Holiday Habits: James Morrison

The young singer-songwriter on the perfect holiday... and the terror of scorpions.

Interview: Sian Thatcher

‘When I was young, my family didn't have much money, so we would only leave the country for a holiday every five years or so. But one year, when I was seven, my mum decided to go and study Italian in Italy for three months, as she had some friends out there, so we all went for a long holiday. I can’t remember exactly where we were, but we lived in a farmhouse – there was a pig farm and huge fruit trees out the back in an orchard.

We had no money, but it was cool. We used to feed the pigs and I would walk for about two miles every day to get the goats’ milk from the farm down the road. It was really idyllic – up until the point I was told there were scorpions everywhere. I never saw one, but as a kid, I was just crapping myself. That trip definitely instilled a deep fear of scorpions in me.

I used to go and visit my aunty in St Austell in Cornwall quite often, too – there wasn’t anything nearly so dangerous there. We would go to the beach everyday and go climbing and quad biking. On holiday, I’m not much of an adrenalin junkie, but I do like jumping off cliffs into the water, and Cornwall’s great for that.

Generally I don’t really ask too much from a holiday. Just as long as you’ve got some time off and you’re spending it with family, it doesn’t matter. But I’ve gotta say, I went to Rome and that was f***ing amazing. Just the architecture, the people and the culture. Wow!

My sister was running a hostel out there. She got us a room and we just stayed there for the week and went sightseeing and saw all the usual stuff you see when you go to Rome.

I loved the Coliseum. The fact that they used to have lions there is amazing. And you can go in and see where the lions and tigers used to be kept – it’s just mental! That would be full on wouldn’t it? Imagine getting chased by a lion… it was pretty extreme back then. I love all that history stuff. I never liked it when I was at school, but now I’m older, I appreciate it a bit more, and the architecture, too. They just put real love into their buildings in Rome – they really are fantastic.’
JAMES MORRISON’S NEW ALBUM, SONGS FOR YOU, TRUTHS FOR ME, IS OUT NOW. HE TOURS EUROPE THROUGHOUT THE SUMMER. SEE WWW.JAMESMORRISONMUSIC.COM