{"id":296487,"date":"2026-02-13T19:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/296487\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T19:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T19:20:08","slug":"i-didnt-know-who-i-was-tom-misch-on-burnout-becoming-a-barista-and-returning-to-music-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/296487\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I didn\u2019t know who I was\u2019: Tom Misch on burnout, becoming a barista and returning to music | Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s collaborative record with the jazz drummer Yussef Dayes reached No 4 and earned them\u00a0both an Ivor Novello award nomination. In 2022, riding high from the viral social media success of the live Quarantine Sessions<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had an intense year of touring and I wasn\u2019t feeling good, I wasn\u2019t enjoying it any more,\u201d he says. \u201cMy mental health was getting worse and I\u00a0was 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019t 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 \u2013 a\u00a0soul-searching process that has delivered second solo album Full Circle, his most vulnerable and unusual work to date.<\/p>\n

A marked departure from the bedroom productions and funk-influenced electric guitar grooves with\u00a0which Misch made his name, Full\u00a0Circle 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve 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,\u201d Misch says. \u201cIt\u2019s a very vulnerable record that arose out of this period of introspection and existential questioning. I\u2019ve been releasing music since I was 17 and this album was born\u00a0from me wanting to find out who Tom\u00a0Misch was outside of the music.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u00a0John 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.<\/p>\n

I never dreamed of being a big artist. As\u00a0things continued to grow it became more stressful<\/p>\n

Finding a supportive online community among fellow SoundCloud users such as Canadian producer Kaytranada and British rapper Loyle Carner, Misch\u2019s 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<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

He had enrolled on a jazz degree at\u00a0the London conservatoire Trinity Laban but after six months decided to drop out as his career took off. \u201cI never really played open-mic nights or small shows, since I was making music in my bedroom and doing everything myself,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u00a0never dreamed of\u00a0being a big artist and as things continued to grow, it became more stressful for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The highs and lows proliferated. After the release of Geography, Misch recalls being recognised across the UK\u00a0and US, and finding it increasingly difficult to enjoy his success while feeling constantly monitored. Yet he\u00a0also received messages of support and co-signs from idols such as Mayer and De La Soul. \u201cEric Clapton asked me to\u00a0do his Crossroads festival and we ended up speaking a lot, which was\u00a0bizarre,\u201d he says with a smile. \u201cOn\u00a0my way to the show, John Mayer also DM\u2019d\u00a0me and asked if I wanted any assistance with my set, which was\u00a0equally insane. I had no idea he knew who I was, never mind that he liked my music.\u201d<\/p>\n

The heightened attention also brought greater scrutiny. While streaming numbers for tracks such as\u00a0Movie and It Runs Through Me from\u00a0Geography racked up well over 100m listens, reviewers were critical. Pitchfork\u2019s<\/a> Jonah Bromwich described his sound as having a \u201cmild, coffee-house buzz and flat musical minimalism\u201d and \u201ca total lack of frisson\u201d, while the Guardian\u2019s<\/a> Daniel Dylan Wray characterised Misch\u2019s easygoing grooves as veering from \u201cimmersive to anaesthetising\u201d.<\/p>\n

African rhythms \u2026 Misch performing at the Cape Town international jazz festival in 2017. Photograph: Anadolu Agency\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Still, things continued to grow until\u00a02022 when Misch felt the scale of\u00a0his career becoming overwhelming. \u201cYou\u00a0have booking agents and each time you sell out a place they want you\u00a0to book bigger venues, and at a\u00a0certain point things get big enough and you stop enjoying them,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cI love connecting with people, playing my guitar and jamming with\u00a0the band but touring can be exhausting, and post-Covid a lot of other artists were saying the same and cancelling shows, too. It\u2019s weird when your artist\u00a0name is your own, since it can feel like there\u2019s no separation between the two.\u00a0I felt like I didn\u2019t really know who\u00a0I\u00a0was any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taking his cue from artists such as\u00a0Arlo Parks, Shawn Mendes and Justin\u00a0Bieber, who had similarly dropped tours<\/a> 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. \u201cI was in Newquay for three months and I absolutely loved it,\u201d he says. \u201cBeing 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\u00a0with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u00a0Slow Tonight. \u201cI\u2019ve done a lot of random stuff over the past three years,\u201d he says. \u201cI did some gardening jobs in people\u2019s houses, I\u2019ve done barista work, and I\u2019m still really interested in doing other things. I\u2019ve\u00a0been looking at Royal Mail jobs for\u00a0just two days a week. Having some structure outside of just music is really\u00a0helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The time away has since birthed one of Misch\u2019s most expansive and creative periods. Travelling to Nashville to work with Kacey Musgraves songwriter Ian Fitchuk and\u00a0striking up a close writing relationship with the British indie singer-songwriter Matt Maltese, Misch\u00a0welcomed more people into his artistic process than ever before. \u201cI\u00a0prefer to write with other people now and prioritise feeling creatively free,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, an annual songwriting retreat for upcoming talent<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had 500 Wildflower submissions this year and it\u2019s just great to see what people are making at the moment and hopefully create some sense of community because places like SoundCloud aren\u2019t really there any more,\u201d he says. \u201cMusic is always going to be a part of me. I won\u2019t stop making it but I\u2019m learning how to navigate my relationship with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of Misch\u2019s new relationship with music includes rediscovering his love of live performance through a\u00a0series of guerilla shows with his friend, singer Joel Culpepper. \u201cWe\u2019ve been doing our own secret tour of open-mic nights around Oxford, Bristol and Cardiff,\u201d he says. \u201cYou just\u00a0rock up and put your name down and no one listens but I absolutely love\u00a0it. It\u2019s made me really enjoy performing again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fans will be pleased to know that there is a tour planned to accompany the release of Full Circle, but at the moment he\u2019s playing only a handful of small shows. \u201cI\u2019m in a really good place right now,\u201d Misch says with a pause. \u201cI\u2019m only thinking: what do I\u00a0feel like doing this year and what\u2019s going to be the most fun?\u201d You get the sense that if that means delivering the post alongside playing sellout shows, Misch will be perfectly content.<\/p>\n

Full Circle is released on 27 March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2022, everything changed for Tom Misch. The London-based singer-songwriter had been at the height of his powers:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-296487","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296487\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}