‘It’s terrifying, but you have to go to those depths’: Fraser T Smith talks Django’s High

On July 12, award-winning producer, songwriter, and musician Fraser T Smith released his second solo album under the Future Utopia moniker Django’s High, a deeply personal project written, performed, and, for the very first time, sung entirely by the man himself. Headliner caught up with him for an in-depth look at how the record came together and the “terrifying and exposing” experience of placing himself front and centre for the first time in his 20-year career…

“I could be killing my career,” considers Fraser T Smith, an hour or so into our conversation about the making of his new Future Utopia record Django’s High. “I could be putting this stuff out and everyone I trust and respect could turn their back on it. And maybe turn their back on me. It sounds like I’m catastrophizing, but often as an artist you have to go to those depths.”

It's a profound moment of candor from an artist held in almost unimpeachable esteem in the UK music scene. His fingerprints are detectable on many of the most defining musical moments of the 21st century so far. In the studio he has written, produced and performed on juggernaut hits for the likes of Adele, Sam Smith, Kano, Stormzy, Dave, and Kasabian to name a meager few. Each has hailed him not only as a valued collaborator, but a trusted confidante.

It would be easy, perhaps lazy, to assume that a figure of such standing might be immune to the fear and vulnerability he describes upon releasing his second solo album. The fact that he isn’t is testament to the seriousness with which Smith takes the Future Utopia project. Particularly with regard to Django’s High, which could arguably be described as his first solo album in the truest sense of the word.

This, it must be stated, is not a slight on its predecessor. A highly conceptual album, 12 Questions saw Smith put 12 questions on the human condition to an array of artists and contributors whose musings were set to a genre-spanning, at times kaleidoscopic musical backdrop.

While driven by Smith, his role was still essentially that of a producer, with lead vocals and performances provided by a sparkling roll call of contributors new and old (Kano, Bastille, Tom Grennan, Idris Elba, Albert Woodfox, Es Devlin, Kojey Radical, Ghetts, Arlo Parks, and more). With album number two, however, he knew he wanted to test himself like never before by taking a central role with minimal outside influence.

“12 Questions came about from me knowing I wanted to do a project but not knowing what it would be,” says Smith as he joins Headliner via Zoom from his Henley home studio, taking us back to the origins of the Future Utopia concept. As anyone who has spent time in his company will recognise, there is an ease and humility in his manner that is immediately disarming. He speaks eloquently and thoughtfully about the work that has made his name, all with an acute awareness that those heady achievements have no bearing on how listeners will receive his solo endeavors.

“I didn’t know whether that was going to be like a Netflix documentary, I just had this idea that I would ask these amazing people 12 questions, like What Is Love? Why are we so divided when we are so connected? And at that point I was asking myself if I was brave enough to release a solo record. What would it look like? And it transpired that with that record I was like the behind-the-scenes producer who put it all together, but I still got a lot of my trusted collaborators on that record, whilst reaching out to people you wouldn’t necessarily expect to have on the same track. So, there was this juxtaposition of Es Devlin and Dave, or Dan from Bastille and Tom Grennan. And the more time I spent on it I really wanted to take it live and push what it was that I was doing.”

It was in the live arena that Smith began to toy with the prospect of carving Future Utopia into a more singular form.

“We did an amazing show just at the end of lockdown at Bold Tendencies in Peckham,” he continues. “We had a d&b audiotechnik Soundscape immersive audio system which was amazing, and I was just doing it on my own in a Rick Wakeman-esque kind of way. I invited collaborators to come up on stage and perform the songs and I just loved the experience. And it was like, how do we keep this going?

“We then took a smaller version of the show out to play Primavera and Glastonbury last year. And after that I knew, I didn’t want to make 12 Questions Part 2. I felt I had to evolve and the best way to do that was by pushing myself out of my comfort zone, which meant singing, playing all the instruments, and writing all the songs, trying to understand what Future Utopia could be in a singular sense. It was almost doing the opposite to 12 Questions. The challenge was adding a few things from 12 Questions that could seep into Django’s High, which for me was the psychedelic, trippy chordal element and the ‘70s rhythm section. But it’s a new body of work that we are able to tour, and people are reacting really positively to it.”

The incendiary result of total creative autonomy colliding with a sense of anxiety not previously experienced in his musical career, Django’s High is a vibrant, sonically expansive piece that sees all of Smith’s technical skills in the studio utilized to the fullest. Its cinematic scope is evocative of, as he describes it, a “psychedelic spaghetti western”. On opening track Looking For A Way Out (Of Del Rio) you can hear the heat of the desert, feel the rattle of the snake.

Crucial in helping Smith overcome the trepidation he felt during the process of making the record was co-producer Serge Pizzorno of Kasabian, in whom he found something of a kindred spirit. Having worked together on Kasabian’s 2022 album The Alchemist’s Euphoria – the first to feature Pizzorno as frontman following the sacking of Tom Meighan after he was convicted of assaulting his fiancée Vikki Ager in 2020 – Smith knew that they each had a unique perspective of what it meant to take the spotlight for the first time in a 20-plus year career.

