Sam Smith logs on to our video call with the username \u201cLily of the Valley\u201d, the May-born singer\u2019s birth flower. It sets a serene tone. They\u2019re in Guadalajara, Mexico, for the latest stop of a residency tour, titled To Be Free, in support of their fifth studio album. Instead of Smith\u2019s usual jet-lagged arena itinerary, this lower-key excursion stops at smaller venues in only six cities and sheds the ostentatious theatricality of their last outing.<\/p>\n
On stage on their last tour, \u201cI was flailing around on a massive gold bum and had, like, seven costume changes,\u201d Smith says with a chuckle. It\u2019s intimacy they\u2019re after now, the ability to satisfy their \u201ccraving to look at people again\u201d, which matches the romantic feeling of their fifth album, Hazel Eyes. But for Smith, whose genre-shifting stardom has been accompanied by harsh controversies, it\u2019s also a chance to observe who\u2019s still in their corner: \u201cThere\u2019s some wonderful people that have stayed, but it\u2019s a completely different room than it was with In the Lonely Hour,\u201d their 2014 debut.<\/p>\n
Smith performs at the Castro theatre in San Francisco on their To Be Free tour. Photograph: Steve Jennings\/Getty Images for Capitol Records<\/p>\n
Smith broke out at 20, as the featured vocalist on Disclosure\u2019s massive 2012 hit Latch. That 2014 debut, featuring the mega-hit Stay With Me, heralded them as a soulful chart-topper, if one whose knack for heartbreak could verge on self-pity. It was good enough for Bond: in 2015, Smith sang the Spectre theme Writing\u2019s on the Wall and won an Oscar. Their subsequent releases veered into a glossier pop sound and generally remained as successful. But since coming out as non-binary in 2017, the British singer has frequently been attacked and vilified by rightwing commentators. The peace that emanates from the 34-year-old during our call, and from this latest album, was largely achieved after relocating from the UK to New York three years ago to be with their fiance, the (hazel-eyed) designer Christian Cowan.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I got here and was able to walk in the street and feel no judgment, I realised that I was very happy to have found a sanctuary in New York City as a queer person,\u201d they say. Smith, who has been wearing \u201cmakeup and wild femme clothing from a very young age\u201d, found that \u201ctensions were a little high\u201d after the 2023 release of their expressive last album, Gloria<\/a>. \u201cWith a body like mine and the person that I am, it created a bit of a media storm.\u201d (The videos for Unholy and I\u2019m Not Here to Make Friends were accused of being oversexualised, with a rhetoric that felt transphobic to many observers.) \u201cBut I moved to New York for positive reasons. I wasn\u2019t running away from anything.\u201d<\/p>\n After Gloria, Smith \u201cwas looking for safety and comfort in music\u201d, something to capture \u201cthe bloom of falling deeply in love\u201d and buoy their cross-continental move. They found it by downsizing their process. Simon Aldred, with whom Smith had co-written one song on their debut, had long told Smith to call whenever they were ready for a more intimate collaboration. For Hazel Eyes, Smith took him up on it.<\/p>\n \u2018I was flailing around on a massive gold bum\u2019 \u2026 Smith on stage in Berlin for the Gloria tour, 2023. Photograph: Frank Hoensch\/Redferns<\/p>\n The result is a more clear-eyed assessment of the reality of relationships than Smith\u2019s lovelorn previous albums. They wrote the first half of what became the smoky opener, Everlasting Love, the night before meeting Cowan; the second half reflects on their three years together. It\u2019s also Smith\u2019s first time co-producing an album. \u201cI\u2019ve always been very hands on with my music, but I never felt like I could really put my name on the credit,\u201d they say. \u201cI\u2019ve realised that I\u2019m not just a singer and a songwriter, I\u2019m an artist.\u201d Hazel Eyes\u2019 soundscape channels a dusky, 70s blend of blues and folk, R&B and outlaw country.<\/p>\n The process was looser than Smith\u2019s past experiences in more professional, structured writing rooms, where they felt that recording had to be done \u201ccompletely sober and all had to happen between the hours of 10am and 5pm\u201d. Hazel Eyes was written at all hours, thanks in part to their near-constant conversations with Aldred; Smith mentions tequila-tinged 1am studio sessions with the Dap-Kings, the late Sharon Jones\u2019s band, as a high point: \u201cIt just felt so freeing, what music\u2019s about.\u201d<\/p>\n These relaxed, more intimate collaborations scared Smith, who says they had operated as \u201ca pop ho for a long time \u2013 in the best way. I loved it, and I will be that again, but every two, three records were written with a different group of people. It was like a speed-dating process of making music.