Olly Murs: 'I thought I’d come back with something bold'

Gone is a long-term alliance with Sony, the record label with whom he signed in 2009 after finishing runner-up in The X Factor, and gone too is his regular team of co-writers who include Steve Robson, Claude Kelly and Wayne Hector, and with whom he enjoyed such successes as Dance With Me Tonight, Please Don't Let Me Go and Troublemaker, his biggest hit Stateside.

In their place comes a new songwriting partnership with David Stewart and Jessica Agombar, composers of BTS's worldwide smash Dynamite, and a deal with EMI.

"It felt like I needed an influx of energy and an influx of ideas and something different because I've been doing so many albums with the same people," the 38-year-old admits. "As much as I love them and they're great friends of mine now, it was just time for me to mix things up.

"I managed to get a new label, a new team, and their energy has sparked a new energy in me. Then meeting David and Jess and doing the album together as well, a lot of boxes were ticked. It feels like a really great album and it's been a really great few months working with them. I'm really excited for people to hear the rest of the album."

The album's title acknowledges his own forthcoming nuptials to the bodybuilder Amelia Tank. "You know what," he says, "I thought I'd come back with something bold, something that I could remember this album by. The fact that I've met Amelia and I'm getting married, it just feels right. It's like my album to Amelia, basically, saying 'marry me - this is how much I love you'. Although it's not a lovey-dovey album in that sense, there's little nuggets of Amelia in it, and it's a really fun album with some great music, I love it."

Away from music, the last year has been a tough one for the singer, who required major surgery on his left knee after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament, forcing him to cancel his summer shows and leaving him in a "bad place" mentally. Murs says the physical damage stemmed from "wear and tear" on an injury he sustained during his younger years as a semi-professional footballer with Witham Town.

"It's been a problem for years," he says. "It was just a difficult time in general. On social media a lot of us only show what we want you to see, but actually I didn't want to go on social media when I was feeling at my worst.

"There were times when I had to start walking again and learn to bend my knee in certain directions, so many things that you take for granted. It was a mad time and it was very difficult, but at the end of the day I've managed to do all the recovery and the physio. My knee is never going to be back to where it was, but I manage it every day and every week and I'm trying to give myself the best possible chance of a long career in music but also to be able to walk and do what I want to do."

Murs had also keenly felt the loss of his close friend Caroline Flack since her death in February 2020. He says the period after the TV presenter took her own life following a hounding by the tabloid press was "very difficult" for anyone who had known her.

"What happened to Caroline was very tragic and she's always in my thoughts, I'm always thinking of her and her family and her close friends," he says. "I've had to deal with things myself, things that you think you could have done better, and I wish I could have done this and I wish I could have done that, could it have prevented this.

"There's a lot of stuff I went through personally and I was lucky that I had Amelia around me and I managed to speak to other people to give me some support, but it will never bring her back. I have to live with that, but the memory that I've got of Caroline and the beautiful, life-changing things that we got to do together and the TV shows we worked on, the laughs, the jokes, she's always in my thoughts.

"It's definitely given me some perspective that you shouldn't take anything for granted, and also to make sure that I speak to my friends a lot more. Mental health is such a big thing. You think on the surface people will be fine and they're dealing with certain situations but you don't really know until you ask them. Maybe they won't ever tell you but you should ask questions and be present in people's lives. I want to speak to my friends a lot more than maybe I did before, I want to make sure they're OK and if there are any problems then call me, speak to me, let's chat, let's help each other out."

Movingly Murs sang the Neil Diamond song Sweet Caroline in memory of Flack while he was coaching on the recent series of ITV's The Voice UK. He says of the moment: "I wanted to pay tribute to someone that I love and really cared about. I just wanted to do something that was positive. As much as there was a lot of negativity around Caroline's death, I wanted to remember the great times that I had with her. That song, Sweet Caroline, she was sweet and she was amazing and a great person and she was fun to be around. She loved that song and I know that everyone loves it. It makes me think of her when I sing it."

The autumn series of The Voice was Murs's fifth as a coach. Having gone through the rigours of a singing competition himself when he took part in The X Factor in 2009, he feels he can offer contestants useful advice. "These shows were built on people like myself," he says. Even though he's not competing himself this time, he says: "I want to win – not just for me, I want my contestants to win, I want them to lift the trophy, I want them to get the record deal.

"But ultimately they're all winners in our eyes, they're all brilliant singers and we hope they get the recognition or get something from the show, it gives them the inspiration to go on and fight and get what they want from the industry that they love, like we did. It's not a guarantee when you come on The Voice that you're going to get a record deal and have number ones, but it's definitely a platform for people to use, and if we can create the next big superstar or they can come from our show that would be amazing, then we've done our job. But I still want Team Olly to win at the end of it, I still want to see one of my guys win."

Being seated next to Sir Tom Jones on the TV set is, it seems, an added bonus. "He's just a legend, what you see is what you get," Murs says. "He's a fun guy to work with, he's got a great sense of humour, he's got one of the most iconic voices of all time, as soon as you hear him sing a note you know who it is. He's a dream to work with and I enjoy being around him. We have a good laugh together, me and Tom. He respects me as much as I respect him. He's a great guy and I love working with him."

Marry Me is out now. Olly Murs plays at First Direct Arena, Leeds on April 28, Scarborough Open Air Theatre on August 23 and Doncaster Wildlife Park on August 26.