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‘It’s been like banging my head against a brick wall’: Jake Bugg on class, anxiety and impostor syndrome

Once dubbed ‘Britain’s coolest boy’, the Nottingham singer-songwriter is now 30 and about to release his sixth album. Has he enjoyed his 13 years in the limelight? Not exactly …

His parents had separated when he was young, which he says led him to grow up fast: “Pick your sister up from school, do the dishes, do the laundry, make sure everything’s ready for when your mum comes back – I think it’s just something you naturally do. Having made the follow-up, Shangri La, with super-producer Rick Rubin at his Malibu studio, Bugg returned to his roots for 2016’s On My One, titled for a Nottingham dictum – and even attempted to rap, on Ain’t No Rhyme. In 2021, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning – Bugg’s poppier fifth album, and his first on Sony’s RCA label – was framed as a career reset, and gave rise to his biggest single in years, All I Need.

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