\u201d<\/p>\n Watch the video for My Guy.<\/p>\n Hazel Eyes is also a return to the singer-songwriter style of Smith\u2019s debut. They don\u2019t see it as a rehash, but a new angle on traditional songwriting tropes. \u201cA song like My Guy, that lyric is so simple and one that maybe we\u2019ve all heard before \u2013 \u2018He\u2019s mine, mine, mine, he\u2019s my guy\u2019 \u2013 but you haven\u2019t heard it from a non-binary person who\u2019s 34 years old in 2026. I was very interested in that type of lyric-writing for this album, to take the traditional and sing it through my lens and sing it freely.\u201d<\/p>\n It was only after the success of Unholy, their 2023 duet with Kim Petras, that Smith found the freedom to return to that classic sound. With its baroque electropop and panic-baiting live performances (at the Grammys, Smith sported a pair of devil horns<\/a> in a red-lit, fiery set), the global No 1 single earned them a Grammy \u2013 and condemnation from conservatives<\/a>. \u201cWhen Unholy happened, I felt like I\u2019d been fighting for that song for a long time,\u201d says Smith \u2013 they had always wanted to top the US charts, having previously peaked there at No 2 with Stay With Me.<\/p>\n Global competition is no longer a concern for Smith. \u201cAs a queer artist, I have different parameters and rules, so it\u2019s just not a healthy way for me to think,\u201d they say \u2013 that for any artist whose existence is, to some, contentious, fame is always rigged with a nasty undercurrent, no matter how quantifiable their success. Smith says they were at their \u201cmost depressed or creatively stunted\u201d during that chase. With Hazel Eyes, they wanted to focus on emotional truth rather than \u201cworrying about hooks, even though I love hooks\u201d. They\u2019ll return to that, says Smith, \u201cbut it\u2019s my prerogative to choose when I want to use that tool\u201d. This led to some \u201cuncomfortable moments\u201d with their label, with Smith having to say \u201cI just wanted to keep the business out of the music\u201d.<\/p>\n \u2018I wanted to keep business out of the music\u2019 \u2026 Smith. Photograph: Collier Schorr<\/p>\n Hazel Eyes was the first time Smith set a colour palette (\u201cthis brown, sepia filter\u201d) and ethos to which every song must be upheld: a familiar guiding image, based on a lifelong affinity for rivers born out of a bucolic spot near their Cambridgeshire home town. Any ideas, sounds or lyrics, even the more urbane, New-York-inspired ones, would have to sound at home in that domesticated image in order to make it on to the record. They found that rigour liberating \u2013 it allowed Smith to lean into the maximalism of carrying through a single idea. \u201cI like spilling over the sides,\u201d they say. \u201cThere\u2019s something for me in the imperfection of it that feels so pop.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a point of pride for Smith to have reset their relationship with the public on their own terms. Becoming a celebrity at 20 meant that they quickly found an \u201cincredibly traumatic\u201d side to fame, \u201cespecially to a younger, queer brain, because it felt quite lonely at times within the industry\u201d. For a few years, from 27, they shunned the \u201chuge part of the job\u201d that is constantly taking selfies with fans. Doing so allowed them to recover some semblance of privacy, but led to depression, \u201cbecause I felt like I was upsetting people all day\u201d.<\/p>\n After a lot of therapy, they say, \u201cI actually have started to find the happiness and the joy of meeting people. I\u2019m a healthy person right now, so I\u2019m able to juggle more. The trajectory of fame that I went through at such a young age, and trying to navigate my life as a gay person, then changing my pronouns \u2013 the weight of doing that so publicly in my 20s meant that I could juggle less.\u201d<\/p>\n Occasionally, there is a protective edge to Smith\u2019s conversation, such as when they point out that they \u201cjuggled a lot, because I brought out four records and toured the world multiple times\u201d. But it doesn\u2019t feel confrontational; more demarcating well-defined boundaries and a hard-won ability to claim their achievements.<\/p>\n Watch the video for Unholy.<\/p>\n It\u2019s true that controversy has hounded Smith from day one. They have never concealed their sexuality and have evolved almost entirely in the public eye, which has included some stumbles. In 2016, when collecting the Academy award for best original song for their Bond theme, they incorrectly claimed to be the first openly gay Oscar winner (that was John Schlesinger as best director of Midnight Cowboy, in 1970); shortly into the 2020 lockdown, they were ridiculed for sharing photos depicting their \u201cquarantine meltdown<\/a>\u201d that some felt to be tone deaf.<\/p>\n