Lewis Capaldi: I don't think I'm a pop star

"Sometimes I want to talk about plunging a toilet; other times I have thoughts and feelings."

For a man with the biggest sad song of the year, some of Lewis Capaldi’s social media posts have been among the funniest.

There was the time when the Scots singer-songwriter – who topped the charts for seven weeks with Someone You Loved – filmed himself walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard in search of a plunger after having blocked his own hotel toilet. Now, his forthcoming debut album, Divinely Uninspired to Hellish Extent, may have a similarly droll title, but don't be fooled. Contained within is an emotional rollercoaster of a pop record; piano-driven and packed with power ballads about breakups, heartache and insecurity.

"People just like to know where their stuff is coming from in 2019, whether that's food or meat or vegetables - people want to know it's not genetically modified and they want to know that music is coming from someone that talks about going to bathroom as much I do."

Stressful and boring

While the BBC Sound of 2018 tip loves playing his songs live ("there's no greater compliment than someone paying money to see you"), the recording of the album itself sounds like it was an equally bittersweet experience. "There's nothing funny about recording an album," reveals Capaldi, as if to debunk another showbiz myth. "It's stressful and boring - I'll tell you that. "Singing the same line 47 times, just to be told 'you know what, I think we're gonna go with the first take; there's just this raw emotion in it' - it drives me up the wall! "So we tried to do that as little as possible. "The interesting thing I found was, you start off loving the song and when you write it there's this excitement in you and then you start arranging it and adding instruments in and you're like 'oh this is incredible' and then you start recording it and you start to hate the song completely!