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Tim tells a bedtime story on CBeebies channel from Glastonbury Festival
Tim’s Bedtime Story – BBC CBeebies – 28th June 2024
Category Archives: Feature
BBC Daily Politics Show – Tim Booth
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Religion has “far too strong and subtle control” over society, said the lead singer of the band, James, who works has reflected questions around religion and his own Christian upbringing.
Tim Booth spoke about “unnaturally celibate” priests, circumcision, female genital mutilation (FGM) and attitudes towards assisted suicide, homosexuality and so-called honour killings,
In a personal film for the Daily Politics, he looked at organised religions and their rules and regulations on sexuality and the human body.
Whiteboy Saturn Advertisement
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A US television advert for Whiteboy
Laid – Now Play It
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A tutorial from Larry on how to play Laid
Whiteboy – Now Play It
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A tutorial from Larry on how to play Whiteboy
FAQ – Jamestheband.com – January 2002
This piece was originally published on the James official site Jamestheband.com that was lost when the band split in 2001
Below is a collection of some of the most frequently asked questions about James. If there are others you’d like to see answered, please send them to info@jamestheband.com.
Why are James called James?
What other names has the band gone by?
Who are James?
Who else has been in the band?
Why did they leave, and what are they doing now?
When were the members of James born?
What’s the story behind the daisy?
Why is One Man Clapping so rare, and where can I get it?
When are James going to tour again?
When will ‘Millionaires’ or ‘Pleased To Meet You’ be released in the U.S.?
What is Black Thursday?
Who are Booth and the Bad Angel?
What’s this I hear about a James side project?
Why is “Sometimes” called “Sometimes (Lester Piggot)”?
What’s unusual about the “Born of Frustration” video?
What’s unusual about the “Destiny Calling” video?
What songs have James covered?
What bands have covered James songs?
Where can I find the version of “Ring the Bells” that is heard on the X-Files?
Why are James called James?
From the Melody Maker feature on James in 1990:
“Paul Gilbertson originally thought of the name James, apparently because of his love for Orange Juice guitarist James Kirk, or perhaps admiration for his own bass player Jim Glennie, or simply a fetish for first names. Other first names were tried, but no one liked the sound of Paul; Tim sounded too weak; and Gavan sounded too heavy metal. In the end, they settled on James because it was amorphous enough to encompass what the band were – amorphous. James were determined to not pigeonholed themselves and to be a constant surprise. Back in 1982, their newfound name had no connotations.”
“They played as James once and were going to dump it, but changed their minds when they discovered their next gig was at the Hacienda and the Manchester club had already advertised the name.
What other names has the band gone by?
From the Melody Maker special on James, 1990:
“they got drunk before every gig to numb their fear, and for every gig, they´d use another name. Volume Distortion lasted 24 hours, Model Team International lasted the 30 minutes they were on stage.”
Who are James?
Jim Glennie bass guitar (1982-present)
Adrian Oxaal lead guitar (1996-present)
Saul Davies guitar, violin (1989-present)
Mark Hunter keyboards (1989-present)
David Baynton-Power drums (1989-present)
Who else has been in the band?
Tim Booth vocals (1982-2001)
Michael Kulas backing vocals (1997-2001)
Larry Gott lead guitar (1985-1996)
Andy Diagram trumpet (1990-1993)
Gavan Whelan drums (1982-1988)
Paul Gilbertson lead guitar (1982-1985)
Why did they leave, and what are they doing now?
Tim Booth left to persue other creative endevors. Read Tim’s statement on his decision to leave here.
With Tim’s departure, Michael Kulas’ services as backing vocalist were no longer needed. He has since returned to Canada where he is persuing his solo career. For more information visit www.kulasonline.co.uk.
Larry Gott left to spend more time with his family and go to university. He completed a degree in 3D design in 2000 and nowadays plys his craft as a furniture designer, having already won the prestigious FX/Allemuir Furniture for Manufacture Award.
Andy Diagram left the band to pursue other musical interests. He went on to form the band Spaceheads, who tour regularly and have put out 3 cds. See http://www.spaceheads.demon.co.uk for more information.
Gavan Whelan was asked to leave the band in 1988 after he attacked Tim during a set at a college ball gig. After the incident, “Whelan wanted to stay with them, but all three other members had already had separate run-ins with the drummer and they decided they couldn’t give him one more chance.” He went on to become a drum roadie for Primal Scream, and eventually went on to join another band (name unknown).
Paul Gilberston left because of drug-related problems. The song “Not There” from Strip-mine is dedicated to him. He entered a detox program after leaving the band, but what happened to him after that is unknown.
When were the members of James born?
Jim Glennie October 10, 1963
David Baynton Power January 29, 1961
Saul Davies June 28, 1965
Mark Hunter November 5, 1968
Adrian Oxxal March 20, 1965
What’s the story behind the daisy?
According to Martine McDonagh, James’ former manager, in an interview in the James newsletter Chain Mail, the answer is quite simple: they were designing an ad for Come Home and had put in the word “james” in the usual font, but decided that it just looked too boring, resulting in the decision to put a daisy over the “j”.
