Paul Potts speaks about releasing new music inspired by Covid lockdowns

TV favourite Paul Potts has spoken about how his new double album is based on performances he did during the Covid-19 lockdowns.

The tenor said: “This album came out of lockdown performances I did back in 2020. Mother’s Day that year, I just started to do a performance every day for four months.

“Some of the performances I did outside as an hour-long concert on Sundays and so I decided, let’s see about recording some of those and I did think about doing maybe 12 to 16. I ended up recording 41 tracks, so it ended up being a double album.

“But it was that sense that I remember seeing the pictures from Italy where people were stood on their balconies singing because that’s all they had to do because the lockdowns were much stricter in Europe than they were here.

“People literally couldn’t do anything apart from standing on their balconies singing, they couldn’t go anywhere, and so music wasn’t forbidden.”

Speaking in an interview during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster on GB News, he revealed he has a weakness for karaoke.

“I’ve been known to do karaoke in Japan and Korea. It’s more classical; there’s quite a lot of Neapolitan songs which people will be really familiar with, like ‘O Sole Mio’, or as it’s just generally known as ‘Just One Cornetto’.”

Asked about winning the first series of Britain’s Got Talent, he said: “I remember waiting to go on and there was a couple from Bristol, the lady was dancing with a pashmina scarf as her husband whistled birdsongs, and the audience was baying for blood and I’m thinking ‘oh my god, what am I letting myself in for?’

“I didn’t know what would happen, luckily it was okay for me.”

On working with Simon Cowell, he said: “It was great working with Simon and I saw him a couple of years ago and we still have a huge amount of respect for each other.

“He’s a very straight-talking person, but I think he’s got a softer side to him than then he used to have when he was on American Idol.”

He recalled meeting Queen Elizabeth II at the Royal Variety Performance: “If you look carefully, you can actually see a picture of me with her that I was given after the second time I performed.

“I found her very charming. When Prince Phillip was around the corner, she was coming behind him, picking up on things that were said, because they’ve always had a wicked sense of humour, of course. She was the nation’s grannie, I think.”