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But there has since been a seismic shift in our national perception of the singer. Blunt’s knee-jerk wit and self-effacing jibes on Twitter — rather than maintain a haughty ‘celebrity’ distance, he out-drolls his trolls with one-liners — and recent guest slots on Never Mind the Buzzcocks (in one skit he drove a tank towards Noel Fielding and Phill Jupitus), Celebrity Juice andTop Gear, where he did the fastest wet lap and admitted he had just discovered that the title of his new album was a phrase ‘used in the gym when men’s bottoms touch while changing’, have elevated him from mainstream pop pariah to cult hero.
I roll up at Zénith, a retro-futuristic music venue in Paris, which looks like the kind of place where Barbarella would go clubbing. Appropriately, Blunt is playing a gig here tonight as part of his European tour for Moon Landing, his fourth and latest album. A mixture of ballads, trademark octave leaps, Harry Nilsson-esque guitar and up-tempo handclap-laden poppy numbers, it looks set to be his most successful since 2004’s Back to Bedlam, which entered the Guinness Book of Records as the fastest-selling album in the UK in one year (though few would admit they owned a copy). Moon Landing, about the joys and pitfalls of finally finding The One (before turning 40 in February, he announced his engagement to Sofia Wellesley, the granddaughter of the 8th Duke of Wellington), is filled with Quixotic military metaphors. Magic FM favourite ‘Bonfire Heart’, which reached number four in the charts, begins: ‘Your love is like a soldier/loyal until the end.’ ‘Blue on Blue’, an army term for friendly fire, is about hurting the one you love.
When I meet Blunt in his dressing room — his hair cropped, he bears less of his former resemblance to John the Baptist and more now to Tom Cruise — I ask why he doesn’t inject a little more of his off-duty sarcasm into his lyrics. ‘No one’s ever spotted the comedy, but it’s always been there. Just listen to my songs! ‘Goodbye My Lover’ started out as ‘Goodbye My Liver’.’ He lets out a hybrid cough-laugh, but his eyes remain glacial, his face almost expressionless. ‘I mean, “Why you don’t you give me some love?/I’ve taken shitloads of drugs.” That’s not funny? That’s f***ing comedy. ‘You’re Beautiful’ started out as “These drugs are brilliant/drugs are pure/I’m so f***ing high…” ’
The thing is, you are always standing on quicksand with Blunt. It’s easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of competitive banter, it’s harder to extrapolate truths. He’s pretty good at throwing smoke bombs: ‘In Italy, they are still totally convinced that I played the organ at Kate and Will’s wedding, after I told them I did in an interview’ and ‘I even changed my Wikipedia page to say “classically trained organist” ’. I wonder how all of this tomfoolery plays with the Royals, with whom Blunt has several ‘ins’. A former captain in the Life Guards, part of the army’s Household Cavalry, he served in the same regiment as Prince Harry and the pair are still friends. Harry, Cressida Bonas and Princess Beatrice all attended the Moon Landing launch gig in Notting Hill last year. Blunt has a gig coming up at the Royal Albert Hall, does he have to work hard to control his potty mouth, I joke, when there is blue blood in the room? ‘There won’t be any Royals there. Just because one turned up once. OK, there were three. H, C and B.’ He gestures to zip up his lips. ‘Well, I’m actually hoping for a knighthood. So I’m going to start tweeting that I’ve been nominated for an OBE. I’m pretty pissed off that I haven’t been already…’
Bomber jacket, £1,383, Paul Smith at matchesfashion.com. T-shirt, £170, Neil Barrett (neilbarrett.com)
Which brings us to his Twitter feed. Recent gems include: @mortal: Why is James Blunt such a bellend? @jamesblunt: That’s Captain Bellend to you; @mortal: Who is the biggest twat Robin Thicke or James Blunt? @jamesblunt: Me! Me! Pick me! Perhaps he’s just had to become funnier over the years, through sheer adversity. ‘No, I’ve always been fairly weird. I’ve been writing all this stuff on Twitter for years, but under a different name: I was Dirty Littl’ Blunt before.’ A grin emerges. ‘But my label said I needed to be more visible. I’m now a professional troll, an online stalker. In the army I was a reconnaissance officer so I was paid professionally to creep around bushes. It helps being small in the real world. When I’m outside your house, stalking you, you won’t even know I’m there.’
He goes on: ‘People have stopped trolling me now. It’s really boring. The only people who tweet me now say, “Follow me! I’m your biggest fan!” My parents warned me about that... But really, why do we take Twitter so seriously? The person writing abuse is probably on his own in his bedroom with his trousers around his ankles writing his five little nasty words. So I take the spotlight off me for a second and shine it on him. Then he shits his pants and says: “Oh, so sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.” I’m used to showing my weaknesses. I expose myself professionally in my songs. I’m not the kind of singer who says how big and strong I am. Though I am big, I know I’m not tall, but you haven’t seen me with my clothes off.’ At this point he jumps up and motions to unzip his flies. ‘Come on. Let’s get it out right here. We need to talk about size, and girth…’
You can take James Blunt out of the army, but you can’t take the squaddie out of James Blunt. And I was about to ask if he felt all grown-up now he is 40… Oh, well. Has he progressed at least to expressing himself with his fiancée? ‘Err. Nope. I’m still as emotionally stunted as I ever was. I still have no need to discuss “feelings”. If a girl brings these up, I say, “I don’t know what the f*** you’re talking about.” ’ I explain my own theory as to what is behind the vitriolic attacks on Blunt. He represents the repressed British bloke opening up, inciting hatred from those who can’t. ‘My songs often say things that women really want to hear. But I can’t say those things to a woman face-to-face either. I can only ever do it in a song. So it’s put out on the airwaves and then all the women say to their men: “Why aren’t you like James Blunt?” And all the men say: “Blunt, you f***ing asshole. You should have been having a pint in the pub with us.” ’
Blunt has been known to be fond of a pint — and a model or actress — or two. In the past he has been out with underwear models, a Miss France, supermodel Petra Nemcova, actress Lindsay Lohan and Pussycat Doll Jessica Sutta. It is no secret either that he has a club in the back garden of his villa in Ibiza, where he lives for half the year. But he must now be growing weary of it. ‘No way. The older you get, the more refined your clubbing tastes, the more you want a club you can personalise. It’s still the best club in the world.’ But are ‘the shitloads of drugs’ (I am quoting from his song) coming to an end? ‘No,’ he says. Then after a long pause: ‘People seemed surprised about the partying because I’m famous for some sensitive, romantic tunes. But they’re not. When you break it down, they are about failed, f***ed-up relationships. I’m a bloke who joined the army, who has a house in Ibiza. I was thrown into the music industry. I had a shitload of fun. What else was I supposed to do? I’ve worked really hard for ten years, so, yes, very occasionally, I still go hell for leather...’
