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In 2022, everything changed for Tom Misch. The London-based singer-songwriter had been at the height of his powers: his easygoing blend of hip-hop-influenced beat-making with soulful guitar melodies and yearning vocals led his self-released and self-produced 2018 debut album Geography to chart at No 8 in the UK, while 2020’s collaborative record with the jazz drummer Yussef Dayes reached No 4 and earned them both an Ivor Novello award nomination. In 2022, riding high from the viral social media success of the live Quarantine Sessions he had posted during the Covid lockdowns, he was playing larger stages than ever in the US and Brazil and was booked for a summer leg in Australia. Suddenly, in July, he decided to pull the plug.
“I had an intense year of touring and I wasn’t feeling good, I wasn’t enjoying it any more,” he says. “My mental health was getting worse and I was so anxious I had to cancel the Australia tour. I was forced to stop, really, and I had no plan for what would happen next.”
Misch returned to his family home in south-east London, stopped posting on social media and put down his guitar. Four years on from that potentially career-ending decision, the bearded 30-year-old looks tanned and relaxed while curled up on the sofa at his riverside flat. Our meeting is a rare occurrence: Misch hasn’t given a solo interview since 2020, perhaps reflecting his ongoing unease with fame. Gazing out of the window at the January sun glinting on the Thames, he speaks softly about his journey back to the music industry – a soul-searching process that has delivered second solo album Full Circle, his most vulnerable and unusual work to date.
A marked departure from the bedroom productions and funk-influenced electric guitar grooves with which Misch made his name, Full Circle features 11 tracks of warm, full-band compositions that lean into the classic 70s singer-songwriting of Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and JJ Cale. Among the record’s musical highlights are the trilling country influences of the wistful Sisters With Me, the finger-picked guitar introspection of Running Away and the breathlessly melismatic saxophone and vocal duo of Days of Us. Lyrically, Misch goes inwards to explore everything from ageing to his love of family, fears of emotional vulnerability, and hopes for the future.
“I’ve wanted to do a record like this for a long time; something that feels classic and invested in songwriting rather than focusing more on melody and chords,” Misch says. “It’s a very vulnerable record that arose out of this period of introspection and existential questioning. I’ve been releasing music since I was 17 and this album was born from me wanting to find out who Tom Misch was outside of the music.”
Growing up as the youngest of three siblings, Misch was raised in a creative household. Drawn to the singer-songwriting and smooth guitar licks of John Mayer and jazz crossover melodics of pianist Robert Glasper, Misch began uploading his own songs to SoundCloud while studying music technology at college in Catford, south-east London.
Finding a supportive online community among fellow SoundCloud users such as Canadian producer Kaytranada and British rapper Loyle Carner, Misch’s bootleg, lo-fi uploads began gaining thousands of plays and in 2013 he had his first success outside the platform when his head-nodding track Follow, featuring his sister Laura, was picked up by YouTube music channel Majestic Casual. The following year, he released the first of two Beat Tape mixtapes, channelling the wonky hip-hop swing of formative producers such as J Dilla alongside Mayer-style laid-back melodics.
He had enrolled on a jazz degree at the London conservatoire Trinity Laban but after six months decided to drop out as his career took off. “I never really played open-mic nights or small shows, since I was making music in my bedroom and doing everything myself,” he says. “I never dreamed of being a big artist and as things continued to grow, it became more stressful for me.”
The highs and lows proliferated. After the release of Geography, Misch recalls being recognised across the UK and US, and finding it increasingly difficult to enjoy his success while feeling constantly monitored. Yet he also received messages of support and co-signs from idols such as Mayer and De La Soul. “Eric Clapton asked me to do his Crossroads festival and we ended up speaking a lot, which was bizarre,” he says with a smile. “On my way to the show, John Mayer also DM’d me and asked if I wanted any assistance with my set, which was equally insane. I had no idea he knew who I was, never mind that he liked my music.”
The heightened attention also brought greater scrutiny. While streaming numbers for tracks such as Movie and It Runs Through Me from Geography racked up well over 100m listens, reviewers were critical. Pitchfork’s Jonah Bromwich described his sound as having a “mild, coffee-house buzz and flat musical minimalism” and “a total lack of frisson”, while the Guardian’s Daniel Dylan Wray characterised Misch’s easygoing grooves as veering from “immersive to anaesthetising”.
Still, things continued to grow until 2022 when Misch felt the scale of his career becoming overwhelming. “You have booking agents and each time you sell out a place they want you to book bigger venues, and at a certain point things get big enough and you stop enjoying them,” he says. “I love connecting with people, playing my guitar and jamming with the band but touring can be exhausting, and post-Covid a lot of other artists were saying the same and cancelling shows, too. It’s weird when your artist name is your own, since it can feel like there’s no separation between the two. I felt like I didn’t really know who I was any more.”
Taking his cue from artists such as Arlo Parks, Shawn Mendes and Justin Bieber, who had similarly dropped tours in the post-Covid period, Misch quietly stepped away. After moving back home for a few months, he enrolled in a surfing instructor course in Cornwall where he was mostly surrounded by 19-year-olds on gap years. “I was in Newquay for three months and I absolutely loved it,” he says. “Being in the water every day really put me back into my body. Only one guy on the course recognised who I was and he was cool with it.”
The private music-making started up once more as Misch became inspired by his new experiences. He moved in with his two sisters for a period and instinctively came up with Sisters With Me as a reflection on their close relationship, while a solo campervan trip around Portugal resulted in the funk-laced romance of Slow Tonight. “I’ve done a lot of random stuff over the past three years,” he says. “I did some gardening jobs in people’s houses, I’ve done barista work, and I’m still really interested in doing other things. I’ve been looking at Royal Mail jobs for just two days a week. Having some structure outside of just music is really helpful.”
The time away has since birthed one of Misch’s most expansive and creative periods. Travelling to Nashville to work with Kacey Musgraves songwriter Ian Fitchuk and striking up a close writing relationship with the British indie singer-songwriter Matt Maltese, Misch welcomed more people into his artistic process than ever before. “I prefer to write with other people now and prioritise feeling creatively free,” he says.
That means largely staying off social media, recently spending time in Rio de Janeiro with 82-year-old Brazilian bossa songwriter Marcos Valle to work on a new collaborative album, putting on DIY club nights under his dance music alias Supershy and self-funding Wildflower, an annual songwriting retreat for upcoming talent
“We had 500 Wildflower submissions this year and it’s just great to see what people are making at the moment and hopefully create some sense of community because places like SoundCloud aren’t really there any more,” he says. “Music is always going to be a part of me. I won’t stop making it but I’m learning how to navigate my relationship with it.”
Part of Misch’s new relationship with music includes rediscovering his love of live performance through a series of guerilla shows with his friend, singer Joel Culpepper. “We’ve been doing our own secret tour of open-mic nights around Oxford, Bristol and Cardiff,” he says. “You just rock up and put your name down and no one listens but I absolutely love it. It’s made me really enjoy performing again.”
Fans will be pleased to know that there is a tour planned to accompany the release of Full Circle, but at the moment he’s playing only a handful of small shows. “I’m in a really good place right now,” Misch says with a pause. “I’m only thinking: what do I feel like doing this year and what’s going to be the most fun?” You get the sense that if that means delivering the post alongside playing sellout shows, Misch will be perfectly content.
Full Circle is released on 27 March.
