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Tag Archives: Tim Booth

Absolute Radio – Video Interview: James' Tim Booth recalls rescuing Jacknife Lee's family from a rattlesnake

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Absolute Radio | Scott Colothan / Danielle Perry

When asked what it was like to work with esteemed producer Jacknife Lee (U2, The Killers, Snow Patrol), Tim said it was “wonderful” and revealed that he unknowingly saved Jacknife’s family from a rattlesnake.

“[Jacknife (Lee] lived two miles from me in Topanga Canyon in Los Angeles, which is this wild canyon with no streetlights and windy hills. I went to visit him, and we got on instantly brilliantly. He’s really sharp, playful, creative and funny.”

Tim continued: “I left his house at 8.30 driving back to the winding canyon, pitch black roads and two women flagged me down. I pulled over and they said ‘there’s rattlesnake on the road and we can’t get past it, and we have a dog with us and we’re scared for the dog. And I said, ‘jump in’ and I drove a mile back up the canyon and they Jacknife’s wife and daughter. I think we looked at each other and went, ‘Okay!’ It was a joy working with him.”

Danielle asked Tim if he had missed being on the road over the past 15 months.

“No, it’s been about right,” Tim said. “We needed time out, I think. The only thing I’m still a bit scared of is, I didn’t maintain my voice. You know you can’t sing like you sing when you sing live, so I’m reclaiming my voice at the moment. I have a wide range for octaves but that doesn’t mean they’re very good octaves, but I have four octaves.”

“My voice is naturally dropping as I passed my teenage years so I should have worked a little harder at maintaining my voice and now I’m having to catch up.”

“We’re really looking forward to these first shows back because I think they’re going to be quite explosive for people, and also negotiating the fear of like, ‘oh, people – people without masks.’ You can feel that everywhere (but) we’re really looking forward to it now.”

Click the link below to watch the interview.

 

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Telegraph – Interview: Tim Booth on cults, Coldplay and why Sit Down is ‘a medicine we need right now’

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Telegraph | James Hall

There is a song on the new James album that is unbearably sad. Recover is a track about singer Tim Booth’s father-in-law dying in the first wave of Covid-19. One verse documents his rapid deterioration: in a few lines 84 year-old Saville goes from having a sore throat to being on a ventilator. Despite the peppering of hope throughout the song, he never recovers. It’s a harrowing listen…. (subscription)

 

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Los Angeles Daily News – Wildfires, pandemic and protests inspired James’ new album, says singer Tim Booth

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Los Angeles Daily News | Peter Larsen

The English performer has been a longtime Topanga Canyon resident, but he’s moving his family out. For most of a decade, Tim Booth of the English rock band James loved the quiet, peaceful life he and his family had found in a rustic hillside neighborhood of Topanga Canyon.

It was the perfect place to relax and recharge after weeks in hotels and buses on tour with the band he’d been part of for nearly 40 years, and it offered all of that sunny optimism that drew him from his homeland in the first place.

But about two years ago, not long before the Woolsey Fire burned its way from Ventura County into Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains near Topanga, Booth says he attended a ceremony held by a Peruvian shaman.

“And this very strange thing happened where I saw an earthquake in California,” he says. “I saw fires. I saw myself driving our family out, and we got away. But I saw all hell breaking loose in California, and I was going, ‘OK, is this a warning?’.”

Coming back to himself, Booth says he decided it was his own subconscious fears, nothing more.

“Then I woke up in the morning and California was on fire, the house was full of smoke, and we had to evacuate,” he says. “And I went, ‘I’ve got to take this more seriously.’”

That episode, and the subsequent exit from Topanga Canyon after 11 years, inspired the song “Beautiful Beaches” on James’ new album, “All The Colours Of You.” The band’s 16th studio record, it arrives on June 4.

 

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Riff Magazine – Interview: Tim Booth of James searches for a safe haven on ‘All The Colours Of You’

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Riff Magazine | Roman Gokhman

All The Colours Of You was partly recorded before the pandemic, but by the time James went looking for a producer, lockdowns had begun and options for tracking together in a studio were nonexistent. That’s how Booth and co. ended up partnering with Jacknife Lee (U2, R.E.M., Snow Patrol), his neighbor.

Booth has said that in the before times, he wouldn’t have thought to work together because of Lee’s high-profile status. Lee left his fingerprints all over James’ demos. Much of that work was done in his “cave,” full of keyboards and guitars. Lee contributed to the album as a musician.

“I was looking for grooves and a kind of a contemporary psychedelia. I wanted some level of not quite knowing where your footing is, not quite knowing if you’re in this world or another,” Booth said. “He went looking for it, and he’s fucking genius.”

In the process, Lee made the band more accessible to listeners’ ears. That turned an originally bleaker song like “Recover” into something uplifting.

