The music culture there is wildly different. It's like a mega-city. London feels like a town compared to the city of Los Angeles. That's just one place. You go there, and...I can't even begin to explain it.
Here, there's a formula. Get it on Radio 1, get it on regional radio, and you're good to go. In America, you have to kiss goodbye to whatever work schedule you thought was hard work.
The work schedules in America are just ridiculous, like sometimes six flights a day.
-How are you finding it trying to break America?
It was never my intention to try to break America or anywhere. Mate, three years ago I was selling jeans in a High Street shop. My intention is to make music, and I want to travel with it.
I want to be around new people, new experiences. I'm setting my life up in America with my future wife. That's just where I want to be for now, but that might all change.
-Do you hope your second album will build on the success of Complete Me?
No, I think Complete Me was a good record in its own right, but I've kind of hit the reset button. I want to embrace a lot more friends who probably would've had no idea about the first record.
I think this record stands up well on its own, without there ever having been one before it, if that makes sense.
-Would you consider another straight-up acoustic album?
I'm doing it! I'm re-doing the whole record acoustically again, which I enjoy.
-Would you ever be tempted to do an acoustic album with a separate set of songs, rather than the album again?
Yeah, the third album...my fiancee lives in Minnesota, where Owl City and all these people come from. I'm going there to do a stripped down, live instrument record. I'm doing it in Minnesota, because I want a whole, wordly new challenge. I think it would be a wonderful experience.
-Do you have any plans with the production side with other artists, or are you just focusing on your own career?
No, I just finished in October Erasure's new album, and I produced the whole thing.
-Do you enjoy getting to work with artists just as much as your own material?
It's probably the same as you being a journalist. If you kept on doing the same interview questions, to the same person, you'd just get bored. I think they help each other.
Working with other people keeps me wanting to do my own work. Doing my own work allows me to find new ways to experiment. That helps me practice my craft in my own material.
-Have any collaborations stood out?
I've been so lucky. Everyone I worked with has done so bloody well, they've gone onto such amazing things. I just hope that I can keep working with such super talented people, and have the privilege of getting a record down and released.
-What do you have planned for the rest of the year?
I don't really know! The record label have got plans. We're not going to go hard in England with the record.
I want to go, get a tour bus and tour the whole of America on my own. Get a little van and just drive about with a couple of bandmates, do a toilet tour across America. I want to get amongst it, do some travelling.
If we get radio attraction, then we'll go to that country. Until that happens, I'm pretty much a free agent. I've got the Erasure album to look forward to a month before mine. I can just chill out a bit actually, which is quite nice.
Female First - Alistair McGeorge
Photo: Jam Sut