Why is One Man Clapping so rare, and where can I get it?
From the Melody Maker special on James, 1990:
One Man Clapping was financed through a loan from their bank, who at first wasn’t too impressed with the idea of funding a pop venture, but “after the band took their bank manager to a gig (in one week in Leeds, over £2000-worth of james-merchandise was sold), he agreed on the spot. One Man Clapping was distributed by Rough Trade and went straight to number one on the indie charts. The band was quite surprised when they received a fax from Sire records demanding to know why they’d released an album without informing the company.” This was four months after they had officially parted from Sire.
Because it was released independently, it received only limited distribution. Although it was distributed on CD and vinyl format, both are extremely difficult to find. Occasionally a copy will turn up in small record shops in the UK or online mail order shops — you just need to be patient and persistant. Be prepared, however, because very often when a copy is found, it can command a high price.
When are James going to tour again?
With Tim’s departure and no new lead singer yet chosen to take his place, the band are unable to tour at this time. Once a new lead singer is found, they will be about to start thinking about touring again. As soon as dates are confirmed, they’ll be posted to the tour dates section of this web site.
When Will ‘Millionaires’ or ‘Pleased To Meet You’ be Released in the U.S.?
Following the release of ‘James: The Best Of…’, the band was dropped from their U.S. record contract with Mercury Records. Thus far, they have been unable to find a new U.S. distribution deal with either Mercury or another label. Until they do, the album can not be released in the states, and its release is on hold in Canada.
In the summer of 2001, after completing the requirements of their contract James and their U.K. record label, Mercury Records, London parted ways. The band have signed with Sanctuary Records to release a live CD of their December 2001 gig in Manchester in both the U.S. and U.K., but do not have a contract covering future new releases, so it’s unlikely ‘Millionaires’ or ‘Pleased To Meet You’ will be released in the U.S. anytime in the near future. Fans anxious to hear the albums should consider buying it on import. A number of online shops have both albums available. For a list of possible shops see the Where To Buy section. As a word of advice, shop around and check prices — prices for imports vary greatly from one shop to the next.
What is Black Thursday?
From Pulse!, April 1997:
“We went into the studio to start writing material for the next album, which would end up being Whiplash,” recalls (Saul) Davies. “And suddenly, everything collapsed around us, and it happened to be a Thursday.” Slide guitarist, key songwriter and founding member Larry Gott announced he would no longer tour with James. Tim Booth announced his plans to go to New York and record his long-stalled solo project with film composer Angelo Badalamenti (the lush Booth and the Bad Angel, released last year on Mercury). And the U.K. tax man announced the unfortunate discovery of an overlooked James debt of roughly £150,000. “We realized that everything we’d taken for granted, even the existence of the band, was now in doubt and required serious re-evaluation,” Davies adds.
Who are Booth and the Bad Angel?
Booth and the Bad Angel is the result of a collaboration between James lead singer Tim Booth and film score composer Angelo Badalamenti (Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks). The album of the same name was the result of Tim’s long-time desire to work with Angelo, which Tim developed after hearing Badalamenti’s work with Julie Cruise on Floating Into The Night. Mercury Records’ Booth and the Bad Angel site explained: “Tim was told by a clairvoyant that his career would leap creatively skyward if he collaborated with ‘a man with the name of an angel'”. Here’s how it happened:
In the early 1990’s a late-night British music show called Friday Night At The Dome had a running theme of bringing together musicians from disparate genres and cultures (i.e. Richard Thompson and David Byrne) and letting them play together. The producers asked Tim Booth if there was anybody in the world with whom he would love to collaborate, to which he replied “Angelo Badalamenti.”
In New Jersey, the fifty-something Badalamenti had never heard of Tim Booth or James. Contacted by phone, he agreed in theory to a collaboration, provided somebody sent him all the James albums and Tim was free to travel to New York. Tim said yes. The producers of Friday Night At The Dome would film the project, whatever it might be. Everyone was excited, not least Tim. Then Tim got the flu and was advised not to fly. The producers went to see a David Byrne concert without him, and had a serious car crash resulting in hospitalizations. Tim would have been in that car…
…Not wishing to let the collaboration flicker out before it had even started, Angelo told Tim to fax some poems and he’d see if they sparked off any musical ideas. “I sent him some poems and heard nothing back from him,” Tim recalls. Over in New Jersey, Angelo read the poems and wondered what the hell they were all about. “He’d leave these strange, lyric messages on my answering machine,” Angelo says. “It was like having a stalker.”
Then in 1993, as a Booth and Badalamenti collaboration was looking somewhat optimistic, Paul McCartney telephoned Angelo and asked him to come to London to orchestrate a song, which he did. Meanwhile James’s ground-breaking acoustic tour had just reached London. This put Tim and Angelo in the same city at last. Angelo saw James play at the Town and Country (now the Forum), found Tim’s performance to be ‘appealing’ and went backstage, where they met up for the first time. “He said, ‘Anything you want to do,'” Tim remembers.
