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Jake Bugg on the Brits

February 2014

JAKE Bugg will be heading to the Brit Awards in London tonight to see if he can beat the likes of David Bowie and John Newman to pick up the British male solo artist gong.

But the 19-year-old from Clifton doesn’t think he’ll win. And nor is he a fan of the event.

“It’s boring,” he says. “I don’t really want to go but I might as well. I’ve got nothing else to do.”

The ceremony at the O2 Arena, which will be broadcast on ITV1 tonight from 8pm, includes performances by Katy Perry and Arctic Monkeys.

“I love the party afterwards, don’t get me wrong, they’re great but the actual event is pretty boring when you have to watch those crap acts perform,” says Jake, who is also up against Tom Odell and James Blake in his category.

He went to the awards last year when he was nominated for British breakthrough act, losing out to Ben Howard.

London Grammar, the band who met at the University of Nottingham, are up for British breakthrough act tonight.

“I haven’t got a speech prepared – I don’t expect to win,” says Jake.

After shows in Australia and the US, he recently started his UK tour that comes to the Capital FM Arena tomorrow.

It will be his biggest indoor gig to date, with 9,000 people expected, and follows his headline slot at Splendour in Wollaton Park in front of 17,000 people.

He will be the first Nottingham artist to headline a show at the city’s biggest venue. It follows the No. 1 success of his self-titled debut album, which has sold more than a million copies, and the No. 3 success of the follow-up Shangri La.

It will be the first time he’s been back to the city since Christmas, when he spent three days with his family.

Prior to that was a fleeting visit in November when he played a secret gig in front of 200 people at The Maze in Mansfield Road.

Later this year Jake, who turns 20 on February 28, will be touring South America for the first time.

Today and again on Friday, Jake will be teaching songwriting skills to 16-18-year-old students at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

He’ll be showing them how to perform his song Broken and one of the students will join him on stage at the 5,000-capacity venue on Friday night to perform it.

“We need initiatives like this to inspire young musicians,” he says.

It will be his first gig at the Royal Albert Hall.

“It’s such an iconic venue and so many of my idols that inspired me have performed there. I can’t believe I am following in their footsteps.”

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