Sam Smith’s new album is about the gooey good stuff, home, and a happy place. It’s title, though, might be a blunder.
The Grammy Award-winning British singer and songwriter stopped by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon for a dive into Smith’s fifth and latest album, Hazel Eyes (via Capitol Records).
Smith co-produced the collection, a first, with Simon Aldred (Avicii, Liam Gallagher) and David Odlum (Glen Hansard, Josh Ritter). Three years in the making, “all this music came with me,” Smith says of their travels from London to their new home, New York.
“It’s about my relationship. It’s about love.” And it’s about “something soft.”
Confession time. The title was a whoopsy. “I thought hazel eyes were brown, like hazelnut,” Smith admits. Hazel is actually an unusual, multi-colored eye type that features a mix of brown, green, and gold or amber hues. Hazelnut, however, is closer to the earthy brown they were looking for, the color of the eyes the album was written about. Smith only realized the error four months ago, when the album campaign was shot and everything was in motion.
“All my clothes were brown for the whole album campaign. It’s a nightmare,” Smith says with a laugh. “It should’ve been called Hazelnut Eyes. I’m changing the definition.”
After 2023’s Gloria, which gave Smith a third U.K. No. 1 and which the artist describes as “very intense and naked and gay,” Hazel Eyes finds the Brit in a different groove. “I just wanted to be with my friends. And just around real instruments and singing from my heart and my soul. And this is what it sounded like.”
Smith continues, “It’s been beautiful writing about love from, like, a happier place. But I was always nervous that I would be able to reach… layers of emotions if you were to fall in love. But that was because I’d never been in love. And when you’re really in love with someone, there’s still ups and downs, especially when you’re dating me because I’m very dramatic.”
Smith finds it easier to write sad songs now that they’re in a solid relation. “I feel like I can pull more emotion out because I feel safe at home and good.”
Smith boasts four top 10 appearances on the Billboard 200 chart, including a leader with 2017’s The Thrill Of It All, and seven top 10s on the Billboard Hot 100, including a No. 1 with “Unholy,” a collaboration with Kim Petras. The soul singer also holds two Guinness World Records, five Grammy Awards, more than over 64 million equivalent album sales, and 57 billion career streams.
In support of the new era and intimacy of the record, a next live direction. Rather than arenas, Smith is continuing the To Be Free global residency, which kicked off last fall at Brooklyn’s Warsaw and included runs at San Francisco’s historic Castro Theatre, Mexico and the United Kingdom.
“After the last five years,” they explain, “I’ve changed a lot in the public eye. And I think I wanted a chance to look at people in the eyes and kind of see what my audience had become.”
Collaborators on the new album, which dropped in late August, include Feist, Shahzad Ismaily, Moose, and TwoCity Chorus. The 28-member vocal collective perform on the recording “Oh Mother,” and joined Smith for a live performance of it for Wednesday night’s episode of The Tonight Show.
Watch Sam Smith’s interview and performance below.