Angelo returned to America while Tim went off to do the Eno sessions that would comprise the two James albums Laid and Wah Wah. In the spring of 1994, Tim took a holiday in New York where he and Angelo met for the second time. In the interim, Angelo had put Tim’s poem to music. They immediately recorded it (although it didn’t make it on to the album in the end) in a New York studio and Tim took the tape back to Mercury Records, who gave the project the green light.
When Tim returned to New York later that summer, they began work for real, recording most of the songs for Booth And The Bad Angel in a six day improvisational period with Tim singing, Angelo playing keyboards, and American session men playing bass and drums (backing vocalists include Brian Eno; Angelo on “Life Gets Better” and, on “Dance Of The Bad Angels” Tim’s vocal coach in England, Chloe Goodchild).
Booth and the Bad Angel was released by Mercury in 1996, and was accompanied by a single for the song “I Believe”. In June 1998 a second single, for the song “Fall In Love With Me”, was released in the UK, and the same song features on the soundtrack for the movie Martha, Meet Frank, Daniel & Lawrence.
What’s this I hear about a James side project?
In 1997 James drummer, David Baynton-Power, keyboardist Mark Hunter, and guitarist/violinist Saul Davies began work on a side project under the name of Money.
On June 12th, 1997, Money made it’s debut live performance to a small crowd in Toronto, as part of the NXNE Music Festival and Conference. A release was originally considered for early 1998, but was delayed because of the release of James: The Best Of… and the press/promo/tour events related to it. No work is currently being done as Money at this time.
Why is “Sometimes” called “Sometimes (Lester Piggot)”?
Lester Piggot is a famous British horse jockey. According to Tim in an interview on MTV’s 120 Minutes around the time Laid was released, the band referred to the song as “Lester Piggot” while they were writing it because of its “racing beat”.
What’s unusual about the “Born of Frustration” video?
Guitarist Larry Gott doesn’t appear in it. According to drummer David Baynton Power, in an interview with Leaking E-zine:
Basically it was our first trip to America. We’d run over to L.A. to shoot the video there, up in the “Troner Pinnacles.” Out in Nevada somewhere, that’s where it was shot. Well, the night we got into L.A., Larry got mugged. He was so shaken up he just buggered off home the next day. So he sent our tour manager out to take his place. He was wearing glasses and he wore Larry’s hat and all; but no one ever noticed.
What’s unusual about the “Destiny Calling” video?
Bassist Jim Glennie doesn’t appear in it. Evidently, a night of partying took its toll on Jim, and he wasn’t able to make it to the video shoot the next morning. Backing vocalist/guitarist Michael Kulas made his James video debut in Glennie’s place.
What songs have James covered?
Morrissey – “We Hate it When Our Friends Become Successful” (live at Glastonbury 1992)
Leonard Cohen – “So Long Marianne” (I’m Your Fan – The Songs of Leonard Cohen)
Velvet Underground – “Sunday Morning” (Heaven And Hell – A Tribute To The Velvet Underground)
Iggy Pop/David Bowie – “China Girl” (Radio One “Iggy Pop Tribute”)
What bands have covered James songs?
The Smiths – “What’s the World”
Unrest – “Folklore”
Voice of the Beehive – “Sit Down”
Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine – “Sit Down”
Kulas – “Laid” (live, NXNE Music Festival, June 1997)
Better Than Ezra – “Laid” (regularly while on tour in 1999)
Where can I find the version of “Ring the Bells” that is heard on the X-Files?
The slow, acoustic version of “Ring the Bells” from the X-files episode entitled “D.P.O.” is featured on the Greenpeace compilation titled “Alternative NRG”. The song was recorded at “The Palace” in Hollywood, CA with equipment run exclusively by solar power.
Jamestheband.com – Newsreel – 2002
This page lists all news item that were originally published on the James official site Jamestheband.com in 2002 that were lost when the band split in 2001 and the site was later discontinued
Live Video To Be Released in the U.S. and Canada!
25-Sep-02: At long last, a release date for ‘Getting Away With It…Live’, the live video of James’ concert at the Manchester Evening News Arena in December 2001, has been confirmed for the U.S. and Canada!. The video will be released on region 1 DVD and NTSC-format VHS in both countries on Tuesday, 8-Oct-2002, marking the first time a James live video has been released in North America. The DVD and VHS will contain the same content as the versions released in the U.K. and Europe earlier this year. For more information, see below or click here.
The band would also like to reiterate that regardless of anything you may read in the publicity or packaging for the DVD and live album, although Tim Booth has left the band, James is still going strong, and will be looking to find a replacement for him in the not too distant future. For further information, please see Jim Glennie’s statement from December and the Q&A session from April.
Release Date Delay in Canada
13-Jun-02, updated 14-Jun-02: Due to manufacturing troubles, the Canadian release date of ‘Getting Away With It…Live’ has been pushed back one week, to 18-Jun-2002. Fans in the Toronto area should listen for competitions to win copies of the album and various other on-air support and promotion from EDGE 102.
