

I had a really naive conviction that this is what I would do. “I realised I needed a manager who could show me how to get through the shark-infested waters of the music business, while I could then at least focus on the music. I remember inviting record labels to come down to many early gigs in London, but I was doing it the wrong way. “Of course, I had many dead ends in trying to find my path and a way into the music business, but when you’re just starting out you don’t really know which direction to go in. During his assignment throughout his time at Kosovo, he would perform for his troops, and it was while on duty there that he wrote one of his best-known songs, No Bravery.įrom the age of 14, he says, he had been telling anyone who would listen that he wanted to write songs, sing them on stage and record them.

The Stars Beneath My Feet (2004-2021) is the debut greatest hits collection by James Bluntīlunt was still in the army when dreams of becoming a full-time musician, successful or not, were filtering through his mind. You realise there are always two sides to an argument.” I really appreciate the many lessons I learned from being in the army. “The fact that the helmet on the album cover has been graffitied on, drawn on, shows that someone has shed the uniform and escaped the uniform, and found themselves instead. “I was a solider for six years and then a musician,” says Blunt, over Zoom. Long before the 47-year-old songwriter became a multi-million selling artist, he served in the British Army, rising to the rank of Captain, and deployed with Nato to Kosovo, where, in 1999, he led a Nato peacekeeping force from the North Macedonia border towards Pristina International Airport. We see Blunt strumming a guitar while wearing a soldier’s helmet, which is scored and scrawled upon. Sometimes, album cover images have meaning to only musicians or bands, but the image for The Stars Beneath My Feet (2004-2021), the debut greatest hits collection by James Blunt, tells a highly significant story.
