Each week we ask a public figure to delve into their childhood, and look at how their early experiences influenced the man they grew up to be.
Tom Grennan, 30, is a singer-songwriter from Bedford whose last two albums topped the UK chart. His new album Everywhere I Went, Led Me To Where I Didn’t Want To Be is out now. He has a BBC podcast with DJ and One Show presenter Roman Kemp, called ‘You About?’. Grennan lives in London with his wife Danniella Carraturo, a pilates instructor, and their seven-month-old daughter, Dottie.
I was beaten up so badly at 17 that I felt suicidal. [Grennan was attacked outside a chicken shop in his hometown of Bedford, leaving him with a broken jaw and years of complications, with metal plates only recently removed]. I physically couldn’t move my mouth for five months, and I was eating blended food for two months. It also affected how I thought my face looked, and mentally things were bad for a year-and-a-half. Even now at 30, I get flashbacks to being hit. When I’m out late at night, I always go back to thinking about it. It really f**ked me up, and I couldn’t leave the house. I was so mad at the world, thinking, “What is it about me that someone didn’t like enough to ruin my life?” But it wasn’t anything to do with me, I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I moved to London for a new start. I got out of Bedford a couple of years after the attack, but when I got to London, a lot of my problems started. I began drinking a lot, masking what was going on my mind with substances. I was trying to bury whatever I had going on. Truthfully, I was a broken 20-year-old and I went down a dark path when trying to medicate myself.
My masculinity was in crisis. I thought I was weak, I thought I was ugly – I was a crumbled human. I remember being in my room, crying and crying and not understanding why. The friends I have from my town are very nice but also macho. I worried that my friends wouldn’t be my friends anymore now I’d become this weak cry-baby. In truth, the whole thing made me stronger, as well as making me more in touch with my emotions and creative side. It did break some of my friendships because I didn’t trust anybody anymore. There are three or four people who are still my best friends, who really understood, and tried everything in their power to help. My friends pulled me out of some dark holes.
I’m in therapy everyday. It’s on the phone. We talk about the part of me that I don’t like, and why that is, and why I’m like the way I am and think the way I think. Everyday I’m talking to someone who’s really helping me out, but it’s not just a therapy session, it’s more of a spiritual journey. I’m finding out a lot about what God means to me. I’m also journalling a lot, reading a lot – trying to understand life better.
I had a very nice childhood but I didn’t get to stay a child for long. What with the attack, and performing in pubs by 18, things changed fast. If I could go back and give my younger self some advice it would be not to rush growing up. All I want to do for my child is to keep her a child for as long as possible because it’s such a beautiful experience. For the seven months I’ve been a parent, it’s taught me that I want to be someone who my child looks at and goes, “Wow, you are everything”. She’s my beam of light and I just want to make her proud.
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I worry about my daughter growing up with social media. If I’m being honest, my one prayer is that social media won’t exist by the time she’s a teenager. Of course, it has its benefits, but I think it has more negatives than positives. It’s a scary place, especially for kids. If things are as they are now, it’ll be impossible to keep her away but I will try to keep her in the real world as much as possible. Even now, we don’t have our phones when we’re around her, because babies are always grabbing everything, and I don’t want her becoming used to that.
The first time I wrote a song in my teens, it was the most cathartic experience. I got a lot off my chest, and then when I started performing music, I could see how the lyrics and tunes were affecting other people. That’s why I love writing music, it allows me to move on from those emotions once a song has come into the world. It’s about something dark and deep, something I need to say out loud, but then once it’s released, I don’t really listen to that song again, even though of course I play it live. The part of the story is done, and captured in that little piece of music.
People’s responses can be overwhelming. It’s incredible when people say my music has touched them, but sometimes I get messages where I feel they might think I’m their therapist. But I’m like, “Listen, I’m just so happy that you’re you’re relating to the story, and I hope that it gives you closure, or ambition, or the confidence to go out and do what you need to do.”
Tom Grennan will be doing a nine-date headline tour across the UK and Ireland in summer 2026. The open-air shows will begin on 14 June at Margate’s storied Dreamland, and will include a homecoming show at TK Maxx presents Bedford Summer Sessions.
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