Getting Away With It…Live Released Today
11-Jun-02, updated 12-Jun-02: ‘Getting Away With It…Live’, James first stateside release since 1998’s ‘The Best Of’ hits shops today in the US and Canada. The two-CD set is a recording of the band’s 7-Dec-2001 hometown gig in Manchester, the band’s last with lead singer Tim Booth. For more information on the CD, including a full track listing, see below.
You can pick a copy up at your local record shop, or order it online from Amazon.com. Once you’ve got a copy, why not visit the message board and let everyone know what you think!
Live Video and CD Out Today in the UK
10-Jun-02: “Getting Away With It…Live”, a recording of the band’s final hometown gig with lead singer Tim Booth is released on CD, DVD and VHS TODAY in the UK. For more information on the live CD, see below. For more info on the DVD/VHS, click here.
We’re still awaiting final confirmation and a North American release date for the video of the same show and will post more information as soon as it’s available. The UK version of the DVD is region formatted for regions 2,3,4,5 & 6 so will not work in standard North American DVD players. The UK VHS is in PAL format (European video format) so will not play properly on a standard North American VCR.
Getting Away With It…Live — North American Release Date
08-May-02, updated 17-May-02: James’ forthcoming live album, Getting Away With It…Live, a live recording of their December 7th hometown show in Manchester, will be released in the U.S. and Canada on Tuesday 11-Jun-2002. The album, released by Sanctuary Records, is the first James release stateside since 1998’s “James: The Best Of…”. For more info on the album, including a track listing, see below.
Getting Away With It: The Live CD
26-Apr-02, updated 01-May-02: James will release a 2-CD live recording of their December 2001 Manchester gig in conjunction with the video release of the same show. The album, titled “Getting Away With It”, will be released on the same day as the DVD and VHS: 10-Jun-2002. The album will be released on Sanctuary Records and contain all the tracks on the DVD/VHS, plus ‘I Know What I’m Here For’ and ‘Hymn From A Village’. The full tracklisting is as follows:
CD1
Say Something
Waltzing Along
Sometimes
Laid
I Know What I’m Here For (Bonus track)
God Only Knows
Someone’s Got It In For Me
Vervacous
Protect Me
Out To Get You
Hymn From A Village (Bonus track)
Johnny Yen
CD2
Getting Away With It
Tomorrow
Born of Frustration
Ring The Bells
Top Of The World
Sound
Space
She’s a Star
Come Home
Sit Down
For more info on the live video, see below, or click here.
Getting Away With It… Live
02-Apr-02, updated 04-Apr-02: James will release the video of their December 2001 Manchester Evening News Arena gig on 10-Jun-2002 in the UK. The concert footage, titled Getting Away With It… Live will be released on VHS and DVD. Click here for all the latest details!
Jim Glennie Answers Fan’s Questions
01-Apr-02: Just prior to last year’s tour fans were asked to submit their questions to James’ bassist Jim Glennie. Following the tour, the holidays, and some computer difficulties, Jim’s answers are now available. To view them, visit the Q&A section.
DVD Update
10-Jan-02: The band spent the time following the December tour on holiday and have returned to work this week to mix the audio for the DVD. Mixing and editing are going well, and a release date and further details should be announced in the coming weeks.
Biography – Jamestheband.com – December 2001
This piece was originally published on the James official site Jamestheband.com that was lost when the band split in 2001
James
Musical history is littered with those who have briefly blazed brightly, to sink prematurely into depressing mediocrity as they repeat themselves with ever-diminishing effect. The path JAMES have forged has taken the band in exactly the opposite direction. Endlessly inventive, always taking risks and never satisfied with the easy option.
Since they began recording for the Manchester-based Factory records back in 1983, James have never been a band to follow the predictable path. They toured with The Smiths, became Hacienda favourites and cult heroes and signed to Sire Records. Their debut album ‘Stutter’ in 1986 and ‘Strip Mine’ two years later established the basic guitar-driven James sound and marked Tim out as a provocative lyricist and an emotive singer, but they found the label unsympathetic and unsupportive. By 1989 they were delighted to escape Sire’s clutches, even though it left them skint. “After seven years we were living on dole-level wages and radio wouldn’t play us”, Tim recalls. Many bands would have folded, instead James volunteered as human guinea pigs in medical tests at a local hospital and used the cash to release ‘One Man Clapping’, a rather fine live album on their own label, which included an early version of ‘Sit Down’.
They then re-grouped later and added new members Saul Davies (violin, guitar), Mark Hunter (keyboards) and David Baynton-Power (drums). They recorded an album of songs for Rough Trade who sold the record on to Fontana. It was released as ‘Gold Mother’ and was the breakthrough they had waited so long for, selling 350,000 in Britain alone while a reworked ‘Sit Down’ became one of the most memorable anthems of the nineties. The Manchester scene was in full swing and, together with the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays, James suddenly found themselves at its apex, hailed as the saviours of British rock music.
The sweepingly epic ‘Seven’ followed in 1992 and was only kept from the number one spot by Simply Red. The following year they secured the services of Brian Eno to produce the extraordinary ‘Laid’ and it’s experimental offshoot ‘Wah Wah’.
