Rhodes Rhodes

It wasn't until he moved to London that his aspirations shifted from playing with his friends to penning a solo career, and introducing lyrics. "Moving into London I had this grounding," he says, "people were telling me I should write some words and I suppose after a while I just started to experiment and become comfortable singing to myself."

It was his singer-songwriter girlfriend that first convinced Rhodes he should show his voice – something which he had been deeply uncomfortable doing – to managers. "She convinced me she wasn't being biased and liked what I was doing," he says, "I think showing her was probably the first step in conquering that anxiety that I have because she's such a great singer and a great writer."

She showed it to a few industry friends, one of which became Rhodes' manager. "I put a few demos online and I was quite shocked at the amount of response I had from it. I had labels emailing me everyday and agents emailing me, it was overwhelming. I kind of just gave my email password to my manager and said you can deal with that and I'll keep writing," he says. Only after his first show did he realize "everything's going to be fine."