Saint Raymond talks quitting college and touring with Haim

Music's never been a steady profession, which is why most players have a back-up plan. Not so for Nottingham´s Callum Burrows aka Saint Raymond - 2014´s indie-pop heir apparent.

“I went to college for an hour and then dropped out,” he explains, guiltily. “I didn´t do too badly
at school, but as soon I knew I wanted to do music, I took my eye off it.”

He´s focused elsewhere, though: the 18-year-old recently toured Europe with band-of-the- moment Haim and is garnering plentiful radio play of his new Young Blood EP. “People might see me and think, ‘This is a really quick thing,´” says Callum. “But I was gigging for years and last year I was away writing, so I tried to put a lot of the foundations in before I really went for it.”

In his battle for teenage hearts and minds, Callum´s weapons of choice are a Fender Blues Deluxe and a Gibson ES-335 (tuned to open C), which you´ll see in use come his UK headline tour in March.

“You always think, ‘Is anyone going to be there?´” he admits. “On the last tour, I played one of my [most obscure songs] and loads of people were singing it back. That was a special moment. This acoustic song that I wrote in my bedroom - and now the people of Glasgow are singing it back to me.” Back-up plans be damned!

For more information visit the official Saint Raymond website, or connect with him on Facebook or Twitter.

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Matt Parker

Matt is a freelance journalist who has spent the last decade interviewing musicians for the likes of Total Guitar, Guitarist, Guitar World, MusicRadar, NME.com, DJ Mag and Electronic Sound. In 2020, he launched CreativeMoney.co.uk, which aims to share the ideas that make creative lifestyles more sustainable. He plays guitar, but should not be allowed near your delay pedals.