Lewis Capaldi on Bouncing Back From ‘Detrimental’ Burnout & His Next Chapter: ‘I Don’t Want to Phone In Anything Ever Again’

Lewis Capaldi arrives, shoulders loose, hair tousled; his eyes are bright, steady and settled. A deep exhale follows. “This feels quite weird,” he says, right leg gently bouncing as he perches on the edge of a primrose-yellow accent chair. “I haven’t done something like this for a while.”

We meet in a downtown Chicago hotel bar, where there’s an understated sense of occasion: This is the Scottish singer-songwriter’s first in-person profile interview in almost four years. The low metallic rumble of the L train passes the window next to us at regular intervals. Capaldi, a preternaturally warm person, is telling Billboard U.K. how it feels to be back in the hot seat.

His nerves may feel palpable, but this is an artist gradually re-emerging into his element, back on tour and stepping onto the biggest stages of his career with a fresh purpose. Later this evening, he will head to the 23,500-capacity United Center as part of a sold-out North American headline tour, which has also featured shows at Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl — as well as a double-header at Denver’s Red Rocks Amphitheater — in support of his recent Survive EP (via Polydor), after the title track hit No. 1 in the U.K. last summer.

Capaldi is taking the current run in his stride. He’s committed to a new gym routine and has refreshed his wardrobe, donning an Adidas track jacket with an easy cool. Indie star Sam Fender, one of his closest friends, took him on a night out to New York City’s notorious Newcastle United supporters’ bar; Capaldi marked the release of new single “Stay Love” via a surprise fan event at Penn Station, with roses passed through the crowd. 

“Genuinely, this is the most fun I have ever had on tour. I feel like I have properly loosened up. And I have… locked in,” Capaldi begins. “Is that even the right phrase?!” 

Well, quite. He describes how he’s reduced a near-daily therapy schedule to one session a fortnight, while he “didn’t give a f–k” that his voice sounded “really croaky” at the Madison Square Garden show, as he felt so enamored by the gratitude of simply being present on stage. A few days after our conversation, he’ll go on to play a full acoustic show at Red Rocks despite technical difficulties, and remain relaxed and buoyant throughout. “I used to feel horrible when things started to go wrong,” he adds. “It was like I was existing inside my head.”

All of this perspective carries a deeper, almost full-circle significance as Capaldi returns to the Windy City. It’s nearly three years to the day since the 29-year-old last played here, at the 5000-capacity Aragon Ballroom. That night, before stepping out for the encore, Capaldi was overcome by a panic attack, “convulsing” as the episode escalated to the point where he felt completely detached from his own body. He returned to finish the set with support from fans, but the show marked not an immediate turning point so much as a stark realisation of where his health stood.

“Last time I was here in Chicago, I was undoubtedly at my lowest,” Capaldi recalls, tugging at the sleeves of his black crew jumper. “I was mentally f–ked and physically struggling with my back, too. It was killing me. Honestly, I look back now and I think, ‘Why didn’t you just stop?’”

In the thick of promoting his U.K. chart-topping 2022 LP Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent, while facing the reality of a recent Tourette’s Syndrome diagnosis, Capaldi was burnt out and fired up. As fatigue started to set in, the involuntary, jagged movements that define his condition (called “tics”) became more pronounced, as did the persistent nausea he was experiencing. Yet this health revelation only intensified public interest as Capaldi shared the news in an Instagram Live session; his fame continued to soar not in spite of the struggle, but alongside it.

After the incident at Aragon Ballroom, Capaldi pushed himself to finish a further 12 North American shows, plus a subsequent U.K. run of promotional underplay gigs, as planned. It would take until he reached Glastonbury Festival in June 2023 for things to unravel — and for this in-demand star to realize that he’d “been in f–king denial, and living a life of pain.”