“I didn’t know we weren’t accessible before!” he said.

 

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Stereoboard – James Continue To Tease 'All The Colours Of You' With New Track Recover

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Stereoboard | Jon Stickler

Recover marks the third single to be lifted from the band’s upcoming 16th studio album, ‘All The Colours Of You’, due out on June 4 via Virgin Music Label and Artist Services (formerly Caroline International).

Following Beautiful Beaches and the record’s first single and title track, the poignant offering finds the band at their most personal while celebrating a loved one’s life and legacy. Cast across delicate production, lyrically it reflects on the death of vocalist Tim Booth’s father-in-law to COVID-19 in spring 2020. He said “This song is made and dedicated to all those who have lost loved ones during the pandemic or otherwise. It speaks to the waiting, the pain of not being able to be there when they pass and the gift of the love of their life.”

The song arrives with a special video of the band performing Recover in isolation. It opens with an emotional message from Booth.

 

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QRO – Tim Booth of James - Q&A

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QRO | Ted Chase

QRO: It seemed darker than your last two records, the one about the apocalypse (Girl At the End of the World) and the one about death (La Petite Mort)…

TB: [laughs] You’re saying this one is darker than those?

I would agree with you on that. There were some really uplifting love songs on the last one, but on the last one, Girl At the End of the World, even the love songs always had a little threat of something. [laughs] People in love with somebody, your odds are you’re gonna get your heartbroken.

I’ve always felt a bit like that. It’s like, even when wonderful things are happening in my life, it’s hard for me not to gravitate towards, “But it’s shit sometimes…”

To me, that’s being realistic. I think that’s why we’ve lasted so many years – is because we write songs that people can relate to. And not many of us are living in paradise.

 

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On The Road With Tim Booth – Metro

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James star in death threats ordeal – Manchester Evening News

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By Sarah Walters and Neal Keeling, © 2011 Manchester Evening News

James star in death threats ordeal

“Stalker told me: I’ll kick your wobbly head in”

  • James singer reveals email and poster taunts
  • Police informed as band perform city gigs

JAMES star Tim Booth has spoken of his ordeal at the hands of a stalker who has threatened to kill him. Police were alerted after posters went up in Manchester saying the singer would be attacked.

Booth, 51, revealed he was being targeted during a James concert at the Bridgewater Hall – after security had been stepped up as a direct result of the threats. The posters appeared ahead of the band’s two concerts at the Manchester venue on Monday and last night. Booth, who joined James while he was a Manchester University student in the 1980s, told the M.E.N: “I’ve been getting some strange emails from someone for about a year-and-a-half that have been getting weirder and weirder, which could be from the same person [as put up the posters] but we don’t know.

”The posters were put up over James posters at the Bridgewater Hall and someone was also handing out fly-posters.

“Someone’s gone to a bit of effort. They detail what they’re going to do to me when they get hold of me.

“It wasn’t a problem for me. I go walk-about in the audience and so that was a bit difficult. I felt it better to announce it to the audience and also if anyone sees someone handing posters out to report it to the police. We have told the police. We reported it here and in Nottingham – you have to report it in the place you’re in. Originally that was Nottingham.

“I’m assuming they’re going to be at one of the shows, that’s why I’m talking to the audience. In Liverpool, people were coming on stage and were grabbing me and security get really nervous obviously. I just felt like I was going to come out and make light of it as well, just inform the audience so they know what’s going on. I’m hoping we can flush him out at a show because he’ll be in an environment where I can deal with him.”

Security staff set up tables outside the Bridgewater Hall to check fans’ bags.

The box office was also screened off from the main foyer so no one could enter without going through security checks.

Security staff were also inside the hall during the show.

Four songs into Monday’s show, Booth produced an A3 poster, handwritten in black ink. He said a stalker was threatening to ‘kick his wobbly head in’ before joking that if he wandered into the audience everyone he approached should put their hands in the air to prove they weren’t ‘concealing any weapons’.

Then he said: “Seriously, if anyone sees anyone putting up the posters, I’d appreciate it if you’d contact the police.”

Yesterday Booth and the rest of the band unveiled a plaque to commemorate their first gig at the Hacienda club in Manchester 30 years ago.

Chhhanges Tim Booth Interview – Vox Magazine

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© July 2008 Vox Magazine

The whips! The T-shirts! The frocks! The Moz! The James mainman’s life in pictures…

Then…
That’s an innocent, naive boy. This is at university, a concert at the Solent Bar, put forward for my drama dissertation. It pulled my degree down to a 2:2.I don’t look as vulnerable as l felt.

1987…
Now this is as bad as it gets. We’d been meditating, where there’s a real belief about bright colours being positive .So we ended up looking fucking weird. Which we were. A strange little vegan clan.

