping with OCD, walking the length of Britain – and his hopes of one day being a dad
George Ezra walks into the Old Barge, the Hertford pub that’s been his lifelong local, and within three minutes his song, Budapest is on the stereo. “They’re so supportive here,” he says, with shy gratitude, as he stoops under a curtain into a back room. Ezra first came here after school, searching for a loo. At 16, he started working behind the bar. When friends come home for Christmas, this is where they meet, “and where we would have always met”. It still smells the same. (Currently: of yesterday’s log fire, a comforting contrast to the January damp.) Over the next few hours, locals stick their heads in to wave hello to their friendly neighbourhood pop star, drinking lime cordial and soda in crisp double denim, and he greets them all back by name.
This is the approachable figure Ezra, who is 28, cuts in most settings, whether playing a radiant set at Glastonbury or warmly chatting about mental health on his podcast. A music college dropout born George Ezra Barnett, he emerged in 2014 as part of a cohort of middle-class British boys with acoustic guitars. Unlike most of them, he wasn’t lachrymose or ambition-crazed. Instead he had a good-weird sense of humour and a big voice, cultivated after this ardent blues fan became obsessed with the US blues singer Lead Belly.
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