Mike Rosenberg, better known to you and me as Passenger, is a humble man. Having busked his way around the world, picking up a bigger and bigger fan base with every city, he has created a community of connected fans who enjoy genuine talent and honest music.
In a world where costumes, dancers and orchestras take the reins it is refreshing to see that stripped back and simple music still captivates and inspires audiences.
While there wasn’t a pyrotecnic in sight, the sold out Shepherd’s Bush gig was far from dull, and if there’s ever a man who looks like the stage is his home, it’s Passenger. A statement that rings true bearing in mind he hasn’t actually had a house for the past five years.
Of course the crowd pleasers ‘Let Her Go’ and ‘I Hate’ had the audience in the palm of his hand, shouting back the lyrics ‘I hate ignorant folk who pay money to see gigs and talk through every fucking song’.
From laying the groundwork organically, Passenger has reached new heights, playing sold out venues across the globe, having a single that has topped the charts in 16 countries and an album that sold over 600,000 copies. This is a musician who has continued to ascend yet he has his feet still firmly on the ground. We pinned him down between countries to talk keeping sane, Facebook and miniature pets.
YOU LOOK A BIT BETTER THAN LAST TIME I SAW– APPARENTLY YOU ATE A DODGY SANDWICH OR SOMETHING?
Yeah Sunday’s gig felt better for me, without the food poisoning! Never ideal.
YOU HAVE JUST FINISHED TOURING THE UK AND THEN YOU’RE STRAIGHT OFF AGAIN. DO YOU LIKE IT LIKE THAT, ALWAYS BEING ON THE GO?
We’re off tonight, to Luxembourg. Yeah it’s been my reality for the last five years really. I haven’t had a house for five years, so it just means I’m touring constantly. But it’s definitely stepped up a gear now and the gigs have gone from being 200 people to 2,000, there’s certainly a bigger pressure on it.
YOU HAVEN’T REALLY HAD A CONVENTIONAL ROUTE INTO MUSIC, WHAT MADE YOU STICK WITH IT?
I think just because however well it did, it was always what I was going to do. I never really applied myself at school; I didn’t feel passionate about doing anything else really except for watching football, which you can’t really get a job out of. And it was that thing of when I started busking I let go of a lot of those ‘oh I want to get to number one, sell a million records’ expectations that you bring in as a kid and you just sort of figure out that it doesn’t really matter, you’ll make a living one way or another. You’ll go busking, you’ll go and play gigs and you’ll play to people that actually really like it and get it. Even if it’s only 50 people, it’s still 50 people that really connect with it and I think that just becomes what’s important and not having a fancy house and stuff.
WAS THAT ALWAYS AT THE BACK OF YOUR MIND? WHEN YOU WERE BUSKING DID YOU ALWAYS THINK THIS WAS GOING TO LEAD TO BIGGER THINGS?
I think there was always a hope that it would and it was cool because you know busking sounds a bit bizarre and certainly when I started my friends would be like ‘what are you…you’re busking. You’re going around and you’re playing on the street.’ People didn’t really get it, but from my point of view I could see people reacting in such a positive way. I could see people stopping in the street and listening for like half an hour and then buying the CD and I knew that they wouldn’t do that if they didn’t like it, if I wasn’t doing something right. I wouldn’t stop in the street unless I really liked it, let alone buy a CD. So for the first time ever it felt like I was really causing a positive reaction, again even if it was just 20 people. I hoped it would keep on growing but I never, ever thought it would do this, never dreamed of it.
REALLY?
Well you listen to commercial radio and there aren’t many songs like ‘Let Her Go’ on it. It’s a lot of Lady GaGa and Rihanna and whatever. For those kind of artists, their whole thing is to become globally successful and sell billions of records, that’s what their goal is and for me it wasn’t. I made that record in Sydney with a mate, cost a few thousand dollars and it wasn’t ever meant to be this massive smash hit.
THAT WASN’T THE AIM?
No it really wasn’t, I was just happy with the way it was going. I just made an album that I liked and I thought ‘yeah it’s a good next step’ and was just ready for it to sell a few thousand copies and then we’d move on, like most times. But this one sort of set fire.
SO WOULD YOU SAY YOU’RE MORE COMFORTABLE ON THE STREETS OR ON THE STAGE?
