Only Ticket Home Gavin James

• 1 Start Again 03:39
• 2 Glow 03:50
• 3 Always 04:07
• 4 Faces 03:22
• 5 Hearts On Fire 03:18
• 6 Cigarette Break 04:05
• 7 The Middle 03:47
• 8 Strangers 03:02
• 9 Easy 04:05
• 10 Tired 03:47
• 11 Only Ticket Home 03:14
• 12 Put You Back Together 03:37
• 13 Hard To Do 04:06
• 14 Last Year (Live) 03:11
• Total Runtime 51:10

Info for Only Ticket Home

It’s been just under three years since Dublin singer-songwriter Gavin James released his debut album Bitter Pill. These past years have been non-stop for Gavin with tours across the globe, including his own sold out headline arena tour to an audience of 15,000, plus supporting Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith along the way.

Gavin’s total streams are rapidly heading toward the one billion mark and rising, making him one of the most successful streamed acts in the world. His breakout hit single ‘Nervous’, from his platinum selling debut album Bitter Pill, has to-date achieved over 200 million streams on Spotify and has been certified multi-platinum in several international markets. Despite his busy schedule, Gavin set aside time to loan his heart-warming vocals to Bliss N Eso’s single ‘Moments’, which went on to win an ARIA Award. Most recently, Gavin collaborated with Alan Walker for the single ‘Tired’, which reached platinum sales around the world.

One of the most genuine and humble artists in music, Gavin is looking forward to the release of his forthcoming sophomore album Only Ticket Home, out 26 October. From Only Ticket Home, the single ‘Always’ has already reached over 20 million streams to date.

“I’m so happy to release Only Ticket Home to the world. I have been on the road constantly since the release of Bitter Pill and this new collection of songs are about the whole process of being away from home and the people you love. It’s also about how amazing it was to be on tour and travel around the world for the last three years.

“The album was produced by my buddy Ollie Green, who also co-wrote a lot of the tunes on the album with me. Once ‘Always’ was written, the songs came very quickly. Everything took shape once that song was finished, and we knew exactly what the sound was going to be for the record.

“The record as a whole is very far away from Bitter Pill. I really wanted to step away from the world of ballads with this album, so it’s mostly fairly upbeat. It’s very much a record of happy sad songs.”

Gavin’s popularity is a reward for such a talented and tireless musician. The son of Dublin’s best-known postman – “I’m not kidding, everyone in the city knows my dad” – and a child-minding mum, Gavin grew up surrounded by music, not all of it to his taste. His dad played him Cat Stevens, Sam Cooke, Bob Dylan and Van Halen, and his decade older brother, with whom he shared a room, relentlessly play rave music.

Gavin’s great grandparents were opera singers and his granddad a stand-up comedian. Performing clearly in his blood, Gavin took up guitar at thirteen, learning Led Zeppelin covers and forming a three-piece rock band (with no bassist) who played gigs in skate parks. By fourteen, Gavin was writing his own rock songs, which he then stripped down to play on acoustic guitar with a mate. While still at school, the pair began getting paid gigs in pubs. Eventually though, the pair went their separate ways and for four years Gavin gigged non-stop solo, at the end of which 600 punters were turning up each weekend to howl his songs back to him.

“It was an insane time, and fantastic practice,” Gavin says. “It taught me how to use my voice properly, and perform for tough crowds. Folk crowds were rowdy, crazy and drunk – they’d run on stage and grab the mic. I started going into the audience with my guitar to get them to stop. If I wasn’t such a big guy, I wouldn’t have dared!”

Gavin increased his focus on songwriting and performing live, and was rewarded for his efforts in 2013, aged 21, when his independently released single ‘Say Hello’ won the Meteor Choice Award for Song Of The Year. Now Gavin James is gearing up for the release of Only Ticket Home, and the new single ‘Glow’.

Gavin James, vocals, guitar, piano

Gavin James
On his way to becoming one of 2016’s international crossover-stories, Gavin James was born in Ashington, a suburb on the northside of Dublin. The 23-year-old son of a postman, music was arguably in James’ blood: his great grandparents were both famous Irish Opera singers and had their own albums released in the early 1900s (they had to turn down an invitation to perform in London owing to their families, and the political conditions of the time). Having started out playing Jimi Hendrix covers in the garden shed, Gavin then drew the short straw when he was chosen as the singer of his teenage band, and learnt his subsequent solo craft the hard way. Inspired by local heroes like Damien Rice and classic, grafting Soul artists such as Sam Cooke, he would play Dublin’s pubs virtually 7 nights a week during college, in a marathon of 3-hour shows.

Growing in confidence, Gavin James’ own material then began to draw an impassioned following: his first ever single won Ireland’s answer to the Mercury (the Choice Prize for ‘Song Of The Year’), stayed on the charts for over 6 months and culminated with 2014’s #1-charting, ‘Live at Whelans’ album: a venue he used to sneak inside when underage, but returned to as a rapturously-received headliner. That night, he happened to perform an impulsive cover of The Magnetic Fields’ ‘The Book Of Love’, accelerating Gavin’s word-of-mouth success story (the track has since become a platinum-selling hit around Europe, with upwards of 6 million plays on Spotify).

With his first piece of recorded material – ‘For You’ – reaching number 1 in Ireland and going top 10 on iTunes in the US, Canada and Holland, Gavin James has inched closer to the spotlight with an appearance on ‘The Late Late Show With James Corden’. Continuing with ‘22’, lifted from sessions from his debut album, Gavin James looks poised to become the next great voice to shine a light back on the Dublin suburbs (and beyond).

This album contains no booklet.