For a town with nearly 250,000 people, Luton is starved for music venues. Aside from The Castle, a small pub venue doing admirable work at keeping the town's music scene alive, going to a gig usually requires taking a train ride into London. It's a situation which has only got worse with time, although the town council's announcement that a new development by the train station will include a 600-capacity venue offers at least a faint hope for the future.

Luton is also an incredibly working-class town and one with areas of incredibly high deprivation, two factors which make it even harder for anyone who grows up there to find a way into music as a career. For Myles Smith, a proud Lutonian and one of the biggest new acts on the planet, these are difficulties he knows all too well. 

"I think the landscape has changed massively even in the last few years," he says, calling in from his home in a rare moment of downtime. "When I grew up, there was an abundance of opportunities to put yourself out there, whether it was one of the million open mic nights, or local band contests, or even going to neighbouring towns and playing there.

"Having access to those opportunities and being able to see a band play really gave me something to target and reach for. It's really sad that we're seeing a decline in those venues and grassroots spaces."