During a prime sunset slot on the Pyramid Stage, broadcast live to millions of viewers at home, Capaldi had what he describes today as “a very public breakdown.” The performance saw him repeatedly chastise himself for losing his voice, while visibly battling intense vocal and physical tics. Throughout closer “Someone You Loved,” the audience belted the words out for him, as Capaldi accepted defeat, staring out into a middle distance. “Glastonbury, thank you so much,” he said as the performance concluded. “If I never get to do this again, this has been amazing.” 

Three years later, the footage – which frequently cuts away from the stage, leaving the full extent of what was happening largely unseen – remains a difficult watch, but also stands as a powerful example of collective compassion. For Capaldi, it spurred a self-administered intervention. “Looking back, anyone could see that I felt f–king dejected, disappointed, sad and just worthless that day,” he says. “But as soon as I got off stage, I was like, ‘I’m taking a break now.’ It felt like a weight had been lifted. People saw how f–king detrimental things can get.” 

Capaldi walked backstage to find his parents crying, while his band was also visibly upset. He instead had a very calm, almost detached reaction, leaving the site immediately to head to Glasgow to see some childhood friends at a pub. Though much of that trip home now “feels like a blur,” he remembers looking at his phone and seeing that he’d made national headlines, while his Instagram DMs became flooded with fans expressing concern. 

In hindsight, for Capaldi, the fallout from months of physical strain had become a question of pride. Already a homegrown star by this point, it was the international success of Broken by Desire…, which debuted at No. 14 on the Billboard 200, that caused demand to outstrip the initial rollout plans. “When I got my Tourette’s diagnosis, I thought to myself, ‘Oh well, just carry on. This is life now,’” he says. “I wanted to finish the tour, almost as a badge of honor, and then get to Glastonbury – but I probably should have never been up there in the first place.”

Mid-sentence, Capaldi knocks the table for emphasis, unknowingly spilling his glass of water. “You could drive yourself crazy thinking about it all,” he says. “But things happened exactly the way they were supposed to happen.”

There was a point at the turn of the decade when Capaldi’s grip on British pop culture felt inescapable. He’d been inclined to agree. “I feel like in the U.K., you walk out your front door and there’s a chance I might be there,” he says. “It’s almost like I’m part of the furniture!”

Having been lifted from relative obscurity – playing pubs around West Lothian before his manager stumbled upon his SoundCloud page – Capaldi’s rise was meteoric. His 2018 breakout single “Someone You Loved,” an Adele-sized gut-punch of a pop megaballad, topped the Billboard Hot 100 and spent seven weeks at No. 1 in the U.K. It is now the nation’s most-streamed song ever, and stands at No. 6 on the global all-time Spotify rankings, higher than any track by streaming-era heavyweights like Taylor Swift and Drake.

This fairytale-like story continued. When Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent arrived a month later, it became the U.K.’s biggest-selling album of the year, a feat it would repeat in 2020. Its author was showered with accolades, ranging from a Grammy nomination (song of the year) to two BRIT Award wins. He became an ever-present fixture at red carpet events, with a self-deprecating personality that felt refreshing among other rising stars who were arguably more hesitant to say, or even be, much of anything at all. 

Anchoring it all was that voice — raw, bruised, heartfelt and unflinching, digging up long-buried feelings and reshaping them with grace. No amount of studio polish can account for how Capaldi can break your heart with a whisper or lift it with anthems of emotional tenacity, all steered by that thick, unmistakable Scottish accent.

Critics were largely unanimous in their response to the record, pointing to its run of slow-burning tracks as somewhat repetitive, with one outlet stating it had “no subtlety, originality or range.” Capaldi had his right to reply on social media, where he became an early adopter of TikTok. In the majority of his clips, he poked fun at the sentimentality of his own music — dimples deepening as he laughed — by embracing its excesses.