They’re different things. I think when you play on the street, there’s no pressure. You can break a string, you can stop half way through and do whatever and it’s funny and it’s silly, no one cares. But gigs, especially now the bigger ones are just such a buzz.
DO YOU THINK THAT FEELING WILL EVER GET OLD?
I think you’ve got to be careful not to over do it and anything you love, if you do it too much it gets a little bit… you know. If you ate chocolate all day you’d throw up, it would be a good day up to a certain point. It’s kind of the same with gigging, if you’re just doing it every single night you start to lose the buzz a little bit, not ever gig is special. So I have to keep an eye on that a little bit but I still love it, I still wouldn’t do anything else.
SO WHAT DOES MAKE A GIG SPECIAL?
I think loads of factors go into it. How I’m feeling on the day and if I’ve eaten a dodgy sandwich or not, silly things like that but also what night of the week it is. I played two gigs in Brighton recently, one on a Thursday night which was amazing and one on a Monday night and the crowd were a bit Monday-ish, less sing a long and clap a long and as a result that affects me because I’m not getting as much off the crowd. So over the course of a gig the whole vibe is slightly more chilled. It’s really subtle little factors that can creep in that can have a massive effect on a gig.
YOU DON’T HAVE A BAND, DO YOU THINK NOW THERE IS A BIG PRESSURE TO HAVE A BAND AND ESSENTIALLY A PERFORMANCE, AND IS THERE A DANGER THAT THIS CAN OVERRULE THE MUSIC?
Yeah it’s a really interesting question. I think when this started getting big and I was getting booked in for festivals and playing really big stages, everyone was like ‘oh you’re going to need to put a band together, you’ll need to have a bigger show.’ And actually I was like ‘this is what I’ve been doing for five years and this is what’s been working. Be confident, be bold with it.’ And actually what is really cool is that it turned out that if you walk out on stage with just a guitar, people are like ‘what?’ Because it’s different and it’s refreshing and I think sometimes it’s a bit patronizing to think that an audience can’t concentrate for an hour on a guy with a guitar, of course they can. Also, so much not just in music but life now is a sensory overload. There’s flashing and all of your senses are completely smashed all of the time and I think doing something so simple like just an acoustic guitar and a voice is really good now to prove that that can still work.
YOU’VE DONE A LOT OF COLLABORATIONS, WHICH WOULD YOU SAY HAS STAYED WITH YOU THE LONGEST?
The stuff that I’ve done with Ed [Sheeran] was really cool. I went on tour with Ed for a year and we sang a song of mine, ‘Hearts on Fire’ together every night and it became a really… I sing it with Stu as well and it’s just this song that really lends itself to a duet and I think those two collaborations on those songs have been really special. It’s a special song but also Stu and I have been best mates for years and we’ve been partners in crime and in a similar way me and Ed have as well and we’ve sung that in so many corners of the world. Some great memories go along with that song so I think that’s probably one that sticks in my mind
A FEW OF YOUR SONGS MENTION MODERN DAY PHENOMENONS SUCH AS FACEBOOK, DO YOU FEEL A BIT CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE BECAUSE THAT IS SUCH A HUGE PART OF MUSIC PROMOTION? DO YOU DO IT THROUGH GRITTED TEETH IN A SENSE?
My hatred of Facebook and all that kind of stuff is quite tongue in cheek as well. For years I’ve been answering every single comment on Facebook and it’s something I’ve tried to do, spend an hour every day. Now it’s impossible, I just don’t have time. But it’s amazing; it’s a wonderful tool to keep in touch with your fans. Especially when I was busking someone would see you in the street, leave a message on Facebook and you would reply to them. That would really solidify a bond and they’d be like ‘oh cool so he plays on the street and he answers on Facebook, it’s real’ and it was and it is. I think my problem with Facebook is probably the same as everybody else’s, the sort of onslaught of everyone’s life is perfect. I never update my status. I love it for Passenger, it’s a brilliant tool to have, so clever and I think a really exciting element of being a musician now is that you have this access to people and they have access to you. You can communicate with thousands of people at once, it’s fantastic.
WHAT WAS THE FIRST SONG YOU EVER PLAYED ON THE GUITAR?
I learnt classical guitar when I was really little, seven or eight. I didn’t start playing pop songs until I was about 14 and I reckon it would have been either ‘Come As You Are’ by Nirvana or ‘Wonderwall’. They happened around the same and then yeah just learned every Oasis song I could get my grubby little hands on. Then I started writing when I was 15, bloody awful songs, awful. Something you hopefully get better at as you go.
