“Going Sober Forces You To Be Present”: Medium Build On Teetotalism And King Of Having Fun

After years of relentless touring and a very public unravelling, Nick Carpenter's Medium Build is back. Sober, diagnosed, and making the biggest music of his life.

Nick Carpenter picks up the phone like he's calling a mate. Within minutes, we're talking about art on walls, the Yorkshire accent, whether English people drink better than Americans. He's funny, warm, instantly easy to talk to. Not what you'd necessarily expect from someone who's spent the past year rebuilding from the ground up. 

Medium Build built a cult following over a decade of independent releases. Intimate, bedroom-recorded folk and indie with a confessional streak that earned him co-signs from the likes of Elton John and Zach Bryan. Signing to Island Records in 2023 opened up a new chapter. Support slots alongside Lewis Capaldi and Tyler Childers, and crowds that kept getting bigger. Then came the wall. A mental health crisis forced him off the road entirely, leading to a newly sober life and a bipolar 2 diagnosis. Most artists might retreat inward. Carpenter went the other way. 

King Of Having Fun, the singer-songwriter’s new record set for release on 4th September, was recorded live in the room with his full band. A bold step up from the bedroom-recorded intimacy of his earlier work. Drawing on indie rock, country and power-pop, it's his most immediate record to date. Songs built for festival fields and arena stages. He catches up with Man About Town amid life on the road to uncover what it took to get here.

The album lands in September. How does it feel to finally be letting this one go?

It feels so good to start a new chapter. We put out a record in '24, and you kind of feel like you're stuck as that person until you make a new thing. We made this record about a year ago, then you shoot all the videos and do all the promo, and then you're just so ready. I've just been so ready to announce the tour and play the songs. It feels great, very relieving. Excited to be a new person.

The lead single "Armor" is an unguarded way to open. Lyrically, it's this huge run of intrusive thoughts. What made it feel like the right first statement from the album?

Two things. Tempo-wise, it's energetic; it lets people know we're back. Last year we were doing all these big support slots and our songs are kind of loungy, slow-burn stuff. I was like, damn, we need some songs that go somewhere. This one felt like a great way to say we're coming for your Friday nights, your big festival spots and arenas.

But then lyrically, it's insane, just this huge run-on intrusive thought. I love how I showed up on those lyrics. The whole record was made in this sort of manic, newly sober place. I'd just gotten diagnosed with bipolar 2, which is like a chill version of bipolar, I guess. I was like, oh, they made a sequel. I was just coming from this place of not knowing how to be without alcohol.

A bipolar 2 diagnosis and newly sober, that's a lot arriving at once. What was that period actually like?

I just didn't know how to be without it. I'd been partying for a long time. I'm 35; I probably had my first drink at 15, and in my 20s I was really about it. The whole culture of touring just reinforces it. I was bartending for years, served at restaurants; there's always a drinking culture around it. So trying to rebrand internally was hard. I was really anti-medication for a long time because I thought it would make me lose my edge or whatever. But the record has this raw feeling throughout because of that. I'm on a train just having thoughts and writing them all down. It was like that for the first year. I'm calmer now, but I'm glad I documented it. I think a lot of people will feel less insane when they hear how I was feeling.

The album is called King Of Having Fun. Given everything you've just described, where does that title come from?

As a kid, I was this crazy, joyful kid. Making movies with my friends, riding my bike off ramps, just goofing around. As an adult, I was also "crazy", but that version was dependent on substances, nightlife, and validation from my phone. Those two people share a lot, but one's in this pure bubble where joy just springs naturally, and the other needs all this external stuff to function. I was trying to get back to that kid, to reconnect with him. Obviously I don't want to be Peter Pan. But maybe there are chemicals that can just happen naturally. I wanted to find out if that was still possible.

Previous records had a real bedroom intimacy to them. This one was recorded fully live with the band. What made you want to go bigger rather than smaller after such a personal period?

Opening for Tyler Childers to 15,000 people, Capaldi in the States, Rainbow Kitten- when you start doing rooms like that, you think, damn, I just want something that activates people. I remember when Mumford & Sons went electric; there are ways to do it that feel weird, where all of a sudden everyone's like, okay, cool, we're going into the Coldplay universe. But I look at Sam Fender, the 1975, Fontaines DC. UK people understand arena rock at a level where the lyrics are still good, and the songs still kick ass. That's what I wanted. So we did it all live, drums in the room while I'm singing. There are still weird journal-entry songs. They were just made with the live show in mind.

"Cone Off" is one of the most upbeat things you've made. Where did that energy come from?

It comes at the right time, right at the end of side one. It's kind of polarising, because some people don't fuck with country sounds, but growing up in the south and living in Nashville, that's just something I'd put on at a barbecue. And honestly, I like goofing around. A lot of my songs are so serious, so over the head with deep themes. Having a tune about getting out of a relationship and just wanting to party with the boys, I think people are going to connect with that. Music doesn't always have to be confessional.

Three nights at Madison Square Garden supporting Mumford & Sons, what does that mean at this point in the story?

It's gonna be so perfect to try the material in those huge spaces, and then the record comes out right at the end of that run. I've heard from a lot of bands we've opened for that they feel energised by us, our band goes crazy, and we try to leave it all out there. Some bands don't want the opener to kick ass. But really great bands want their crowd to feel pumped. I think Mumford are that kind of band. And honestly, coming out swinging every night, that's when I feel most like myself right now.

Last one - what does having fun actually mean to you now, after everything?

Going sober forces you to be present in it. I go to a bar now, and I can't just sit in the corner crushing tequila, so what do I do? Go around, meet somebody, strike up a conversation. Run the room a little. And then I realise, oh, I forgot I had those tools. The kid had them the whole time. It's just about remembering.