Few acts could rival Capaldi for his irreverence and marketing nous, but the level of exposure soon came at a cost. “People wouldn’t always engage with the music. They’d come up to me in the street and say, ‘You’re my favourite TikToker!’,” he recalls. That tension only intensified in the run-up to Broken By Desire… for which promotion was amplified by high-profile commercial tie-ins (Deliveroo, Tinder) and a Capaldi-branded pizza range sold in British supermarkets. But there was a creeping sense that the deliberately absurd spectacle risked overshadowing the songs themselves, a trade-off that became harder to ignore.

“I was doing so much content, and that very quickly became commodified. A lot of the second album roll-out was based around doing a funny video to go viral,” Capaldi says. “I became so exhausted from putting on the whole, ‘Oh, I’m so f–king silly’ thing. I felt like I was playing up to other peoples’ ideas of me.”

There was a moral conundrum, too, tied to his own everyman appeal and how it was being shaped and used. “It sometimes felt a bit like, ‘How can we get money out of this? How can we f–king sell, sell, sell?’”

Out of “not wanting to upset others”, Capaldi won’t be drawn on specific campaigns or product releases, but he is forthright in explaining how he believes he has “not treated the fanbase in the way that I probably should have.” He continues: “There was maybe an element of trying to extract too much from people. I have very confused feelings towards that time.”

This came to a head with the 2023 Netflix special How I’m Feeling Now, he says, reflecting: “I look back at things, and I think there’s a lot of s–t I wish I hadn’t done.” He adds that while he doesn’t necessarily “regret” it, the documentary became deeply tied to his private life. Over 96 minutes, it shows Capaldi battling exhaustion, imposter syndrome and creative frustration, alongside intimate scenes at his childhood home with his parents.

Capaldi says the only time he has watched How I’m Feeling Now back is when he had to sign off on the edit; seeing himself reckon with his Tourette’s diagnosis onscreen was upsetting enough to not want to revisit it. He recalls reshooting the final scene – set to look forward to his future as an artist – because the first version was “really depressing,” reflecting the wider mental state the film captures. Over time, what began as a more straightforward tour documentary evolved into an unfiltered portrait of an artist under pressure.

“Maybe if I’d known that, I probably wouldn’t have done it,” he says of the change in the film’s direction. “Also seeing my parents featured in it in such a big way… I don’t love that. Looking back on it, I think up until that point, I’d been quite protected. People didn’t know much about my day-to-day life; I wasn’t putting personal stuff on social media.” 

Capaldi’s vulnerability throughout the documentary created an access point for people who might not have been previous fans of his music. The response continues to be “overwhelming”; he speaks of the frustration of not being able to individually help all those who have reached out to him via message, while also acknowledging that he activated a conversation around neurodivergence and grief while at the beginning of his own recovery. 

As we broach this subject, he leans forward across the table, and starts talking 10 to the dozen about his reluctance to be seen as a “mental health poster boy.” He adds that a second Netflix documentary centered around the journey to Glastonbury 2023 was scrapped, following some “difficult discussions” about its proposed content and the eventual outcome of Capaldi’s performance at the festival.

As such, during his break, he began to ask himself bigger questions. What did he want out of his career? Why was it so important to succeed? Capaldi thinks he found the answer in starting to live for himself. “‘Authenticity’ has become a buzz word and I feel like not everything has to be out there,” he says. “I just don’t care to deal at that altar anymore, you know what I mean?”

In many ways, the past few years for Capaldi have been centered around finding the fun and mystery in music again; to remember what songwriting is to him beyond trying to top his previous milestones. He credits this mindshift change in part to a tight-knit circle of artist friends, naming them one by one while holding up a finger for each as he goes: Sam Fender, Grian Chatten [Fontaines D.C.], Niall Horan, Bradley Simpson [The Vamps], Ed Sheeran. 

Capaldi owns a house in north London, where he lives in close proximity to Fender and Chatten. The trio, who jokingly dub themselves “The Syndicate,” have been spotted holidaying in County Mayo on the west coast of Ireland and supporting each other at their respective headline shows. They regularly send each other new music, Capaldi says, with recent favourites including ascendant Dublin rockers Bleech 9:3, singer-songwriter Aaron Rowe, also from the Irish capital, and Scottish folk act Jacob Alon.

