After billions of streams, Rag’n’Bone Man is not holding back any more

UK singer and rapper Rory Graham, whose stage name Rag’n’Bone Man was inspired by watching repeats of the BBC sitcom Steptoe and Son, has had the kind of huge breakthrough success most artists can only dream about.

“I never really saw myself being this sort of ‘chart singer’“: Rory Graham, who performs as Rag’n’Bone Man.

His 2017 debut album, Human, a stirring mix of blues, soul and R&B, went number one in several countries – in the UK, it went 4 x Platinum – and streams of the title track are in the billions.

Enjoying a quiet morning at his home in the sleepy town of Heathfield in East Sussex (“I can play my music as loud as I want to and you hear the birds chirping and see deers out the window, it’s pretty cool,” he says), Graham seems unfazed by all the success – but certainly turned off by the lack of privacy that comes with it.

“I never really saw myself being this sort of ‘chart singer’,” he says. “All you can ever do is put songs out and hope for the best, and I never imagined that it would do what it did.

“But there were certain things that changed very quickly where I had to go, ‘I’m not really comfortable with this’, like the going out in public and everybody recognising you. But then you get to grips with it, and it’s alright. Most people are nice.”

Standing 6′ 5″ - 195 cms – and covered in tattoos, Graham is not someone who can travel incognito easily. Regardless, it hasn’t stopped him from popping up in random public places, including a pub in Norfolk, where his dad runs an open mic night, for an impromptu performance.

“I never planned to sing, but my son said, ‘Daddy, you’re gonna play next’,” he says. “And I was like, ‘I’m not playing tonight’, and he was like, ‘No, daddy, you’re gonna play next’. And I was like, ‘Right, I’ll do a song’. I wound up singing for maybe half an hour.”

Graham says playing a surprise pub gig is not out of the question during his Australian tour, where fans can expect to hear a song the 40-year-old wrote for his late mother, Jane, I Hope You Felt Loved At The End.

“It’s a really f---ing emotional song for me to sing and I put off doing it live for quite a long time,” he says. “Then I finally managed to get the courage to sing it live, and straight away people were like, ‘F-----g hell, that song! I know this is what it was about for you, but it means a lot to us because we lost somebody as well’.

“I may have held back stuff that I wanted to write about before cos I didn’t want to put everything on a plate, but I think now I just don’t care as much. Now my music’s naturally become more and more emotional, just because I’m open to it.”

“I had someone say to me the other day that one of my songs was played at the funeral of their child”: Rory Graham, aka Rag’n’Bone Man.

Graham says that learning to become more vulnerable in his music has allowed his songs to make deeper connections to his fans.

“People say stuff like, ‘This particular song really helped me through this time’, and those things are the golden moments that you make music for,” he says. “I had someone say to me the other day that one of my songs was played at the funeral of their child, and I didn’t really know how to respond to that. But I’m glad that’s something that helps.”

Although he’s made his name singing in his distinct, soulful baritone, Graham was previously a rapper known as “Rag ‘n’ Bonez” in the early 2010s.

“I was really immersed in that world and culture at the time,” he says. “I was involved in drum and bass music quite heavily.

“I remember a couple of times being asked to sing on some of the tracks that we were making, and when we would do those live, the reaction I got from singing rather than the reaction I got from rapping was so much better that I just went, ‘Do you know what, I think I’m gonna give this a go now’. So that was really my motivation.”

Graham has new music coming soon that he flags as “really exciting and totally different to what I’ve been doing recently” and plans more touring this year.

“I just gotta keep going, and hopefully the music hits and I’ll just keep touring, cos that’s what I like the most,” he says. “I love it just as much, if not more, than I did when I first started. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, really.”

Rag’n’Bone Man performs at Sydney’s Enmore Theatre on April 19, Bluesfest in Byron Bay on April 20 and Melbourne’s Forum on April 23.