Matt Cardle talks Harry Styles sex, X Factor rows and his fight for credibility
A year ago Matt Cardle was the most talked about man in Britain, having just scored his first number one with the second biggest selling single of the year. But like all X Factor winners he now finds himself back at square one, hoping to prove himself with a self-written debut album and an upcoming UK tour. We spoke to Matt about his controversial views on the show that made him, his crusade for credibility and THAT whispered comment by One Direction's Harry Styles.
HM: Hello Matt Cardle. Holy Moly has given you quite a bit of flak over the last year (mostly about cardigans), does that stuff bother you?
MC: “If one of my mates finds something horrible about me then they’ll forward it to me. But I don’t give a shit, is the answer. That’s what sites like yours are there for and people go in it to read shit about people – it’s funny! I enjoy those websites.”
HM: Did anyone warn you that, having won The X Factor, people would be looking for the first opportunity to knock you down?
MC: “It’s the way the world works, isn’t it? You build people up to knock them down. I mean, Michael Jackson was the ultimate… and I don’t know if he was putting wine in fucking Coca-Cola or if he was sleeping with kids, I don’t fucking know. But he couldn’t have got any more of a demigod status before they tore him down.
“Unfortunately it’s the way a lot of people work. And we were told that. As soon as you get on the show people start.
“It’s funny, celebrity stands for ‘celebrated people’ but you don’t really celebrate them, you just rip them. It used to be that we celebrated the things these people did, now it’s ‘They’re doing something good, let’s find something bad’.”
HM: And Twitter makes that so much easier.
MC: “I know. Some of the things that were being said about Jessie from Little Mix was just fucking evil. It’s really horrible. It’s like going up to someone in the street and saying, ‘Do you know what? You’re fat and you’re ugly. See ya!’ But because you’re behind a computer or on an iPhone… It’s just rude and horrible.”
HM: Do you feel like this is your one chance to make it or are you in it for the long game?
MC: “It’s been a long game. I started taking it super seriously from about 12 years old. I sent my first demo off when I was 13. It probably reached this building [Sony] and I got a letter back to my band saying, ‘Nice one guys, it’s not really what we’re looking for but keep going’. And I’ve been trying ever since then. This is my fourth album that I’ve written, and it’s the first one that people have been able to buy on ITunes. For me it’s the long game.”
HM: But you chose to take a shortcut to fame, knowing that there’d be a price to pay for that?
MC: “God’s honest truth it wasn’t me, it was my ex-girlfriend’s mate who took a video of me when I was playing some pub gigs for cash. She videoed me singing Mercy by Duffy. And then we were at a party and she said she was gonna upload it to X Factor. And I said, ‘No, don’t do that. I've got the band’. And I tried for about an hour to stop her. And she went upstairs and did it anyway. I forgot about it, and then she called me a week later and said, ‘You’ve got a call’.
“I tried again not to do it, but all my mates were like, ‘Are you fucking kidding? Go for it!’ So I went and the rest is… all over YouTube.”
HM: You came in for criticism when you were quoted as saying: “I wore yellow trousers and sang Katy Perry’s Firework for fuck’s sake! Singing pop songs without my guitar and covered in make-up didn’t sit right.” So why didn’t you just say no?
MC: “Of course I could’ve. But you’re wrapped up in it. And the way you look at things changes. You’re in the middle of a big machine. And I would never have… This is the thing, it was more fashion sense I was talking about! Grace [Woodward] had me in a blue shirt and golden trousers, singing The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. And I don’t fucking know about fashion. So if someone who’s worked their whole life at fashion tells you, ‘This is cool’… well I took her word for it. And people said I looked quite nice!
“She tried to put me in this whole yellow suit. She was like, ‘Babe, it’s Firework. You need to look like that’. So I’m like, ‘Ok!’ I trusted her judgment.
“But it was just an off-the-cuff thing I said with a smile on my face.”
HM: That’s the problem. We don’t see the smile.
MC: “I know. I’ve learnt that quite quickly.”
HM: Many of the people who voted for you clearly like the song and liked you singing it. So it might’ve felt a bit like sticking two fingers up at the people who put you here.
MC: “I think people can see that sometimes you do songs that you don’t wanna do. Every week on X Factor everyone had a conflict about what they were singing because nobody wanted to do their song. And a lot of the time I was really happy with my songs: First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, Baby One More Time, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road… great. Nights In White Satin – one of my all time favourite songs; it was my choice and I loved it. But a couple of times it was like, ‘You’re singing Firework’. ‘Oh, ok. Fair enough’.
“But I apologise if I offended anyone who voted for me, by saying things like that.”
HM: Credibility is important to you, isn’t it?
MC: “Yeah. Yeah it is. It’s the wrong way to come into it, wanting credibility; and I know that. Put it this way, I was trying for nearly 14 years to do it credibly. And… I felt that I was cheating as well. There’s no two ways about it. It felt like I’d just skipped the queue.
“But you don’t get anywhere in this life if you don’t take chances. And I was trying my fucking arse off for years and this came along and I went for it. And I know that it’s not the most credible thing to do. But…”
HM: But credibility is an intangible concept. And it’s entirely subjective. How do you know when you’re credible?
MC: “Well you don’t. But watch me on the telly singing Katy Perry’s Firework in bright yellow trousers, or come to my flat and watch me sit round a piano, smashed off my face, writing a song - that’s music to me.”
HM: It also sounds like a TV show we’d like to watch.
MC: “People don’t see that part. Unless they read the album sleeve and see that I’ve co-written the whole thing… But as far as trying to gain credibility, all I can do is write my music and if people like it and buy it then that’s worked. Surely?”
HM: Do you write your own Twitter posts?
MC: “Yes I do. But I struggle to get my head around the fact that some people are genuinely interested in what I‘ve done this morning. So I struggle to get stuff to tweet about. When I was on Facebook I only updated my status once, when I was stung by a wasp. So for four years it just said ‘Fuck wasps’.”
HM: Was Harry Styles’ infamous onstage prediction about the amount of pussy you’d get correct?
MC: “Ha, ha. I get asked it a lot. It would’ve been way more relevant if I’d whispered it to him, from what I’ve been hearing. ‘No Harry, think how much pussy you’re gonna get! You’re 17 and every girl in the country wants to su…’
"Anyway…”
HM: We have no idea what Matt was about to say.
And if you want to see Matt Cardle on tour, then you can do that at the following places (but tickets are going fast, we’re told):
February 2012
Tuesday 28th Rhyl Pavilion
Wednesday 29th Rhyl Pavilion
March 2012
Thursday 1st York Barbican
Saturday 3rd Cambridge, Corn Exchange
Sunday 4th Oxford, Apollo New Theatre
Monday 5th Birmingham, Symphony Hall
Wednesday 7th Nottingham, Royal Concert Hall
Thursday 8th Bournemouth, Academy
Saturday 10th Swindon, Oasis
Sunday 11th Portsmouth, Guildhall
Monday 12th Southend, Cliffs Pavilion
Wednesday 14th Liverpool, Philharmonic
Thursday 15th Glasgow, Academy
Friday 16th Newcastle, City Hall
Sunday 18th Belfast, Waterfront
Monday 19th Dublin, Olympia
Thursday 22nd Manchester, Apollo
Saturday 24th Cardiff, St Davids
Sunday 25th Bristol, Colston Hall
Monday 26th Plymouth, Pavilions
Wednesday 28th Brighton, Dome
Thursday 29th London, HMV Apollo
