Temp – PTP Filter Test

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Zero / Ring The Bells / Isabella / Tomorrow / She’s A Star / Five-O / Seven / Interrogation / All The Colours Of You / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Waltzing Along / Beautiful Beaches / Sit Down / Sound / Laid

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Isabella / Ring The Bells / Come Home / Born Of Frustration / All The Colours Of You / Out To Get You / Gettting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Beautiful Beaches / Sit Down / Sound

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James recreate their 1992 Alton Towers show at Castlefield Bowl in Manchester, playing all 22 songs from that show in a different order before adding an encore of four post-1992 songs.  They headline Rhyl Events Arena before playing Mares Vivas Festival in Portugal and Tramlines in …

Come Home / Isabella / Born Of Frustration / Curse Curse / All The Colours Of You / Walk Like You / Sit Down / Beautiful Beaches / Laid / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sound

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Sound / Isabella / All The Colours Of You / Seven / How Was It For You / Interrogation / God Only Knows / Stutter / Out To Get You / Zero / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sit Down / Beautiful Beaches / Sometimes / Tomorrow / Come Home

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Walk Like You / Ring The Bells / Sit Down / Live A Love Of Life / Wherever It Takes Us / Moving On / She’s A Star / Five-O / Lose Control / Zero / Curse Curse / Isabella / Beautiful Beaches / How Was It For You / Sound / Stutter / Come Home / Sometimes

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Johnny Yen / What’s The World / America / Hymn From A Village / Heavens / Seven / Live A Love Of Life / God Only Knows / Stripmining / Lose Control / Say Something / Goalie’s Ball / Maria’s Party / Next Lover / Gold Mother / How Was It For You / Born Of Frustration / Stutter / Come Home / Ring The Bells / Sit Down / Sound / Laid / Waltzing Along / Beautiful Beaches / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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Live A Love Of Life / Isabella / All The Colours Of You / Many Faces / Hymn From A Village / Maria’s Party / Seven / Tomorrow / Stripmining / Next Lover / God Only Knows / What’s The World / Goalies Ball / Lose Control / Beautiful Beaches / Waltzing Along / Stutter / Sound / Gold Mother / How Was It For You / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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James play a series of outdoor shows at Bath Racecourse, London Kenwood House, Edinburgh Highland Centre Big Top (replicating the 1998 Barrowlands set) and Black Deer Festival. They finish the month with a War Child at Warrington Parr …

Sound / Isabella / Say Something / She’s A Star / Sit Down / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home / All The Colours Of You / Ring The Bells / Beautiful Beaches / Out To Get You / Sometimes / Tomorrow

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Johnny Yen / Born Of Frustration / She’s A Star / Say Something / Come Home / Five-O / Lose Control / Top Of The World / How Was It For You / Destiny Calling / Runaground / Sit Down / Waltzing Along / Ring The Bells / Laid / Out To Get You / Sound / Tomorrow / Sometimes

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Johnny Yen / Isabella / Waltzing Along / Say Something / Wherever It Takes Us / Live A Love Of Life / Come Home / Lose Control / Out To Get You / Attention / All The Colours Of You / Many Faces / Ring The Bells / Sit Down / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Beautiful Beaches / Sometimes

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Isabella / She’s A Star / Born Of Frustration / Waltzing Along / Zero / Gold Mother / Out To Get You / Attention / Say Something / Runaground / Live A Love Of Life / All The Colours Of You / Many Faces / How Was It For You / Beautiful Beaches / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home / Ring The Bells / Sit Down

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James appeared on the Earth / Percent Earth Day compilation with a Conservatory Version of Beautiful Beaches

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James head to Portugal for their two postponed shows at Porto’s Superbock Arena and Lisbon’s Campo Pequeno supported by The Slow Readers Club and Surma. They contribute a Conservatory Version of Beautiful Beaches to EarthPercent’s Earth Day …

Johnny Yen / Waltzing Along / Isabella / Beautiful Beaches / She’s A Star / Born Of Frustration / Five-O / Walk Like You / Wherever It Takes Us / Honest Joe / Out To Get You / Hymn From A Village / Runaground / All The Colours Of You / Many Faces / Come Home / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes / Curse Curse / Ring The Bells / Laid / Zero

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Zero / Isabella / She’s A Star / Born Of Frustration / Wherever It Takes Us / Come Home / Walk Like You / Runaground / Five-O / Destiny Calling / Curse Curse / Hymn From A Village / Out To Get You / All The Colours Of You / Many Faces / Moving On / Beautiful Beaches / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes / Ring The Bells / Laid

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Isabella / Destiny Calling / Wherever It Takes Us / All The Colours Of You / Many Faces / Honest Joe / Live A Love Of Life / Gold Mother / Walk Like You / Five-O / Runaground / Ring The Bells / Attention / Curse Curse

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James complete their UK and Ireland tour with shows in Dublin, Manchester and London. Their Portuguese tour is postponed to April 2022 after two members contract COVID at the end of the UK …

Zero / Isabella / She’s A Star / Born Of Frustration / All The Colours Of You / Many Faces / Gold Mother / Honest Joe / Tomorrow / I Wanna Go Home / Nothing But Love / Interrogation / Hymn From A Village / Walk Like You / Curse Curse / Wherever It Takes Us / Come Home / Sit Down / Sound / Beautiful Beaches / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Laid

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Zero / Isabella / She’s A Star / Born Of Frustration / All The Colours Of You / Many Faces / Gold Mother / Come Home / Honest Joe / Seven / Interrogation / Maria’s Party / Hymn From A Village / Walk Like You / Nothing But Love / Curse Curse / Wherever It Takes Us / Sit Down / Sound / Beautiful Beaches / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Laid / Sometimes

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Isabella / Walk Like You / Born Of Frustration / She’s A Star / Come Home / Gold Mother / All The Colours Of You / Many Faces / Just Like Fred Astaire / Curse Curse / Honest Joe / Wherever It Takes Us / Miss America / Maria’s Party / Hymn From A Village / Sit Down / Sound / Beautiful Beaches / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Laid

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Zero / Isabella / Born Of Frustration / Five-O / Seven / All The Colours Of You / Many Faces / Walk Like You / Curse Curse / Honest Joe / She’s A Star / Wherever It Takes Us / Hymn From A Village / Sound / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home / Beautiful Beaches / Sit Down / Laid

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Zero / Isabella / She’s A Star / Come Home / God Only Knows / Honest Joe / Miss America / Gold Mother / All The Colours Of You / Many Faces / Moving On / Born Of Frustration / Wherever It Takes Us / Hymn From A Village / Curse Curse / Sound / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Seven / Beautiful Beaches / Laid / Sit Down

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Zero / Isabella / She’s A Star / Born Of Frustration / All The Colours Of You / Many Faces / Tomorrow / Honest Joe / Walk Like You / Moving On / Hymn From A Village / Come Home / Curse Curse / Wherever It Takes Us / Getting Away With It / Sound / Beautiful Beaches / Laid / Sit Down / Sometimes

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Zero / Isabella / She’s A Star / Born Of Frustration / Five-O / All The Colours Of You / Gold Mother / Come Home / Curse Curse / Miss America / Attention / Hymn From A Village / Beautiful Beaches / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sound / Wherever It Takes Us / Sit Down / Laid

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Zero / Isabella / Sound / She’s A Star / Gold Mother / Curse Curse / Wherever It Takes Us / Miss America / I Wanna Go Home / Born Of Frustration / Hymn From A Village / Beautiful Beaches / Maria / All The Colours Of You / Many Faces / Tomorrow / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home / Sometimes / Sit Down

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The Campfire EP, a single by James. Tracks: Miss America / Recover / Magic Bus / Just Like Fred Astaire

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A YouTube video featuring the band James.

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James release the Campfire EP – a four-track CD and download of tracks recorded at their Broughton Hall get-together in May. They kick off their UK tour with dates in Wolverhampton, Leeds, Birmingham, Cardiff and …

A YouTube video featuring the band James.

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Isabella / Born Of Frustration / Ring The Bells / Five-O / Wherever It Takes Us / All The Colours Of You / Johnny Yen / Say Something / Honest Joe / Sit Down / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes / Sound / Come Home

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All The Colours Of You / Isabella / Come Home / Moving On / Walk Like You / All Good Boys / Born Of Frustration / Sit Down / Wherever It Takes Us / Zero / Maria’s Party / Stutter / She’s A Star / Beautiful Beaches / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sound / Sometimes (Lester Piggott) / Tomorrow / Laid

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James headline Lancaster’s Highest Point, Warrington Neighbourhood festivals as well as playing Isle Of Wight and Playground festivals and headline shows in Scarborough, Newcastle and …

Isabella / Born Of Frustration / Come Home / Walk Like You / Wherever It Takes Us / Zero / Stutter / Out To Get You / Sit Down / Beautiful Beaches / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sound / Tomorrow / Sometimes / Laid

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Isabella / Walk Like You / Born Of Frustration / Come Home / Wherever It Takes Us / Zero / She’s A Star / Beautiful Beaches / Sit Down / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes / Sound / Stutter / Top Of The World

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All Good Boys / Maria’s Party / Isabella / Johnny Yen / ZERO / Recover / Five-O / Walk Like You / Beautiful Beaches

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Walk Like You / Beautiful Beaches / Isabella / Tomorrow / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Wherever It Takes Us / Out To Get You / All The Colours Of You / Born Of Frustration / Sit Down / Laid / Sometimes / Come Home

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Wherever It Takes Us / Beautiful Beaches / Isabella / Waltzing Along / Born Of Frustration / All The Colours Of You / Five-O / Just Like Fred Astaire / Recover / Moving On / Zero / She’s A Star / Nothing But Love / Come Home / Sometimes / Sit Down / Getting Myself Into / Sound

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James record two tracks – Maria’s Party and All Good Boys – live to vinyl at Metropolis Studios in …

About the song Cold Little Heart by Michael Kiwanuka performed by the band James.

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Cold Little Heart (Cover) / Beautiful Beaches / Sometimes / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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All The Colours Of You / Beautiful Beaches / Isabella / Getting Myself Into / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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A YouTube video featuring the band James.

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About the song Magic Bus by the band James.

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About the song Wherever It Takes Us by the band James.

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About the song XYST by the band James.

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About the song Hush by the band James.

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About the song Miss America by the band James.

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About the song Zero by the band James.

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About the song Beautiful Beaches by the band James.

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ZERO / All The Colours Of You / Recover / Beautiful Beaches / Wherever It Takes Us / Hush / Miss America / Getting Myself Into / Magic Bus / Isabella / XYST

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About the song Getting Myself Into by the band James.

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About the song Life by the band James.

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Beautiful Beaches / Cold Little Heart / Sit Down

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All The Colours Of You / Say Something / Beautiful Beaches / Getting Myself Into / Tomorrow

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All The Colours Of You is released on June 6 and reaches number 3 in the UK album charts. A video for Getting Myself Into, recorded at Broughton Hall in Skipton the previous month featuring the band wearing animal masks, is released. A major show at Kenwood House in London to celebrate the post-COVID return of live music is postponed as restrictions are extended. Tim Booth appears on Channel 4 news and BBC Breakfast to talk about the impact of the restrictions on the …

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About the song Isabella by the band James.

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A YouTube video featuring the band James.

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James meet for the first time in 20 months at Broughton Hall near Skipton in Yorkshire to rehearse for their summer dates and to record promotional sessions for the release of All The Colours Of You. They release two further singles from All The Colours Of You – Recover and …

About the song I’m A Believer by The Monkees covered by the band James.

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All The Colours Of You / Beautiful Beaches / Say Something / I’m A Believer

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James release the lead track Beautiful Beaches from their All The Colours Of You album. They perform the track, All The Colours Of You, Say Something and a cover of I’m A Believer, recorded in isolation, for Jo Whiley’s BBC Radio 2 Sofa …

A YouTube lyric video of All The Colours Of You featuring the band James.

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About the song All The Colours Of You by the band James.

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James announce the release of their sixteenth studio album All The Colours Of You and reveal the title track through an exclusive play on BBC 6 Music’s Steve Lamacq …

About the song Zero by the band James.

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Two James tracks are featured on the Music Feeds online festival curated by Saul’s Everybody Belongs Here initiative. The first is a soundcheck recording of I Wanna Go Home from Philadelphia in 2018 and the second is the first reveal of a track called Recover from the All The Colours Of You album, recorded in Costa Rica, Scotland, Portugal and London and edited together exclusively for the …

Live In Extraordinary Times, a live album / DVD by James. Tracks: Five-O / Waltzing Along / Leviathan / Broken By The Hurt / She’s A Star / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Stutter / Feet Of Clay / Moving On / Many Faces / Sometimes / Come Home / Hank / Picture Of This Place / English Beefcake / PS / Heads / All I’m Saying / Extraordinary Times / Tomorrow / What’s It All About / Laid / Attention

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About the song Christmas Song by the band James.

