John Legend speaks ahead of Birmingham gig

He's a law unto himself. Soul superstar John Legend has reached such rarefied heights that he now writes the rules, rather than following them. The 10-time Grammy Award winner has won an Oscar and a Golden Globe. He's worked with Jay Z, Alicia Keys, Kanye West and Lauryn Hill.

And the man who made his break through with 2004's game-changing Get Lifted has soundtracked the lives of his fans with era-defining hits like the worldwide smash All Of Me, which earned him around 30 platinum discs.

So when John turns his attentions to releasing new records, like last year's Darkness and Light, it's understandable that his paymasters at Columbia Records try not to interfere. Six records into his career, John remains big box office; a kind of Stevie Wonder for the modern idiom.

If that means playing impromptu sets at St Pancras International train station, in London, then so be it. The stunt was TV news that made all of the national newspapers and served notice of his forthcoming UK tour, which reaches Birmingham's Barclaycard Arena on September 20. And besides, it was a blast.

"It was so much fun, I loved it. I don't do them that often but that was truly impromptu, no one knew that we were coming. We knew we were gonna do it, but they didn't know, so the fans that were there were truly surprised, and they seemed pretty happy and I was happy to do it."

It's not just tinkling the ivories at train stations that sets John apart. He's earned the right to do things his own way. And if that means asking his team to do just one interview with a British newspaper – his stipulation being 'choose the best' – then that's what he does. Lucky us. Lucky you. Hashtag #exclusive.

Though John won't be back in the UK until later this year, his thoughts have already turned to his arena tour. It will follow a colossal trek around the USA, through May and June, and will encompass nine arena shows prior to similarly-sized dates around the biggest venues in mainland Europe.

"Oh yeah, 'cause we're gonna tour in the US first. We'll be well seasoned by the time we get to the UK! We're practicing on North America for you guys. Yeah, we're gonna play these big venues with all this production, it was nice to do it stripped down at St Pancras."

The sets will be tailored to individual venues as John makes sure he plays the hits that fans want to hear. And with a catalogue that includes Used To Love U, Ordinary People, All Of Me, Love Me Now, Lay Me Down with Sam Smith, Like I'm Gonna Lose You with Meghan Trainor and more, he'll be spoiled for choice.

"Well, once we start the tour, a lot of the audience will be around the same size, so we won't have to think differently when it comes to audience size, but there are certain differences like the US audience like certain songs, and the UK audiences might like different ones to the European audiences," he explains.

"So, there's some minor differences in kind of, what songs resonate more, but mostly it'll be a similar set because we know what songs were the most important songs from each album and we try to play those and then of course we want to play songs from the new album as well, so we'll have a mix of both."

John tours sporadically and his career remains on the ascent. His present tour features more venues and bigger crowds than earlier shows. Tickets are selling fast. Not that he can keep all of the fans happy all of the time, even when he's playing more shows: "Yeah, this is my biggest UK tour, bigger venues and more cities than I've ever played. Dublin is very upset though! I was reading my Twitter and it's like 'Why are you not coming to Dublin?' I'm like doing all these UK shows and not going to Ireland."

He enjoys being on the road and is disciplined between shows. As tempting as it might seem to enjoy the bright lights of Birmingham, the restaurants of London or the bars of Glasgow, he'll be keeping a low profile while he's on the road. He needs to stay match-fit for his gigs, so that fans see him at his best. That means sight-seeing will be kept to a minimum.

"I will do a little bit. I rest a lot when I'm on tour because my voice needs rest and I try to get as much sleep as possible. I just like to rest 'cause it takes a lot of energy and vocal rest to give a good show and so I try to store up as much of that as I can for the actual show."

The tour follows the release of John's beautiful Darkness and Light album, which came out at the tail end of last year. He was pleased to get it released, three years after the huge Love In The Future. "Y'know, I'd been working on it for a little over a year and I was so proud of it when we were finally done. I was excited for people to hear it and now I'm excited to play it for people finally."

The title explained the sensation of joy through pain, light through darkness. He thinks it's important to give fans hope through his music.

"Yeah, I'm an optimistic person and even when I talk about uncertainty and pain and conflict I'm always trying to find redemption. I write about those things and I think hopefully it can help people when they're going through something like that to get through it and find the light and love and enjoy what they want to find."

