Life is looking up for pop underdog

10:00am Friday 4th July 2008

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HAPPY Luke Leighfield could well be Worcestershire’s hardest working musician. A purveyor of buoyant piano-pop the 20-year-old from Upton-upon-Severn refuses to let sweat and tears get in the way. Instead he keeps going, with unshakeable optimism and charming determination.

Last week, Leighfield’s debut single, If You Haven’t Got Anything To Say, entered the UK’s official indie singles charts at number five – good news, surely?

“Sometimes it feels like everything’s going very slowly and that doing this ‘music thing’ is like banging your head against a brick wall,” he said. “But achieving something like this makes it all worthwhile, especially when you see that the other bands who got in the chart had big adverts in the NME and that we – my label and myself – got the single in there through good old-fashioned hard work, and hopefully because the song is great too.”

“I think people have just got behind the single because it’s exciting to support an underdog, which I guess I am, and because they feel a connection with me because of all the small shows I’ve played in their houses and their local venues all over the country.” Leighfield, who manages well to juggle his English and music degree at Southampton University with a blossoming music career, recently played Great Escape Festival in Brighton, and is now gearing up for Lattitude, in Southwold, where he will share the bill with the likes of Sigur Ros and Franz Ferdinand.

“It was really exciting to play at Great Escape alongside loads of amazing bands,” he said.

“It was also very inconveniently in the middle of some of my exams. However, Latitude should be a lot more fun, and it’s the weekend after my 21st birthday so we’re going to party a bit.

“Sam Isaac is playing too so it’s great to be representing Worcestershire there.

“I guess I’d like to play any festival that will take me, but to be honest I’m so flattered to be playing Latitude this year – loads of new festivals have sprung up in the UK this year and Latitude, in my opinion, still has the bestline-up by far.”

Go to lukeleighfield.com to buy the new single and find out more.