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We made it as far as Glasgow for one gig, which was great because I’ve got family there, so I got to see them. We really wanted to do gigs all around the country, but small gigs don’t pay enough for you to be able to afford a car to travel in, let alone somewhere to stay the night.

      I also did some solo gigs around the same time that I got paid for, which kept me in food and clothes. It also meant that I could just about get by living on my own from the age of 17, so I moved out of foster care and into a little flat.

      The first place I lived in didn’t work out – I got kicked out for partying too much – so I started staying with my friends or back with my parents until I managed to find somewhere new. There were a few times when I found myself with nowhere to live, but I was too embarrassed to tell people, so I ended up sleeping rough. It was something I had to do to survive, so I just got on with it. I feel like a lot of my younger years were about survival. It wasn’t fun and I wouldn’t ever want to do it again, but sometimes you have no choice and you have to do what you can to get by. As long as I had somewhere to lay my head down I didn’t care.

      At my lowest point I would look at pictures of my sisters and want to be around them so badly. It was really hard not being able to see them as much as I wanted to, but equally I knew I’d brought a lot of it on myself.

      I stayed in touch with my family to some degree all of the time I was living away from home. I still went back to my mum’s house, and stayed on occasion, but I always felt very disconnected from them. I felt like the black sheep of the family and as if I’d really let them down. They did try to reach out and help me but I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to accept it. I felt like I could do everything on my own and that I was a real grown-up supporting myself.

      I remember always feeling I had to prove myself to my family, so whenever I saw them I would tell them I’d got so-and-so coming up and that this amazing thing was happening with my music. Then when it didn’t work out I would feel so embarrassed I didn’t even want to go and see them, but I’d have no choice other than to go home with my tail between my legs and ask them to help me out with money. They didn’t really have any money themselves, so I hated doing that, and I only ever did it if things got really desperate.

      When Traceless split up I joined another band called Heroes and Hand Grenades, and we later changed our name to Save Arcade. We were actually really good and very successful locally, but for various reasons we eventually split up.

      A few of us stayed together and formed another band called The Emerald Sky. We only got a few gigs as a band but I ended up getting more and more as a solo artist. If I managed to do a few gigs a month earning £150 a night by playing a series of covers, that would see me through financially. I’d built up a good reputation around the local area. The more people heard me and liked me, the more gigs I did, and eventually I was able to start performing my own tracks as well as covers.

      A guy called Rich, who had a recording studio nearby, heard some of my music and he loved it, so he let me do recordings for free. That meant I had CDs to sell at my gigs. He suggested that I create The James Arthur Band, which is what I went on to do. That was more of a soulful, hip-hoppy band and it was more the kind of sound I wanted to do. He offered to try and get me some gigs and it all took off.

      He knew I had some sort of gift and he wanted to help me out, so he put my music out on the internet for me and promoted it. We recorded a couple of EPs and we were really hoping to get some kind of record deal. It never quite came off, and I always felt like I was heading in the right direction but not really getting where I wanted to be. It was so frustrating.

      Apart from playing music I didn’t really have any jobs I enjoyed when I was growing up. For a while I worked in a call centre, which I hated, then in an office, writing CVs for people, and I was always good at selling things. They were all dead-end jobs and just a way to get by really.

      The thing with singing is that it’s so hard to break into. If I wanted to get a job in a call centre I would see the ad, apply and then hopefully get the job, but there’s nowhere you can actually apply for a job as a singer, so I did get a bit disheartened. In the back of my mind I did always feel that one day I was just going to walk into somewhere and magically someone would give me a break and I’d become famous, so I tried not to let it get me down. I felt I had a talent and I could go somewhere, so it was frustrating when things didn’t work out like that straight away.

      When I turned 23 I reached a point where everything seemed to be going wrong in my life and I knew that I had to go back to the root of my problems and try and fix everything. I’d had strained relationships with my parents for some time, but I was getting older and I really didn’t want it to be like that any more. I needed to ask them some questions – and to apologise.

      It took a lot of sitting down and talking but we got there in the end, and getting everything out made me feel more secure and stable. I found out stuff about my childhood that I hadn’t known, and I got the chance to ask about my parents’ break-up and all the things I had wondered about for so long. It helped to release all of the feelings I’d kept inside me for so long. Once I understood everything it made it a lot easier to deal with.

      It’s amazing how good it can feel saying sorry to someone. I apologised for the way I’d acted at different points over the years and it felt amazing. It also gives you the chance to put an end to a chapter of your life you’re not happy with and move on.

      Before I applied for The X Factor I was spending a lot of time in bed feeling low. I was happy that everything was back on track with my family, but music-wise things felt a bit hopeless. I didn’t think I was ever going to get anywhere, even though I was working really hard. People kept telling me I was going to be a massive success, but you need that break to get your foot in the door.

      I kept getting texts from friends saying, ‘The X Factor is coming. If you don’t enter we’re going to fall out with you,’ and they really got me thinking. I had never imagined trying out for the show because I didn’t feel like I would fit the criteria. I didn’t think I had the right sound or look. I thought it was all about being clean cut and having a cheery sound, and that just wasn’t me. The more I thought about it, though, the more I thought, ‘Come on, what have I got to lose?’

Audition

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