Elliot James Reay: Meet the man from Bury supporting Benson Boone
Two years ago, Elliot James Reay was busking on the streets of Bury, Greater Manchester, and singing Elvis Presley covers in pubs. However, after an impressive 2025, the 23-year-old is performing in arenas across Europe and North America, supporting Grammy-nominated sensation Benson Boone on the American Heart World Tour.
In what has been a hectic 2025 for Reay that saw him make his first festival appearances, release his first EP in ‘All This to Say I Love You’ and embark on a hectic touring schedule, Reay is taking everything in his stride. “Honestly, I take each day as it comes,” the 23-year-old stated. “But, I do take a minute every now and again and look back at how crazy it has been. It’s been a wild year. A lot has happened for me, and I know I’m just thinking about the future all the time,” Reay added.
The UK leg of the American Heart World Tour kicked off in Belfast in late October before dates in Dublin and Manchester’s Co-Op Live – a venue just a 28-minute drive away from Reay’s hometown of Bury. Unsurprisingly, the singer was inundated with requests for tickets for the dates at the Co-Op Live.
“I think everyone I have ever met in my life has asked for tonight," Reay said with a laugh on Monday evening. When speaking to Reay ahead of his first-ever headlining tour back in July, I asked the singer if he’d prefer to perform at the AO Arena or the Co-Op Live and just over three months later, we’ve got our answer. “I guess the answer came for me,” Reay stated. ”I didn’t have much choice,” he added with a chuckle.
In July, Reay sold out his debut headlining tour with a four-date trek across Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham and London, debuting unreleased tracks ‘Hello There’ and ‘Mr. E’. However, Reay doesn’t see them hitting streaming services any time soon.
“I mean, those are more, for me, like show tunes,” the 23-year-old stated. ”I kind of like them. But I want to keep them as something that people can only hear if they see the gig. I think that's a good way of getting people to come and listen to live music,” the singer finished.
With a sound that is nostalgic to older audiences and a sound that is fresh to younger audiences, Reay is an artist able to unify crowds of all ages, something which the singer takes pride in. “I think the main thing for me is I want people to have a good time and hopefully reconnect with the people around them,” Reay said.
“I think the great thing about my music is people of all ages kind of listen and enjoy it, and most of the time they do. I've had a lot of people comment online saying things like, ‘I showed my nan this video; I showed my nan this song because she loved it,’ and now I have an artist that we have in common and reconnect with. I think that's a really great feeling to know that I'm bringing people together in a way that maybe hasn't been done for a while,” the 23-year-old added.
Joining Benson Boone on the American Heart World Tour
After the aforementioned ‘All This to Say I Love You Tour’ in July, Reay joined Boone as the opening act for the American Heart World Tour, marking the first time the Bury crooner has opened for another artist in his blossoming career. But what has been the biggest difference between supporting and headlining for the 23-year-old? “I think obviously there's a different charm to being a support act than being a headline,” Reay said.
“You have a lot more work to do as a headline. You have a lot more things that people need from you. And I think being a support act has been really chill. So now we can just kind of chill and just sing. It's an interesting one. I would definitely probably choose being a headline, just because it's your show. And at the end of the day, you can choose a lot of things and make a lot of things happen. Which is kind of a better thing in my view,” the 23-year-old concluded.
Prior to the UK leg of Boone’s tour, the 23-year-old had the opportunity to support the Washington native on the first half of the North American leg of the tour, providing American audiences with their first taste of Reay’s nostalgic yet modern brand of rock and roll. In a country that reveres rock and roll artists such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Roy Orbison and one of Reay’s biggest idols – Elvis Presley – Reay believes the familiarity with that style of music in the United States was beneficial.
“They've heard a lot of stuff that I do, in terms of the sound of it. And I think it's very American in that kind of way,” Reay said. “They loved it; it went down really well each night. I don't think there was a night where the crowds weren't that into it. I think I’d definitely be able to do it again,” the singer concluded.
After watching Boone perform on a nightly basis over the last couple of months, Reay was effusive in his praise of the Washington-born hitmaker and highlighted the biggest thing he had learnt from the ‘Beautiful Things’ singer.
“As an artist, the best thing that I've learnt from him is being yourself,” the 23-year-old said. “He's a big character. He is who he is. No one is stopping that. No one can tell him that's not how it should be done. He is who he is. Whether he likes it or anyone else likes it, he doesn’t care. He does what he wants to do. That's one thing that I've learnt from him. I'm really trying to embrace that and really find myself as a person to just be me. I think that's a really cool trait of his,” Reay concluded.
When asked to describe what to expect from an Elliot James Reay performance, the singer stated, “It’s certainly a rollercoaster. The set is... we start high, we come down, we go up. That's how we do it.” So if you are going to see Benson Boone perform at the O2 Arena next week, ensure you arrive early to catch Reay’s set. He’s certainly one to watch.