Stevie’s new album 'Big World'
is out NOW!
Available on iTunes, Amazon, Google Play and hmw.
“I didn’t want to take the easy route. I wanted to take the harder approach to prove I am a songwriter. The public want to hear something real.”
As a young boy Stevie had a traditional working class childhood in a town called Denny, growing up on a council estate where everyone knew each other. The kind of place where you could borrow a cup of sugar from the neighbours and be welcomed in while they put the kettle on.
Music was not a focus in the McCrorie household. Mum Sandra and dad Michael don’t sing or play instruments. Stevie’s siblings – sister Nadia and brothers Paul and Michael (his partners in typical childhood mischief) never showed any aspirations to be musicians either. Yet somewhere along the way Stevie felt a pull to write and sing his own songs.
“I never took music at school but liked being in a pop-punk band jumping about,” he recalls. Self-taught guitar player Stevie gigged through his twenties while working an office job “mundane with no creativity” and avoided karaoke: “I thought my singing was meant for something better.”
In 2015 he realised what that was when Stevie won the fourth series of BBC 1 talent search The Voice. He immediately became the show’s biggest success story when his debut single – a cover of Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine’s Oscar-nominated track Lost Stars – hit No 6 in the official UK charts and No 1 in Scotland.
Stevie is on an official career break from his day job in the fire service to pursue his music. While he might not be running into burning buildings anymore, emotions are still running high. “It’s definitely scarier releasing an album but I get a similar adrenaline rush,” says Stevie. “The fire service made me who I am, and made people connect with me. I’m going to stay closely linked to them whatever happens. The Voice was always a stepping stone to becoming the artist I want to be. Now I’m ready.”