Since he was about 12 years old, Jack Garratt has been aware of a voice in his head trying to bring him down.
It is a critical voice, filled with a coruscating self-loathing. “It hates who I am,” Garratt says. “It tells me that I don’t deserve anything.”
The voice remained a constant throughout adolescence and into adulthood. When, as an emergent singer in 2016 at the age of 24, he won the Brits Critics’ Choice Award and the BBC Sound Poll Award, he was only the fourth person ever to receive both in a single year, following Adele, Sam Smith and Ellie Goulding.
“Yes, and we all know who they are, but people still really don’t know much about me, do they?” he laments.
What he means by this is that when his debut album, Phase, came out later that year, it wasn’t a comparably huge commercial hit. In truth, it wasn’t really that surprising: Phase, and its creator, were far more left-field than his award-winning peers, his music more experimental and not, in the strictest sense, as unifying or crowd-pleasing.
The negative voice in his head loved this purported “failure”, as it confirmed what Garratt had long suspected himself: that he never really deserved such plaudits in the first place. “It confirmed I was rubbish,” he says.
Looking back on that album today, he thinks it was “confused, strange and pre-determined”.
Reviews were mixed, and profile pieces openly mocked him. The Guardian made fun of the fact that he didn’t take drugs and hailed from affluent Little Chalfont; The Independent derided him for being “bland”.
His anxiety spiralled, his depression grew.
He vowed to start over, underwent therapy, and got married. He started recording new songs, but was so displeased with the results that he junked them all.
Over time, he managed to write more songs that he was actually happy with, and in June they will see the light of day on his second album, Love, Death & Dancing.
‘There is definitely more that should be done in caring for the mental health of those who are currently being encouraged to write about their mental health’
If that first record was Garratt still finding his voice, he has now very much found it. Though it may be drenched in the kind of sonic experimentation listeners of James Blake and Bon Iver will be familiar with, it is pretty singular stuff. Encompassing themes of happiness and misery, it is set to some euphoric beats per minute. This is music to dance to.
“The melodies, I hope, are uplifting and fun,” he says, “because I’ve always loved to dance – it’s such a good way to express yourself, to be free. But I wanted it to be very honest lyrically. With this record, I had to go out of my way to genuinely love myself, because that’s what I realised I needed: to engage in a genuine relationship with myself. It’s not always an easy process, and I’m still learning, but what I’m all about now is coming from a place of absolute honesty.”
On paper at least, Garratt – a man whose chin-hugging beard would, you feel, elicit admiration from Glastonbury’s Michael Eavis – had a happy and contented upbringing. Though Little Chalfont, in the Chilterns, was not exactly a hotbed of avant-garde creativity.
“I come from a privileged background, I’ve always been very aware of that,” he notes. “I’ve not used it to help my career, but I’ve not hidden from it, either. It’s simply who I am.”
The mental health issues he has been plagued with would have been evident, he believes, in whichever way he chose to express himself as an adult, but being a musician, which brought him a public recognition that wasn’t always complimentary, undoubtedly exacerbated things. “I was an easy target for people, and they really did go for me.”
Every musician gets bad reviews, but these played directly to his inner critic, and any resolve he had built up quickly crumbled. He was so convinced of his ultimate lack of worth – and future prospects – that he considered taking his own life.
“That happened,” he says, “when I was busy swatting away that voice, ignoring it, and it came back like a juggernaut. It said that everybody would be happy if I killed myself, but it also said that I would never kill myself because I was a coward.” He sighs. “That’s how I talk to myself.”
He deals with this particular episode on the album track “She Will Lay My Body on the Stone”, a haunting piano ballad that almost touches upon gospel. “I am begging you,” he sings in the most keening voice. “Please separate me from myself/I’m on my knees.”
‘I wanted it to be very honest lyrically. With this record, I had to go out of my way to genuinely love myself’
He has come to accept his inner voice, he suggests, as something that will never go away. “And so I have to learn to love it as much as I can, because if I don’t, it will prevent me from making music, from loving my family, and it will kill me.”
It might be worth pointing out here that, throughout our conversation, Garratt makes for disarmingly good company. He is friendly, and funny, his voice bright and full of life. Even when he talks about his lowest ebb, he sounds upbeat and affirmative. If depression can often announce itself upon those it stalks like storm clouds visible to everyone, then Garratt has learned to conceal his.
“I know I’m eloquent enough to talk about my emotions,” he explains, “but the truth is I’m as emotionally jangled up as I’ve ever been. But I am learning to engage more with my sense of identity.”
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Nevertheless, it is hard work, and lonely with it. He believes that the record industry could help more – not just him, but the many like him.
“Don’t get me wrong, I have a wonderful relationship with all the people I work with, but I don’t think that the industry itself yet knows how to take care of the people who create for it. If they don’t take care of the product, the product will fail.
“There is definitely more that should be done in caring for the mental health of those who are currently being encouraged to write about their mental health – it’s a very fashionable thing to talk about these days, after all – so I do think we should all be holding one another to account.”
And is he optimistic that this will happen one day? “I hope so, yes.”
And in the meantime? “In the meantime, I’m engaging with people who want to talk to me, and not just about me. I lost a lot of my confidence after the first album, but I’m engaging in violent acts of self-love now in order to build up that confidence again.” He laughs dryly. “It’s a start.”