‘God knows where I would be if I had not come here’.
When Brian Christinzio graces the stage as BC Camplight at Manchester’s O2 Apollo next week, no one will feel a bigger sense of accomplishment than him.
The Philadelphia native, who moved to the city more than a decade ago after, in his own words, ‘burning every bridge’, forged a stunning creative resurgence after surviving homelessness, addiction and even deportation.
Now he’s giving back to the UK music scene who helped shaped his career path.
His UK A Sober Conversation album tour will see him joined by The Last Dinner Party’s Abigail Morris at London’s Roundhouse tonight before linking up with Badly Drawn Boy for the Manchester extravaganza on November 14.
Christinzio recalls watching The War on Drugs, a band he played live with, ‘blow up’ around 2012 was the catalyst to get his life back on track after ‘sabotaging his career in any way possible’.
He told Metro: ‘I thought, right, I gotta make something of myself here. I don’t know how I’m gonna do it.
‘I thought of Manchester because I had played a really good show there five years before. I just said – “I’m moving to Manchester”.’
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He stayed in a friend’s spare room and scrubbed dishes to make cash. The 46-year-old then signed a record deal with Bella Union, the independent label owned by Simon Raymonde of the Cocteau Twins, after spending three years putting together his album How to Die in the North.
‘That’s where the bad stuff starts happening’, he admits. ‘Even though I was trying to get my life together, I ended up getting an infection in my leg. Because I had that, I couldn’t leave the country to renew my visa. Even though we tried to go through the right channels, I ended up getting deported from the country.
‘This was two days after the record came out. I couldn’t tour it. So I was deported and banned from the UK.’
Christinzio managed to return to the country by becoming an Italian citizen through his dad’s side of the family – and the rest is history.
He quickly made a name for himself playing at grassroots venues like The Castle Hotel or the Jabez Clegg before headlining the Deaf Institute, Gorilla, The Ritz and the Albert Hall.
He added: ‘There’s something about Manchester where it just feels like we’re all in it together. There’s not this kind of inflated sense of self. It’s just a just darkly, romantically beautiful city, and I really can’t get enough of it.
‘The show at The Apollo is my ultimate kind of thank you to this city, because God knows where I would have been had I not come here.’
What can we expect from these live shows? ‘The band’s never been better’, Christinzio tells Metro. ‘Most importantly, the band is absolutely on fire. We’re a six-piece band with all the bells and whistles. We don’t do anything on the cheap.
‘At BC Camplight shows, there are moments where everyone’s laughing, then crying, and then there’s euphoria. We’re going to give it our all and not leave anything in the tank’.
BC Camplight’s forthcoming UK tour dates
November 5 – The Roundhouse, London
November 6 – The Globe, Cardiff
November 7 – Exeter Phoenix, Exeter
November 8 – The 1865, Southampton
November 12- Boiler Shop, Newcastle
November 13 – The Classic Grand, Glasgow
November 14 – The O2 Apollo, Manchester
November 16 – Rock City, Nottingham