Ricky Wilson is best known for being the lead singer of Kaiser Chiefs - who had a series of hit singles including I Predict a Riot, Ruby and Oh My God - and a judge on TV show The Voice. He’s also the host of a new show on CBBC, called Ricky Wilson’s Art Jam.

He speaks to Tes about the pivotal role his art teacher played in his early life, how his school helped him to uncover his love of performing - without necessarily learning the skills the activity required - and he recalls a bizarre punishment he suffered for taking a wrong turn on a night hike.

1. Where did you first go to school?

My first school was called Ghyll Royd, in Ilkley, and I have few memories [of it], really, but I know we wore stripy blazers, and I didn’t like stripy blazers then but you had to wear them. It’s ironic that, 20 years later, I made it in a pop career wearing stripy blazers.

2. Did you enjoy primary school?

I think I had a good time. I was always average - halfway up or halfway down the table for where you were in the class [in terms of] how well you were doing, and I was OK with that.

I didn’t want to get noticed, to be honest. I always thought the people getting noticed were the naughty ones or the really clever ones - and I didn’t want to be a really clever kid.

I was good at art, though - I was in the top two for that. And, very early on, I started pointing my attention towards the art department. But I don’t think it made the rest of my lessons suffer - it’s just that I knew what I wanted to do, which was be creative.

3. Were there any memorable teachers there?

I don’t remember any of the names and that is really bad! I read a lot of autobiographies where they talk about primary school with such clarity and in-depth memories, and I always think, “were they jotting it down at the time?” because I remember hardly anything.

4. What about secondary school?

I went to Leeds Grammar School and, to be honest, I found school difficult because it was quite relentless - 9.30am until 3.30pm - and you rattled around inside the building going to different rooms to do different things; I found that quite difficult.

But my entire week was centred on the art lessons. I saw them as the one thing that gave me a bit of freedom and I didn’t feel it was a chore - I even preferred them to breaktimes. And once you find something you can grab on to like that, it’s really good to follow it because, if you enjoy it and it doesn’t feel like work, it’s not work - and I’ve spent the rest of my life following that.

My dad even said to me once that he’s never met anyone that has worked so hard at not getting a job. I mean, I’ve always had a job, but I’ve worked hard to make it something I can do with ease.

5. And was there a teacher there whom you remember?

There was: she was called Mrs Hartshorn and she was great. She wasn’t an easy teacher; she didn’t tell you everything was brilliant. In fact, quite the opposite - she told you when things were wrong - but it was what I needed at the time.

I was moving from art being about just expressing myself and doing what I wanted to the point in art where there were rules, and learning about colour theory and perspective - things like that. Sometimes, it’s really important to learn about the rules in order that you can break them properly so, when you do decide to ignore perspective or go off the usual track using colour, you can use it to your advantage. She taught me all that.

I remember once drawing an open door and I did it wrong, and when she taught me how to do it right, it was like a magic trick, translating what you see from eyes to paper. It opened doors for me in my head and made me realise anything was possible with art. Mrs Hartshorn was integral to that.

6. You now have your own art show on CBBC - that must be lots of fun

It’s great because, growing up, the art shows on TV were really important to me and people like Tony Hart and Neil Buchanan taught me quite a lot, so being given the opportunity to do it myself is fantastic. The show [Ricky Wilson’s Art Jam] is about showing what you can do with art and being creative, and sometimes there is no right or wrong - it’s about expressing yourself and thinking freely.

7. Did school help with your love of music, too?

Yes, it was good for music - there were lots of things you could do and lots of competitions. Our school wasn’t like Hogwarts but there were eight houses and, every year, there was a house music competition. One was for the house choir, where groups would sing two songs at an event - and I wanted to be the conductor.

Now, I can’t read music and that is a very important part of being a conductor, but I thought, “if I can just get them to sing the song really well and I stand in front waving my arms around wearing a very impressive pair of trousers, that should be enough to get the judges to think I am a great conductor”.

So, sure enough, all the other conductors were heads down reading the music and I went out there, shuffled my music, waved my hands around a lot, and won best conductor without reading a note - and I won it two years running!

8. And did you ever play any music?

I was also in the violin quartet and we once played at Leeds Town Hall. But I wasn’t as good as the other three violinists so, just before we went on, my violin teacher put washing-up liquid on my bow so it didn’t make a sound when it ran up and down the strings. This meant the quartet sounded great, even as a trio, but also meant I got a lot of praise for being a fantastic violinist because - just like with my conducting - while [the others] were concentrating on playing, I was all over the shop really acting like I was playing the violin. So it looked great, what I was doing, but there was no sound coming out.

9. Did you go on any eventful school trips?

Once every two years, it was compulsory for every class to go to a place about three hours away, called Waternook, and we dreaded it: it was a house in the middle of nowhere, with no heating and a lot of bunk beds.

It was supposed to be a team-building exercise - you go on hikes and make dinner and clean up - and the culmination, when you got older, was to go on a night hike and find your way around via checkpoints.

My group set off last but came back first - but only because we missed three checkpoints! As punishment, I had to eat a Scotch egg, which the teacher knew I didn’t like.

10. You went on to be a rock star, so were you a nightmare pupil?

Ha, it’s funny - my best friend Craig from school is still a great friend now, and he lives up north and hears stuff about the perception of me at school, and it’s that I was loud and a show-off, swinging from light fittings and singing all the time. But that’s not how I was. I just kept my head down and was very quiet, very pale, not too tall, not too short, not too messy and not too neat.

Ricky Wilson’ new TV show, Ricky Wilson’s Art Jam, is out now on CBBC and available on BBC iPlayer. He was talking to Dan Worth, senior editor at Tes

This article originally appeared in the 5 March 2021 issue