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James announce the release of Live In Extraordinary Times on CD / DVD / Vinyl / download for December. The variety of formats include a photobook and the album includes shows from their 2018/9 Living In Extraordinary Times …

Jim bucks the trend of artists performing live from home by reading bedtime stories from his armchair on Facebook …

Tim emerges from lockdown to perform an Isolation Session of three tracks with neighbour Joel Shearer from his home in Topanga and another online set as part of a dance workshop featuring five tracks from James, Booth And The Bad Angel and his solo career. Four festival appearances for the summer of 2020 are cancelled due to the …

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Oh My Heart / To My Surprise / Sit Down / Tomorrow / Walk Like You / Picture Of This Place / Busted / Play Dead / Interrogation / Just Like Fred Astaire / She’s A Star / PS / I Wanna Go Home / Nothing But Love / Say Something / Leviathan / Waltzing Along / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Stutter / Sound / Sometimes / Come Home

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Five-O / Extraordinary Times / Waltzing Along / Ring The Bells / Heads / What’s It All About? / Sit Down / She’s A Star / Broken By The Hurt / Feet Of Clay / Moving On / English Beefcake / Leviathan / Sometimes / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Stutter / Attention / Come Home

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Sit Down / Tomorrow / Leviathan / What’s It All About? / Stutter / She’s A Star / Out To Get You / Heads / Sometimes / Attention / Many Faces / Laid / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home / Sound / Top Of The World

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James round off their UK festival season headlining Bingley Live before heading to Iberia for a headline set broadcast live from Lisbon’s Rock In Rio anniversary celebrations and shows at Madrid’s La Riviera and Porto’s Parque Pastelaria. A scheduled performance at the Visor Festival in Benidorm is cancelled due to storms. They announce that the band will go on a hiatus before regrouping to complete the studio album that were in the middle of …

Waltzing Along / Ring The Bells / Hank / What’s It All About / Tomorrow / Just Like Fred Astaire / She’s A Star / Five-O / Moving On / Many Faces / Leviathan / Sit Down / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home / Laid

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Sound / Heads / What’s It All About? / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Hank / Stutter / She’s A Star / Top Of The World / Leviathan / Attention / Sit Down / Laid / Many Faces / Come Home / Sometimes

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Johnny Yen / What’s It All About / Leviathan / Out To Get You / Heads / Laid / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Many Faces / Come Home

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Johnny Yen / Leviathan / What’s It All About? / Interrogation / Heads / Tomorrow / Say Something / Just Like Fred Astaire / She’s A Star / Nothing But Love / Sit Down / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Stutter / Attention / Laid / Come Home

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Nothing But Love / Hank / What’s It All About / Waltzing Along / Five-O / Busted / Play Dead / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Leviathan / Come Home / Sit Down / Many Faces / Sound / Laid / Out To Get You / Attention / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes

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She’s A Star / What’s It All About / Leviathan / Sit Down / Ring The Bells / Walk Like You / Interrogation / Hank / Nothing But Love / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Laid / Come Home / Attention / Sound / Top Of The World

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Johnny Yen / What’s It All About / Curse Curse / Ring The Bells / Sit Down / Hank / Heads / Just Like Fred Astaire / Picture Of This Place / Nothing But Love / Leviathan / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Laid / Come Home / Many Faces / Sounds / Sometimes

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Hank / What’s It All About / Come Home / Laid / Heads / Five-O / Johnny Yen / Leviathan / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sound

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Attention / Extraordinary Times / Leviathan / Laid / Come Home / Hank / Out To Get You / Just Like Fred Astaire / English Beefcake / Many Faces / Sometimes / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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Walk Like You / Hank / What’s It All About / Come Home / Laid / P.S. / Leviathan / Many Faces / Sometimes / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sound

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Many Faces / Hank / What’s It All About / Walk Like You / Waltzing Along / Broken By The Hurt / Johnny Yen / Leviathan / Nothing But Love / Sometimes / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home

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James headline Lakefest, Hardwick Live and Cool Britannia festivals as well as playing their own headline shows in Edinburgh Princes Gardens and at Doncaster Racecourse and travelling to France to the Cabaret Vert festival where they are joined on stage by Patti Smith Band’s Lenny Kaye who produced their debut album …

To My Surprise / Walk Like You / Hank / Heads / Ring The Bells / Out To Get You / What’s It All About / Leviathan / Moving On / Sometimes / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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What’s It All About / Heads / Play Dead / Walk Like You / All I’m Saying / How Hard The Day / Many Faces / Attention / Come Home / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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Five-O / Leviathan / What’s It All About / Ring The Bells / Hank / Picture Of This Place / Don’t Wait That Long / Nothing But Love / Sometimes / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sound / Many Faces

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Nothing But Love / Extraordinary Times / What’s It All About / Interrogation / Sometimes / Hank / Hello / Walk Like You / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Leviathan / Sound / Many Faces

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Play Dead / What’s It All About / Heads / Tomorrow / Attention / Out To Get You / Nothing But Love / Leviathan / Many Faces / Come Home / Sound / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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Out To Get You / Leviathan / What’s It All About / Hank / All I’m Saying / P.S. / Nothing But Love / Many Faces / Sound / Sometimes

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Out To Get You / What’s It All About / Heads / Ring The Bells / Hank / Just Like Fred Astaire / Leviathan / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home / Sound / Stutter

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Hank / Extraordinary Times / Picture Of This Place / Broken By The Hurt / Five-O / Leviathan / Sound / Sometimes / Nothing But Love / Many Faces / Come Home / Top Of The World

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Hank / Curse Curse / Laid / Leviathan / Moving On / All I’m Saying / Say Something / Heads / What’s It All About / Attention / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Many Faces / Sometimes

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Dream Thrum / To My Surprise / Born Of Frustration / Nothing But Love / Busted / What’s It All About / Heads / Sometimes / Come Home / Stutter / Many Faces / Laid

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Hank / Ring The Bells / Say Something / Leviathan / Nothing But Love / P.S. / Laid / What’s It All About / Come Home / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes

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Johnny Yen / Heads / Leviathan / Laid / Tomorrow / Top Of The World / Moving On / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Stutter / Come Home / Sometimes

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Hank / What’s It All About / Interrogation / Just Like Fred Astaire / Born Of Frustration / Heads / Sit Down / Leviathan / Many Faces / Attention / Come Home

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Hank / What’s It All About / Heads / Come Home / Tomorrow / Laid / All I’m Saying / P.S. / Picture Of This Place / Leviathan / Sometimes

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Hank / Leviathan / Ring The Bells / Laid / Extraordinary Times / P.S. / Just Like Fred Astaire / Many Faces / What’s It All About / Sometimes / Come Home / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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Coming Home (Pt.2) / All I’m Saying / Leviathan / Broken By The Hurt

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What’s It All About / Leviathan / Ring The Bells / Born Of Frustration / Heads / Broken By The Hurt / All I’m Saying / Many Faces / Sound / Come Home

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What’s It All About / Heads / Ring The Bells / Many Faces / Nothing But Love / P.S. / Moving On / Curse Curse / Leviathan / Sometimes / Laid / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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Hank / What’s It All About / Ring The Bells / Many Faces / Sound / Out To Get You / Laid / Heads / Leviathan / Sometimes / Come Home

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Attention / Heads / Ring The Bells / Many Faces / P.S. / Say Something / Picture Of This Place / Leviathan / Tomorrow / Sometimes / Come Home / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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Come Home / Heads / What’s It All About / Five-O / Nothing But Love / Leviathan / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes / Many Faces / Laid

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James head to North America for a 24-date co-headline tour with The Psychedelic Furs that runs into August culminating at The Greek Theatre in Los …

Sit Down / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Leviathan / Nothing But Love / What’s It All About / Out To Get You / Heads / Many Faces / Come Home / Sometimes (Lester Piggott)

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Sound / Sit Down / What’s It All About / Leviathan / Nothing But Love / Heads / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Many Faces / Come Home / Laid

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Lose Control / Extraordinary Times / What’s It All About / Leviathan / Say Something / She’s A Star / Hello / / Just Like Fred Astaire / Heads / Nothing But Love / Sit Down / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes (Lester Piggott) / Many Faces / Come Home / Laid

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Come Home / Ring The Bells / Nothing But Love / What’s It All About / Leviathan / Five-0 / Interrogation / Sound / Johnny Yen / Picture Of This Place / Heads / Laid / Attention / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes (Lester Piggott) / Sit Down

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What’s It All About / Extraordinary Times / Born Of Frustration / Ring The Bells / Hello / Five-0 / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Picture Of This Place / Laid / Just Like Fred Astaire / Leviathan / Attention / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sound / Heads / Come Home / Many Faces / Sometimes (Lester Piggott)

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James kick off the UK festival season playing The Great Estate Festival before heading to Greece to play a headline show in Thessaloniki and a festival in Athens. From there they head to Malta for their first ever show there which is almost cancelled as Jim is taken ill shortly before stage time but the band soldier on. They head back to the UK to play the Isle Of Wight Festival and support Courteeners at their massive hometown Heaton Park show in …

Sit Down / Extraordinary Times / Out To Get You / Five-0 / Picture Of This Place / Ring The Bells / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Pressure’s On / What’s It All About / Top Of The World / Heads / Feet Of Clay / Attention / Come Homes / Sometimes (Lester Piggott)

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Hello / Broken By The Hurt / All I’m Saying / Pressure’s On / Sit Down / I Wanna Go Home / Just Like Fred Astaire / Hank / Extraordinary Times / What’s It All About / Tomorrow / Five-0 / Nothing But Love / Born Of Frustration / Heads / Sutter / Moving Car / Picture Of This Place / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Leviathan / Sound / Come Home / Many Faces / Laid

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Coming Home (Pt2) / Hello / Broken By The Hurt / All I’m Saying / Sit Down / Pressure’s On / Just Like Fred Astaire / Heads / What’s It All About / Moving On / Ring The Bells / Five-0 / Extraordinary Times / Born Of Frustration / Moving Car / Attention / Laid / Picture Of This Place / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Leviathan / Sound / Many Faces / Tomorrow

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James play two intimate sold-out Portuguese shows in the coliseums of Porto and …

Coming Home (Pt2) / Hello / Broken By The Hurt / All I’m Saying / Sit Down / Pressure’s On / Just Like Fred Astaire / Heads / What’s It All About / Curse Curse / Ring The Bells / Five-0 / Extraordinary Times / Johnny Yen / Moving Car / Laid / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Leviathan / Sound / Many Faces

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Coming Home (Pt2) / Broken By The Hurt / All I’m Saying / Pressure’s On / Just Like Fred Astaire / Sit Down / Heads / What’s It All About / Curse Curse / Ring The Bells / Five-O / All Good Boys / How Hard The Day / Laid / Moving Car / Picture Of This Place / Nothing But Love / Extraordinary Times / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Leviathan / Sound / Come Home / Many Faces

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Coming Home (Pt2) / Pressure’s On / All I’m Saying / I Wanna Go Home / Just Like Fred Astaire / Destiny Calling / Broken By The Hurt / Hello / Born Of Frustration / Extraordinary Times / What’s It All About / Moving On / Jam J / Heads / Picture Of This Place / How Hard The Day / I Defeat / Waltzing Along / Leviathan / Attention / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Nothing But Love / Come Home / Many Faces / Top Of The World

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Coming Home (Pt2) / Pressure’s On / Broken By The Hurt / Just Like Fred Astaire / All I’m Saying / Hello / What’s It All About / Busted / Ring The Bells / Five-0 / Moving Car / Heads / Picture Of This Place / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Johnny Yen / Tomorrow / Leviathan / Come Home / Many Faces / Sound

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Coming Home (Pt2) / Pressure’s On / Broken By The Hurt / All I’m Saying / Just Like Fred Astaire / Hello / Out To Get You / Five-0 / Extraordinary Times / What’s It All About / Ring The Bells / Heads / Picture Of This Place / Laid / Sit Down / How Hard The Day / Waltzing Along / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Leviathan / Come Home / Many Faces / Sometimes