In October 2025, Capaldi headed to Newcastle to support Fender and Chatten at the Mercury Prize ceremony, for which they were both nominated, with the former ultimately winning for his opus People Watching. Seeing two of the most important people in his life recognised for their artistic ambition had a motivating effect on Capaldi, reinforcing the value of creative risk-taking.

“[Sam and Grian] talk about music as art – and I know this sounds f-king mental coming from someone who is also a musician – but they really f–king care about everything they’re putting out,” Capaldi says. “It is so inspiring. What they have instilled in me is to really take time [in the studio], and start properly giving a f–k about what I’m saying and what the songs sound like.”

Capaldi says he is “happy and secure” enough to admit he’s “unsure” what his future looks like. Survive was released to “clear the decks” of previously recorded material, allowing him to move forward without a fixed plan. He has yet to begin work on a new album, but he wants to work with new collaborators, be involved in “every single aspect of the production,” and “not compromise” on the recording process. “I feel the most confused and lost I’ve ever been in my career. But it’s a really good thing; I feel like I have absolutely no idea what the f–k I’m doing.”

He continues: “Around the second album, I became so hyper-focused on chasing a hit record that I was just doing s–t on the fly and handing off songs to producers. I don’t want to phone in anything ever again. The people who listen to my music deserve better; I deserve better.”

A triumphant comeback campaign started with a surprise appearance at Glastonbury last summer, where Capaldi returned to the Pyramid Stage to deliver a full set and finish where he’d left off two years earlier. “I cannot overstate the importance of that day and what it’ll mean to me for the rest of my life. If that hadn’t gone well, I don’t know what situation I’d be in; but it did, and I showed up for myself,” he says.

In the following months, he went to see Oasis, Radiohead and McFly perform live – describing all three gigs as “the best night of my life” – while also making a cameo in Taylor Swift’s “Opalite” video, and embarking on a U.K. and Ireland arena tour, during which he began to shift his focus away from monitoring his tics on stage. The latter marked a significant step for Capaldi, who had previously cancelled dates amid severe health anxiety, including at times to undergo medical checks.

As he has settled back into touring, there have been musical legends who have remained firmly in his corner. Among them is Elton John, who has offered his support in private, as well as seminal songwriter David Gray, who wrote Capaldi a personal letter of encouragement. Those kind gestures have formed a steady foundation as he continues to navigate his next steps, and he’s keen to “pay it forward” and support other artists battling adversity, having reached out to Lola Young amidst the intense scrutiny the singer faced last year as her profile rapidly rose.

“Lola is amazing, she’s incredible,” Capaldi says. “I sent her a big message where I was like, ‘Look, you don’t need to reply to this, but I know how you’re feeling.’ When I went away, there were a lot of people reaching out to me; I didn’t get back to everybody, but it meant a lot. Everyone talks about the ‘duty of care’ that is required from labels, but I think we also have a responsibility as artists to share that support.”

The United Center show later in the evening will reveal an artist who seems looser and more liberated as he bathes in the glow of the crowd. On a yearning “Something in the Heavens,” Capaldi’s falsetto can be an almost unbearably intimate instrument to listen to, leaping from gentle to piercing in a single note, while a reworked version of “Pointless” is both desperately sad and beautiful at once, like a bloom pushing through concrete. Soft, exquisite lighting illuminates the tenderness with which this music is being relayed on stage. 

As his live pull continues to surge, an extensive summer run lies ahead, including a two-night takeover of London’s 65,000-capacity BST Hyde Park, but in Chicago the focus is firmly on immediacy. “I’m very excited to be back in this city and playing the gig you all deserve. It’s all uphill from here,” Capaldi says, his words landing like a promise he knows he can keep.

Portraits by Lane Dorsey for Billboard U.K.
Live photography by Thomas Falcone