Singer-songwriter Roy Stride has said he is “gutted” that Sir Tom Jones has been dropped from The Voice, but believes rapper Aitch will become a “superstar” on the ITV talent show.
The Scouting For Girls frontman, 47, has often spoken of his love for the competition. After news emerged that Sir Tom, 86, was being let go, Roy admitted he was “gutted”. Sir Tom is appearing in the current series, but next year’s panel will feature Will.i.am and Kelly Rowland returning, joined by Aitch and Girls Aloud star Cheryl Tweedy.
Sir Tom's exit and Roy's praise for Aitch
Sir Tom previously said: “The only thing I know right now is that there's never a good time to fire an 86-year-old who's still pretty good at his job.” ITV thanked the “irreplaceable” Sir Tom for his contribution to the show.
“Sir Tom is such a legend; he was so good on the voice. Aitch, he's such a legend, he's such a star, I think this platform will send him into superstardom,” said Roy, adding: “I'm excited for him. I'm gutted about Tom, it's Tom Jones, isn't it?!”
The band previously performed on the same show as Sir Tom and caught him soundchecking, praising his vocals as “incredible”. Roy said: “It just filled up this entire TV studio. We played with him a couple of years ago, which was incredible.”
Of the new coaching line-up, Roy said: “It's always good to have a bit of fresh blood on there, isn't it? Keep it exciting. And uh, it's a bit like, you know, with The Grand Tour, you know, everyone's now saying that Bourgeois is the secret sauce to it, you know, the one which people aren't quite sure about. But I think Aitch is going to kill it.”
Scouting For Girls' 20th anniversary and industry changes
Next year, Scouting For Girls will celebrate their 20th anniversary, having signed their first record deal on February 14, 2007. Roy said he and Pete Ellard founded the group while members of the Scouts and practised in the Scouts hut. “We were 12 and 13,” he commented.
Before signing their deal, the band had to do “everything”, including promotional work, album artwork, producing and recording every track. “We got to a point where we were selling out shows,” he said, adding: “Once we started moving the dial, the record label came along. Once we signed the deal, that felt like the culmination of all the work we'd done.”
Roy feels like a “veteran” of the industry, with the band’s first album, Scouting For Girls, selling over a million copies when released in 2007. By the time their second record, Everybody Wants to Be on TV, came along in 2010, streaming had been introduced. “It was the Wild West,” he laughed, reflecting on the rise of piracy before giants such as Spotify came into fruition.
He said: “We came back and we had This Ain't A Love Song, which went straight to Number One, then it felt like in that time, everything had changed from CDs to iTunes streaming. In some ways, it's booming again now in terms of, like, everyone's got access to music.”
However, Roy acknowledges that launching a music career today isn't as easy for new artists. “I feel like there's so much just to listen to when you have access to everything, you end up cherry-picking the best of different things, so it's hard for artists to actually create a career.”
Artists make around $0.003 to $0.005 per stream on Spotify and around $3,000 to $5,000 per one million streams. “If we lived on the money we got from streaming, well, we just wouldn't,” Roy said. He added: “The three of us wouldn't be able to, I don't think it would even be minimum wage – and we get 100,000 streams per day.” He acknowledged that the only way to make a living out of music is to play live, but it can be “tough” to build up that audience.
His biggest track with his band, She's So Lovely, has racked up over 227,000,000 streams on Spotify alone, while Atlantis by Seafret, written by Roy, has racked up over 1,000,000,000 streams. “I think you can't really even process those sorts of numbers,” he said.
Writing for One Direction and upcoming shows
Throughout his career, Roy has written for the likes of Take That, One Direction, 5 Seconds of Summer and The Vamps. Reflecting on the rise of 5SOS, he said: “They were such good writers, it was amazing to see their development.”
He said of One Direction: “It was those songs I did for One Direction before they even started writing, they'd barely even formed as a band, and I sent a few songs off. I remember getting an email from Simon Cowell saying he loved the songs, which was one of the most exciting emails I've ever had. They cut it for that first album.”
“I went on tour with One Direction for a while, where there were some songwriters, we travelled with them,” he said, before adding: “The boys would come after the show, listen to what we've done and maybe do a vocal. This is after they've done a show, they worked so hard. You'd look out the window, and it was like The Beatles – it was a mad time doing a tour with 1D.”
Next year, Scouting For Girls will play a sold-out show at Wembley Arena and a show at Manchester's AO Arena to celebrate their two decades in the business. “To sell it out 20 years on is mad, I still don't understand it,” he laughed. “It's incredible. When we started, we didn't think we'd get a record deal; we were just thankful to make music as a living. We thought that if this lasted a year, it would be amazing. To still be doing it 20 years on is a miracle.”
Next month, the band will headline Girlguiding's Big Gig at Wembley Arena. Roy said: “I felt like we were The Beatles because there were just 10,000 Girl Guides going crazy.” He added: “To be invited back is very exciting.” Roy's own daughter, Rosie, was a member of the Girl Guides before the family relocated to Los Angeles. Reflecting on his own time in the Scouts, Roy revealed: “We're called Scouting for Girls because me and Pete met in the Scouts, so we've—you know, we really appreciate the time we spent in the Scouts, and we're really appreciative of all the work that the leaders put in looking after the kids. So I'm so excited to be there.”
And while he and his family now live in LA, Rosie “misses the movement” of the Girl Guides. He said: “The best thing about it was that it's amazing for girls to have a safe space. And I think it really helped her confidence, too.” He continued: “There's some sort of stat out there that Girlguides are 30% more confident. I definitely saw that in Rosie, she went climbing, abseiling, canoeing, kayaking – all these outdoor adventure sports, she loved her time in the Girlguides.”
Girlguides' Big Gig will take place on October 10 at OVO Arena Wembley.