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Coming Home (Pt2) / Lullaby / All I’m Saying / Broken By The Hurt / Just Like Fred Astaire / Hello / Pressure’s On / Hank / What’s It All About / Ring The Bells / Five-0 / Extraordinary Times / Heads / Picture Of This Place / Laid / How Hard The Day / Maria’s Party / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Leviathan / Moving On / Come Home / Attention / Many Faces / Sound

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Hello / Backwards Glances / Pressure’s On / Broken By The Hurt / Just Like Fred Astaire / All I’m Saying / Hank / What’s It All About / Ring The Bells / Five-0 / I Defeat / Extraordinary Times / Heads / Picture Of This Place / Coming Home (Pt2) / Maria’s Party / Waltzing Along / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Leviathan / Laid / Many Faces / Sound

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Pressure’s On / Hello / Coming home (Pt2) / Broken By The Hurt / Just Like Fred Astaire / Quicken The Dead / All I’m Saying / Hank / What’s It All About / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Tomorrow / How Hard The Day / Moving Car / Five-0 / Sit Down / I Defeat / Picture Of This Place / Leviathan / Laid / Attention / Moving On / Many Faces / Come Home

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Just Like Fred Astaire / Hello / Coming Home (Pt2) / Backwards Glances / Destiny Calling / Pressure’s On / All I’m Saying / What’s It All About / Extraordinary Times / Waltzing Along / Picture Of This Place / Moving Car / Say Something / Five-O / Heads / Stutter / How Hard The Day / Leviathan / Come Home / Laid / Attention / Moving On / Many Faces / Sound

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Just Like Fred Astaire / Backwards Glances / Coming Home (Pt2) / All I’m Saying / Hello / Destiny Calling / Pressure’s On / Five-O / What’s It All About / Heads / Leviathan / Moving On / Moving Car / Picture Of This Place / Stutter / Sit Down / How Hard The Day / Maria / Come Home / Attention / Many Faces / Sound

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Hello / Broken By The Hurt / Quicken The Dead / Maria / All I’m Saying / I Wanna Go Home / Johnny Yen / What’s It All About / Picture Of This Place / Leviathan / Interrogation / Extraordinary Times / Heads / Tomorrow / Busted / How Hard The Day / Sit Down / Come Home / Born Of Frustration / Many Faces / Sound / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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James tour the UK supporting themselves with a thirty minute acoustic slot on dates in Margate, Bath, London, Cambridge, Nottingham, Southampton, Stoke, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Carlisle and Hull. Tim injures himself during the tour and plays part of the shows seated in a …

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Hank / Picture Of This Place / Ring The Bells / Sit Down / Heads / What’s It All About / Top Of The World / Don’t Wait That Long / Say Something / Just Like Fred Astaire / Of Monsters And Heroes And Men / Moving On / Leviathan / Stutter / Sounds / Come Home / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Many Faces / Sometimes

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Hank / Picture Of This Place / Ring The Bells / Sit Down / Heads / Stutter / Of Monsters And Heroes And Men / Out To Get You / Laid / What’s It All About / Moving On / Leviathan / Nothing But Love / Attention / Sound / Come Home / How Was It For You / Don’t Wait That Long / Many Faces / Sometimes

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Hank / Picture Of This Place / Waltzing Along / Ring The Bells / Heads / Stutter / Five-0 / Top Of The World / Extraordinary Times / Attention / Moving On / Leviathan / Sound / Come Home / Say Something / Many Faces / Sometimes

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Hank / Picture Of This Place / Waltzing Along / Tomorrow / Sit Down / What’s It All About / Heads / Stutter / Out To Get You / Just Like Fred Astaire / Leviathan / How Was It For You / Sound / Come Home / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes

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James finish off the year with four arena shows at Glasgow SECC, London Wembley Arena, Manchester Arena and Leeds First Direct Arena supported by The Charlatans.  Both Tim and Andy make guest appearances during The Charlatans set at the London and Manchester …

Lose Control / Hank / Better Than That / Waltzing Along / Heads / What’s It All About / Lullaby / Tomorrow / Laid / Leviathan / Picture of This Place / Say Something / How Was It For You / Sound / Come Home / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes

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Lose Control / Hank / What’s It All About / Don’t Wait That Long / Say Something / Waltzing Along / Sit Down / Leviathan / Picture of This Place / Heads / Stutter / How Was it for You / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Laid / Many Faces / Sometimes

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Lose Control / Hank / What’s It All About / Of Monsters And Heroes And Men / Don’t Wait That Long / Say Something / Waltzing Along / Sit Down / Leviathan / Picture of This Place / Heads / Stutter / How Was It For You / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home / Attention / Many Faces / Sometimes

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Lose Control / Leviathan / Hank / Waterfall / Waltzing Along / Picture of This Place / Don’t Wait That Long / Of Monsters And Heroes And Men / Tomorrow / Heads / How Hard The Day / Say Something / How Was It For You / Laid / Come Home / Many Faces / Sometimes / Sit Down

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Johnny Yen / Extraordinary Times / Waltzing Along / Waterfall / Laid / Heads / Stutter / Say Something / Leviathan / She’s A Star / Picture Of This Place / Don’t Wait That Long / Tomorrow / How Was It For You? / Come Home / Many Faces / Sound / Sit Down

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Lose Control / Hank / Extraordinary Times / Waltzing Along / Laid / Of Monsters And Heroes And Men / What’s It All About / Stutter / Lullaby / Don’t Wait That Long / Leviathan / Tomorrow / How Was It For You? / Come Home / Many Faces / Sound / Sit Down

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Hank / Better Than That / Seven / Extraordinary Times / Born Of Frustration / Heads / Feet Of Clay / Johnny Yen / Of Monsters And Heroes And Men / Leviathan / How Was It For You? / Come Home / Sound / Many Faces / Sometimes / Sit Down / Laid

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Lose Control / Hank / She’s A Star / Seven / Leviathan / Heads / Stutter / Lullaby / Of Monsters And Heroes And Men / How Was It For You / Come Home / What’s It All About / Born Of Frustration / Tomorrow / Many Faces / Sit Down / Sometimes / Laid

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Lose Control / Extraordinary Times / Waltzing Along / Seven / Leviathan / Come Home / Heads / What’s It All About / Feet Of Clay / Attention / Sit Down / Tomorrow / Many Faces / Say Something / Sometimes

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Lose Control / Hank / Extraordinary Times / Waltzing Along / Seven / Leviathan / How Was It For You / Come Home / Feet Of Clay / Heads / What’s It All About / Stutter / She’s A Star / Born Of Frustration / Sit Down / Many Faces / Tomorrow / Sometimes

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James played a series of international dates in Auckland and Christchurch (New Zealand), Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth (Australia), Dubai and Kirstenbosch and Pretoria (South Africa). They also announced a twelve-date UK tour for March 2019 with them supporting themselves with a half-hour acoustic …

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A YouTube video of Many Faces (acoustic) featuring the band James.

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Acoustic versions of Many Faces and Backwards Glances are …

A YouTube video of Many Faces (Live at Victoria Theatre Halifax) featuring the band James.

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Acoustic versions of Coming Home (Pt 2) and Leviathan are released as well as a live video of Many Faces recorded at their Halifax show in …

Hank / She’s A Star / What’s It All About / Better Than That / Five-O / Seven / Leviathan / Extraordinary Times / Sound / Heads / Attention / Moving On / Tomorrow / Sit Down / Many Faces / Sometimes

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Hank / Extraordinary Times / Sound / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Leviathan / Curse Curse / Sit Down / Many Faces / Heads / Attention / Tomorrow / Come Home / Laid / Out To Get You / Sometimes

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Booth sings with confidence and vigor, the band providing both slippery grooves and explosive crescendos as second nature. Of particular note is Glennie and Baynton-Power’s continued strength as a sonic unit. They are a criminally underappreciated rhythm section, having anchored all of the classic James releases and theirs is an intuitive and unobtrusive foundation that, if removed, would render all else to rubble. James in 2018 is alive and well and coming for your children.

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The latest release from British pop band James, Living in Extraordinary Times, takes the band’s familiar up-tempo, romantic spirit and mixes in a fair amount of grit and anxiety courtesy of life in 2018. The album’s songs are infused with anger, frustration, disillusionment, and sadness, but also have their share of hope, romance and idealism injected to keep the whole affair from dragging you down. Ultimately, this is an energetic, impassioned output from a band that does not nearly sound as “old” as you might expect them to on their 16th album release.

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Extraordinary Times / Hank / Better Than That / Sound / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Leviathan / Coming Home (Pt.2) / Sit Down / Attention / Many Faces / What’s It All About / Moving On / How Was It For You / Come Home / Tomorrow / Sometimes

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James makes a protest album that outdoes their peers in the socio-commentary department and shows us how engaging non-guitar centric rock music should sound. Living In Extraordinary Times is one of those career defining albums that rarely come along these days, especially for a rock band given to this kind of statement. The album dealing with the big subjects, ones we often don’t want, or sometimes can no longer confront with the vigor we need to. James stares them down with a confidence and straightforwardness that belies that which is required of any rock band, but is most welcome, and appreciated.

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Nothing But Love / She’s A Star / Catapult / Come Home / Dear John / Heart Of Gold / Sound

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Fifteen albums down, James boast an extensive career and back catalogue, yet are still releasing fresh material that’s just as good (if not better) than their previous releases. We’re truly living in extraordinary times and with the release of their ‘Better Than That’ EP and ‘Living In Extraordinary Times’ this year, it’s certainly a wonderful time to be a James fan!

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James’ fifteenth studio album Living In Extraordinary Times is released on CD, deluxe CD, cassette, standard black vinyl, webstore only white vinyl, independent store only magenta vinyl and white label test pressing. It reaches number 6 in the UK charts. They celebrate the release with an acoustic set and signing at Manchester’s HMV store as well as radio sessions for BBC Radio 2, BBC 5 Live and Absolute Radio as well as appearing on Zoe Ball’s ITV show. They play festival sets at Grande Monte Verde in the Azores, Linlithgow Party In The Park, Scarborough Open Air Theatre, Festival de Vilar de Mouros in Caminha, Spain and Electric Fields in …

Out To Get You / Better Than That / Hank / Seven / Say Something / Dear John / Leviathan / Nothing But Love / Coming Home (Pt.2) / Stutter / Heads / Born Of Frustration / Laid / Many Faces / Sometimes / Attention / Top Of The World / Come Home

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Living in Extraordinary Times, their fifteenth release, is the best work they’ve released since Laid, and – as much as it pains me to do so – I really have to thank Donald J. Trump for turning the band into indie rock protest singers.

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When I was growing up, James were cool. James were so cool. Their lyrics eulogised the female orgasm, while necessitating a break from “the beat of the concrete” and the burning of the capitalist detritus of modern life….despite the death of the indie guitar music they pioneered and the NME that propelled it, James is still producing music.

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For the most part there always seems to be a lot going on. But you’ve got to admire James for continuing to be confident in its approach over three decades on. This is a band at full steam, defying the reunion narrative of bands just cashing in.

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More than 30 years after their first release, the Mancunian Brit-pop favourites have continuously evolved to remain as relevant as ever.

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Hank / Better Than That / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Say Something / Laid / Coming Home (Pt.2) / Leviathan / Out To Get You / Nothing But Love / Many Faces / Heads / Come Home / Tomorrow / Sometimes / Attention / Top Of The World / Sit Down

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But having formed back in 1982, and featuring members well into their 50s, how long can they keep up their reputation as British treasures? They can’t do it again, can they? Turns out they can; Living In Extraordinary Times is even better than the previous two records, and one of this treasured group’s finest albums.

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Living in Extraordinary Times is an extraordinary record from an extraordinary band. Who after 36 years together, still manage to making relevant, exciting records. Unbelievably, this latest album may be their best. So far …

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This is a band that understands dynamics, and how make a song engaging, so they are already better than many of the other pretenders out there. Oftentimes, anger spills out of the pop on this album, but it doesn’t feel out of place at all.

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And there’s the dilemma.  Do they rely on old tricks, or try to reinvent the wheel? There’s a little too much of the latter for this album to truly work.

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The thought occurs that indie-pop stalwarts James aren’t dissimilar to a shark. Such is the Manchester octet’s devotion to exploring fresh textures, with an insatiable forward momentum, that if they stop moving it’s likely they’ll immediately shuffle off to the great gig in the sky. Fortunately, if the band’s most recent output – and especially this effort – is anything to by, they won’t be playing chess with the Grim Reaper any time soon.

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Nothing But Love / She’s A Star / Catapult / Come Home / Dear John / Heart Of Gold / Sound

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The cult band JAMES, formed in 1982, releases their 18th album this summer… and probably one of the best album of the year! As many pointed out … how can a band sound so fresh, re-invent himself [sic] at each album after more than 30 years? This band is a damn mystery. It sounds of course like JAMES, but the production and the sounding around is massive as rarely before in the bands discography.

