Change for a Tenor

"Hello, gorgeous," he says. He must think that interviewers are terribly shallow people to be so easily won over. The trouble is, he's right. Because what's not to like? Spence, 23, the former chip-shop worker from Dumfriesshire signed to Universal (the same label as violinist Nicola Benedetti) in a 1 million five-album deal, could have an ego the size of the orchestra pit. Instead he bathes me in smiles and insists on calling me "sweetheart".

The tenor's first album, My First Love, is out on 15 January and his boundless exuberance is infectious. "Do tell me to shut up if I'm talking too much, I do tend to go on a bit. I love chatting to folk. I'm sure half the reason I've got anywhere is that I like having a good old chat. As a Christian, I believe in destiny, but it's also about networking, having the gift of the gab and all that business. Chatting up people's grannies, whatever it takes."

In the past year he has sung with Placido Domingo at the Classical Brits, supported Shirley Bassey, sung in Peter Grimes at the Salzburg Festival and sung the national anthems before Scotland vs France at Hampden. But while some singers might resent tramping round the town halls of Scotland consolidating their fan base, he's loving it.

It's no surprise to hear the record deal came about because he impressed somebody's auntie. "It's true. Somebody's auntie heard me and her nephew knew somebody at a record company that was looking for a Scottish singer. Most of my career moves have been because of somebody's auntie!"

But his exuberance is also tempered by a wisdom beyond his years, a sharp understanding of the world he's moving in. He's well aware he makes a good story: the poor background, the broken home, the job in the fish and chip shop, the struggle with his weight, the million-pound record deal - a regular Billy Elliot with a voice.

"I'm sure it's a marketing tool, but it happens I have had quite an interesting life and I have got a story to tell. You have to tell that because it's about the whole person, but really for me the singing is first and foremost, and the music is always the master of me."

The story begins in Thornhill, near Dumfries. His parents divorced when he was eight and he describes his childhood as "very mixed". He remembers a time when his sister's cardigan caught fire when they were trying to cook fish fingers by themselves. But there are other, happier memories: dancing in the living room to The Mamas and Papas, always entertaining people.

He's very close to his family, especially his mum, Annabel - "a very special person". "Anything that's happening now is not in spite of what happened earlier on. I hate people that go back and say, 'Oh, poor me', all that Jeremy Kyle Show crap. You just get on with life, don't you?"

At the age of 12, he got a job peeling potatoes at Fusi's Fish and Chip Shop, practising his singing in the cramped basement as he did so. It was perhaps here that his battle with the bulge began. "They allowed you to have a tab, and by the end of the week I usually ended up owing the shop money because I spent all my wages on sweets. I'd always been a chubby kid. I don't think it's that I was unhappy or comfort-eating or anything like that, it was just my love for life, I loved eating."

As he grew taller, his weight ballooned to 23 stone. "But I never let it stop me, I was always a very able and very social person. People didn't really notice I was big because I was always so exuberant. I think I developed a larger personality to compensate."

He remembers being passed over for the lead in the school show. "I thought, 'Aw jings, it's not fair, I've work so hard on my acting,' but it was because I was 23 stone, and didn't quite look like lead material."

Nothing, however, could dampen his determination to sing. "I thought: 'It's all right, Pavarotti's big, and he hasn't done too badly!'" he laughs. When he was 17, a music teacher at school introduced him to a classical repertoire and after just a few months entered him for an audition at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The locals in Thornhill organised a ceilidh to raise the money for his fare to London.

"We decided I could do an aria from Don Giovanni, a wee Schubert Lieder and Maria from West Side Story. Now when I look at it I can't believe it. But, because I was so young and so ballsy, I just got in there and gave it beans. And I think they saw this raw talent and thought, 'Well, there's something in there.'" He became one of the college's youngest students, graduating with distinction this summer.

It was Bryn Terfel's singing teacher, Rudolph Peirnay, who first challenged him about his weight. "He said, 'You are fat, what are you going to do about it?' He obviously thought it was unacceptable. I suppose that was helpful, because I was always going on diets but never with a lot of enthusiasm. When he said that I thought, 'I don't want this any more.'"

The Slimming World Diet (during our conversation he devours a no-fat shake and a cup of detox herbal tea) and plenty of exercise produced the svelte Spence of today. "It ended up there was a bit of a pretty face behind all that flubber," he grins.

He's also well aware that he's in an industry where looking good is increasingly important. "It was a bit of a career move, because there's often going to be somebody who has got as good vocal production as you but, if they look better than you, they're going to get the job. Our perception of opera is changing. You can't get away with the princess in Turandot being played by a 65-year-old woman who's about 30 stone. It's good that people have to look good and you're not allowed to be 30 metres wide anymore. I think it holds you back."

But in a looks-obsessed society there are also double standards. "I did a TV show recently where they said, 'You've got to be attractive, you're not allowed to look older than 17 but need to sound like you've had 40 years' experience.' And I'm like, 'OK, so how does that work?'"

No-one can doubt his wide appeal, from gaggles of teenage girls to the blue-rinse crowd. "I get these 13-year-old girls coming up and saying, 'You're great,' because I've got spiky hair like someone from Take That and I'm singing songs by Burns. My hair splits people. My granny doesn't like it. Before I went on stage at the Festival of Remembrance [at the Royal Albert Hall] the record company person said, 'I think your hair is a bit too spiky.' They didn't want to offend the Queen!"

He is keen to emphasise that he's no X Factor one-hit wonder. The lucky breaks have come only after a lot of hard work. "I've had so much rejection as well. Going for endless auditions. Sometimes I go in and sing like a moose - everybody has their off days!"

Nor is he letting success go to his head. Since the deal with Universal, he has splashed out on an open-top Citron, and he and his girlfriend (fellow Guildhall student Rhona McKail) have bought a flat, but he seems most concerned about looking after his mum. "I still have an overdraft, although I shouldn't. I never think about the money, I just seem to get by. I do get a shock how much I get paid sometimes."

While he loves to sing Scottish music, he is concerned that being marketed as a crossover artist (the album features Ae Fond Kiss and the theme from Braveheart, as well as Santa Lucia and Brindisi) might affect his chances of being taken seriously by the opera fraternity.

"The thing is I'm first and foremost a classical singer who happens to sing Scottish music along with everything else. But hopefully the fact I've got a contract with English Touring Opera next year (to sing in Die Entfuhrung and Eugene Onegin as well as the lead in Strauss's Wiener Blut) will show that I'm a proper singer. At the moment, I'm very much a Mozart singer and maybe a bit of Verdi. In ten years' time, I want to be doing Puccini. Wagner in 15 years, or maybe 20." His eye is on the long-haul. "For me the biggest thing is to have longevity, which is why I'm taking all the steps I can to make sure I'm getting integrity as I go along. It's about knowing that if the recording thing fell on its arse tomorrow, I'd still be a singer and an entertainer. I feel like I've worked too hard to be here one day and gone the next. I'm quite happy to put my head down and work for 20 years or however long it takes. I've aimed for the stars and I've not seen the stars yet. I'm still heading towards them."

• My First Love by Nicky Spence is released on 15 January by Universal Classics & Jazz. For details see www.nickyspence.com