X Factor's Peyton wants pizza the action
He is an American, based in Ibiza, who won over British TV audiences when he competed on the X Factor in 2016.
And now, Peyton is ready to release his new album Sinners Got Soul Too on February 9, with a performance over a slice of pizza or three the following day in Birmingham.
For the past 15 years Peyton has been writing hits and lending his distinct vocals to some of the world’s top house music producers. Departing from the electronic world has long been on the cards for Peyton and, while he has enjoyed absorbing himself into the Ibiza clubbing world, a call from his roots has beckoned from afar.
His youth spent drenched in American gospel music - his father was a preacher in Virginia - has always inspired him, and it is time for a radical change.
Teaming up with producer James Reynolds (Emeli Sande, Ellie Goulding, Snoop Dog, Tinie Tempah, Years & Years), Peyton has aimed to capture the traditional sounds of his youth. It’s an album of blues infused soul. And fans can hear it when he appears as part of Birmingham's Pizza Express Live series on February 10.
He said: “What I really want to achieve with this album is the same thing I have always set out to achieve with the music I make: to raise people's consciousness, to lift people's spirits, to move people's hearts.”
Tracks that feature on the album include I’ll Rise, the empowering poem by poet and activist Maya Angelou, which Peyton performed for the X Factor judges in his audition, a version of A Higher Place that evokes the halls of an evangelical church gospel choir, and When They Go Low, the anti-bullying anthem that takes inspiration from Michelle Obama's celebrated speech at the National Democratic Convention that has seen Peyton become an ambassador for the UK anti-bullying charity Bullying UK.
“In my youth I tried to participate in the performing arts at school, but this always resulted in a great deal of bullying," he added. "I finally gave up doing anything at my school which was associated with the arts, so the church became a kind of safe haven for me. Nobody bullied you at church for singing, because singing was considered a gift from God that we were encouraged to use.”
For tickets to the Pizza Express Live event, priced from £20, see www.pizzaexpresslive.com/whats-on/peyton
