Passenger celebrates his album “that changed everything”
Published: Wednesday, Dec 6th 2023, 17:30
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British singer-songwriter Mike Rosenberg, alias Passenger, became known worldwide in 2013 with "Let her go". The song is a track from his album "All the little lights" (2012). Passenger recently reissued the album in an anniversary version.
"I wanted to celebrate this album because it changed everything for me ten years ago," Passenger told Keystone-SDA. The anniversary version features Ed Sheeran, Foy Vance, Gabrielle Aplin and Nina Nesbitt.
But the new recording was no easy undertaking for Passenger. "It was a very difficult project," he admits. Difficult because he wanted to try something new and at the same time preserve "the magic of the original". "Whenever I listened to the original album, I always thought that I loved these songs." Nevertheless, he wanted a new recording "because my voice has changed and I've gained new experiences over the last ten years", Passenger explains.
"Let her go" in a duet with Ed Sheeran
However, it is not only his deeper and more mature voice that is new, but also the musicians who work with him on the album. "They are some of my favorite artists, but also good friends," he says. In the Anniversary Edition, "Let her go" has become a duet. Passenger sings it together with Ed Sheeran. "Without his help and his tour, 'Let her go' probably wouldn't have had the same opportunity to become popular," he says.
Swiss fans of Ed Sheeran may remember his performance at the X-Tra in Zurich in November 2012. Now one of the most famous singers in pop music, he was still playing to a small audience back then. And: Passenger opened the concert back then. In the years that followed, he performed in front of much larger audiences in Switzerland, for example at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the Paléo Festival and the Gurten in Bern.
Today, Passenger says: "Re-recording the album made me look back in a new way. It was a very emotional experience to dive back into those songs."
The hard school of street music
"All the little lights" was Passenger's fourth studio album. Before he stormed the charts with it, he had spent ten years traveling the world as a street musician. His stage was the pedestrian zones and passers-by sometimes gave him nothing more than a bitten muffin in appreciation.
These experiences have "taught me a lot: how to play live, how to keep the audience interested and entertained," he says. "You have to interact with the audience, it's a bit like they're your band." Music on the road, with its negative and positive encounters with different people, "teaches you how to navigate the planet a little better". And he says he often draws inspiration for his music from his travels and the people he finds "endlessly fascinating".
This may also be the reason why Mike Rosenberg, or Passenger, has not lost his grip despite his success. "I wasn't successful for ten years before I was successful for ten years, and you never forget that," he says. "You also need a lot of luck".
Incidentally, Passenger will be performing in Lausanne on Wednesday evening (tonight) at a private showcase for radio station One FM: "I love these kinds of shows. Over the last few weeks I've been touring the UK, visiting all the old venues I played before 'Let her go' became so famous. And that's something very special."
©Keystone/SDA
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