Spending increasing amounts of time in America (including playing Woodstock Two), ‘Laid’ took off there as well, selling 600,000 copies at a time when British bands were finding it particularly difficult to penetrate a grunge-fixated market. Then, at the highest point of their career, James almost fell apart.
One day in 1995 guitarist Larry Gott, one of the longest serving members after bassist Jim Glennie and Tim and a third of the Booth/Gott/Glennie songwriting partnership, decided to quit. So did manager Martine, and for good measure, the band learned that they owed a huge sum in back tax.
Shell-shocked, they took a break that, as it stretched into its third year, looked like becoming terminal. Booth went off to make a solo album with Angelo Badalamenti and no one seriously ever expected to hear from James again.
Yet adversity has always brought the best out of the band. With the addition of new guitarist Adrian Oxaal they eventually re-emerged in 1997 with the boldly melodic ‘Whiplash’. Brimming with rejuvenated confidence it went gold and gave the band one of their biggest singles, ‘She’s a Star’.
The following year’s release of ‘Best Of James’ only served to confirm their resurgence and gave them their first number one album, keeping ‘Titanic’ off the top slot in Oscar week, going on to be the band’s first double platinum album, followed by a sell out tour. Although the collection contained 14 of their top forty hits, significantly it was the to new songs ‘Destiny Calling’ and ‘Run Aground’ which caught the attention and suggested a band running to peak form; both of course became hit singles in their own right and heightened the anticipation for the next album.
1999’s ‘Millionaires’ found Brian Eno back as co-producer and the band at a new creative peak. “We were aware that last year’s success had created an expectation of this record”, said guitarist Saul Davies at the time. “The songs were written just as that was all kicking off and it generated a lot of energy. I think we struck a really good balance between being commercial and being interesting and different. The optimism of the previous year had given the band a real lift. But there were a lot of conflicts and tensions at the same time, which hadn’t been resolved. Those tensions are all there in the songs as well.” “I think this is the best album we have ever made”, added Tim Booth.
Following the success of ‘Millionaires’, James returned to the studio to write the follow-up album “Pleased To Meet You”. The band embarked, at the end of 2000, on a series of college dates across the UK, testing the newly demoed tracks with a live audience, before returning to the studio, again with Brian Eno, to record the album which was released in 2001. Later that year saw the release of “B-Sides Ultra”, a collection of some of the bands, and fans favourite rare tracks, as voted for on their website.
In December 2001, after 10 studio albums, a million-selling Best Of and 20 Top Forty singles in the UK as well as considerable success in the USA, James announced that Tim Booth would be leaving the band. They embarked on a tour of the UK, which also served as a farewell party for Tim, and invited former members Andy Diagram and Larry Gott to appear with them on selected dates.
Statement from Tim Booth:
Dear Friends, enemies and anyone else who is listening. After 11 albums it’s time for me to leave James. The timing feels right – 20 years and still peaking. I am deeply proud of just about everything we’ve done. The gigs at Christmas will (I believe) be my last with James and will enable us to have a massive farewell celebration. I’d like to thank my co-conspirators in James for the great adventure. I am looking to act, teach trance dance, write and make some music next year.
Thank you. Thank you for seeing us. For seeing through us to our essence. I hope the feeling was mutual. “I know what I’m here for hanging on through late December”. So now you get the lyric. If I had left when I wrote it, it would have been a suicide note. The band imploding in traditional rock’n’roll antagonism. This way – leaving after a great album and a packed tour, when we are as united as we have ever been – couldn’t be sweeter. I’m proud of nearly everything we have done as James and believe the mothership to be in safe hands as I step out… into… space.
Statement from Jim Glennie:
Dear James People,
I’m sure you’ve all heard the news that Timothy is leaving, and I know this will have had all of us reaching for our Kleenex and wondering what is going to happen next. There’s no need for me to state the importance of Tim’s contribution to James over the past twenty years, and I don’t want to downplay the effect of his leaving, but in our true bloody-minded style, James will continue. The history of this band has been a battlefield of near disasters overcome by a passion and self-belief bordering on arrogance, and an unstoppable determination that’s pulled us through the very worst of times…and here we go again!
It’s difficult for me to give exact details as there is a lot we’ve not decided yet, but rest assured, you haven’t seen the last of James, and I think we’ve got one or two surprises in store for you.
This just leaves me to thank Tim, and wish him all the very best for the future.
Enjoy the rest of the tour and see you in the new year,
Jim
2002 sees Warner Music Vision is set to release the momentous JAMES Getting Away with It…Live to buy on VHS and DVD on 10th June 2002.
This is James’ homecoming gig recorded at the Manchester Arena on December 7th 2001 and marked James’ last ever homecoming gig with front man Tim Booth and the current line-up.
The track listing offers both stadium thrills and hushed introspection across their greatest hits including Say Something, Sometimes, Laid, God Only Knows and ending on the anthemic high of Sit Down. Ex band members, guitarist Larry Gott and trumpet player Andy Diagram also drew big cheers as they took to the stage for this poignant, emotional occasion.
