Lucy Spraggan: ‘When sobriety marched through my front door I discovered a newfound respect for myself’

Square peg, round hole. You could see it immediately when Lucy Spraggan stood in front of the judges for the first time for the ninth (2012) edition of The X Factor. In the context of the reality contest, her audition song was also an unconventional choice, an original song no less – Last Night. The judges were charmed if a tad flummoxed – where was the version of an Adele or a Beyoncé song that auditionees usually belted out?

As the first contestant in the show’s history to have had a UK Top 40 single (Last Night) and album (Top Room at the Zoo) before the live shows aired, it was clear that Spraggan had stepped into the wrong lane. She stayed on the show for several more weeks, interspersing original material (Tea and Toast, Mountains) with covers (Maroon 5′s Moves like Jagger, Kanye West’s Gold Digger) but neither her heart nor head were in it and she walked away.

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Did she feel that she didn’t match The X Factor’s commercially strategic view of what pop stars should be like? Too right, she did. Was she too niche for such a crowd-pleasing audience? Too right, she was. It is, she admits, a much bigger topic to chat about right now (she goes into it in lengthier detail in her forthcoming memoir, Process), but she says she played the game somewhat more than she might have thought.

“When you go into something like X Factor, the powers of the company that runs it and how you’re treated, the bubble you’re in telling you how it’s your biggest opportunity and how you must do certain things in order to move forward – that’s just the way it is. Looking back, I think I stuck to my guns quite a lot, and as for that square peg, round hole feeling, well, that’s me for the entire time I’ve been in music.” Spraggan’s voice sags a bit here, half-resigned, half-regretful. “But, yes, rolling over in the show? I did that quite a lot.”

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Fast forward 10 years, and the songwriter has long since put that experience behind her. She has had other personal issues, of course, but she has rallied in an admirable and instructive way. After steering a course through a separation, and giving up her dependence on alcohol, she has embraced a dedicated health and fitness regime that has, she says, transformed her life.

“When sobriety marched through my front door I discovered a newfound respect for myself, compassion for myself, and the realisation that I enjoy things other than alcohol, other than music. Being sober introduced all of that into my life. Alcohol is a super-easy way to make you feel good – you know, let’s have another one, why not – but when I took that away my body was asking where was it going to get dopamine now? For me, exercise is such a huge part of my life because I’m being nourished with it.”

Spraggan also engaged with therapy, but finding a therapist that worked for her was not straightforward.

“There are all different kinds of therapists out there and it takes people time to find one that works for them, but as in any relationship – especially in a relationship where you have to share a lot of personal details – they’re not always going to work. The difference between therapists and friends is the level of professionalism.

“Friends and family always try to provide solutions based on what they know about you and what they build their life experiences on, but a good therapist will offer you not necessarily a solution but methods of coping, of thinking, that have been studied for years. They will offer you the ability to reconstruct the way you navigate things, and help you to be less defensive and less reactive, whereas people close to you can often inspire defensiveness and/or reactiveness because they know so much about you!

“For me, therapy is having an entirely different dynamic, a professional dynamic, with somebody. Vulnerability is one of the things that being in therapy has helped me with and to learn about, and that’s been great.”

She also viewed the enforced isolation of the pandemic as generally a positive thing. It afforded her much-needed respite from being an extremely busy touring musician (“it can consume your whole world”) and it enabled her to become much more self-aware (“I hadn’t spent any time doing that”). In turn, her creative development and productivity levels increased.

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Since The X Factor, she says, she has been surrounded by the music industry, “which despite being a constant in my life, can be a very lonely place. As with anyone, you use whatever makes you avoid looking at yourself, so when touring was removed I was left with this person – me – and I had to work out exactly who and what I was. As an artist, you can confuse working every single day with being productive, but over the past few years, I have found that real productivity requires you to be a little bit more restrained with your time.”

It helped that during the pandemic she lived in the northern UK countryside “about 30 minutes’ drive from a supermarket, so it was me and lots of fields and trees”. Songs for her forthcoming album, Balance, were written during this enforced period of seclusion and while some might consider them niche there’s little doubt as to their confessional nature.

“They’re all about the development of myself and other stuff I have learned or observed over the years,” she says. One of those observations is that she will persevere through anything. “Longevity in music – or any area, for that matter – doesn’t exist without perseverance, so clinging on to it is crucial. What’s hilarious is that now I think I’m a professional because everybody else thinks I am! However, in reality, I just persist.”

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Such endurance has paid off, but not without a broad stroke of irony. Spraggan is now signed to Syco (the record publishing label owned by The X Factor creator, Simon Cowell, the man who cannily assembled the likes of Westlife and One Direction out of spare male body parts). Years have passed, of course, but on the face of it, it could look as if she is succumbing once again to the dictates of the industry for commercial gain. Spraggan understands why such a thought might occur, but she insists it’s for the right reasons.

“Through Syco, he has shown more interest in me as a songwriter than any other major label in the industry, and together we have much more power than in any other working relationship I’ve ever had. It can be easy to have certain perceptions of some people in the public eye, and how they run their business, but Simon’s company is actually part of a different process than what some people might think. I’m quite excited about being a part of it, and it’s a privilege for my songwriting skills to be utilised because, in my opinion, they haven’t been before.”

She has a point. Despite the reasonable perception of The X Factor as having been little more than a breeding ground for musical theatre performers, television presenters and Celebrity That and Strictly This appearances, genuine talent occasionally got a look-in. For Spraggan – whose songwriting sits across earthy, confessional pop/folk, and whose sobriety has sharpened her faculties – linking with Cowell is a smart move. “Simon also created the Got Talent television shows across the world,” she says, “which means they have a platform for using songs in Syco’s catalogue. As television is still one of the biggest ways to get music out to people, it’s great for songwriters to have their songs synced and to profit from that via publishing rights.”

Her new album, with its authentic, experiential songs, will see her right in that regard. Coincidentally, it was recorded in Swords, Co Dublin, produced by Co Meath-based producer Philip Magee, and co-written by Magee, Kodaline’s Steve Garrigan and True Tides’ Cian McSweeney. Spraggan (or Lucy O’Spraggan, as she was nicknamed) wanted a “live album because using programmed instruments takes the joy out of the recording process”. The result, she concludes before we run out of Zoom time, “is far more serious and mature, earthy in the way that music is supposed to be.”

Spoken like a true-blue ex-X Factor square peg/round hole contestant.

Lucy Spraggan plays Empire Music Hall, Belfast, Monday, May 15th, and Opium, Dublin, Tuesday, May 16th. Her new album, Balance, is released on August 11th. Her memoir, Process, is published in July