WHAT EVERYONE SHOULD BE TALKING ABOUT THIS WEEK
Quick! Get us a popster with a name we can make into a Christmas pun!
Words: Stephen Ackroyd.
Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.
‘Tis the season for reflection, and Thomas Headon has been doing plenty of that. Sprawled in a Michael Bublé Christmas jumper and sporting an elf hat that somehow makes him look even more like an overgrown kid than usual, he’s pondering the complexities of the festive season. “I don’t really like Christmas all that much,” he admits, with the kind of candour that’s become his trademark. “It’s always such a long lead-up, then the day comes, and you’re like, ‘Wow, cool, it’s just another Wednesday except I get to eat everything.’”
It’s a fittingly contrarian stance from someone who’s spent 2024 completely rewriting his own rulebook. This year, Thomas Headon logged off. For the first time in the five years he’s been putting out music, he put the phone down and found a new perspective. “I deleted Instagram and TikTok and everything for probably a month. Coming back, I was like, what is a Brat Summer?” says Thomas. Strikingly, he doesn’t seem to have changed much. He’s still the same giddy kid we’ve always been met with, but the music he’s putting out and the stories he’s telling suggest he’s a very different person. (And if you needed any indication he’s changed, he recently regretted a tattoo of a loaf of bread on his arm before he’d even left the chair. That’s growth.)
The journey to this point hasn’t been straightforward. At the start of 2024, Thomas was putting together his debut album. He even managed to get the first single, ‘Middle of the Night’, out in February before the record he had planned quickly became irrelevant.
“I don’t know if the label will tell me off for saying that we were working towards an album, but then I went through a breakup, and it was like,” (he mimics an explosion) “and then I was like, this is so pointless. I completely fell out of love with music and being online. I literally just wanted to be around my friends and do that all the time and exist without having to be an artist.”
As an Australian transplant in London, Christmas hits different for Thomas. His ideal festive celebration sounds more like a summer blockbuster than a Hallmark movie: “You truly can’t beat a summer Christmas. It’s fucking hot, you have endless beers on hand, family is around, and you spend the entire day sitting on an esky drinking in the sun and eating so much food. Barbecue is going, Santa is wearing shorts… god, what a dream. Maybe I do like Christmas?”
This nostalgia for home feels particularly poignant given the year he’s had. A large part of Thomas’ breakthrough happened online during the pandemic, quickly building a fanbase by consistently live streaming and sharing countless Instagram stories; that habit didn’t die when he could leave the house again and eventually, there was no differentiation between his professional life and personal life. Having moved halfway across the world from Melbourne to London at 18, it’s a miracle he hasn’t gone completely insane sooner, but getting immersed in making music and creating an online community ended up being a blessing and a curse.
“When I’ve gone home to Australia in the past, I’ve been like, it’s Christmas, I’ll slow down, then I still do three stories on my Instagram a day, and I’m on Tiktok live every 10 minutes. Chill out, man, it’s okay, breathe. The breakup was a good way to do that; everyone was super supportive.”
But like all good Christmas stories, this one has a redemptive arc. The shift in mindset has drastically changed his approach to songwriting. The wackiness present in a lot of Thomas’ previous releases is dialled right down; a total 180 considering last time we spoke, fun was the mission. Working only with his friend, roommate and longtime collaborator Stephen Barnes on his new EP ‘wasn’t a fighting kid’ gave him plenty of room for honesty, and it shows. “The coolest thing about this EP is for the first time in ages, I’ve had something I really wanted to say, and I felt like I had to say for me, which is really nice. It’s fucking awful, but it was nice once I got it off my chest.”
These days, Thomas is creating his own traditions. “We throw a Thomas Headon Corporate Christmas Party for all my friends who don’t have corporate jobs,” he explains, lighting up at the mention of it. “This year will be the third year we’ve done it now. We rent a bar, invite all the freelance or self-employed friends who don’t get a Christmas party, and we have one ourselves! It’s so wholesome, but also, like most Christmas parties, it gets very messy very quickly.”
The soundtrack to this alternative office party? “We’re talking Michael Bublé. We’re talking Mariah Carey. We’re putting in Justin Bieber’s 2011 hit album ‘Under The Mistletoe (Deluxe Edition)’,” he grins. “We’re even putting in the cover of ‘Can’t Fight This Feeling’ by the Glee Cast because, for some reason, it really gives me Christmas energy… I can’t explain it.”
Looking ahead to 2025, Thomas is cautiously optimistic. “Well, I plan for it to be a little better than this one! I’d love to tour again, hopefully come out of EP jail and drop ‘TH1’, and travel some more. I’m actually going to Japan early in the year, which is exciting!” It’s a resolution he’s already making good on – “earlier this year, I made a goal to visit Japan next year. Thankfully, before the end of the year is up, I already have plans to go with some friends from high school.”
In fact, he’s been quietly preparing for the future in unexpected ways. “I’ve been doing an online course on urban planning and development of cities,” he reveals. “I finished it today and got a certificate. I’m officially an online university graduate. It’s not really a secret because my friends know, but now you know it too.”
This newfound balance between Thomas Headon the Person and Thomas Headon the Pop Star seems to be working. “I don’t want to go full Chappell Roan, but I don’t want to talk about my personal life online, and I shouldn’t have to because I make music. I don’t want to be online the same way I was when I was nineteen because that’s just so bad for me, so bad for my friends, so bad for my family, bad for my relationships, all these things; it just doesn’t work.”
As our festive chat winds down, Thomas shares one final resolution: “If I were to make a resolution now… it’d probably be to tell my friends I love them more. Very important stuff!” It’s a fitting end to a year that’s been all about rediscovering what really matters. Sometimes you have to log off to find your way home. ■
Leave a Reply