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Maybe it is these extraordinary times that we are existing in that have energised the band, but it feels like a record that could easily slot in amongst their finest. There are enough bands and artists out there who only rehash their heritage, but James continue to stand nearly alone as a group who embrace the past but keep moving forwards.

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After 35 years in the music industry, it’s remarkable that this record contains such varied content and experimental sounds. It’s an album that will seep into the very core of your soul, one way or another.

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James singer Tim Booth has told BBC Radio 5 live that new song Coming Home (Pt 2) is about “being in denial” over how much he missed his young son while being away on tour. Booth teared up as he recalled seeing his son after an extended period away.

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Nothing But Love / She’s A Star / Catapult / Come Home / Dear John / Heart Of Gold / Sound

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The album is a mix of the band’s sublime ‘90s alt rock sound with adventurous paths towards a more electronic sound, making for a satisfyingly original album that challenges any preconceived notions that the band is supposed to be little more than a nostalgia act for Gen X.

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Full of swirling, occasionally transcendent arrangements, ‘Living In Extraordinary Times’ proves that, even on their 15th album, James are still a viable creative force.

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‘Living in Extraordinary Times’ is testimony that a band are not outdated due to their longevity; James move with the current, creating, as we can see here, music that captures the dichotomy of the past and something unheard of, something entirely unfamiliar.

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Extraordinary Times is peak Big James, opening with elephantine drums like distant gunfire, warring with squalling guitars. Then Booth bursts in, sweaty and slightly terrifying. Remarkably, this 15th album might be their best.

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But what is most thrilling about Living in Extraordinary Times is that … it captures plenty of the eccentricity and vivacity that has always been an earmark of James’ most interesting – and best – work. It’s what continues to make them, as Booth once sang on ‘Boom Boom’, ‘too unique to be cloned’ ,and makes 2018 an extraordinary time for James.

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We aren’t about nostalgia; we’re not a heritage band. We play a lot of new songs when we play live and the stuff we’re writing now is as good as anything we’ve ever written – if not better.

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About the song How Hard The Day by the band James.

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James have survived the vicissitudes of time, despite the singer Tim Booth coming across like a drawstring trousers-wearing soya-milk enthusiast forever threatening to lecture you on the benefits of tantric sex.

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Living In Extraordinary Times, an album by James. Tracks: Hank / Coming Home (Pt2) / Leviathan / Heads / Many Faces / How Hard The Day / Extraordinary Times / Picture Of This Place / Hope To Sleep / Better Than That / Mask / What’s It All About; Bonus tracks: Backwards Glances / Moving Car / Overdose / Trouble

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About the song Hope To Sleep by the band James.

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About the song Moving Car by the band James.

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About the song Extraordinary Times by the band James.

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Coming home? James have never been away.

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It can get a bit overripe at times, like the big drums and big guitar strums that accompany Booth’s big thoughts in “Extraordinary Times”. But mostly the music is sinewy and sleek indie-rock, a vibrant statement of continuing intent.

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There is something undeniably impressive about James’ durability. Formed in Manchester 36 years ago, they toured with The Smiths, signed to Factory, kept pace with Madchester and Britpop and still sound more with it than bands half their age. If Coldplay released this, it would be no disgrace.

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“This album is one of the best we’ve ever made,” said Booth. “We didn’t know which songs to leave off and we had a big fight over it because we made too many. We had about 15 songs and we didn’t want to put them all on, that’s why we released an EP, but those songs on the EP were some people’s favourite songs in the band. We’ve made something very fresh and exciting.”

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James is a band that makes me smile. Over the years they have caught my imagination, surprised me with their catchy riffs, and not been scared to approach themes that many bands, then and now, shy away from. This album, unlike their last two offerings, Girl At The End Of The World, and La Petite Mort, has a sense of urgency, verging on anger, at world events, matters of the heart, and time lost with family.

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Being one of the most idiosyncratic bands in modern rock history, this means Living in Extraordinary Times is plenty quirky, even if James address the Trumpian turmoil in a direct fashion that speaks both to their inherent grandiosity and Tim Booth’s allergy to metaphors. Booth raves about “fake news” on “Heads,” one of the many explicit allusions to meme double-speak and other modern plagues scattered throughout the album, but even if his words are foregrounded, they’re overwhelmed by the sheets of sounds and surplus of ideas teeming throughout the album.

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This is, in short, a wonderful record – full of thumping percussion, witty lyrics and a pinch of this and drop of that. It’s a real amalgamation of musical styles. Whether intentionally or not, we have hints of U2, The Killers, Interpol, Keane, The Courteeners and even Underworld strewn throughout.

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The band have always been ones to experiment but they should be applauded for going against the entropy of repeating successful formulas so enticing in any ongoing endeavor. Especially at this late stage of the game with James’ recent releases continuing to push the envelope further and further. In every track on Living In Extraordinary Times they really go for it, taking chances that pay off most of the time.

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Saul Davies: “What I think you’re alluding to there is that we’re in our 37th year and what you and I are discussing here is about songs we’ve just made. It’s really refreshing and really heartening to me that I’m in a position whereby we’re not having to talk about ‘Sit Down’ and all that. I think that’s testament to the fact that we have pushed it, and we are moving forward.”

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James delivers unadulterated dialog as always, embedding urgent matters into challenging melodic expression. It also strips its sound to bare essentials in vulnerable moments, creating an extraordinary sonic dynamic.

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Living in Extraordinary Times marks a band still working at their full capacity, bringing new ideas and sounds while retaining what inherently makes James James – big choruses, danceable tracks, and timely lyrics. While some tracks are on the long side, how can you blame them getting carried away?

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While most other bands from that unforgettable Madchester music era are now looking back wistfully on past achievements, James continue to make vibrant, vital new music.

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What makes “Extraordinary Times” so, well, extraordinary, though are the shifting rhythms and the electronic highs the band constructs with producer Charlie Andrew. They make James sound as potent as a band just coming out of its garage.

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More than 30 years after their first release, the Mancunian Brit-pop favourites have continuously evolved to remain as relevant as ever.

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Living In Extraordinary Times feel like James at their most relaxed with each other for a long time, allowing the producers Charlie and Beni to help shape and influence the songs in the way they did with Brian Eno. Unafraid to experiment and refusing to be silenced on things that matter to them, the record reflects their restless spirit more so than any they’ve created since Laid. There’s moments that will appeal to the more casual fan (and tellingly these have been chosen as the singles – Better That That, Coming Home Part 2 and Many Faces) which prove that they still have it in them to create songs of mass connection, but as always it’s where they step out of their comfort zone and try something different that they’re at their most vital. Songs like Leviathan, Extraordinary Times and Hank push the envelope and challenge the listener to immerse themselves in the way the band do themselves and explain why thirty six years in James are still surprising and delighting people.

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Throughout the record there’s an inherent intensity to every pounding drum and soaring guitar, and no song has this with quite as much shock-factor as “Hank.” While it really slow-burns its changes, there’s a brilliance to all the arrangements behind the lead parts that make it mesmerizing.

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The title may make reference to the utter shitshow created by the election of a spray-tanned buffoon to the office of President of the United States, but James’ interfacing with modernity goes beyond overtly political lyricism. Whereas previous James albums had a foot in the past and a reliance on the tried-and-true sounds of pop and psychedelia, Extraordinary Times updates their sound with influences from today’s festival rock circuit.

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James have long proven their resilience, asserting their sense of style and displaying their willingness to reinvent themselves whenever the times call for it. However, no matter how many musical revolutions they have weathered in the past decades, the music of James has long achieved its distinctive character. Living in Extraordinary Times is yet another living proof of that they are attuned with the current state of the world issues and open to new sounds associated with Alternative music but remains grounded in James’s good ol’ trademark musicality.

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We are indeed living in the most unfortunate of extraordinary times and it shows in James’ most intense album of recent years.

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People have been declaring the death of the album now for more than 20 years and yet it stubbornly remains, maybe because of the older buying demographic who’ve fuelled vinyl’s renaissance, but partly because experiences like that served up on We Live In Extraordinary Times are what the long playing format was made for. Veterans cleverly using its breadth and contours to send listeners on an old fashioned journey, Tim Booth and co. have made the case for a type of listening this century has all but condemned to nothingness.

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The album a fusion of social commentary and personal reflection, covering everything from the current political climate in America in the frustration-charged ‘Hank’ or the powerful ‘Heads’ will make you sit up and listen. Not to be ignored on any level Living In Extraordinary Times takes you on an audible journey across twelve emotive and passionate tracks that hold nothing back.

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As one of the UK’s most expressive and creative bands, it should come as no surprise yet another writer sings their praises, just a little staggered at James versatility, energy and quality in 2018, another chapter, hope there is so much more to enjoy in years to come. Another statement, as if it was needed.

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Many Faces is, if such a thing exists, classic James. Scrap that. Classic James doesn’t exist. They are a band who have constantly sought out new sounds, new ideas and new ways of being…James.

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If James were a man, they would be married, mortgaged up and due a mid-life crisis any time now. Aged 36, they’ve been around the block and back again. Through it all, they have retained an underdog status, loitering on the fringes of passing fads and scenes. If James have proved too awkward for canonisation, they have at least avoided being date-stamped. Increasingly, it seems like a smart trade-off.

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Johnny Yen / Hank / Heads / What’s It All About / Come Home / Laid / Sit Down / Many Faces / Sometimes / Attention

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Many Faces, a single by James. Tracks: Many Faces (Radio Edit)

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A YouTube video of Many Faces featuring the band James.

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Yes, ladies and gentlemen, James are sitting next to you once again with their new studio album, Living In Extraordinary Times. And there is seemingly no let-up in their incredible music making.

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We could argue that with the anger and frustration that’s being vented, it’s as though as they get older, James is channelling the spirit of punk, subverting expectations and forever doing everything on their own terms. The prominence of the percussion elevates this from the both what the band has done in the past and what most other bands are doing now, and Glennie’s bass is certainly getting stronger and infectious, adding even more to the grand sound and the impressive production of Charlie Andrews (Wolf Alice) and Beni Giles. Living in Extraordinary Times is a challenging album that may divide hard-core fans but will certainly stand the test of time.

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Upcoming gig – setlist TBA

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Out To Get You / Hank / What’s It All About / Born Of Frustration / Coming Home (Pt.2) / Interrogation / Heads / Stutter / Many Faces / Moving On / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home / Sometimes / Attention / Laid

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An edited version of Many Faces is released as a single ahead of the release of the Living In Extraordinary Times album. A live video for Hank, recorded at their show in Halifax in May, is revealed. James headline the 6 Music Stage at Latitude Festival and also play Bilbao BBK and Kendal …

Nothing But Love / She’s A Star / Catapult / Come Home / Dear John / Heart Of Gold / Sound

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Hank video featuring the band James.

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James appear on Later With Jools Holland on BBC2 performing Many Faces, Hank, Coming Home (Pt 2) and Sit Down across two episodes. Coming Home (Pt 2) is released a single with an accompanying video shot by Leif Tilden at Tim’s home in California.  A live video for Better Than That, recorded at their show in Halifax in May, is also revealed. They play at Rock In Rio Festival in Lisbon, …

Hank / Sit Down / Born Of Frustration / Heads / Many Faces / Out To Get You / Come Home / Coming Home (Pt 2) / Moving On / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes / Laid

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Coming Home (Pt.2) video featuring the band James.

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Coming Home (Pt.2) , a single by James. Tracks: Coming Home (Pt2)

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A YouTube video featuring the band James.

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Nothing But Love / She’s A Star / Catapult / Come Home / Dear John / Heart Of Gold / Sound

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Hank / Better Than That / Ring The Bells / Come Home / Coming Home (Pt2) / Leviathan / Heads / Out To Get You / Sit Down / Nothing But Love / Moving On / Many Faces / Attention / Laid / Sometimes / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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Hank / Better Than That / Moving On / Tomorrow / Coming Home (Pt.2) / Out To Get You / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Heads / Come Home / Sometimes / Laid / Nothing But Love / Sit Down

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Hank / Moving On / Waltzing Along / Heads / Leviathan / Curse Curse / Coming Home (Pt. 2) / Busted / PS / She’s A Star / Sit Down / Tomorrow / Scarecrow / Johnny Yen / Many Faces / Attention / Nothing But Love / Sometimes / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home

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Hank / What’s It All About? / Waltzing Along / Say Something / The Shining / PS / Heads / Coming Home (Pt. 2) / Leviathan / Scarecrow / How Was It For You? / Just Like Fred Astaire / Many Faces / Better Than That / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Born Of Frustration / Attention / Sometimes / Moving On / Laid

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About the song What’s It All About by the band James.

