George Ezra has admitted that he struggled to accept his fame.
George Ezra
The 24-year-old singer/songwriter has named his new album 'Staying at Tamara's' after the owner of an AirBnB he stayed at in Barcelona and he admitted that travelling to Spain to work on his record was a way of trying to escape his fame.
He told BBC.com: "At a basic level, I just worked out what I was experiencing in my own head. My life was changing but, subconsciously, I was battling that.
"I can only say this now - I didn't know it at the time - but to interact with fans was to admit that there were fans, And to admit there were fans was to admit that I wasn't just George from Hertford - and I didn't want that.
"So there was that element of taking in everything that happened and seeing, 'OK, it's not a bad thing at all, you're not in a bad place, it's a really good situation'."
George didn't tell Tamara who he was at first and the pair bonded over music before he finally confessed his identity.
He said: "The thing is, she loved music but it was quite obscure music - to me at least.
"One night it was me and her in her room - a bit of red wine, and we had Spotify on, and she said, 'You've got a guitar, do you play at all?'
"I was a bit sheepish, I tried to deflect it, but then she went, 'Do you have anything on Spotify?' and I was like, 'OK, here we are. Either I lie, or I tell her.'
"I actually had to help her spell George Ezra. And that would have been fine, but then Budapest alone has had something like 300 million plays, and that's insane. She looked at me as if to say, 'What the what?!'"
George's album was inspired by his travels and he admitted he finds it hard to be productive at home.
He explained: "I love community and I love my home town. My front door is quite literally open. I love people just swinging by. Nothing makes me happier than that - but it's a huge distraction. If your friend's clocked off early, they'll pop round at one o'clock and you go, quite harmlessly, "I haven't seen you in a while, let's go for lunch". And then lunch turns into last orders at the bar!"
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