Tim: Hello, this is Snap, this is Cackle, and I’m Pop, and you’re watching James.
Today, full-on glamour pusses James Tomorrow, the latest single from their seventh album Whiplash
Tim: It’s a wonderful song about trying to grip love, trying to catch it like a butterfly, then finding out it’s got smeared all over your hands.
Snap caught up with the band during a gruelling photo session in London, a part of the business it’s taken them a while to get used to.
Tim: If you make music, these are things you have to do. We were so idealistic when we first started, we did no interviews at all for about the first three years, no press shots, just let the music speak for itself, folks. Then after a while we realised you can’t do that, no-one’s going to buy your music.
Taking music on the road is another part of the process, though you might not always return whole.
Tim: Last time we toured America was on the back of Laid, and it was amazing but we did it for too long. We were touring on and off for about three years, and we had a few casualties. I think we all made it through didn’t we?
Jim: Just about. We’re still here at least.
Tim: We’re still here although Larry Gott is no longer with us, probably a victim of that tour.
Jim: Lost a guitarist.
Tim: Fell off the back of the bus.
Saul: The girls keep you going as well, don’t they?
Jim: The girls?
Saul: The absolute knowledge that you’re gonna meet someone groovy, someone that you know you’re never going to see again.
After seventeen years, James are going through something of a change in attitude, or rather less of one.
Tim: We do look for the fun in things a lot more now, we don’t believe in the tortured artist myth as seriously as we used to. We’re still probably as immature as we’ve always been, I think that’s one of the major criteria of being in a rock band on one level.
However, larking about a bit does have its pitfalls.
Tim: I’ve got whiplash in my neck from dancing. When we call an L.P Laid, we have a great time, then we call an LP Whiplash and I end up in a neck brace. The next L.P’s gonna be called Big Money.
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