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Busted / Hank / Waltzing Along / Say Something / The Shining / PS / Heads / Coming Home (Pt. 2) / Scarecrow / How Was It For You? / What’s It All About? / Leviathan / She’s A Star / Sit Down / Many Faces / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Born Of Frustration / Better Than That / Sometimes / Moving On / Laid

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Hank / Heads / Ring The Bells / Leviathan / Five-O / To My Surprise / Gone Baby Gone / Scarecrow / Say Something / Busted / PS / Coming Home (Pt.2) / How Was It For You? / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Of Monsters And Heroes And Men / Many Faces / Born Of Frustration / Attention / Better Than That / Nothing But Love / Come Home / Sometimes / Laid

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Hank / To My Surprise / Gone Baby Gone / Heads / Ring The Bells / Walk Like You / Busted / Coming Home (Pt.2) / Leviathan / Scarecrow / Many Faces / Moving On / How Was It For You? / Born Of Frustration / Attention / Nothing But Love / Better Than That / Come Home / Sometimes / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Laid

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Better Than That, a EP single by James. Tracks: Better Than That / Busted / Hank / Broken By The Hurt

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Tim Booth: “For me, I write a lot of my best lyrics at like 4 am. I wake up and I can’t sleep because I have a song lyric going in my head and I get up and write it down, which leads me to another and another. It’s all done fairly without thinking. The thinking, conscious, analytical brain is less than five percent of the brain. Ninety-five percent is unconscious to us. So it figures that the rich stuff is in the unconscious. The creative and dream aspects are in the unconscious part of us. I really spend a lot of my life trying to get to those parts of myself because I think that’s the role of the artist.”

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Hank / Coming Home (Pt2) / Gone Baby Gone / Moving On / Ring The Bells / Better Than That / Leviathan / Scarecrow / Protect Me / Heads / How Was It For You / Curse Curse / Busted / Five-O / Many Faces / Born Of Frustration / Come Home / Sometimes / Nothing But Love / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Laid

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About the song Hank by the band James.

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About the song Coming Home (Pt.2) by the band James.

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Hank / Heads / Ring The Bells / Hymn From A Village / Nothing But Love / Leviathan / Five-0 / Coming Home (Pt.2) / Curse Curse / Both Of Frustration / Out To Get You / Many Faces / Busted / How Was It For You? / Better Than That / Come Home / Sometimes / Attention / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Laid

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About the song Leviathan by the band James.

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About the song Heads by the band James.

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Dates connected with James: …

The Better Than That EP is released on May 18th on CD and vinyl and reaches number 1 in the UK Vinyl Singles chart. James play a seven-date tour to coincide with the release in Llandudno, Warrington, Blackburn, Halifax, Middlesbrough, Oban and Scunthorpe before co-headlining the Southampton and Oxford legs of the Common People festival.  During the tour they reveal seven songs – Hank, Coming Home Pt 2, Leviathan, Many Faces, Better Than That and What’s It All About – from their forthcoming Living In Extraordinary Times …

About the song Broken By The Hurt by the band James.

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The Better Than That EP is announced for release on 10″ vinyl / CD / download on May 18th and the title track is premiered by Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 …

About the song Better Than That by the band James.

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As a warm up to the summer festivals and their upcoming album, James announce a short 7-venue tour. The ‘Better Than That’ tour focuses on smaller venues (less than 2,000) and sells out almost …

The band announce a series of summer festival dates in the UK and Spain. On Twitter Tim says that the new album will be released in July. James issue the following statement to mark the passing of The Fall’s Mark E. Smith: “Not only musically inspiring a hunt for originality, where melody meets grit and ideas, but also a bloody minded, fuck-you Manc attitude. The Fall gave us so many support slots. It’s where we fumbled around trying to find our feet. In a parallel universe The Fall are quite rightly the biggest band on the planet. Immeasurable thanks and …

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Five albums from the back-catalogue are re-released, all on double heavyweight vinyl. Gold Mother, Seven and Whiplash are all reissues although the first two have revised tracklistings, but it is the first time that Millionaires and Pleased To Meet You are available on vinyl. On Twitter Tim indicates that he’s finished recording all the vocals for the band’s new album. James top off their year with a stunning, two-set intimate gig at their home-town’s Albert Hall to benefit the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund, the first featuring two new songs Mask and Many Faces with a string quartet arranged by long-term collaborator Joe Duddell. Tim announces that Ron Yeadon is taking paternity leave from the …

About the song Mask by the band James.

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About the song Many Faces by the band James.

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About the song Albert Hall Improvised Jam by the band James.

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Albert Hall Improvised Jam / Seven / Mask / Hello / Sit Down / Many Faces / To My Surprise / Born Of Frustration / Curse Curse / Play Dead / How Was It For You / Tomorrow / Interrogation / Moving On / Lost A Friend / Attention / Come Home / She’s A Star / Nothing But Love / Sometimes

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James start recording new songs for the upcoming album including one called Mask that Tim references on Twitter. Composer and producer Beni Giles joins Charlie Andrews for the production. The band announces a special concert to benefit the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund at the city’s Albert Hall. Tickets sell out in …

The end of the summer tour is marred by the chaotic Liverpool Hope and Glory Festival, where James headline the first day. A lack of preparation and oversight by the event promoter leads to crowd safety issues and the second day being cancelled including Tim’s planned performance of Moving On with the Hacienda Classical. Tim, clearly frustrated on behalf of fans, gets into a Twitter spat with the tour promoter. Between gigs the band works on new material for a 2018 album at Yellow Arch Studios in …

Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Curse Curse / Catapult / Five-0 / Out To Get You / Dear John / Sit Down / Just Like Fred Astaire / How Was It For You / Sound / Sometimes / Nothing But Love

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Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Waltzing Along / Five-0 / Of Monsters And Heroes And Men / Dear John / Born Of Frustration / Just Like Fred Astaire / Busted / Interrogation / P.S. / How Was It For You / Sit Down / Attention / Sound / Come Home / She’s A Star / Nothing But Love / Laid

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James release remastered versions of Stutter and Strip-mine as a double CD named Justhipper. It also contains non-album singles, B sides and different mixes. The band starts their UK summer festival season with a warm-up gig in Leicester, where they premier two new songs, Busted and Overdose. Their packed Castlefield Bowl gig is their first hometown performance since the terrorist attacks at Manchester Arena earlier in the year. For the gig the band produces a unique ‘Manchester Bee’ t-shirt, with each sale providing a donation to the Manchester Emergency Fund. Further shows at Kew Gardens, Pennfest and Newcastle Times Square see them play two more new songs Backward Glances and Trouble. At Newcastle Tim and Jim join support act Peter Hook And The Light for a one-off version of the Joy Division classic Love Will Tear Us …

Sit Down / Ring The Bells / Curse Curse / Catapult / Five-0 / Walk Like You / Just Like Fred Astaire / Johnny Yen / Trouble / Of Monsters And Heroes And Men / Moving On / Hymn From A Village / How Was It For You / Attention / Sometimes / She’s A Star / Come Home / Nothing But Love

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Justhipper (Compilation), an album by James. Tracks: Skullduggery / Scarecrow / So Many Ways / Just Hip / Johnny Yen / Summer Song / Really Hard / Billys Shirts / Why So Close / Withdrawn / Black Hole / Chain Mail / Uprising / Hup-Springs / Justhipper / What For / Charlie Dance / Fairground / Are You Ready / Medieval / Not There / Ya Ho / Riders / Vulture / Stripmining / Refrain / Yaho (Single Version) / Mosquito / Left Out Of Her Will / New Nature / What For (Climax Mix) / Island Swing / James Who? A Talk With (Interview)

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Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / How Was It For You? / Interrogation / Catapult / Come Home / She’S A Star / Trouble / Sometimes / Attention / Nothing But Love / Tomorrow / Laid

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About the song Backwards Glances by the band James.

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Sound / Moving On / Interrogation / Hymn From A Village / How Was It For You / Five-0 / Catapult / Backwards Glances / Born Of Frustration / She’s A Star / Of Monsters And Heroes And Men / Tomorrow / Attention / Sometimes / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home / Nothing But Love / Laid

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Walk Like You / How Was It For You / Catapult / Dear John / Five-0 / Hymn From A Village / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes / Busted / Interrogation / Born Of Frustration / Stripmining / She’s A Star / Of Monsters And Heroes And Men / Moving On / Attention / Sit Down / Nothing But Love / Come Home / Laid

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About the song Overdose by the band James.

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About the song Busted by the band James.

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Walk Like You / Dear John / Hymn From A Village / How Was It For You / Say Something / Busted / Overdose / I Know What I’m Here For / Born Of Frustration / Feet Of Clay / Stripmining / She’s A Star / Of Monsters And Heroes And Men / Moving On / Laid / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Attention / Come Home / Sometimes / Nothing But Love

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At the Roxy Fest in Guadalajara, James play second on the bill to their old friend …

Laid / Tomorrow / Curse Curse / Moving On / Out To Get You / Interrogation / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Nothing But Love / Attention / Come Home / Sometimes / Sit Down

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About the song Trouble by the band James.

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Out To Get You / To My Surprise / Curse Curse / Ring The Bells / Interrogation / Moving On / Say Something / Trouble / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Sound / Attention / Come Home / Tomorrow / Waltzing Along / Nothing But Love / Sometimes / Sit Down

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James play their first gig of 2017 in El Plaza Condesa in Mexico City and debut a new song called Trouble. Sit Down is used in the trailer for the seventh series of Game Of …

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Waltzing Along / To My Surprise / Surfer’s Song / Ring The Bells / Moving On / Interrogation / Five-O / She’s A Star / Feet Of Clay / Johnny Yen / Born Of Frustration / Dear John / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home / Attention / Just Like Fred Astaire / Laid / Sometimes / Nothing But Love

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Walk Like You / Ring The Bells / Surfer’s Song / To My Surprise / Hymn From A Village / Ten Below / Waltzing Along / Moving On / Born Of Frustration / Vervaceous / All Good Boys / Five-O / Dear John / Just Like Fred Astaire / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home / Attention / She’s A Star / Sometimes / Nothing But Love

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Waltzing Along / To My Surprise / Surfer’s Song / Ring The Bells / Interrogation / Ten Below / English Beefcake / Five-O / Moving On / Born Of Frustration / Feet Of Clay / Burned / Dear John / She’s A Star / Come Home / Sit Down / Attention / Just Like Fred Astaire / Sometimes / Nothing But Love

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To My Surprise / Waking / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Moving On / Five-O / I Wanna Go Home / Interrogation / Move Down South / Tomorrow / Vervaceous / Feet Of Clay / She’s A Star / Dear John / Surfer’s Song / Curse Curse / Come Home / Attention / Just Like Fred Astaire / Sometimes / Nothing But Love / Sound

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Just Like Fred Astaire / To My Surprise / Curse Curse / Ring The Bells / Five-O / Move Down South / Girl At The End Of The World / Catapult / Tomorrow / Sound / Feet Of Clay / She’s A Star / Vervaceous / Dear John / Come Home / Sit Down / Attention / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sometimes / Nothing But Love

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In a return to Portugal James play Lisbon’s MEO Arena. The band then return to the UK for dates with The Slow Readers Club in Nottingham, Wolverhampton and Sheffield and with The Charlatans at the Echo Arena in Liverpool. Following the tour the band decamp to Sheffield to write songs for their fifteenth album. Nothing But Love is featured in the Amazon Christmas adverts. A July 2017 show at Manchester’s Castlefield Bowl is announced and sells out in under an …

Johnny Yen / Oh My Heart / To My Surprise / Curse Curse / Waltzing Along / Ring The Bells / Interrogation / I Wanna Go Home / Vervaceous / Dear John / Say Something / She’s A Star / Attention / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Come Home / Nothing But Love / Out To Get You / Laid / Sometimes

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Johnny Yen / To My Surprise / Catapult / Waltzing Along / Come Home / Five-O / Walk Like You / Dear John / Say Something / Curse Curse / Vervaceous / Just Like Fred Astaire / Attention / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sit Down / Sound / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Sometimes

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Attention / Moving On / Move Down South / Ring The Bells / I Wanna Go Home / Dear John / Catapult / Interrogation / PS / Say Something / Laid / Sometimes / Nothing But Love / Come Home / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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Out To Get You / Curse Curse / Say Something / Tomorrow / Interrogation / Catapult / Dear John / Five-O / Moving On / Just Like Fred Astaire / I Wanna Go Home / Attention / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Laid / Sound / Nothing But Love / Come Home / Sometimes

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Out To Get You / Oh My Heart / Move Down South / Ring The Bells / Dear John / Say Something / Born Of Frustration / Walk Like You / All Good Boys / PS / Attention / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Laid / Come Home / Sometimes / Nothing But Love

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Dream Thrum / To My Surprise / Ring The Bells / Move Down South / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Say Something / Moving On / Walk Like You / Bitch / Just Like Fred Astaire / PS / I Wanna Go Home / Born Of Frustration / Attention / Laid / Come Home / Nothing But Love / Sound / Sometimes

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James play their first shows in Australia and New Zealand starting in Auckland and moving through Wellington, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne before finishing in …

Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Sit Down / Surfer’s Song / To My Surprise / Laid / Sound / Interrogation / Out To Get You / She’s A Star / Dear John / Catapult / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Sometimes / Attention / Come Home / Say Something

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Dates connected with James: …

Dates connected with James: …

Dates connected with James: …

Sound / To My Surprise / Catapult / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Laid / Out To Get You / Interrogation / Dear John / Surfer’s Song / Attention / Come Home / Sometimes / Nothing But Love / Say Something

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Nick Burton

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Best known as Simply Red’s manager, Rashman’s partnership with Andy Dodd called So What Management? took over James for about a year in 1987 – 1998 and negotiated with Sire on the band’s behalf, including getting Sire’s agreement to a remix of Strip-mine.