A Day In The Life – Jamestheband.com – October 2000
This piece was originally published on the James official site Jamestheband.com that was lost when the band split in 2001
A Day in the Life
Autumn Theatre Tour 2000
by Jim Glennie
I’m awakened by a knock on the door, it’s very dark in the room and I don’t know where I am. I pull myself out of bed, open the curtains slightly; the bright light makes seeing harder rather than easier. With each step towards the door I remember, breakfast, hotel, tour, and city, in that order. I open the door to a cheery youth who has obviously been up too long. “Morning, sir”. I mumble an attempt at a reply. He marches in with a large tray held high, and I’m glad I cleared a space for it last night and left some change handy. He puts it down, I scrawl on a piece of paper for him, he rather tactlessly counts the tip I’ve handed him, then smiles, thanks me and leaves.
I look at the antiquated late 70’s red-digit clock by the bed, 10:05am. We’re not leaving until 12:00, and I kind of regret not skipping breakfast and sleeping in instead. I went to bed late last night, or early this morning, after staying up all night talking shite with Mark, Mike, Adrian and Saul, finishing off bottles of malt given to us by the Scottish promoter washed down with overpriced room service Heineken.
I start breakfast with a couple of Advil and a third of a bottle of Volvic. I examine the tray: a too small glass of syrupy orange juice, lukewarm tea, a tiny pack of Alpen, and a chrome basket covered by a starched white napkin revealing the bakery selection. As always, it contains a greasy croissant, underdone cold white toast, overdone cold brown toast, and a Danish pastry. Who wants Danish pastry for breakfast?
I eat, then shower and shave, and finally the ibuprofen clears the worst of the night before and I look convincing enough to face the day. My clothes, enjoying their freedom, are reluctant to go back into my suitcase, but I’m soon down in reception arguing over the extras and denying having had anything from the mini-bar.
And so to the bus, our big, rambling, trundling home. We hire them for every tour, and they’re all pretty much the same. Downstairs there’s a small lounge and kitchen, although making tea while we’re moving can be precarious. Upstairs bunks, lounge and toilet. Every bunk on this bus has it’s own little cupboard in it, which sounds handy, only it takes up half of the room for your feet, forcing obscure sleeping positions for everyone except Saul who could actually sleep in the cupboard if he chose to. We don’t use the bus for a full night’s sleep as we always have hotels after gigs, but they come in handy for getting emergency naps. Each bunk also has a window with a curtain, which usually only shows the other lanes of the motorway, and occasionally the welcome winding of the services slip road. That’s our chance to scurry for food, newspapers, toilets, etc. As I mentioned, there is a toilet on the bus, but it smells of piss and chemicals and is not nice to use. Signs try to encourage males to sit to pee, but I’d rather contribute my splashes to the growing mess than stick my arse in there. God knows what I’d catch. Bus happiness really depends on trying not to think of all the other scummy bands with poor hygiene and disgusting habits that have slept in your bed, used the cups, etc. But when it comes to the toilet this isn’t possible. When we’re not sleeping, we sit in the back lounge and say stupid things, watch Father Ted, or argue. The bus journeys in the U. K. are all relatively short and we’re soon there. We nearly always go straight to the venue. We pile into catering and have soup, provided by our tour caterers.
This is one of the many points in the day where you feel fortunate as you remember back to the old days. Trundling to gigs in the back of a transit with no such niceties as hot food waiting for you, just a surly local crew tutting impatiently as you hurriedly set up your gear perched perilously in front of the main band’s equipment. Waiting to play ten minutes after the doors open to a few disinterested early birds, before shifting your gear off and heading home, and for this you don’t get even paid. You cover your expenses, so in effect you pay to play. In the luxurious cotton wool world of success, it’s all too easy to forget this.
We don’t enjoy soundchecks. The sound you get bares little resemblance to that which you suffer later on when two thousand fans soak up the P.A. and we all play twice as loud. But it’s a timeworn ritual, and a place to work on new songs if nothing else. The best soundchecks are short and sweet, the worst, long and bitter, and again we argue.
After soundcheck we either stay at the venue for our evening meal or go to the hotel. I usually go to the hotel. There isn’t much to do there but I like getting a break from the venue. I usually watch TV for a bit, surfing the limited selection of channels always interrupted halfway by an unnecessary block of radio stations. Sometimes I’ll sleep, then coffee and a shower to shock me back into the day.
Eventually we all dribble into reception. The first bubbles of anticipation surface as the banter picks up as we wait for the missing members. Someone mentions the need to do a set list, but there seems little enthusiasm yet. The last of us arrives and we leave for the gig, as always, fifteen minutes late.
Tim Booth – Faith And Music, ITV transcript
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I can’t see a reason for living unless you want to ask, or answer, or try and ask very difficult questions, but otherwise you’re born, you live, you die. There’s more than that. This world is far too intelligent, and too interesting, fascinating a place for there to be nothing.
For a start these things are hard to talk about. They’re often not rational or logical so communication is very hard, so yes, I’ve been misunderstood because it’s damn near hard to understand in the first place.
