James Blunt had never been to a concert before launching his own music career.

James Blunt

James Blunt

The 'Your Beautiful' hitmaker has admitted the first time he experienced songs being performed on stage was when he fronted a show for himself.

Asked the first gig he ever went to, he admitted: "It was my own, at a pub in King's Cross called the Water Rats."

The 45-year-old star may still have a successful music career but he sometimes gets mistaken for a taxi driver because of the unusual mode of transport he prefers.

He said: "I was in Thailand once on a tuk-tuk and I decided to buy two of them.

"My sister has one in Sussex that she drives her kids to school in, and I have the other one in Ibiza with me.

"People always stop me and ask for lifts because it still says 'taxi' on the top, and then they realise it's me and say, 'Oh God, man, what happened?'"

Meanwhile, if the former soldier's life is ever turned into a movie, his mum would like to see Hollywood legend Tom Cruise in the leading role - though James admitted 'Alan Partridge' star Steve Coogan is a more likely choice.

Asked who'd play him in a movie, he told Cosmopolitan: "My mother would like it to be Tom Cruise, but I know that's wishful thinking.

"It would more likely to be Alan Partridge."

The 'High' singer recently admitted he's accepted that people will never think he's "cool".

He said: "I'd love to be cool but I'm never gonna get that title.

"The nearest I got to being cool was at Glastonbury and I was ­playing on the Pyramid Stage and I thought I'll crowd surf.

"So I threw myself off the stage and I crowd surfed as the sun was going down at Glasto and I thought you know what, 'I am cool, I am!'

"Then I went back to the stage and I realised it was too high for me to climb back on and there was a man on the stage and I looked into his face and said, 'Help me'.

"I realised he was a BBC TV cameraman broadcasting to the nation. Not cool, never going to be."