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Dates connected with James: …

Dates connected with James: …

Best known as Simply Red’s manager, Rashman’s partnership with Andy Dodd called So What Management? took over James for about a year in 1987 – 1998 and negotiated with Sire on the band’s behalf, including getting Sire’s agreement to a remix of Strip-mine.

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Dates connected with James: …

Dates connected with James: …

Simon Moran was founder of SJM Concerts who have promoted James concerts since the middle of the 1980s even when they were unable to release records due to the Sire difficulties.

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Simon Moran was founder of SJM Concerts who have promoted James concerts since the middle of the 1980s even when they were unable to release records due to the Sire difficulties.

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Dates connected with James: …

Simon Moran was founder of SJM Concerts who have promoted James concerts since the middle of the 1980s even when they were unable to release records due to the Sire difficulties.

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Anthony H Wilson was a TV presenter and set up Factory Records in the 1970s and The Hacienda in 1982. He signed James to the label where they released their first two singles and continued to support them even after James left Factory.

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Dates connected with James: …

Morrissey, lead singer with The Smiths and solo artist.

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Browse the gallery of James shirts that have been sold at shows over the …

Browse the gallery of James mugs that have been sold at shows over the …

Moving On / To My Surprise / Catapult / Ring The Bells / Sit Down / Interrogation / She’s A Star / PS / Dear John / Surfers Song / Sound / Sometimes / Attention / Come Home / Nothing But Love

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The following page includes an assortment of James bios from festival …

About the song Fall In Love With Me by Tim Booth.

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Interrogation / To My Surprise / Move Down South / Catapult / Ring The Bells / Come Home / Johnny Yen / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Curse Curse / Surfer’s Song / Laid / Out To Get You / Dear John / Waltzing Along / Sound / Attention / Sometimes / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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Dates connected with James: …

Dates connected with James: …

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Bitch / To My Surprise / Curse Curse / Come Home / Jam J / Honest Joe / Dear John / Catapult / Surfer’s Song / Sound / Sometimes / Attention

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Out To Get You / To My Surprise / Catapult / Come Home / Moving On / Interrogation / Bitch / Sit Down / She’s A Star / Dear John / Surfer’s Song / Sometimes / Attention / Say Something / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Nothing But Love

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Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Catapult / Nothing But Love / Sound / Come Home / Out To Get You / She’s A Star / Dear John / Interrogation / Moving On / Surfer’s Song / Sometimes / Attention

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Johnny Yen / To My Surprise / Move Down South / Catapult / Waltzing Along / Sit Down / Interrogation / PS / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Dear John / Surfer’s Song / Come Home / Sometimes / Attention / Moving On / Nothing But Love

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Dream Thrum / To My Surprise / Move Down South / Catapult / Sound / Tomorrow / Walk Like You / Dear John / Out To Get You / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Bitch / Surfer’s Song / Come Home / Sometimes / Attention / PS / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Sit Down

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Video of Dear John by James

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Dear John, a single by James. Tracks: Dear John

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Dear John is released as single, with a video. James play a short series of European festival dates in Latvia, Greece, Spain, Romania and Portugal alongside a last-minute headline slot at the Beat Herder …

Dear John CD promo, a promotional release by James. Tracks: Dear John (radio edit)

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She’s A Star / Dear John / Move Down South / Catapult / Ring The Bells / Come Home / Interrogation / PS / Just Like Fred Astaire / What For / Surfer’s Song / Bitch / Curse Curse / Sometimes / Sound / Attention / Moving On / Nothing But Love

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James open the 2016 Glastonbury Festival with a set on the Friday morning on The Other Stage, their first performance at the festival for eighteen years. They precede this with their first headline shows in Paris since 1993 and Amsterdam and Berlin since 1992 as part of a short European tour which also includes a live webcast radio concert in Paris. They also perform a session for Radio 2’s Jo Whiley including a cover of Neil Young’s Heart Of Gold, before finishing the month off with a headline show in Sheffield’s Botanical …

Nothing But Love / To My Surprise / Come Home / Sometimes / Surfer’s Song / Attention / Out To Get You / Bitch / Moving On / Curse Curse / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Tomorrow / Laid

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Walk Like You / To My Surprise / Catapult / Waking / Move Down South / Sit Down / Sometimes / PS / Dear John / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Bitch / Surfer’s Song / Curse Curse / Tomorrow / Come Home / Attention / Out To Get You / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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Dream Thrum / To My Surprise / Move Down South / Catapult / Moving On / Sometimes / PS / Dear John / Feet Of Clay / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Bitch / Surfer’s Song / Tomorrow / Sound / Attention / Out To Get You / Nothing But Love / Come Home

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Dream Thrum / Catapult / To My Surprise / Bitch / Moving On / Alvin / Waking / Surfer’s Song / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Out To Get You / Interrogation / Dear John / Sound / Sometimes / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Attention / PS / Come Home / Nothing But Love

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Out To Get You / To My Surprise / Alvin / Come Home / Interrogation / PS / Dear John / Attention / Sound / Nothing But Love / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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Nothing But Love / She’s A Star / Catapult / Come Home / Dear John / Heart Of Gold / Sound

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Girl At The End Of The World, a Video by James. Tracks: Girl At The End Of The World