It’s no-ones fault. Secondly, the rock world obviously has problems with anything that’s not sex, drugs and rock and roll. It’s every limited tabloid world, very cliched and I don’t fit. I’m happy with that. Then there’s been those papers aren’t the right place to talk about this and so yeah, I’ve been ridiculed and laughed at, but that goes with the job.
A song like Seven was one of the first times I openly referred to God, much to the annoyance of my fellow band members who don’t really like me talking openly about these things because they don’t share those beliefs and that’s totally fair enough and James got painted as a Buddhist band, really because of the stuff I did.
I got this lyric in: “God made love to me, soothed away my gravity. Gave me a pair of angel wings, clear vision and some magic things.” When I’m singing “Love can mean anything”, it could be “God can mean anything.”
They’re just highly abused words. Well the idea behind that, if you really pursue the idea that everybody can get in touch with God, that everybody has God within them, then the ultimate union would be having sex with God, so “God made love to me…” That was the first time I started getting interested in that idea. That’s what I think ecstasy is, not the drug, the state, is when you feel totally at one. You’re free from all of your smallness, your day-to-day identity.
I was brought up in a very Christian religious household. My parents were very proud of the fact that we were related to John Wesley. My father was strong in the Church and I used to go every week or every two weeks. I used to like the stained glass windows, and I used to like the Bible stories with the big pictures of floods, and arks and dramatic sweeps like that.
And then I was sent to public school at 13, which I hated, and I didn’t fit in, and had all these feelings running through me which I couldn’t explain, couldn’t fit. I think of one of the big nights was when I was about 15 and there was an older boy who wrote out four questions on a piece of paper and they were:
Who are you?
Where do you come from?
Where do you go when you die?
Three questions. And he handed these questions round and everybody else didn’t like them, and I felt a huge sense of relief as someone had asked the questions which must be the most important questions of one’s life, if you want to have any idea of what the hell we’re doing here. I can’t remember what I answered but I remember getting very excited by that.
My state of mind was very strange and I thought I was quite crazy. I didn’t eat much as a kid, so my mum made me drink a lot of milk, and milk is one of the worst things for the liver. So I would drink a pint of milk and go into an altered state through illness, but it was never diagnosed, so I was always dealing with very strange states of mind, which is part of why I didn’t fit in. When I was about 22, I ended up in hospital. I couldn’t walk up stairs. I stopped breathing at one point and I remember that very clearly as very peaceful. I actually breathed out and the breath just kept on going and I remember thinking “Wow, this is fantastic.” I was sick of life, and I gave myself a year to investigate alternative medicine and therapies and meditation, and I actually gave myself one year to find proof of the existence of spirit or of God, and if I didn’t find that proof, I decided that I was going to burn myself out.
I then looked at meditation, as it seemed safe, you were on your own. I was scared about falling into a religion and being caught in a dogma, being caught by a guru, being caught by a great leader. So I looked at different meditation groups, I went to a Buddhist group for a while and tried transcendental. I was shopping around. I was a tourist. And I eventually heard of a group in Manchester which all the other groups were slagging off, because they said they can get you to enlightenment in two years, they can show you your own spirit within a few months and I thought that’s the one for me.
In a sense, the meditation was the first peace, I’d had in my life where you really sink into yourself. I had a huge resistance to meditation as I’m quite an active person. I used to do 18 hours, 1 meal day. At first I had huge resistance, the first 4/5 hours would be hell, where you’d be screaming to get up and run and then you’d hit certain things where you’d just feel like this light was passing through you and you’d just sit there nailed and you’d be letting energy just pour through you. It blew my mind. All kinds of things started happening to me. I’d see light around people. And I got my proof basically and unfortunately I succumbed to the usual trap of cults which is to think, “My God, this man did this to me. He must be powerful,” and I started falling for the dogma and the whole trip. I was celibate, no alcohol, no drugs, two hours meditation a day, 16 every weekend. It was a very aggressive path as I did it for 3 and a half years, and then we found out that the guru had been sleeping around and he wasn’t who he said he was. As a personality, he was a bit of a dick, and we disbanded the group an we went on our way, wiser hopefully.
I wrote a few songs looking at the nature of Christianity, which I’d had force fed for 20 odd years and included observations on the cult I got into. God Only Knows is probably the most successful and the song is really “What is the nature of God? And the chorus is “God only knows.” I mean, anyone who sells himself up as a holier-than-thou religious leader is going to come crashing down. The thing I see about religious leaders, or spiritual leaders, is that they’ve often focused on just their spirituality and as a result, they haven’t dealt with their sexuality, their greed, their ego, their flattery. If they haven’t learnt to deal with the more mundane parts of their character, they’ve gone straight to their spirit, they become op-heavy, like some kind of body-builder who thinks only about their muscles. To me it’s about a balance, you have to get the mind, the body, the spirit, everything. You have to keep them in balance too. If one gets over-developed it’s always going to be to the detriment to the others.
Traditionally, dance has been used by shamens, tribes, to get people into ecstatic states. These are receptive to information of from the spirit world and I’ve always been fascinated by this, especially in this culture which the main way people get into altered states in the West is through altered states. I thick drugs can be very instructive at first, because they show you that this isn’t all that exists, that there are other ways of seeing the world and I think that’s very useful to people but then the trouble is that what happens is it turns into a problem and it turns into a negative and destroys the body and mind.
