Russel Watson: 'I've always been a driven lunatic from the moment I started singing'

Next year British tenor Russell Watson will celebrate a quarter of a century since the release of his acclaimed debut album, The Voice.

Never one to rest on his laurels, to mark the milestone he’ll go on a UK tour in 2025 — The Evolution Tour — with jam-packed performances and dates across October and November.

“I still can’t believe it, the time has gone so quickly,” Watson says.

Although it only feels like “five minutes” ago that he was recording The Voice, time has flown for Watson.

“It’s just amazing and dreadful at the same time,” the Salford-born classical singer muses.

Starting out performing in clubs around the North West while working on factory floors, Watson found overnight fame with the release of The Voice in 2000 and performed privately for figures including Emperor Hirohito of Japan at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo.

‘Nessun Dorma’ from Puccini’s Turandot soon became his calling card. He’s won four Classical Brit Awards and collaborations through his career include working with Sir Paul McCartney, Lionel Richie and more.

People aside, he’s performed at some impressive events and locations too through the years, namely the Champions League final, the Commonwealth Games, and in front of 450,000 people at the Capitol Building in Washington DC.

He’s also made his mark in the world of theatre, starring in productions such as War Of The Worlds, Christina, and Chicago.

Ask him how he’s become a mainstay on the music scene and beyond for so long, and he says it’s because he’s “mixed it up a little bit”.

“Over the years, even from the first album, there’s a combination of pop and classical on the album. And some of the collaborations I’ve done, everyone from Lionel Richie to Shaun Ryder, and you couldn’t get any more diverse than that, with regards to vocalists. And I think that’s kept me interesting there,” he says.

Then there is the list of collaborators, from Meat Loaf to Luciano Pavarotti, and his work in musical theatre.

“I’ve got lots of strings to my bow, I’m able to adapt as well vocally to pretty much any style. I have sung jazz, swing, bit of soul, but predominantly I’m known for the classical repertoire,” he says.

“I think that’s been one of the key factors in why I’ve lasted so long, is because I have been able to deviate from the original path, even now, everybody calls me the opera singer, but I don’t sing in operas. I sing pieces from Opera, but I don’t actually sing in operas.

“The music that I do is wide and varied, and again, I think that’s why people keep coming back to the concerts. Because, you know, we’re ever-changing, next year’s concert tour will be very, very different from this year’s, not just necessarily stylistically, but repertoire wise.

“We’re going to have a collection of some of my favourite songs from over the years — ‘You Raise Me Up’ and the theme tune from the Star Trek series, which I’ve sang, the theme tune for the Star Trek: Enterprise series (called ‘Where My Heart Will Take Me’), that’ll be in there.

“And there’ll be some of the big classics in there. There’s a lot of new stuff, but there’s some of the old stuff as well. It’s a celebration of 25 years, and also heading into, you know what, in essence, will be new material too”.

His career was halted in 2005 when he began having headaches and was diagnosed with a pituitary adenoma the size of two golf balls. He underwent a five-hour operation to have it removed.

Two years later, he suddenly became incapacitated while recording his album Outside In and doctors discovered a regrowth, which was also successfully removed.

Speaking about his health, he says, he is “at the moment fabulous”.

He said: “And I have been for a while now, but it took a lot of effort and time to get myself back to full fitness. But now that I am, I feel at the moment, dare I say it, that I’m singing better than ever right now.

“But I feel like I’ve got there, and I feel like it’s really strong at the moment, everything that I’m doing as well is working very nicely. I hate to tempt providence but it’s working as good as it ever has”.

Music aside, Watson signed up to appear on I’m A Celebrity ... Get Me Out Of Here! in 2020, which took place in a Welsh castle instead of the Australian jungle due to coronavirus.

He arrived at Gwrych Castle in North Wales a little after the rest of his campmates, as a surprise, and was fifth to be eliminated.

He speaks frankly about what has kept him driven to succeed through the years.

“I’ve always been a driven lunatic from the moment that I started singing way back in 1990, I was singing in the pubs and the clubs in the North West,” he says. 

“And from that moment right through till now, I’ve wanted to succeed. In some respects, it’s a good thing, but in other respects, it has seen me through some very difficult times, that drive has seen me through some very difficult health scares as well.

“I think it’s the same drive that saw me basically come from the back street, working men’s clubs of the North West to being the best selling male classical artist of all time in the UK. That drive is what got me from where I was to there.

“That same drive helped me get through the stages of illness that I experienced too. So I think the word that I’m looking for is, what’s kept me here for so long is drive and the will, I love to sing.

“There’s nothing else in the world that I want to do so that will, to want to sing, to want to be on stage, is I think what’s been responsible for keeping me there. Because, in relative terms, attaining success (is) difficult, but not as difficult as retaining it.”

With planning for the tour under way, and the rest of the year looking full, Watson has been busy. But there are a few things he’d like to get back to doing when he has some down time.

Tennis being one of them.

“I’ll have some time off in January,” he says.

“I’ve got a great love of tennis, I want to start playing my tennis again. Because we live in the middle of nowhere as well, I love a good walk in the country as well, over the hills, it’s a good test of my fitness too running up and down hills and stuff. So that’s one of my favourite pastimes as well.

“And dare I say it, I do like to shoot a few zombies on the PlayStation 5 as well. I love gardening too. I’ve not had much time to do it this year for one reason or another. By the time it gets to spring, I’ll be out in the garden, doing a bit of trimming and planting a few bulbs and so on”.

Russell Watson’s The Evolution Tour, Celebrating 25 Remarkable Years of the Voice runs throughout October and November 2025. Tickets are available at aegpresents.co.uk.