Now embarking as a solo artist, Simpson is ready for fans to see how he’ll evolve as an individual artist, exploring new musical influences and expanding his creative boundaries. In his own work, Simpson is expected to dive deeper into his personal experiences and inspirations, exploring genres that highlight his vocal versatility and expressive songwriting. While The Vamps’ music is known for its mainstream pop appeal, Simpson’s solo material could offer a more intimate, introspective side, showcasing his evolution as an artist outside the collaborative dynamic of a band. 

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Following a number of singles — the latest being ballad “Holy Grail” — that listeners have been able to sink their teeth into, Simpson is diving straight in with a debut studio album. Titled The Panic Years, the 12-track release will drop February 28 and will swiftly be followed-up with a nationwide UK and Ireland tour in May. With a loyal fan base following him every step of the way and a clear passion for everything that comes with making music, Simpson’s solo journey promises to be an exciting new endeavour in the music world.

“I hope these songs and stories can help them navigate those experiences,” Simpson explains. “They can become the soundtrack to their lives, whether they’re dancing, crying, going out or whatever it is. It really feels like an opportunity to let them into a side of my life that I haven’t shared before.”

Following an exclusive photoshoot with Principle, we sat down with Simpson to discuss performing without The Vamps, his creative process, and the pressures of going solo.

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You embarked on your very first solo tour earlier this year. How was that after being so used to performing with your other band members?

Weird at first, but it’s super cool. I had done circuits by myself when I was 14 in pubs in Birmingham but yeah, I really enjoyed it. We did a run at The 100 Club on Oxford Street. The venue is so legendary and I had seen Paolo Nutini at the same venue a year before. I’m a big Paolo fan and even then, I was like, ‘I would love to do this venue.’ With the band, we’ve played so many amazing venues, but because everything happened so quickly, we missed those rites of passage. To finally perform songs that I’ve worked on for years felt really nice.

You still perform with a band for your solo material, but it must have initially felt weird not having the others on stage with you?

It’s a bit strange. Yeah. I think you communicate via music. Without sounding like an absolute knob, but I know the lads in the band’s personality through the music when we play off each other, and I’m starting to learn that with the other people in my band. Ellena plays drums, and James plays guitar and bass. With each gig that we play, I get a better understanding of them. It takes time. They’ve got very different personalities musically to people I’m used to playing with. It’s really nice because it challenges me and it makes me learn more. It’s definitely weird and takes getting used to turning and not seeing Con, Trist, or James there.

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Do you remember the first song you wrote for your solo project?

“Cry at the Moon,” my first single, was one of the first, if not the first one I wrote. Going into the creative process, I didn’t know how I wanted the music to sound. I knew I was gonna write about a lot of personal experiences over the past 10 years, so I wasn’t necessarily going into it with a conceptual thing. It’s essentially like a diary entry, the whole album. The sound was the thing that had me questioning, ‘How do I wanna sound?’ And that took a bit of trial and error, and then I landed on “Cry at the Moon.” I was like, ‘This is exactly how I want it to sound!’ That was really the catalyst for the rest of the album. Before that, I was shitting myself because I didn’t know. A lot of the other songs on the album I wrote either by myself in a hotel room or at my house, and then took them all to New York, which is where I did all of the album recordings last year.

Is that why you felt “Cry at the Moon” should lead the campaign?

Yeah. Because it felt right. I open my show with it and it feels like it’s gonna be the first song on the album. It felt like it should be the first song that went out. I wanted to establish my identity through my music pretty quick by telling fans that this is where I’m going, this is how I’m sounding. “Cry at the Moon” did that for me and introduced that sound to my audience already and hopefully helped gain new listeners.

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How does the creative process differ now? When working with the band, I assume you have to compromise a lot. With this, it’s all you.

Yeah. It’s completely different. When I started with the solo stuff, at first, it felt almost selfish or self-indulgent because I’m not used to doing that. And in a band, there is lots of compromise and opinions. It’s about everyone feeling involved and all their voices being heard, and we’ve always been very good at feeling that in the band. It’s really fun because I learned from the other boys. But with this, it was a nice time to kind of go, ‘Right, what do I wanna do?’ And to not, in fairness to the team around me, including management, the label and a producer I was working with, were very much like, ‘You’re at the helm of the ship.’ It took a little bit of time to realise that and for me to tell myself to go with my gut and stop questioning things. 

That must have been a little bit daunting at first.

Yeah, it was scary because you take it all on your shoulders. I’ve always had a safety net but when it’s just you and you’re going through it, you start to second guess everything. And I think if I’m being true to myself, which I am, I’m happy and it’s a nice moment to do exactly what I want. 