So I’ve been very interested in the way drumming, dancing, music, fasting, sleep deprivation and meditation can get you away from the monkey mind and the human machine and allow more spirit. It’s not New Age, it’s ancient healing that’s been used for thousands of years, and predates religions.
And it’s quite fierce. New Age suggests something quite wimpy about embracing the light and for me you have to embrace the darkness before you get any way near the light and if you deny your dark side it will come back big time.
When we did Gold Mother, I had just split up with the mother of my son, and I had just left her and my son. That was probably my darkest time and a lot of the lyrics in Gold Mother are about that. In Come Home, “After 30 years, I’d become my fears, I’d become the kind of man, I’ve always hated.”
Which is about as dark as it gets. Like a lot of that record, I kind of hated myself. I dunno how close to suicide I got, but I got fairly dark.
I don’t think I’ll get to suicide, I just don’t believe in it as basically, I know that you’ll come back, and secondly, I don’t think that it’s a way out.
The first gigs that we played were in Blackpool, and I remember when we got to the lines, “After 30 years…” the audience sang it back to me, punching the air with joy, and I remember being completely done in by it, completely devastated by it. They’d taken something that I’d written as self-abuse and dark, and turned it into a celebration, and I thought, that’s healing. And they did that on all those songs that night. And I suddenly realised that was what being in a band was all partly doing for me. It was helping me heal my on pain. And that’s been my promise to myself each time, to go in deep each time, to keep writing about the things that are uncomfortable because it gets to the real stuff and it also touches people on a deep level.
(part 2 of interview, some time later)
In the first part of this interview, we fell into the trap of setting a beautiful white environment with candles, the clichés of religion, and really religion has been ghettoised. It’s thought of in pious, probably very dull terms, probably because the dominant religion in this country is Christianity and it’s been force-fed to children at school, and so most of us are like, “Jeez, don’t talk about that crap anymore,” where it should be something passionate, something discussed in cafes. I should have a fag in one hand and a beer in my other hand, and I would have faked it for the camera, but, you know, it’s not me. It should be a day-to-day thing. I think more and more people are getting into it. To be honest, I’m trying to make it more concrete for this programme, cos a lot of my life, I couldn’t talk about here, because a lot of the realms, the altered state realms you go to are by definition, outside language and outside the rational, therefore how the hell do I explain it to anybody.
And I believe in following dreams and I mean that in following your own dream in your life, what you really want to do in life, your real passion. I think dreams are an amazing way into your instinctive self. Everything in this culture wants us to believe in the concrete, the rational, the logical. We can’t possibly do that. We get so trapped in our day-to day crap, that we forget who we are, and its like, people are capable of magic.
The danger with message, it’s like you asking what is the message? That’s the usual danger of any spiritual organisation, is that it becomes a package to sell. And it’s also, “I’ve found a way that’s right, and right for you.” And I can’t say that because I’ve found a way that’s right for me and I mean, so I don’t have a message, only that all that I’d say in that case, is that everyone has to find their own way.
The Best Of EPK
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An electronic press kit to promote The Best Of in March 1998 presented by Sean Hughes.
From Venereal And The Diseases To James – What’s In A Name?
Before James became known as James in 1982, they had a number of what can only be described as “interesting” names.
Venereal and The Diseases
Quite what the obsession with the sexually transmitted ailment was is not clear, but this was the name under which Paul and Jim played their first gig together at Eccles British Legion. The name lasted one gig.
Volume Distortion
Keeping the initials VD and with Gavan now on board, this name change was probably more to do with the quest for gigs and the problems the old name might cause. Or maybe it was Paul’s insistence on regular changes to the name.
Model Team International
Paul’s girlfriend worked for a model agency in Manchester called Model Team International and they had t-shirts which the band took and named the band after. A swift change ensued when the manager of the agency threatened legal action. At this point, Tim had joined the band as dancer / backing vocalist.
Model Team
A shortening of the name to appease the model agency boss. Didn’t last long as the band felt the name didn’t have the same ring to it .. and they couldn’t get free t-shirts anymore.
Tribal Outlook
Only in use for a short period of time as Paul decided the band needed a single simple name and quite frankly, it’s not a very good name is it?.
James
There are various stories about the James name:
- Paul decided the band needed a simple name and decided it should be named after one of the band. Out of modesty and not wanting to make it sound like it has his band, Tim declined to use his name. Paul didn’t want to use his name. Gavan sounded like a heavy metal band. So James it was, after Jim
- Tim had a passion for the writings of James Joyce and insisted on James as a tribute to the writer.
- Jim : “It was named after me because I was the most talented and good-looking” (Come Home video 1990)
- Paul was obsessed with Orange Juice, who had taken the fledgling Model Team International out on tour with them, and in particular guitarist James Kirk and the band was named after him. The band reasserted this was the reason for the name during TV promotion for the Girl At The End Of The World tour.
The official biography suggests that the reason was somewhere between explanations 1 and 4.