HE'S risen to superstar status in just two years, but still Will Young keeps his feet firmly on the ground. Alun Prichard talks to him about singing, stardom and, er, wearing Speedos AT breakfast his face looks back from the telly as he chats amiably with Lorraine Kelly, then his voice fills the car on the way to work, and in the canteen his glossy smile seems so broad it almost breaks out of the magazine. There is no escaping Will Young at the moment. With the release of his new single Friday's Child this week, Will's on the promotional trail, which could explain why he is nine hours late for the interview. Instead of the planned chat straight after GMTV, we do not speak until his single has been played on morning, lunchtime, afternoon and drive-time radio. But Will is not playing the big star, there are simply too many demands on his time. The moment he finally snatches just eight free minutes in his day to speak from a Soho cafe, he is accosted by a fan eager for a word and a picture. Rather than cut short the interview or deny the fan, Will tries to placate both by posing for a photo and conducting the interview at the same time. After a sincere apology for the wait he is immediately chatty as he denies that he has become starry. "I have kind of pop star moments which I quite enjoy, but if they happened all the time I wouldn't enjoy them," he says in a voice distinctly Will yet higher pitched than expected. "I mean, I've got to fly in a helicopter to one of the shows, and I call that my pop star moment." Then he jokes about the size of his entourage which, as Top Of The Pops producers attest, usually denotes the size of the star or their ego. "I don't think mine is challenging Jennifer Lopez's yet - maybe one day. I think we can probably stretch to assistant stylist at some stage. But no, I don't have a massive entourage." He may enjoy some of the trappings of pop success but Will is a rare thing in the industry - his own man. "Maybe just recently I've been going through a bit of a time when I have found that hard to hang on to - a bit of individuality and what it's like to be me - but I think that happens to everybody. Aged 25 it's a bit like going through teenage years again, but it's all part of the test isn't it? You've just got to keep going." It does become apparent that Will sees much of the business as a test, which explains how he has come across as relaxed and in control from his first appearance on our TV screens. Remember how he took on Simon Cowell on Pop Idol when he disagreed with his barbed criticism? "Yeah, I have control of my business life," he laughs, suggesting perhaps his private life - which he keeps private - is a little less controlled. "But I think it takes a long time to work out how an industry works and your own job and what your strengths and weaknesses are. "You need to find the right people to do your writing, you need to find the right journalists, the right photographers - I think that takes a lot of time and I definitely feel like, as I grow more experienced, I'm becoming more confident in the job and what I do. " Many have pointed to Will's upbringing for an explanation of how he copes so well. The privately educated politics graduate was brought up in the home counties by eccentric and liberal parents. "I won't allow a job to change the way I want to lead my life and what I think," he says. This is something that has been plain from the night 4.2 million viewers voted for him to become their Pop Idol. It was obvious even then that he would not be pushed into fulfilling the desires of those who owned his career. Despite selling 850,000 copies of his first album through the pop formula, Will pushed for his second album to be truer to himself and consequently has already sold nearly 500,000 more copies than the first. But he has had to battle to get his record company and the music industry to accept him as a soul and jazz singer, not a pop act. "It was difficult to do and I think it is great that I'm on the path now; I've just done a shoot today for a magazine on jazz-influenced singers and, you know, to be asked to do that in the space of two years coming from Pop Idol" - he says the competition's name quickly and quietly almost as if he is embarrassed - "is great." He has enforced his will with his music, and in his many TV appearances it appears he has always managed to be himself and impose himself on interviewers. "I don't mind chat shows, because I love talking to people," something the speed at which he talks confirms. "The thing is not to treat it as an interview; treat it as a conversation. If you do enjoy conversing with people then you enjoy chat shows. If someone's unpleasant to you then you just tell them to p*** off. Just because you're on TV doesn't mean you can't tell someone to p*** off. "The problem is if you're trying to maintain this constant veneer, then there's the idea of people catching you out and the smile drops. I don't pretend to be 100% perfect so there isn't a veneer." Perhaps because Will does not try to be anyone but himself, he does not attract scandal or sleazy stories, but he says that even if he was targeted that way it wouldn't worry him. "Scandal to me is dropping bombs on innocent people, it's not shagging someone one night. It's public interest, if that's what people want to do then that's fine. I don't mind what people want to write about me, that's fine too." As if to confirm this, Will often talked of his very public outing as a gay man in downmarket newspapers two years ago. "I never thought I'd have to end up coming out to millions of people all at once. But you have to see the funny side when you walk into the supermarket and every paper's screaming, 'Will's gay!'." While he says he doesn't care too much about what millions of readers may think, he did care a great deal about the opinion of James Brown, who he sang with in the concert to welcome the Olympic torch to the UK last weekend. "It was really, really great singing with someone you're a massive fan of and who is a living legend. It was really, really wonderful, a real moment where I just thought, 'you've really got to enjoy this'. Singing with people like James Brown gives you the motivation to keep on doing it. It's people like him who drive you on. He told me I should wear more hats - that's the key to success. I said if I'd known it was that easy it'd be wonderful." With that and two sold out outdoor concerts in the past week behind him, Will is looking forward to performing at the Summer Pops in Faenol, near Bangor on Monday. As a change from his arena tour he will be joined on stage by a string quartet, and the entire show will be done acoustically and live which, he says, adds a touch of class to the concert. Although there is such a punishing schedule ahead of him and plenty of stress in his working life, Will has decided to try and quit his vices - this week he decided to stop drinking. "It's my second day today and we've just finished the shoot and we're sitting here in Soho and I'm having a coffee instead of a glass of wine, but I am eating pecan pie as well," he laughs. "I've packed in the fags as well which is pretty tough. I have an ongoing battle with them. I will light up if I'm stressed, so if I'm smoking you know I'm stressed." Then Will says his itinerary only allows a minute more and there's only time for one more question - the answer to which provided further proof that Will is very much his own man. Despite wearing only a skimpy pair of swimming trunks and having to swim in the English Channel in spring time, Will chose not to use a body double for most shots in his latest video. "No, I didn't need a double, even though it was bloody cold, because I've got quite a large penis," he says unexpectedly. "I'm quite pleased about that and I'm not worried, otherwise why do you think I'd do a Speedo video? It would be ridiculous. "On that note, see you, bye..." Faenol date... WILL Young heads for the Faenol Estate, near Bangor on Monday to headline the final concert of the four-day North Wales Summer Pops series. The Summer Pops begins tomorrow at 7.30pm with the Australian Pink Floyd Show and their special guest Dean Johnson. Saturday night is Beach Boys night as the band follow North Wales groups Mojo and The Mountaineers to the stage. On Sunday Welsh pop star Meinir Gwilym and Wales' classical sensation Katherine Jenkins pave the way for Bryan Ferry. Will Young will be supported by Meinir Gwilym and Lucie Silvas on Monday. * Tickets for all four concerts, ranging from £15 to £32.50, are available from the ticket hotline on 0870 881 5511 | 