YOUR TOUR HAS SOLD OUT ALL OVER THE WORLD. DO YOU FIND THAT SLIGHTLY DAUNTING?
I do find it daunting, I really do. I had a couple of weeks off in September and I really needed it, we’d been smashing it for three or four months and I kind of crawled home a little bit and just watched breaking bad and didn’t do anything else. It was scary to look at the next three months of your life and think ‘bloody hell’ there’s UK, straight to Europe, straight to New Zealand, straight to Australia straight to Asia, finish at Christmas and you’re in September and you’re like ‘how can I do this?’You worry about getting sick or tired or run down and you’re just like ‘how can I make sure I can deliver?’ But I think what really helped is actually just taking it a day at a time and thinking ‘Ok today I’m in Luxembourg’ or whatever and just concentrate on that and you try not to let the bigger picture come and destroy you because it will, it’s terrifying. Last week I labeled it ‘The Week of Doom’, because we had Jools Holland, Chris Evans’ radio show, two Brighton shows which I always get scared for because it’s my home town and my mum’s there, two big London shows and it was just like the biggest week. But you get through it and I loved it actually, I really enjoyed it and it gives you confidence, once you do some big stuff you’re like ‘ok cool, you can do this.’
IS THERE ANYTHING YOU DO OR PEOPLE YOU SPEAK TO – TO GET YOU THROUGH WEEKS LIKE THAT?
Yeah, I’m really lucky with the people I have around me. Stu and Dan are my core, I’ve been working with Dan for 10 years and Stu for four and they’re my best mates and they know me and my music inside out so it’s just fucking important to have people like that, without them it would be really hard.
WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST FEAR?
I think my biggest fear is for people to sort of feel like I’ve sold out, in a musical sense that is my biggest fear. Because I’ve come from busking, answering people on Facebook and just being a normal bloke who plays in a pub and then has a pint with the audience, I love that. But there are elements that get really difficult, you know when you play to 2,000 people you can’t have a pint with the audience, it would be a bloody long pint. It just changes and I hate the idea of people that have come to a gig two years ago and sat on the floor in some hilarious little café or something, now coming to a gig and being like ‘it’s not the same’. It’s something that we’re constantly working on to try and bring back in to a world that I’m comfortable with. So I guess that’s my biggest fear musically and something that we’re always going to try and be on top of.
HOW DO YOU DO THAT?
I think, carry on busking. Next year we’ve definitely got big plans for busking and you have to adapt. You can’t just rock up with an amp and put it up on Facebook, it’s got to be more organized now, it’s got to change. So carry on with the busking and don’t just play the biggest rooms you can, try and keep the intimacy at gigs if you can. Take every decision really seriously and think about how you’d feel as a punter, how I’d feel going to my gigs or how I’m coming across. I think you have to stay on top of that stuff because I don’t want it to become really…ordinary.
IF YOU COULD SHRINK AN ANIMAL TO POCKET SIZE – WHAT WOULD YOU SHRINK?
Amazing, what I question. I’ve actually been working on a machine that can do this for quite some time…What animal would you shrink?
AN ELEPHANT.
You know what I met a jaguar in Mexico, it’s a very long story but I was at a party, completely pissed and at 3am I met a jaguar. Someone had a jaguar and and it was the most extraordinary moment of my life and he was beautiful. So maybe I would shrink an jaguar and have a mini jaguar with me he’d be quite cool. I like the question; it’s a fucking good question. But I’m sad because I’d love a dog or a cat or something but I just can’t have one. Look at Bieber and his monkey. They stopped it in Germany and put it in quarantine. I can’t remember what happened but there was a massive hoo-ha about having a monkey because he’d just fly around with it on his private jet or whatever and they found it. I don’t really know what happened but basically there was trouble with his monkey in Germany. I’d love a pet but not at the moment, not even a shrunk one.
WHAT IS THE BEST JOURNEY YOU HAVE BEEN A PASSENGER ON?
I remember going to Norway years ago, no money with an ex girlfriend and we got the train from Oslo to Burgen and basically cut through the middle of a country. Norway’s stunning and I just remember looking out of the window for the entire journey, it took like seven hours but it felt like 45 minutes, it was the most beautiful trip I’ve ever been on in my life.
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