Things have changed, of course, since his breakthrough debut. Get Lifted was released via Kanye West's GOOD Music Label back in 2004. It was featured produced by Kanye, John, Dave Dozer and will.i.am. The record announced John as a serious talent with two million sales in the USA and a further two million around the globe. He won the 2006 Grammy for Best R&B Album and two further awards for Best New Artist and Best Male R&B Vocal for the single Ordinary People.

But even though he's now in a different headspace as an artist and as a man, he still relates to the songs he wrote on his debut.

"It's not hard to relate, I know that person, I know who I was then and I've clearly grown up and I've had different experiences. I'm married, I have a baby now. Like, certain things change and I think I'm more emotionally mature now and I'm also more confident in expressing my own point of view lyrically than I was then and it makes me feel good as a creative person being able to put all that on an album."

And quite apart from thrilling his fans with new music, he's become one of Hollywood's most in-demand film score writers. John has been involved with a slew of movies, including two of the biggest of recent times: La La Land and Beauty and The Beast.

He enjoyed being involved in those two big musicals and recalls the moment of realisation that La La Land was huge.

"It was when we were starting to play the film at festivals like Telluride and Venice and all these places, the reviews coming back were amazing and when I would speak to some of the critical press, some of them were just floored by the film and so excited about it and then when the film first went out to theatres, it did really well but it was in just a few theatres, it was only a limited release, so we weren't sure how well it would do commercially at the time, but per-screen it was doing really well. Once we released it wide, press just kept building and the buzz kept building, and of course the awards kept building.

"It became a global hit, which I don't know if we knew that was gonna happen but we hoped it would. We hoped that people would love the film and I felt confident that Damien (Chazelle, the director) had made a beautiful film. He's a great film maker, he had a great script and he has a great vision for what he wants to accomplish on the film and he executed it beautifully and I'm just glad people saw that and enjoyed it."

The film also marked John's first major acting role and he was thrilled to be part of a bona fide Hollywood juggernaut. The 2016 musical romantic drama starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone has grossed a phenomenal $432 million worldwide on a budget of $30 million. It won in every category in which it was nominated at the 74th Golden Globe Awards, with a record-breaking seven wins, and received 11 nominations at the 70th Baftas, winning five. The film also received 14 Oscar nominations, tying the record with Titanic and All About Eve. It won six.

"I feel proud to be part of it and honoured to be part of it and y'know, I didn't have to do a lot of the heavy lifting as an actor. Emma and Ryan did most of it but it was nice to be part of such a great team and be in a role that I felt comfortable portraying, and I feel really good about that as my first major role."

John wrote and performed Start A Fire and found it easier writing for a film than he did for his own albums.

"It's actually easier to write to a brief. That's why I love writing for film. I've written a lot of songs for film and it's easier to write to a brief 'cause it narrows your focus. It's easier to focus your mind on this one film, this one idea, or this one assignment whereas when I'm writing for my album, we go in there and we could write about literally anything, which means you're free, but it also means, who knows what you'll come up with that day and if it'll be the right direction.

"When you're writing for a film it's a more narrow assignment and it's actually easier to fulfil than an open ended one."

The success of La La Land has whetted his appetite for acting and he'll be happy to consider other movies if the right role comes up. It would, however, have to fit into his busy touring schedule. So all bets are off for 2017. "Yeah, the right role, the right timing 'cause I'm obviously touring still a lot and touring is more lucrative and more natural for me to do than any acting role that someone would present to me right now, but I do feel confident that if I get the right role and the right timing that I would do it again."

La La Land may have provided John with a significant hit in Hollywood, but that's unlikely to be his last. He has recorded the Beauty and The Beast title song with Ariana Grande. Their version was an homage to the cover performed by Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson on the 1991 soundtrack.

"Disney reached out to us and said 'Do you wanna do it?' and part of me was saying y'know 'Oh, that's a big challenge y'know, Celine Dion and Peabo Bryson did a really great version already. I grew up knowing that version and the film was iconic, the song was iconic. It won an Academy Award that year, so it was big shoes to fill but I felt Ariana and I could do it, and we could take on the challenge and I feel competent that we did a good job with the song."

But for now, his career as a movie singer and star is on hold. John's thoughts are focused on his forthcoming American tour and his run of UK shows. It's time to get busy. It's time to Get Lifted.

John Legend plays Barclaycard Arena on September 20. Tickets from www.viagogo.co.uk

By Andy Richardson