Sweater, £245, Acne at liberty.co.uk. Trousers, £310, Paul Smith at mrporter.com. Shoes, £95, Dr Martens (drmartens.com)It must have been liberating to be finally free to pursue his dream of being a musician. Born James Hillier Blount on the Wiltshire/Hampshire border, he comes from a family with a history of military service dating back to the 10th century (his father is a retired colonel). That’s a lot of pressure to sign up. Blunt (who removed the ‘o’ in his surname to make it sound less fancy) was sent to boarding school in Berkshire when he was seven. He plays the mock violin when he tells me this, and that he is much closer to his family now, including his two younger sisters Emily and Daisy: ‘I didn’t really know any of them from the time I went to school to the time I left the army.’ He went on to Harrow on an army bursary. I asked if he was bullied there. ‘No, I was quite punchy and aggressive. A bit of a terrier. Hyperactive. I think I had small man’s disease.’ His name did, however, get the predictable Cockney rhyming slang treatment. ‘I was obviously called James… word that means vagina. That’s what happens at an all-boys’ school. You take the piss out of each other. You give it back. The same in the army. That’s why I’m comfortable with Twitter.’
The army also funded his degree at Bristol, which committed him to four years of service. He trained at Sandhurst and rose to the rank of captain in the Life Guards, serving first in Canada and then under NATO in Kosovo, where he worked ahead of the front line and was tasked with securing Pristina airport (with an acoustic guitar that he had strapped to the outside of his tank). He famously refused a direct order to attack Russian forces, who had arrived first and taken over the airbase, later earning him the accolade, in the press, of having averted World War III.
This is one of the few positive headlines that Blunt received after he released Back to Bedlam (which he recorded in LA while staying with a family friend, the original Princess Leia actress Carrie Fisher, after being signed by Linda Perry, who also discovered Pink and Christina Aguilera). The tabloids ran one salacious story after another. It subsequently transpired that he had been phone-hacked by the News of the World. He filed damages against News International in September 2011. ‘The most embarrassing thing they got from my voicemail was me leaving sexy messages to myself. It was all part of a future project. A solo sex tape, which will be leaked by: moi. When all this music and Twitter thing dies, it’ll give my waning career a whole new lease of life.’ Yes, but seriously, James. ‘The way [these papers] feed our national obsession for tittle-tattle is just plain f***ing wrong. It’s unhealthy. We need to wean ourselves off that crap and go out and get a decent book.’
Blunt was also savaged by the papers for being a singer-songwriter from a well-heeled background. It wouldn’t happen these days, what with a fair proportion of the Bullingdon Club in power and the likes of Old Etonian Damian Lewis and Harrovian Benedict Cumberbatch as our current onscreen crushes. Is he gleeful about our new Big Posh Society? ‘Well, I think it’s always been there in music. I was just the only one who didn’t hide my accent. I mean, come on, Damon Albarn? He’s right up there. He’s got an orchard full of plums in his mouth. And a silver spoon stuck up his arse… Britain is so obsessed with class. It really needs to let go a little bit, because no one else gives a shit.’
Blunt lives between his villa-cum-club in Ibiza and Verbier, where he is resident and part-owns two restaurants La Vache and Cuckoo’s Nest. In his army days, he captained the Household Cavalry’s alpine ski team, and became champion skier of the whole Royal Armoured Corps. He anticipates my next question on his non-domicile tax status: ‘I don’t live in Britain because I love skiing and I love sunshine. What the f***, doesn’t everyone? Swiss tax is way more than tax in the UK and I pay it… I really am a proud Brit.’ He looks stern for a moment, but, of course, he can’t restrain himself for long. In a second, the banter bursts forth again: ‘The fundamental thing is that everyone is invited back to mine. And you will be getting a personal discount at both my restaurants and your name is always on the door at the club…’
And this is the way it goes on, even after I switch off my Dictaphone, and in preparation for our shoot, he unzips, not his flies but his on-tour suitcase, and reveals a crumple of scraggy T-shirts that would turn his officers at Sandhurst puce.
I wonder if he will give me that discount or whether, instead, he’ll be after me on Twitter. Whichever, I know James Blunt is always out there in the cybersphere, forever patrolling, forever stalking.
James Blunt’s Moon Landing tour comes to the Royal Albert Hall on 19 April (jamesblunt.com)
James Blunt photographed by Camilla Armburst. Styled by Jenny Kennedy.
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