“The freedom of making this album was incredible,” Smith beams. “Creatively I had the time of my life, but the anxiety of questioning what it was I was doing and hearing my vocals play back… at the beginning I wasn’t a fan of what I was hearing. It felt exposing and terrifying. On a project like this I could easily have walked away from it and thought, ‘maybe I’ll get back to it’, but never really get back to it. I was so on the edge of listening back and going, ‘I think it sounds good, but I could just be going mad’.

“That’s why I really wanted to work with Serge on this. Serge is my mate and was always going to be a champion, but I knew that it was important to get another perspective on it. He was able to give me encouragement and strength when I really needed it. Especially when you are in the studio on your own and haven’t done this before. I could tell Serge was feeling that way on The Alchemist’s Euphoria. It was as if we’d both been there for each other. I was there saying, ‘this sounds phenomenal, it still sounds like Kasabian but version two’, and being very honest and pushing him where he needed to be pushed. That was his role within this album. I just trust him so much as a multi-hyphenate individual who can be as strong live as he is in the studio as he is on camera as he is in fashion. He really is an exceptional creative and human.”

As for the process of piecing Django’s High together, Smith explains that he always had a sonic blueprint in mind, undertaking a highly regimented routine to keep the ideas flowing.

“I had the expression ‘psychedelic spaghetti western’ in my head and I wanted it to be a shorter body of work that was a bit lighter, set in the desert, and wouldn’t have anything that would disrupt the pallet of sounds,” he elaborates. “The pallet of sounds were breakbeat-y drums that felt like they could live on a spaghetti western with a ‘60s plucked bass, Ennio Morricone-style vibrato reverbed out guitars, and my vocals which would be heavily processed, and lots of BVs. That was the MO of the record. This wasn’t me thinking, I’m going to write four singles and strap eight tracks on to make up the numbers. It was always about the body of work.

“The process was really interesting,” he continues. “It was almost like an experiment where I would get up really early in the morning, let the dogs out, have a quick cup of coffee, and then give myself a very short amount of time to sing loads of melodies. I basically set myself a target – this sounds crazy – of 15 minutes to record some chords, a beat, a quick bassline, and a vocal melody. I did that over and over again, every day for about 30-40 days. Then I went back through and picked out the things I like.

“When you just go into the booth and sing whatever comes into your head you can come up with some really good stuff. If you work really fast you can almost trick your conscious brain into taking a backseat and then the subconscious brain comes. Then the challenge and the thing that takes time is dissecting the good bits and the bad and then writing the lyrics.”

In a variety of ways, Smith says that making Django’s High has provided him with a sense of what it means to be a new artist in the 2020s. He’s candid about a recent social media post he shared announcing the cancellation of some shows because of low tickets sales.

“We were very open about that on social media and wanted to put that out, as I wouldn’t want anyone to think that just because I’ve worked with Britney Spears that thousands and thousands of people will want to come to a Future Utopia show,” he notes philosophically. “We are still unknown at the minute and that’s cool, that’s how it is for every band. If anything, I’m out there campaigning for people to get behind record shops and small venues and the smaller stages at festivals, to get behind these younger artists.

“I’m very fortunate, I’ve been doing this for 20 years producing other people and have a catalog that brings in a wage where I can go out and do it, but it’s really brutal for young bands. I’m very passionate about the fact that making music should not be for the middle and upper classes because of that landscape. It’s opened my eyes to so much, and that’s positive.”

The fact that Future Utopia is, as Smith puts it, relatively unknown, especially in comparison to some of his biggest clients, seems to have lit a fire in his belly; a determination to attack the market with the drive of a newcomer with zero tolerance for resting on his laurels.

“We don’t take anything for granted,” he asserts. “We are at the beginning of our journey. We are there doing the load out at the end of the night, taking the merch down. You know, at the age I am and the point of my career I’m at with working with and performing with other artists… [pauses for a moment] I had the privilege of playing guitar with Kasabian at Knebworth in front of 100,000 people. It’s the biggest rush ever. But then performing at certain festivals in front of 40 people, when it’s the music I’ve made, it’s a different sort of buzz.

“With Kasabian it’s amazing, but I don’t have delusions of grandeur – I’m there doing a job. The 40 people that came to see us at the festival have come to see something that is ours. And it’s not about scale, it’s about how we can connect deeply. We aren’t chasing a TikTok moment, and when you do it the hard way you find fans for life. Don’t get me wrong, we are on socials and if something blows up it blows up, but we aren’t chasing that.”

It may only be a few days since Django’s High was released but Smith is already working through ideas for album number three. He knows not whether it will be another outright solo effort, or whether it’ll contain elements of collaboration, but he is certain that there is plenty of room for Future Utopia to grow into.

After a morning-long conversation that feels as though it could extend long into the afternoon, duty calls for Smith as a performance at Rough Trade East later that evening beckons. But before he bid us a warm farewell, he leaves us with a statement of intent.

“I feel like I’m standing on my own two feet now,” he says with a smile. “I know it sounds weird, but I’ve been doing this for 20 years now and I’m not sure that I have up until this point. I also think it’s important to allow Django’s High to settle, but there will be many more albums. And I want to keep building this world of Future Utopia.”

You can listen to this interview in full below.