Myles Smith interview: the Brits Rising Star award winner on his new superstardom
Myles Smith had the biggest song of last year with Stargazing, and with a new album and tour, and a Brits Rising Star award, we caught up with him to ask how sudden success feels
This time last year, Myles Smith was a name still largely contained within the hashtags and shares of TikTok. A rapidly rising favourite on the app, heâd gained early success from posting covers online â stripped back, acoustic renditions of Ed Sheeran, Amber Run and The Neighbourhood that had gone on to ink him a record deal with Sony RCA.
Then, in May, the 26-year-old Luton native released Stargazing, a rousing ode to finding the elusive âOneâ that, in its less than three minute run time, changed his fortunes entirely. By the close of 2024, Stargazing had gone on to become the yearâs highest streaming song by a UK artist, also beating anything released by BeyoncĂ© or Ariana Grande on the global chart.
Subsequently picking up the Brits Rising Star 2025 award â a gong previously won by the likes of Adele and Sam Fender â heâll begin this year in earnest with a stop off at the ceremony and a largely sold-out solo world tour before going on to support Sheeran across a string of European stadium dates; a closing of the circle barely more than two years after opening it.
Itâs a trajectory that even the most grounded and unassuming of artists â a category that Smith, calling in from snowy New York ahead of his first live show of the year, clearly falls into â would find hard to play down.
Myles Smith
Jennifer McCord
âI definitely knew that Stargazing would connect, but to the extent it connected, no. Iâm not gonna sit here and say I saw this song being eight consecutive weeks at Noâ1 in the US and doing however many hundreds of millions of sales. No, I definitely hadnât thought thatâŠâ he chuckles. âI did think it would be a song that my fans would like and I did think it would be a song that would move the posts a bit, but how much it did Iâm eternally grateful for.â
Cutting his teeth playing open mic gigs in his local pub circuit, when Smith says that mainstream fame is something he never really considered, it seems believable. Far more interested in talking about access to the arts than name-dropping any new-found celebrity mates, you can identify the sociology graduate in him (Smith finished his degree at Nottingham University in 2019) far more readily than the burgeoning household name.
âI tussle with the idea of fame because I think what I do is really awesome and really cool, but also there are so many awesome people in the world that donât get half the acknowledgement that they should do,â he says. âSometimes it feels really odd that Iâm put on this pedestal when Iâm just making music. All Iâm doing is just pushing air.â
Alongside the encouragement of watching black British artists like Labrinth and Stormzy (âPeople who looked and sounded like meâ) go on to huge artistic success, itâs this foundation of education that Smith credits with giving him the confidence to pursue his musical goals.
Myles Smith on The Graham Norton Show
PA Wire
âGoing through the education system and on to college and university, all of those steps taught me that, with the right belief and equipping myself with the right skills â and seeing the value in learning and building over time â anything is achievable and possible. Applying the same principles in music, it was sort of a like-for-like trade,â he suggests.
Coupled with this was his Luton secondary state schoolâs crucial access to arts funding. One of the institutions helped by the Building Schools for the Future initiative in the mid-2000s, it gave a young Smith the physical tools to learn his craft. âWhen you look at state schools and deprived areas â how on earth do you expect children to get into music when instruments arenât accessible to them from a young age?â he questions now.
For marginalised young people, Smith notes, the barriers are even higher. âBeing able to create live music costs a bomb, so when you see a surge in black communities or working-class communities making trap music or drill music, which is predominantly made on a laptop, I see that as entrepreneurial,â he continues. âYet thatâs being shut down as music that isnât quite music, but then youâre also offering no alternative pathway to get into the industry. I had access to instruments and MacBooks and GarageBand to get started and, had I not been given that opportunity, would I be here? Probably not.â
With Trumpâs US government having recently pressed pause on the countryâs proposed TikTok ban, the future of the app that made Smithâs name also hangs in limbo. For the musician, the platform was an invaluable entry point into an industry whose doorways are dwindling year on year. âWe have no access to play music live so then we use social media, but then social media is criticised for devaluing what music is, so weâre just in this constant loop of being stuck as an artist coming through,â Smith says.
Myles Smith was named as the winner of the Brits Rising Star award (JM Enternational/Brits/PA)
âItâs a really difficult time for new artists. There are so many contradictions happening all the time. My view on social media is that itâs a gem and itâs allowing people to do a lot of things and, until weâve figured out an infrastructure at a grassroots level, itâs the only route we have.â
Whether Smithâs meteoric rise will be remembered as one of TikTokâs last is still yet to be seen, but thereâs no denying the wild ride itâs helped catapult the songwriter onto.
Heâs been soaking up some pearls of wisdom from his future tour buddy, to ride out the peaks and troughs and âjust keep doing what Iâm doing and not be deterred. Iâve hung out with Ed a few times and heâs such a lovely guy. I think for him, he just wanted to be able to give an opportunity to someone who has aspirations to go on and dream big,â Smith smiles. And for all his humility, the singerâs dreams are evidently as sky-high as they come.
âOh, Iâm delusional as hell!â he laughs. âI would love to be playing stadiums in my career. Iâve always been a dreamer in that sense. I want my music to connect at the biggest level and, had I not thought I could do that, I donât know if Iâd be doing this.â
With eight months of solid touring on the cards, Smith is taking his time when it comes to following up Stargazing and last yearâs A Minute⊠EP with a full-length debut. Heâs writing and recording âmost daysâ but is happy to wait it out if need be rather than rushing the milestone.
âI think about it every day because ultimately I want to be an album artist, and every artist Iâve aspired to be like has lived and breathed albums,â he says. âI think itâll feel right when I feel like Iâve captured everything I need to say in this first chapter. There are still stories that havenât been written yet, so when I have a nice diversity of those then itâll come.â
Having launched his career by documenting the highs and lows of his everyday, however, donât expect Smithâs new starry lifestyle to feature that heavily on any of his future material. âAbsolutely not,â he laughs, âand if I ever did, I hope that you start a smear campaign against meâŠâ
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