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‘I was too busy to sleep with millions of people’: ex-boybander Eg White on penning bangers for Adele, Duffy – and a builder

The ex-member of Brother Beyond now writes chart-toppers for stars. Why has he decided to make a musical of seedy, gutter-life classic Midnight Cowboy, a film he can’t bear?

Troop into Eg White’s living room, past the bright, spacious kitchen and the yapping terriers (“Meet the unwelcoming committee!”), then descend into the snug basement studio with its underfloor heating and you will have reached the place where pop bangers are born: hits for Adele (Chasing Pavements), Will Young(Leave Right Now), Duffy (Warwick Avenue) and countless others. White’s newest project is the music for a stage version of Midnight Cowboy, the Oscar-winning 1969 buddy movie with Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman as deluded outsiders adrift in New York, adapted now by Bryony Lavery. “There was a five-year period from 2003 where I was writing what people wanted to release: slower songs which take longer to unfold and have more real instruments and aren’t about tightly controlled phrases and beautifully clean productions.

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