Is there a particular formula you follow during the creative process?

With this, I won’t bang my head against the wall if I have a bad writing session. If I go to write and I don’t get anything, I don’t beat myself up. Within the band, we would write a lot for a long time before we felt like we had got an album. It’s quite intense. Everyone’s writing different ideas and then we’re in sessions and it’s intense. But for my stuff, I was very much like, if it comes on the day, great. If it doesn’t, I’m not gonna force anything. It was a lot more relaxed for me personally because it was like, I just wanna say stuff that I feel like I have to say. You hear of a lot of writers or artists who scat melodies first and then a word will come. I think that’s just your subconscious going, ‘This is what you need to write about’, then you follow that stream of consciousness again. And that’s what my process has been like on this album, which has been good.

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You signed a deal with Insanity Records to release the album. Did you ever think about going independent?

I did. I thought about it. I really thought about it, and I think I toyed with it for a long time. I think I’ve got a great team around me and we could’ve done it. But I started to take meetings because I also wanted to be ambitious with it. I’ve been in a label for about 10 years with the band, and I understand it. There are pros and cons. Everyone has a very different label experience. It’s artist to artist. I think I knew if I found a team that believed in me and what I wanted to do, then I felt comfortable and open to the idea. I signed to Insanity Records and I feel very heard throughout the whole thing. I think I would have only signed if it was the right people. And luckily, I found the right team.

Were there any artists or albums that really influenced the work?

I was listening to a lot of bands I grew up on. I was going back to 14-year-old Brad. So, Queens of the Stone Age and their album Songs for the Deaf was on repeat. And then a lot of British indie, like Two Door Cinema Club, The Kooks, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, and all these jangly interesting guitar parts that I loved but hadn’t written in that style before.

Did you always plan to release an album fresh out the gate? Some people like to build momentum with EP releases.

Yeah. I’ve always much preferred writing albums. The band has done EPs, and they’ve been really fun and enjoyable. I think you can really sink your teeth into an album. After writing five albums with the band, I’m used to doing them. I think it’s different for each artist. I just prefer doing albums, but some artists have smaller time stamps.

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How many songs did you manage to write during the creative process for this album?

Actually, not as many as I thought. So there’s like 12 songs on the album, but I probably wrote 20. A lot of the songs that are on the album were written very quickly and finished. And that’s how I wanted to give it to people.

Do you think you’ll do anything with the 8 that haven’t made the cut?

No [laughs].

Talk to me about the single “Always Like This.” How did that song come about?

So Andrew, who I did “Cry at the Movie” with, we planned a trip to Paris. We went and wrote in Paris for like 3 or 4 days. I’ve never ever worked in Paris. I have played shows and been there, but I never thought about writing there. I fucking loved it. It was in a studio called Motorbase. You have to be invited in, you have to know someone. It’s not somewhere you can book a session. When we were there, it was very much like cliquey. The guy who owned it sadly passed away a few years ago. Bands like Cassius and Phoenix had recorded there, so you felt honoured to be in there. It was a really cool environment to write in. We did the first two days, and then Andrew was like, ‘I’m friends with this drummer called Freddie Sheed.’ Freddie actually drums for Lewis Capaldi and Lewis had a show that got cancelled so Freddie had a day off. We flew Freddie in and he’s an unreal drummer. It’s the only time on the album that me and Freddie sat in the live room. It’s me on the guitar and then Freddie playing drums, and we just built the instrumental. We started writing lyrics there and then. That was maybe my favourite process of the album.

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Are there any themes or messages that are particularly important for you to explore within your solo work that you didn’t express before?

There is one song called “Getting Clear” which is a realisation song and a self-acceptance, self-belief song. I’ve never written about that before. It felt very self-fulfilling writing that song. It felt really therapeutic. There’s a couple of songs on the album in that vein, but that song in particular I said, ‘I wanna get this message out.’ It feels good for me, but also hopefully, it helps other people.

Is there any pressure to meet any expectations with the solo work?

I put that pressure on myself. Not externally. But I’m always quite driven. I wanna play shows off the back of these songs from the album, and I wanna be ambitious with it. So there is self-pressure there. I wanna take stuff as far as it can go. I saw a really interesting thing from Jade [Thirlwall] from Little Mix. I think it might have been a friend who said to her, ‘This is your bonus round.’ It does feel like that sometimes, and that takes a lot of the pressure off because you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m just doing it for fun and enjoyment.’ So there’s nowhere near as much pressure and I’ve enjoyed the process.

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