He ploughed his earnings into studio sessions, recording an eight-track album called Scars in 2020. But it wasn’t until his haunting cover of The Neighbourhood’s Sweater Weather, external went viral in 2022 that he felt confident enough to pack in his day job.
“Money has never been the way I measure my success, but it was definitely scary,” he says.
“It started off very much like plunging into an ice bath and feeling the shock. Like, ‘OK, this is real. I don’t have a consistent salary coming in, and I don’t have the security of knowing how long this is going to take.’
“But it was a matter of switching mentality – so I wasn’t looking at what securities I had lost, but what opportunities I’d gained.”
Any apprehension was short-lived.
With a growing online fanbase, he started interspersing TikTok cover versions with snippets of originals.
The one that made everyone pay attention was Solo – whose devious wordplay was so obviously memorable (“Why’d you get me so high/ To leave me solo“) you couldn’t quite believe no-one had thought of it before.
Released independently in 2023, it earned Smith his first UK chart hit and, subsequently, a deal with RCA Records.
But he continued to build his audience organically, gigging constantly while posting on TikTok and YouTube.
He’s got an interesting take on social media. While artists like Halsey and Florence Welch have expressed frustration at record label pressure to create viral videos, Smith calls TikTok a “meritocratic system” that rewards the effort you put in.
“There’s a difference between the chase for virality and building an audience,” he reasons.
“If your objective is to go viral, then you’re always going to be fighting a losing battle. But if your objective is to establish a community and a place where your music belongs, it becomes a lot more rewarding.”