1989…
That’s a carpet turned waistcoat, basically, that I got on a Moroccan holiday. When I seethe three of us there, I see… three young men. Some of these pictures of me, you wouldn’t recognise me now.

1990…
The Gold Mother period, which was bittersweet. We thought it was a good joke that I had “come” on my chest. You can see we’re starting to look like rock stars. Those T-shirts were everywhere then.

1990…
I remember this dreadful shirt from the “Come Home” video. I remember seeing it four years ago and going, “How did people manage to like us? How did they get past us looking so fucking uncool?”

1993…
It was my idea for us to wear dresses. We were eating bananas because we were starving, on Marseilles cathedral’s steps. It was the first time we got an image right. And how weird is that image?

1994…
With Morrissey. On and off we kept in touch. We’d had a close relationship, certainly in the early days. Last time we played together he didn’t make any effort to get in touch with us, so I don’t know where he’s at now.

1996…
I love Angelo Badalamenti, one of the happiest men I’ve ever met. James had a period of being very tense, and the simplicity of laughing right through a record with one other person was a joy.

1997…
Hee-hee! This one didn’t make it in the magazine. Fucking ballsy band for doing this. That’s a great fucking picture. What the fuck is that, man? Jimmy [Glennie] looks worried, look! He’s like, “It’s coming, it’s coming…”

2005…
As Victor Zsaz, in Batman Begins. Christian Bale, huge in his Batman suit the first time I see him, goes, “Tim Booth? From James?” [squeaks] “Yes?” “Oh, man, Laid saved my life.” I’m thinking, ‘Batman loves my music!’

Now… 2007
Three gay tailors. That’s a terrible picture. It was our first shoot back, and we were rusty, uncomfortable and nervous. It’s fucking stiff. Isn’t that bad? The last one is like, “You haven’t learnt a fucking thing…”

James’ new album Hey Ma is out now on Mercury. Tim Booth will reprise his role as Zsazin the sequel to Batman Begins, The Dark Knight

Down To The Sea

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Released on Tim Booth’s solo album Bone.

Details

LyricsReleaseAvailable OnGigsGuitar Tabs
Everyone's a victim
No one is to blame
Find a bum to dump it on
This unwanted shame

When I point the finger
I've got three pointing back, haven't a clue
What you've been through
So it's easy to attack

Everybody's looking
For their own way to get high
Find God, shoot him up
Learn how to die

My head's full of
Self-pity and noise
I need a clean me
I need a new voice

Go down
Down to the sea
Down to the ocean
She's calling to me

Everybody's famous
For a second or two
We could address the world's distress
But the pop star's on too

Looking so damn lonely
Looking for a soul
Trying hard to cover up
The emptiness, the hole

What you're calling culture
Is just arcades and malls
I can't hear myself think
I can't hear my heart sink

Here's a diversion
A howl at the moon
The only time I feel alive
Is when I'm with you

Go down
Down to the sea
Down to the ocean
She's calling to me

Gonna wash away my
Fears of this place
Gonna wash away my
Tears from your face
Song: Down To The Sea
Released: 14th June 2004
First Heard Live:
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Tim Booth: Bone
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Bone

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Bone, a 2004 Studio Album by Tim Booth.

Summary

Tim Booth’s first solo album.

Track List

Wave Hello / Bone / Monkey God / Redneck / Love Hard / Discover / Fall In Love / Falling Down / Down To The Sea / In The Darkness / Eh Mamma / Careful What You Say

Details

ReleaseAboutSongsVideosGigsArticles
Release Name: Bone
Artist Name: Tim Booth
Release Date: 14th June 2004
UK Chart: -
Format: Studio Album
Label: Sanctuary Records
Catalogue: SANPR268
Produced: Lee Muddy Baker
Engineered: Lee Muddy Baker
Mixed: Lee Muddy Baker
Additional Musicians: Lisa Lindley Jones, Lee Muddy Baker, Kevin Kerrigan, Marjorie Ashenden, David Naylor
Recorded: Recorded At – The L.A.B; Mastered At – The Town House

“This CD was made very casually over 3 years. Most of the songs were recorded on a laptop, in my bedroom overlooking the sea in Brighton. Initially written with KK, later they were produced and re-played by Lee Muddy Baker in a studio he hand built. He plays 90% of the instruments, even did the beautiful sleeve artwork, dammit! After “James” I had no intention of making my own record. Nope, I was gonna make music for others to sing. Let them interface with the “Music Business ” while I would just do the fun creative part. Don’t know what happened, think it was Baker’s fault; something about a labour of love and the songs being too good to waste. Yeah, I know the record’s brilliant but now we have the task of outing it and that is never an easy thing to do at the best of musical times. So here are some songs from the heart, hope you enjoy.” – Tim Booth, amazon.co.uk, June 2004

Songs related to this release:
Videos related to songs on this release:
Gigs related to this release: