Michael Ball and Alfie Boe are back, and this time it’s personal. Together At Home, the pair’s brand new sixth studio album arrives on November 8th, marking their 10th year making music together and is the much-loved collaborators’ hymn to the people and places that mean the most to them – and to their army of fans.
The chart-topping, arena-filling, multi-million-selling duo’s first taste arrives in the shape of ‘Proud’ – the timeless 2000 debut solo single from former M People singer Heather Small, here lent wings by two all-time classic male voices – listen here.
“It’s a song that was used for the 2012 London Olympics,” begins Ball. “And this summer I went to the Paris Olympics to watch Grace, my granddaughter, playing in the rugby sevens with Team GB. There’s me and [my partner] Cathy [McGowan] sat in the Stade de France, 66,000 people. On she runs and genuinely, I’ve never felt so proud in my life – or as nervous! And when she scored a try, and there’s her name up on the scoreboard, it was wonderful. The heart-bursting pride Cath and I both felt – incredible!”
“We’re proud of where we’re from. Proud of this country, of being British and welcoming people home. And welcoming people into our home,” Boe adds pointedly, “is something that I think is important.”
Each singer is long used to being away on tour for months on end, so, when it came to selecting songs for the new album, for each of them, certain songs were immediate no-brainers…
“For me the first one was probably ‘Homeward Bound’ by Paul Simon,” says Ball. “It’s obviously written by an American, and from an American perspective, but it was written in the UK, at Widnes train station. It’s about people who are on the road, far from home.” Ball could very much relate. “You get tired, you get jaded, you get homesick. Paul Simon articulately and musically describes that feeling.”
Comments are closed.