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MBW’s Manager Of The Month celebrates some of the artist managers doing great things in the global business. This month, we’re delighted to sit down with Peter Rudge (pictured) – a key player at Vector Management and a man whose career has seen him look after The Who, The Rolling Stones and Diana Ross. Manager Of The Month is supported by INgrooves Music Group. “Everything’s groundhog day in this business. There’s no situation you can throw at me that I haven’t, at some point or another, dealt with in the past.” Peter Rudge holds a pedigree of working with true rock’n’roll royalty. A Cambridge graduate with a degree in history, British veteran Rudge has combined a sharp intellect with shrewd deal-making across more than four decades in the music biz – earning the loyalty of some of the biggest acts on earth. After leaving university in 1968, Rudge joined the London-based Track label, whose roster included Jimi Hendrix and Marc Bolan. From there, he built relationships with two huge artists as tour manager for the Rolling Stones and The Who – going on to manage both groups outright for most of the ’70s, while also working with Roger Waters, Duran Duran and Madness. “With The Stones and The Who I was lucky,” says Rudge. “In that instance, I managed to work with bands that could have done it without me.” This was a heady time for the young exec, who also worked with Diana Ross and even produced Andy Warhol’s US cable TV show. However, Rudge‘s career hasn’t been without its sadness. In 1977, he was managing an on-the-rise Lynyrd Skynyrd. Just as the Southern rock band stood on the verge of a worldwide breakthrough, they were involved in a tragic plane crash in Mississippi, killing three members of the group. Understandably, it’s the moment Rudge marks as the toughest of his professional and personal life to date. In the modern era, Rudge has shown himself to be a smart operator – and, crucially, one who knows his limits. “I WAS LUCKY WITH THE STONES AND THE WHO – THEY COULD HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT ME.” In the late ’90s, he merged his own management roster with marketing giant Octagon, where he began working with the likes of record-breaking operatic group Il Divo – whom he continues to represent today. He went on to launch Proper Artist Management in conjunction with Live Nation – before Proper itself merged with Vector Management (The Kings Of Leon, Kesha, Emmylou Harris) in 2014. These days, Rudge looks after the likes of Imelda May, currently working on a new record with T Bone Burnett, and Nick Mulvey – the Fiction-signed, Mercury-nominated singer/songwriter who, we’re told, is tinkering in the studio with Brian Eno. Then there’s also Il Divo, who recently sold out five dates at the Budokan in Tokyo, and Alfie Boe – currently starring on Broadway in Finding Neverland, and readying a new project with Michael Ball signed up by Universal/Decca. Yet the artist with whom Rudge is most closely associated today is a band he’s worked with for 30 years: Tim Booth-fronted Manchester heroes James. The reason for Rudge‘s status as MBW’s Manager Of the Month becomes clear: James are currently romping around Europe on a sold-out tour, following the successful release of latest album Girl At The End Of The World, which recently hit No.2 on the Official UK chart – a smidgen behind Adele’s 25. The release was put together on an ‘artist services’ basis with BMG, whose Korda Marshall says: “Peter’s experience has been a real benefit to the strategy and planning of the campaign. I think our respective teams have learned a lot from each other. “He combines that experience with a freshness and enthusiasm and desire to get things done. “I think what he likes at BMG is that its a very honest and open working relationship. And you have to remember he has managed the band for 30 years – his standards are high.” MBW sat down with Peter to grab some insight into these high standards – and to discover what the best part of half a century in management has taught him… You’ve been with James for over three decades. That’s a long time to work with any rock star… I know – you get less for murder! I’ve worked with James from 1992 and it’s been one of my career’s great privileges. I was brought in to look after America because I was spending most of my time there back then. As luck would have it, that was during the time they were recording Laid, which of course was a seminal record in America – at one point we’d shipped over a million albums. As Sit Down has become a rite of passage for young people in the UK, Laid [the track] has become in America, helped by the fact it’s used in the American Pie films. For the past 11 years, Meredith Plant’s been my co-manager on James and she should take much of the credit. We’ve managed the live thing very well over the years. It helps that we’ve had one promoter forever: Simon Moran. James were one of the first bands Simon ever promoted when he started, and we all think a lot of him – he’s been as much as partner as anybody. We also work with John Giddings at Solo, who’s done a great job. Why have you signed James to BMG – and on an artist services deal – for their past two albums? We’ve been playing at this ‘artist services’ thing for some time. Funnily enough, James’s Hey Ma album, which came out on Mercury [in 2008], was actually released on a similar model. We realised that a band which has managed to have a lifespan this long eventually hits a glass ceiling. As we all know, it’s a very fickle industry. When that happens at the major labels, you’re consigned almost immediately to the commercial marketing divisions – repackaging this and that, budget pricing… We went to Mercury for Hey Ma, who had our catalogue, and tried to design something similar we have with the BMG Rights thing now. We did a joint venture deal with Mercury; [Universal’s] Adam Barker was really good, as was Jason Iley [now Sony Music UK boss], who was in charge of the label back then. The model we picked was a little bit of a hybrid – it felt like the runt of the litter within the Universal system. However, it showed us that this may be the way to go. We took a rest, and then started talking to BMG. It was pretty apparent from the beginning that BMG’s ambition was right, the model was interesting, but they didn’t quite have the resources they do today . That’s why we partnered with Cooking Vinyl – with Martin [Goldschmidt]. That album was pretty successful. We liked it, James were allowed creative input [into the campaign]; it was a very respectful relationship. Then, to BMG’s credit, they brought Korda Marshall in. Also, Thomas Haimovici had been there a while and, I have to say, immediately related to the group well. James, like many bands, usually won’t allow an A&R guy in the parking lot, let alone in the studio! But Thomas got their trust and respect – he was very helpful and didn’t undermine anything. Then Korda, coming from Infectious, arrived at BMG with a philosophy that was very akin to James’s own. And that also brought in Pat Carr and Jo Power, who are both great marketing people. We’ve now signed a new deal, including options. Most [services] deals are on a one album basis, but we’ve established a long-term relationship. Let’s talk about your business experiences. Why did you merge your company Proper with Live Nation? In the late ’90s, I’d teamed up with Octagon, an IPG company. I thought then, and I was right, that you could see the writing was on the wall for small management companies. As the labels imploded, management companies would have to take up much of the slack and smaller ones without resource wouldn’t be able to survive. I looked at Octagon, and thought, ‘That’s the new landscape.’ I needed to be in bed with someone that had access to [ad agencies] Deutsch, McCann Erickson etc. In the end, it didn’t really work because [advertising] operates on a totally different timeline to music; it’s a very different world – and a different culture. It was a great learning experience for me, though. I hooked up with Il Divo during that time, which frankly I probably wouldn’t have got without the promise of McCann Erickson and [ad] companies investing in them. One of my oldest friends in the business, Irving Azoff, was then Live Nation’s management division. We bumped into each other and he said: ‘Why don’t you come and be with us?’ And I knew that was where I wanted to go. There are a lot of stories and a lot of opinions about Irving, but he’s a great manager – a fantastic manager. Always has been. Then Irving left [Live Nation in late 2012] and [Michael] Rapino took over the management side. Although I was operating as Proper, Live Nation still owned a chunk of my business. After Irving went, Rapino re-calibrated the artist management platform and built it around three central parts: Roc Nation, Maverick and Vector. I’d been a friend of [Vector President] Jack Rovner for years since when I used to manage Roger Waters. We decided to go into partnership together, and I set up Vector over here in Europe. How do you find being part of Live Nation – both before the Vector move and now – when you’ve been an independent force for much of your career? To be honest, I get the best of both worlds. It’s essentially given me what any manager now needs: a larger footprint internationally, and a much larger bandwidth. I can access resources that I would never have been able to use before – in the digital world, in the branding world, in the sync world. I’m lucky. I’ve been a manager for 40 years in this business. I’ve got my own relationships; people know me. My track record means I’m usually seen as a safe pair of hands. My Rolodex is big; I’m two or three calls away from anybody. That’s the only good thing about getting old – you grow up with everybody else! It’s funny: I must have lived through 25 Presidents of Columbia Records during my career, while dealing with the same promoters in the UK and US for pretty much the entire time. That tells you something about the live business; it’s just a different DNA. What’s been the proudest moment and most difficult moment of your career? Management’s very lonely. Success has many fathers, and failure none. Before you put every album out the artist thinks it’s going to be No.1, or go down brilliantly. After a record has collapsed when you’ve had high expectations, when the phone stops ringing and everyone moves on to the next release, it’s hard. Sometimes it feels like labels sell products, while managers try to develop careers. There’s been some lows because of that. The first thing I ever did in the music business of any substance was The Who with Tommy – and the first gig I ever did in America was The Who at Metropolitan Opera House. I was 23 years old, looking through the Yellow Pages to find the Met. I got through to the General Manager, and talked him into allowing me to see Rudolph Bing who was running the Met in those days. I completely blagged it. Rudolph agreed for The Who to play [the Met] on July 7, 1970. Pete Townshend smashed his guitar on stage that night, leaving a room full of people gasping. That to me was my greatest achievement – but then it was my first one and I’ve tried to live up to it ever since. A perfect bookend to that story is that we are now in negotiations to stage the classical version of Quadrophenia at the Met next year; the version of the show which opened with the fantastic Alfie Boe playing Jimmy at the Royal Albert Hall last year, a show featuring Pete Townshend, Phil Daniels, Billy Idol and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I’m also very proud of Il Divo – we’ve sold over 30 million albums across the world with barely a spin at radio or a single bit of positive press. Working with them has taught me more about selling records than any other project I’ve done. We’re into our 13th year together and they’ve remained on Syco the entire time. And of course I’m very proud of being part of keeping James in the game for 30 years. Most of their contemporaries from that Manchester scene have either disappeared or are just going around and around [on reunion tours]. James still push themselves to be contemporary and relevant – and that’s something which has been authenticated with this album. My saddest moment was obviously the Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash. I’d been part of taking them from a club band up and up – I put them on The Who tour and it was a big moment. We did really well; Southern Rock was still pretty parochial at that stage. Two weeks after that plane crash they were due to headline the Madison Square Garden in front of 18,000 people. It was never to be. On a personal level, that plane crash is the worst thing I’ve ever experienced, period. The Stones. The Who. Diana Ross. You have worked with some strong characters! How do you deal with it when things go wrong? I always say to any prospective client that my greatest value to an artist is honesty and objectivity. People will tell me things they’ll never tell you, as an artist, and it’s my job to be straight with you. Just as in life, a relationship is never tested until you disagree. For me to disagree with you as an artist doesn’t mean to say I don’t believe in you. I understand what you’re saying, but I recommend another course of action. I’m in the industry 24/7. I have been for 40 years. I know how this business works. As an artist, you come in and out of it – sometimes every two or three years. When you explain that, artists tend to respect you. They don’t always like you, but there are too many people in this business who say yes, yes, yes – and it comes back to bite you on the ass. What advice would you give young managers today? Don’t kid yourself that you have all the answers – no-one does. You should find an ally, and if it’s necessary for you to partner with someone who you feel has more experience or relationship that will help your artist, it will only help you in the long run. There’s no doubt that young guys who were there at a start of a success often get removed [by bigger or more experienced players] so you need to try and neutralize that before it has a chance of happening. That’s why finding a home or a nest is not a bad idea. No-one’s going to take all the money so long as you deal with the right people. But the first port of call with all young managers is: go find a lawyer who’s going to protect you, advise you and make sure the paperwork is right. Don’t be adamant to do it all yourself if you don’t feel qualified. You were 70 a few weeks ago. I’m sure you could spend your life on a beach if you liked. Why do you still keep doing what you do in music? I’m still really enjoying it. A month like the past month with James is everything I ever wanted to do. 30 years with a great band like that, and still seeing them get a nod, it means a lot to me. That’s all I ask for as a manager – for my artists to get the shot they …

The title track from Girl At The End Of The World album is released as a single, with a video. James head out on their biggest UK tour since they reformed with dates in Bristol, Southend, London (x3), Norwich, Bournemouth, Llandudno, Manchester, Leeds, Hull, Newcastle, Glasgow and Birmingham with support on most dates from Manchester’s The Slow Readers Club who were hand-picked by Jim and Saul. The final date of the tour in Nottingham is cancelled due to Tim having contracted a chest infection that led to him being unable to sing. …

To My Surprise / Move Down South / Catapult / Alvin / Waking / Ring The Bells / Sometimes / PS / Dear John / We’re Going To Miss You / She’s A Star / What For / Honest Joe / Surfer’s Song / Curse Curse / Tomorrow / Sound / Attention / Just Like Fred Astaire / Moving On / Nothing But Love

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Out To Get You / Move Down South / Catapult / To My Surprise Walk Like You / Waking / Ring The Bells / Sometimes / PS / Bitch / Dear John / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Come Home / Surfer’s Song / Tomorrow / Sound / Attention / Sit Down / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Say Something

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…

Dream Thrum / Walk Like You / Move Down South / Catapult / To My Surprise / Curse Curse / Alvin / Come Home / Sometimes / PS / Girl At The End Of The World / Dear John / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Interrogation / Surfer’s Song / Tomorrow / Sound / Attention / What For / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Waltzing Along

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Dream Thrum / Walk Like You / Move Down South / Catapult / To My Surprise / Alvin / Curse Curse / Come Home / Sometimes / The Shining / Girl At The End Of The World / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Surfer’s Song / Tomorrow / Sound / Attention / Bitch / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Say Something

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Top Of The World / Move Down South / To My Surprise / Surfer’s Song / Curse Curse / Come Home / Sometimes / Feet Of Clay / Girl At The End Of The World / Catapult / Say Something / Bitch / We’re Going To Miss You / She’s A Star / What For / Dear John / Honest Joe / Sound / Attention / Sit Down / Moving On / Nothing But Love

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Out To Get You / Move Down South / To My Surprise / Surfer’s Song / Catapult / Come Home / Ring The Bells / Sometimes / PS / Girl At The End Of The World / Bitch / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Dear John / Honest Joe / Sound / Attention / Sit Down / Moving On / Nothing But Love / What For / Tomorrow

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Move Down South / To My Surprise / Alvin / Surfer’s Song / Ring The Bells / Sometimes / Bitch / PS / Dear John / Girl At The End Of The World / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Señorita / Honest Joe / Sound / Attention / Sit Down / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Say Something

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She’s A Star / Dear John / Move Down South / Catapult / We’re Going To Miss You / Alvin / Surfer’s Song / Sometimes / Bitch / PS / Feet Of Clay / What For / Just Like Fred Astaire / Girl At The End Of The World / Honest Joe / Sound / Attention / Say Something / Moving On / Nothing But Love

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Top Of The World / Dear John / Move Down South / To My Surprise / We’re Going To Miss You / Alvin / Waking / Tomorrow / Sometimes / Bitch / PS / Feet Of Clay / She’s A Star / What For / Honest Joe / Sound / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Attention / Moving On / Nothing But Love

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Thirty-four years on from his band’s spindly beginnings, Booth remains beloved, at the helm of a lodestone indie rock band who show little sign of slowing down. James’s 14th album, released in March, came within a whisker of knocking Adele off the No 1 album slot. This broad UK tour is virtually sold out. Twenty-one songs into a 23-song set, then, it’s not hard to grasp the enduring appeal of this band … James are, without a doubt, the indie rock dream made flesh – if that dream means continuing returns more than serious paradigm-shifting.

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Move Down South / To My Surprise / Catapult / Bitch / Alvin / Born Of Frustration / Sometimes / Surfer’s Song / Girl At The End Of The World / English Beefcake / PS / She’s A Star / What For / Dear John / Honest Joe / Sound / Attention / Say Something / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Come Home / Tomorrow

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Bitch / To My Surprise / Catapult / Alvin / Waking / Ring The Bells / Sometimes / Move Down South / Girl At The End Of The World / English Beefcake / PS / Feet Of Clay / She’s A Star / What For / Dear John / Honest Joe / Sound / Attention / Say Something / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Tomorrow

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…

Move Down South / To My Surprise / Catapult / Alvin / Waking / Ring The Bells / Sometimes / Bitch / Surfer’s Song / Come Home / Girl At The End Of The World / One Of The Three / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Interrogation / Dear John / Honest Joe / Sound / Attention / Say Something / Nothing But Love / Moving On

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Move Down South / To My Surprise / Alvin / Waking / Ring The Bells / Sometimes / Bitch / Surfer’s Song / Girl At The End Of The World / One Of The Three / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Dear John / Catapult / Honest Joe / Sound / Attention / Sit Down / Moving On / Nothing But Love

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She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Bitch / Catapult / Surfer’s Song / Move Down South / We’re Going To Miss You / Sometimes / Alvin / Waking / Girl At The End Of The World / Feet Of Clay / One Of The Three / Dear John / Tomorrow / Say Something / Sound / Attention / Sit Down / Moving On / Nothing But Love

