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Duffy Net Worth
Olly Murs is bright-eyed and full of fun, so I don’t believe him when he tells me he has been struggling with “baby brain”.
The Troublemaker singer and his wife Amelia Tank celebrated the birth of their daughter Madi five months ago.
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But as he sits down with me in London’s Lower Third music and cocktail bar to announce his 16-date tour, he looks positively serene.
“There is some exhaustion,” Olly says with a smile, as I ask how he’s getting on with fatherhood.
“But if there is an Olympic sport I’m a champion at, it is swimming.”
Swimming? Is there something I’m missing as I rack my brains, panicking that I’ve somehow forgotten something from Olly’s expansive CV?
“Oh god, sleeping, I meant sleeping,” Olly says.
“See, this is the baby brain.
“I was on stage performing Dear Darling and I just threw the microphone on to the stage.
“I had no idea why I’d done it.
“Amelia and I are just in that survival mode.
“Madi arrived when I was on tour with Take That so it was like a relay.
Olly Murs shares backstage video of baby Madison and wife Amelia as they join him on tour
“I would hand the baton to Amelia and would be exhausted, driving up to Manchester to get on stage.
“But Madi is the perfect baby, she’s smashing.”
She joined Olly and Amelia on tour with the Take That lads when she was only a few days old.
Olly, who was runner-up on The X Factor in 2009, reveals it was Mark Owen who helped Amelia feel comfortable breastfeeding in public.
He says with a laugh: “Amelia and Madi came to the O2 show in London.
“The lads all wanted to meet her and the baby and then Mark Owen just walked into the dressing room.
“At this point Amelia, bless her, hadn’t breastfed in public and there she was backstage feeding and Mark burst into the room.
“Amelia was like, ‘Any fears I had of breastfeeding in public, it doesn’t matter now’.”
But Mark’s unexpected turn as a doula isn’t the only impact the band had on Olly, either.
He says: “People who don’t like my music say it sends them to sleep, but my songs do not have that effect on Madi!
“I think she is going to grow up thinking that Rule The World and Windows are my songs because I sing them to her all the time.
“They get her off to sleep.
“I’ve tried singing mine and she’s just not interested.”
Olly’s new run of dates will kick off in Plymouth on April 25 before he finishes at London’s O2 Arena on May 17.
It will be a trip down memory lane for his fans, who have helped him to five No1 albums and four chart-topping singles, including Heart Skips A Beat and Dance With Me Tonight.
Olly says: “The tour will mark the 15th anniversary of me being signed and releasing Please Don’t Let Me Go.
To have them out on tour with me is amazing. I think it’s going to be a really great night of entertainment for the fans with me and Blue. It’ll be brilliant
“It feels so poignant for me to come out and do something to sort of celebrate that.
“To go from being on The X Factor to having sold-out arena shows and having jobs in TV, it’s been a crazy journey.
“I’ve worked with Demi Lovato and Robbie Williams, Rizzle Kicks and Travie McCoy.
“I wrote songs with Paul Weller.
“All these memories.
“I want to celebrate and take my fans back on that journey with me.
“I’m hoping that if their schedules line up, some of the people I have worked with or influenced me will be able to come out on stage with me too.”
Boyband bonus
Joining him on the road as his support act will be Duncan James, Simon Webbe, Lee Ryan and Antony Costa, who pop in and out of the studio like a game of Blue bingo before we sit down to chat.
“I had all their albums and I know all of the dance routines,” Olly tells me, confirming that tickets will go on sale next Friday, September 13.
“I actually tried to book them for my wedding last year, as well as Craig David.
“But they couldn’t get the dates to work and I was gutted.
“To have them out on tour with me is amazing.
“I think it’s going to be a really great night of entertainment for the fans with me and Blue.
“It’ll be brilliant.
“It’s going to be fun on the road too.
“When Lee walked out the door just now he said, ‘I can’t wait for this tour,’ and I said, ‘Mate, it’s going to be carnage’.”
I don’t doubt that at all.
But Olly isn’t letting the chaos of his diary, including a huge performance at the National Television Awards with his ten-piece band next Wednesday, slow him down.
And his mind has turned to working on the follow-up to his last No1 album Marry Me, which came out two years ago.
“All I hear at the moment is nursery rhymes,” Olly says.
“But it’s inspiring me to write.
“I’m walking around Tesco doing the shopping and all I can hear is nursery rhymes.
“We are in talks with a label at the moment to get a new album over the line and start doing something.
“Not to get too soppy but I will definitely write a song to mark this moment in my life.
“I’ve written about being single, about falling in love, and now having Madi, to write a song about her would be pretty special.”
It certainly would.
And if Olly’s last five records are anything to go by, I don’t doubt it will go straight to the top of the charts.
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