As John Barrowman swings into Guildford's G Live for his UK tour, he tells Charles Raspin about how his fans helped him with the album by raising funds... and the roof
John Barrowman’s travelled through time, fought aliens in Wales, engaged in masked supervillainy, hunted Osama bin Laden, and plotted eco-terrorism from Wisteria Lane. He’s an actor, singer, children’s author, dancer, TV and radio host, activist, and last year became an MBE. If that wasn’t enough, he’s also got a mean recipe for banana bread.
“Put an exorbitant amount of chocolate chips in it. It will be absolutely divine! It’s like eating a banana split sundae in cake form.”
John is about to return to the UK, and not just to swap baking tips. Later this month he kicks off his You Raise Me Up tour which sees him perform songs from his new album of the same name. I speak to him just as he has finished filming the new season of Arrow, the superhero TV series in which he plays the alliteratively-named villain Malcolm Merlyn.
“I’m a huge nerd, so I love it all,” he exclaims. “This season’s going to be a massive rollercoaster. Jaws will drop!”
John’s UK tour starts in Southend and he swings into Surrey on Saturday, June 13 when he appears at Guildford G Live.
“The whole show won’t just be the album”, he clarifies. “There will also be other song choices. The tour is basically an insight into my life since the fans saw me last time. I tell stories, show pictures and videos, and the songs are all built around that. Some of the songs will be new, some will be old, but they all have a story to go with them - a story that I love telling.”
It’s not John’s first visit to our patch. Back in 2012, he took to the stage at the Hampton Court Festival to perform his summer set.
“That was awesome!” he enthuses. “What a great venue to perform in. What a lovely evening. The rain dried up, it was warm, and we had a fantastic show.”
John Barrowman as the villainous Malcolm Merlyn on Arrow
Image © The CW
His upcoming appearance at G Live promises to be even more fun. “There’s going to be some surprises,”he says. “There’ll be laughs, storytelling, and a lot of music, but the number one thing is that it’s a night full of good entertainment. That’s the important part.”
The You Raise Me Up album was actually funded by John’s fans, who were desperate to hear more of his music.
“When the recession hit, the record companies changed. Those of us who were lower down the echelons, we all got kind of… bumped,” he explains. “I still wanted to record, so I went to the fans and they said ‘we will be your producers!’ It was incredible. I’m exceptionally lucky to have a fanbase who would do that.”
It seemed appropriate to return their generosity in kind. “Well, I didn’t want to just take their money. So for the people who invested, I tried to give them something in return”. He lays out his plan. “We held afternoon meetings. At each stage we’d invite about twenty of them to afternoon tea, and then they’d have an hour and fifteen minutes for Q&A, signings, meet-and-greet…”
“Even when we were recording music, we invited people into the recording studio to watch the album they’d put money into being made. It was a huge success. Everyone felt like they were getting something special for their chunks of investment.”
He pauses, before laughing, “Chunks is the technical term!”
This kind of fundraising - called “crowdfunding” - is becoming steadily more popular, with sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo used to raise money for everything from art projects to start-up businesses.
This kind of fundraising, called crowdfunding, is becoming steadily more popular, with sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo used to raise money for everything from art projects to start-up businesses. You Raise Me Up was funded entirely by the donations through PledgeMusic, and was released last year to rave reviews. Fans are already calling for a chance to help make another. Barrowman puts the success down to the freedom his fans handed him, as his ‘producers’.
“I had absolute creative control. When you’re with a record company – and I mean no offence, because those companies have been very generous to me – you have certain obligations. You might be asked to cover a certain song because it got to number one, even if it means nothing to you. They’re paying for it, so you have to give them what they want.”
This time, however, the fans were paying for production, so John could give them exactly what he knew they wanted.
“There were no arguments, it was all in their style, right down to the little details like the colour of the album sleeve. I actually let fans choose some of the pictures for the album,” he explains, adding. “More importantly, it let me do what I wanted. I could put a song like You Raise Me Up on the cover, follow it with Skyscraper and then put in a traditional Scottish song like Loch Lomond.” He laughs, “No record company would let me get away with that!”
John in costume for Hustle, the BBC crime show
The artistic freedom was clearly refreshing, and seems to have informed John’s latest venture, presenting his own Sunday radio show on Magic FM.
“When I was asked, I had to think about it, because I already had a lot on my plate, but you don’t get asked to do things like this very often! Still, I wanted to have a say on the playlist, I wanted to have control over what I talked about – I went through this whole list of criteria with Magic and we agreed on it.”
Magic of Barrowman is currently one of the station’s most popular shows, and each week John sounds as though he is thoroughly enjoying himself.
“Of course, I’m hosting this show even when I’m not in the UK, so we do it in a studio in Palm Springs, near where I live, or in Vancouver when I’m filming Arrow. We choose the music, we pick out good topics, I give listeners some insight into what’s going on in my life.”
Once again, John takes pains to involve the audience. “People write in, people email, I live tweet. We get a great reaction and interaction going on during the show."
“I’ve been doing this a long time”, he muses. “I’ve been doing it for 26, 27 years now, and I’ve learned an awful lot from a lot of people on the way. Right now, I like to do my own thing with everything I've learned, because I've done all the grafting."
“Maybe some people see that as wanting to be in control, but if I know what my audience wants, why not just let me do it?” he finishes emphatically.
This is partly why we won’t see John on stage this Christmas. His pantomime shows in his hometown of Glasgow have all but become a tradition, but the production company had their own ideas.
“They wanted to send me to a different venue. They didn’t really ask, more ‘told’ me I was going. So I decided I’d take a year off.”
“That’s not to say I won’t come back at some point – I had an amazing rapport with The Krankies, and we built a great brand together, but I’ve spent 10 years doing pantomime and I need a break. So I’m going to have a nice Christmas this year, with my family, for the first time in a decade.”
And just how does the man of many talents plan to relax?
“I’m going to do what everyone else does over Christmas – I’m gonna get hammered!”
John Barrowman brings his You Raise Me Up tour to G Live on June 13
