Sam Smith confirms he will perform 'Spectre' theme song
Sam Smith has confirmed he will be singing the theme song for the upcoming James Bond film, Spectre.
The 23-year-old Grammy Award winning British artist dropped a huge hint yesterday after posting a photo to Twitter of a ring with the film's logo engraved in it.
And today Smith confirmed the news on his Twitter account:
Multi-platinum selling artist Sam Smith has co-written the title song, "Writing's On The Wall," with fellow Grammy Award winner Jimmy Napes.
He revealed he recorded the song before Christmas last year.
In April, Smith had to cancel the remainder of his Australian tour because of a haemorrhage on his vocal chords.
"It (the song) probably had something to do with it because the song is the highest song ever - it's so difficult for me to sing. I've really pushed it."
It is the first James Bond theme song recorded by a British male solo artist since 1965.
Speaking on Radio 1 this morning, Smith told Nick Grimshaw: "I'm so relieved to actually talk about this, this has been a top secret mission of my own."
He added: "I got called into the office with [producer] Barbara Broccoli and [director] Sam Mendes and they gave me the script, I read the script... they said 'have a go at the song'.
"It's the quickest I've ever written a song - it took 20 minutes... and they loved it!"
For Smith, recording the song was an accolade in itself.
He said: "Oh my gosh it's at the top for me because doing Bond - is one thing but doing Bond on your first album, I think actually just explains my entire life over the past two years - I never expected this to happen, for any of this to happen on my first record and it just makes me feel honoured.
"As an artist all the record sales and the awards are amazing but the most important thing to me as an artist is longevity and sticking around and Bond is the most timeless thing you can do, so even if everything fails with my second album I can still always be on that Wikipedia page."
The 23 previous James Bond theme songs make up some of the most memorable movie music of all time.
The previous Bond theme song, "Skyfall," was performed by Adele, and was honored with the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, the Brit Award for British Single of the Year, and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media.
Daniel Craig will reprise his role as 007 in his fourth outing as the Secret Service agent.
Other stars from the previous film Skyfall - Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes and Rory Kinnear - are also returning.
Spectre is released in the United Kingdom on 26th October.