I fought my demons... now I'm ready for this

Tom speaks frankly today about the period not so long ago when his career was flying high, but his inner life seemed to be in something of a downward spiral. Pressure seemed to be coming from all directions, and his mental wellbeing took a hit.

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One day Tom's mum came to stay. “My mum could see I was not in the best of places,” Tom remembers. “She said to me: ‘I'm your mum and I’m your friend. Be honest: are you alright?’ And I said: ‘No, I’m not’. And she said: ‘Right, you're coming home with me.” It was exactly what Tom needed, he says. “It’s not that I needed love, it’s that I needed to accept it. I just didn’t have the words to ask her for help.” He left his London flat, moved home and started a fitness journey after a close friend took him to the gym. “I was so out of breath, I thought I was hallucinating,” he laughs. “But I felt all these endorphins in me, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is what I've been missing.”

The more you hear about the story soundtracked by these new songs, the more it makes sense that three words Tom uses a lot when talking about the album are belief, purpose and risk. And the more those three words fall into some sort of order: Everywhere I Went Led Me To Where I Didn't Want To Be is an album about how a sense of purpose brought self-belief and, with it, the confidence to take risks.