Audition rejection turns into musical progress

The last time most people saw Aiden Grimshaw was almost two years ago during the X Factor live shows.

His final performance was Elton John’s Rocket Man, sporting an outfit and giant quiff every bit as engineered as the platform (made of two grand pianos) he was standing on. Today, he’s hard to spot in a busy London restaurant, only the woolly hat he’s wearing – it’s scorching outside – stealing any attention away from the other diners.

“I don’t get recognised anymore,” he says, convincingly. “I did, after I’d been on X Factor and we’d all been on the tour. I was 18 when I was on the show, and part of me loved getting spotted, to the point where I’d be disappointed if people didn’t notice me. I’d find myself putting my best clothes on at 10 in the morning to go and get a bacon butty.”

Whether he bored of the attention, or whether his image change was part of a wider plan to leave behind the ITV behemoth is another matter. Since February this year, when Grimshaw announced he would be releasing solo material, he and his management have been on the offensive.

While other former X Factor contestants talk of their starry collaborators, Grimshaw has performed in a number of indie cesspits, been spotted at numerous other gigs and been interviewed by credibility-conscious publications who would normally steer well clear of the show.

The contents of the CD are rewarding. There are ballads, yes, but not the dreary, over-produced sort that appeared on, say, Matt Cardle’s album. The sparse title track could be a song by James Blake, the debut single Is This Love is the epic, air-grabbing pop Hurts do so well, while the rest of the album is full of angst.

“We started the album in November, and we were finished by February,” he says, the “we” being Grimshaw and Australian songwriter and producer Jarrad Rogers, who most recently worked with Lana Del Rey.

“When we first started you could say I was a bit of a pain,” he admits. “I didn’t know how to get my ideas across, so I’d just say no to everything. Eventually I learned how to speak up, and just because we might be disagreeing in the studio, it’s not a row. But that’s to do with getting older. I’m 20 now. It’s not that old, I know, but the past two years have been big, important years.”

He goes on to explain how he moved to London shortly after X Factor and, after spending two miserable weeks in a hotel, found a place of his own.

“I couldn’t cook or clean 
or anything, but I’ve learned 
how to do all that. I think 
it’s all helped me feel like 
I’m not in this X Factor 
bubble anymore. I never much liked how crazy all that 
was.”

Aware of how that might sound, he corrects himself, saying the show is the most amazing opportunity you can be given, just that the intense spotlight shone upon him wasn’t to his taste.

“I mean, how could it be a bad thing, though? Before X Factor I was working in Pizza Hut, and my idea of a good night was if I could eat a few handfuls of chocolate raisins from the ice cream station without the manager seeing me,” he says.

“I think I could have used the show to get a number one single and an OK album, but I didn’t want that, I wanted an album that was great from start to finish.”

He can’t wait to get out on the road and perform, something he’s been doing since his early teens, but this will be the first time he’s toured with his own material.

Back when he was 13, three visits a week to drama school provided salvation from regular education, where he was “a bit too chubby to be good at football”, and due to his unfashionable choice of footwear, never a hit with the ladies either.

“I’ve sung a lot in public, in Grease and things like that, but nothing like my own tour. Now I’ve worked out what to do on stage, I feel at home. I’ve got all my family and friends coming to my show in Manchester, there’s talk of hiring a coach,” he says, before laughing and adding: “I’ve yet to break it to them I’m not getting them free tickets.”

Aiden Grimshaw plays Leeds Cockpit on September 28. See opposite for a review of his debut album Misty Eye, which is out on Monday.

Theatre school foundation pays off for performer

Aiden Samuel Grimshaw was born on December 4, 1991, in Blackpool.

He attended St Mary’s Catholic College in Blackpool, as well as the Michael Hall Theatre School.

Aiden appeared on X Factor in 2010, singing Kanye West’s Gold Digger in his first audition.

He made it through to the live shows before being voted off in the sixth week after losing a sing-off to Katie Waissel.

Before X Factor, he played Tom Holmes in an episode of the CBBC show Half Moon Investigations, a series based on the books of Eoin Colfer.