EP36 | Tom A. Smith | Personas, Performance and Prawn Cocktail Crisps | Local Heroes Podcast

This week on the Local Heroes Podcast, your increasingly average hosts, Chris and Dan, sit down with Sunderland’s own Tom A. Smith, a 21-year-old already making waves on the UK music scene. Tom’s story is anything but ordinary. He started playing live shows at just eight years old, found himself on stage at Glastonbury by the age of ten, and has already clocked up over a thousand gigs. Now signed to Fiction Records, Tom talks us through the whirlwind of festival slots, record deals, and what it feels like to finally be stepping into his own as both a songwriter and a performer. But this isn’t just about the music. Tom shares how performance, visuals, and identity matter just as much as the songs themselves - drawing inspiration from the likes of Bowie, Talking Heads, and The Cure, while carving out his own style alongside his band (which now even includes his sister Hannah). We get into the highs and lows of writing music under pressure, the reality of streaming versus live shows, and the power of building a community of fans - including the infamous “Weirdos” WhatsApp group. We hear about Dave Stewart casually walking on stage mid-set, Robbie Williams leaving a crowd without Candy, the nightmare of being forced to eat a prawn cocktail crisp sandwich live on TV (spoiler: Tom actually hates crisps), and his all-important Greggs order. This conversation bounces between ambition, identity, and the pure joy of creative freedom.