Sam Smith 'quite relaxed' about Sunday's Grammy Awards show

Sam Smith says he feels "quite relaxed" about Sunday's Grammy Awards, despite being nominated in no fewer than six categories, including Best New Artist and Record of the Year.

The 22-year-old British soul sensation was in Vancouver this week to play live, and took time out before the sold out show to talk with CBC News Now host Ian Hanomansing about his life and career.

"I've already won," Smith said about the Grammys. "Not the Grammys, but my dreams are complete right now. I literally feel like a winner already and I feel amazing.

"Grammys and the Brits and all these award shows, for me they are a lovely gold lining you put around all of it, but I can live without the gold lining. I can live very happily without the gold lining."

• Want to hear more from Sam Smith? Tune into CBC News Now on Friday to hear Smith talk for the first time about his ​copyright dispute with American folk rocker Tom Petty
• Smith was recently forced to settle over similarities between his hit Stay With Me and Petty's 1989 hit with his band The Heartbreakers, I Won't Back Down
• Sam Smith gives credit to Tom Petty in 'amicable agreement' over Stay With Me royalties
• Tom Petty calls I Won't Back Down/Stay With Me song similarities 'a musical accident'

'Remember the lyrics'

It's not even a year since Smith walked onto the set at Saturday Night Live to croon Stay With Me, the single that would be his breakout hit, taking top chart positions in the U.K., Canada and New Zealand, and reaching No.2 on the U.S. Billboard chart. At the time, of course, he had no idea what a big deal the performance would be.

"All I kept thinking of in my head was was, 'do not trip and remember the lyrics'. That's all I kept thinking. I didn't know if I was going to connect."

He didn't need to worry: the next morning, the single was No. 2 on iTunes, and he couldn't walk around New York without people recognizing him.

It's been nothing but accolades ever since—and the intense media scrutiny that comes with such success.

'No one's perfect'

Smith says he has managed to stay true to himself, despite the media madness, keeping himself sane by not holding himself to an impossible image.

"At some point I may do loads of things wrong, be very badly behaved,' he says. "But me writing about that, writing music about it—being human. To me [that] is being a role model. Not being this idea of perfection, because no one's perfect."

Now working on his second album, Smith says he isn't letting the expectations for it to trouble him.

"I am living it right now, you know, I am dating people and living and I am going to be writing about that," he says.

"And if it's bad...if it doesn't sell, there's nothing I can do about it. It's my diary. You can't change your diary."