EVERYMAN SUPERSTAR

With hundreds of millions of streams and a determination to give back and demand more, Myles Smith has a heart as big as his voice

- By WILL RICHARDS

If you're a young musician looking for a hero and a role model, you might choose someone with an otherworldly quality that makes you feel like you can transcend yourself.

Bowie, Prince, Gaga. In his early twenties, Myles Smith was a business owner in strategic development, but he was determined to take his musical dreams off the backburner. He picked Ed Sheeran as his North Star – not entirely because of the sold-out stadium tours, international acclaim and millions in the bank. It was because he seemed so damn nice, and so damn normal. In Sheeran, Smith saw a way to make music, connect with an audience and still keep a hold of himself. Though many promotional campaigns around up-and-coming artists are built on establishing faux-authenticity and an everyman aesthetic, Smith looks and feels like you because he simply is. His story – from a working-class kid in Luton to a BRIT-winning, chart-topping sensation – is full of false starts, unglamorous details and unseen hard work, and is all the more relatable for it. When Smith did eventually meet Sheeran – the pair attended an Arsenal match at the Emirates Stadium at the end of December 2024 – he was struck by the complete lack of difference between his public persona and private demeanour. It showed him you can be entirely yourself and still become a beloved, important artist. It's an ethos that Smith, 27, has maintained through chart-topping singles, worldwide tours, his first Rolling Stone UK cover and now with his win of The Breakthrough Award at the ZYN Rolling Stone UK Awards 2025. Whatever shiny accolades come his way, it's only worth it, he says, if he remains “just Myles from Luton”.