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In the midst of the 1980s, a recently formed Mancunian guitar band supported Orange Juice at a local show. It was their first gig, and as a deceleration of appreciation the band named themselves after the bassist, James. Soon they were caught up in the whirlwind that was Manchester in the 80s. Morrissey blessed them and took them on tour with The Smiths, and they were quickly dubbed ‘the next big thing.’ However, not without tales of desperation concerning drug problems, cults and an unsuccessful debut. By the late 80s, James were so skint that participating in human experiment trials at Manchester Royal Infirmary for a bit of cash was a good call. Yet during this time, James had managed to spend the majority of it touring and had now acquired a solid fan base alongside a reputation of putting on a good show. In 1991, Brian Eno produced their 5th album, Laid and the title track secured their popularity in America. The US had been broken, but James just kept going. Now we’re at studio album number 14, The Girl at the End of the World. “You can’t shut us up, we’re really prolific”, says Jim Glennie, James’ bassist and founding member. “The way we write is a bit odd, it’s not how most bands write songs. There’s not just one songwriter. Five of us sit down in a room and we stick on a drum machine and we play along to it improvising and making stuff up. The great thing about drum machines is that they just keep going, they don’t get tired or shy or self conscious. “The actual jamming is dead easy and we love it. We produce a tonne of stuff that we never get to work on because we have to be brutal and pick the things we think will be the most productive. A lot of stuff just sits there for one of us to come back to in some point in the future. We never do that though, we always move on and crack on with another record.” However, it is not a case of churning out tepid and half-hearted albums. A quick scan of Metacritic proves that the past five records have received generous reviews, and The Girl at the End of the World is on the same track with The Skinny certifying it, ‘intelligent, accomplished and likeable.’ Despite decades’ worth of critical acclaim, the odd bad review still hurts. “As much as you tell yourself that you’re not bothered and it’s just someone’s opinion et cetera, it still gets to you”, observes Glennie. “It might have more impact if I were some 19 year old lad in a band and my dreams were shattered by a bad review, but I’m not in that position anymore. I want everyone to love us but you can’t please everyone. Even when they are good, you tend to notice the part that the reviewer is not keen on. You can get very touchy when it comes to reviews and you can avoid eight great ones and be bothered by one bad one.” Unfortunately, their last performance at The Hydro at the tail end of 2014 succumbed to several average reviews mainly due to the exemption of hits like “Sit Down” and “Laid” plus a mild animosity between lead singer Tim Booth and the Saturday night boozed up Glaswegian audience. Booth had requested the crowd to be quiet for “All I’m Saying”, the closing track of 2014 album Le Petit Mort, which was written in the aftermath of the passing of Booth’s mother and a close friend. The crowd ignored him and continued to chatter away, resulting in Booth quitting playing the song halfway though. “It’s not an easy song to play. Tim tends to struggle to sing it because it’s so important to him. He gets quite worked up by it”, comments Glennie. “It was a Saturday night we were playing and so you’re asking a lot . We had one of these situations the other day when we were playing in Warwickshire, people at the bar just wouldn’t shut up. It doesn’t take that many people for it to become an issue. “Although, we’ve started playing that song on loads of occasions and then stopped, not necessarily because the crowd were noisy but because Tim doesn’t want to play it any longer. He gets choked at the beginning of it so we just move on. It’s a strange song in that respect.” James might have another whack at it this time around at The Hydro, but the massive 90s singles are definitely getting put to rest, “We’re just going to put those to one side and bring out some that we’ve not played so much recently, just to swap it around a bit”, says Glennie. “Tracks that your average James fan has not heard in a long time. In true James style, we’ll be debating what songs from the back catalogue to play on this tour right up until we’re rehearsing all together. We’re not great at making concrete decisions and sticking to them, and we’re also terrible at rehearsals. “We don’t like over rehearsing so once we’ve got the gist of a song we just put it to one side. The gigs are great though, so what the hell.” The members of James are strewn all over Britain, and will collectively meet to rehearse for the upcoming tour. Glennie lives in Northern Scotland, near Ullapool. “I absolutely love this part of the world. I’m about a mile from the coast, but I can’t see the sea from my window. There’s a grassy bank in the way, but you can see the ferries coming from Stornoway grazing along the top of it.” Even though James have been touring for years, it still can be hard going. “Once we’re psychically match ready for the tour, I have to prepare myself for being away from my family and loved ones for an extended period of time. That’s never easy. It’s probably the hardest part of the job.” Yet go on tour they shall, and sell out arenas around the country. From humble beginnings, it’s now safe to say that James are …

For a brief moment, it looked as though James might finally break their chart hoodoo. The release earlier this year of Girl At The End of The World looked as though it might finally give them their first number one (greatest hits aside) after 34 years together. Having been pipped at the post with Gold Mother, Seven and Millionaires and reached number three with 1993’s mercurial Laid, they were briefly on course to reach number one. It was ahead of Adele’s album 25 during the midweek chart, only to be pipped at the post following a late surge in sales. Not that the band minded. They are just thrilled to be back in a rich vein of form following the release of their exceptional 2014 album La Petite Mort and this year’s number two hit. They’re playing the biggest venues of their career and will headline Birmingham’s Barclaycard Arena tonight. Saul Davies, guitarist, violinist and percussionist, says: “We might be one of the luckiest bands in the UK. “So many of our peers have dwindled and 34 years of a band making records and doing great gigs is quite unusual. “People take that for granted and even we do as a band. Maybe that’s right that we just get on with it and don’t think about it too much. “But nevertheless we’re in some exalted company of bands that have been around that long and still make records. We’re putting more tickets on sale for this tour in May than we’ve done for any other UK tour in 25 years. “We’re not sliding away. It’s the opposite if anything and it’s a very interesting phenomenon. I don’t know what we’ve done to make that happen. “We’re a band that you either get or you don’t and the people who have got us have stayed with us. That is quite a remarkable thing as a lot of bands gradually lose people.” The band now live in different parts of the world and connect electronically. They then meet to spend time together in recording studios, where they create new music. The Girl At The End of the World was recorded with long-time collaborator Brian Eno and producer Max Dingel, who has previously worked with The Killers, Muse and White Lies. Saul adds: “It felt natural. We knew his working methods and he knew ours so it made it easier. “Those who are familiar with our last record will find some similarities but this is more of a pop album. La Petite Mort was darker in many ways and I think this shows another side of us. I’m quite looking forward to people hearing it and seeing what their reaction to it is. “We felt that we’d gathered some momentum after La Petite Mort so it felt sensible not to leave it too late.” The record was recorded in Norther Scotland. Fans at their Birmingham show can look forward to hearing new tunes as well as a selection of hits from their impressive back catalogue. Saul, who lives in the Scottish Highlands, adds: “We have a big bag of tunes. I think we had 17 top hits and that’s pretty healthy. We don’t play all of them and I think our audience would be annoyed if we did. “We’ve made our way through our career and through the industry by being a little bit difficult. “There are some big arenas we’re playing and there will be many people who have come to hear the new record. “It’s amazing that we’ve managed to create that bond with the audience. “We look forward with a great deal of anticipation to being on stage as I genuinely think we are a much better live band than we’ve ever …

When I caught up with Jim Glennie, revered bass player of the band James, he was just a few hours off a low-key live show back on his old patch in Manchester. Admittedly, that was a while ago, the date in question serving as something of a warm-up and album launch in one, premiering the 14th James studio album, Girl at the End of the World, at Manchester’s Academy 2, a venue the band – now well into their fourth decade – had somehow missed out on playing before. If you’re based in the North West and didn’t make it along for that momentous occasion, there’s another chance tomorrow (Friday, May 13) when James return to their old stomping ground, calling in at Manchester Arena. And if you’re not, there are dates still to come in Leeds, Hull, Newcastle, Glasgow, Birmingham and Nottingham this month, plus another 10 shows this summer and early autumn in the UK and mainland Europe. Girl at the End of the World – like 2014’s La Petite Mort put together with the help of German producer Max Dingel – was released two months ago now, 25 years to the day their biggest hit, the re-recorded Sit Down, was issued. It led to a great response from fans and critics alike, and since then we’ve had a second single from the album, the sublime Nothing But Love following album teaser To My Surprise. In fact, the new 12-track long player came close to finally knocking Adele’s 25 off the top of the UK album charts, leading the way in the midweek charts in its first week of release, 2,000 sales ahead, only marginally slipping to second place at the end of its first full week. And now the band – no chart slouches over the years, with an impressive 20 UK top-40 singles under their belt – are part-way through a busy touring agenda which also included a three-night takeover of London, playing Shepherds Bush Empire, Kentish Town Forum and Brixton Academy. Which all goes to show there clearly remains huge affection for the band, some 25,000 tour tickets snapped up on the first day of sale and around 60,000 fans expected overall across 15 shows. For all that though, James – namely Tim Booth (singer), Jim Glennie (bass), Adrian Oxall (guitars, deputising for Larry Gott), Saul Davies (guitar/violin), Mark Hunter (keyboards), David Baynton-Power (drums) and Andy Diagram (trumpet) – are more focused on creativity and invention than record and ticket sales. While the new album was recorded live at RAK Studios in London, it was written in the Scottish Highlands, as the last LP was. There, in the dining room of a remote 18th century coaching inn in midwinter, they set about recapturing the freewheeling spirit that lies at the heart of their best work. Apparently, they built a rehearsal room within and ‘bunkered down’ in their ‘man-cave’, mattresses gaffer-taped to the windows for soundproofing, cut off from families and the world. According to front-man Tim Booth, “If a lot of the tracks sound quite fast, you can blame that on the raw Scottish weather. We were working with a drum machine and were conscious of setting a quick tempo to inspire dance grooves and keep us on the move as the temperature outside was five below zero.” The album that followed those sessions gives a firm indication of where James are at today, still writing great songs yet never taking the easy road. And for all their past success, they remain fresh and contemporary, unwilling to coast on the back of 13 million album sales over 30 years. Again, like the last album, Mark Hunter and Saul Davies co-wrote and shaped the final songs, and as Jim Glennie told me, “We began to open up the songwriting on La Petite Mort. But we’ve now taken that to a new level. We loved La Petite Mort, and its songs worked so well live that we’ve pushed ourselves more this time. We love guitars, but since the Wah Wah album in 1994 we’ve embraced samples and loops as well as traditional instruments. “Mark’s an amazing keyboard player and we’ve created more space for him. Rather than surround him with dozens of guitar overdubs, we’ve given him the room to really express himself and he’s become more central to our overall sound.” For many, the single To My Surprise was the first track heard, frontman Tim Booth tackling fundamentalism with disdainful humour, while elsewhere on the album he talks about his adopted Californian homeland on Move Down South. But let’s be clear on something – this album is, like the last one, very much an across-the-board band project, incorporating important contributions from all of James’ ‘magnificent seven’. That’s not to say there aren’t stand-outs though, and the anthemic mandolin-flecked Nothing But Love shines for me in the way Sit Down did all those years ago. In fact, as Tim put it, “We knew immediately it was a big song. Love songs tend to tread such a well-worn path that I avoid them unless I have something new to say or I’m so blinded by emotion I can’t help myself. It’s about love’s euphoria and ecstasy – that love-bomb that goes off and changes everything. But love is a high-stakes game, as something you love can also be lost.” It’s a little late to be giving you a full-blown review here – you probably already know the score already. But from Jim’s driving bass-line on storming opener Bitch – which threatens to be an instrumental for the first couple of minutes – through to the titular finale, it’s a winner. And as Tim requests at the album’s climax, ‘Remind me to breathe at the end of the world; Appreciate scenes and the love I’ve received; To love who I’ve been at the end of the world’. Jim Glennie certainly had total faith in the finished album when we spoke, despite feeling nervous of introducing the world to the latest songs in a live setting at that afore-mentioned Academy 2 show. “We’ve been working quite hard to get ready for this, planning to do 10 songs off the album … so there’s going to be a lot of fear! We haven’t got that safety net of slipping back into things that you know. With a lot of the stuff it will be the first time we’ve performed them. “It’s a bit scary, but that’s okay – we like scary! We’re not a band that seeks to take that away from what we do. We’re not a band that wants to over-rehearse and make sure everything’s bolted down. We like a little bit of danger and risk.” When we spoke, I’d only had a couple of listens to Girl at the End of the World, but I was already loving it. That said, I did mention to Jim how there was a slight ‘80s vibe, not so much as to where James were at then, but more a kind of retro vibe the likes of The Killers nailed much later (as it was, I didn’t even realise at the time that Max Dingel previously engineered The Killers’ Sam’s Town). “That’s difficult to pin down. For us it feels quite connected to La Petite Mort. That opened a lot of doors for us, creatively being quite a turning point for us and a slight re-invention. It kind of shifted the sound of James and we’ve embraced that. Getting on with the second album straight away was about keeping that energy and momentum. I think we’ve ended up with something we’re incredibly proud of and fits very nicely within the broad confines of James, but is a little different.” I’d also say it sounds a little more immediate than the last album. “Again, it’s difficult for me to say. I’m the least objective person on the planet for this – I absolutely love it! For me every song on a James album could and should be a massive worldwide hit, which is absolutely ridiculous! As a band we’re not great at seeing how things fit into the greater context. That’s why we have people around us – fortunately – to help with that. We have a very committed record company and I’m very grateful for that. “The writing process changed slightly on La Petite Mort. We upped it from three of us to five again. It was like the baby steps of that relationship. With this record that’s much more established. This album pushed things further and it’s given us the space and the confidence in what we’re doing to push it. This has kind of moved us on from last time.” So what is it about the Scottish Highlands that bring the best out of the band? Is it a lack of mobile phone signals? “I think we get left alone. I live up there, in the middle of nowhere. Funnily enough, Saul’s moved up too. I’m on the West Coast, he’s on the East Coast. We absolutely love it. There are no distractions and we’re not pulled into doing other things. We had two and a half weeks in this big house in a place called Gairloch in Wester Ross, and it’s beautiful. “We were there in January and it was a proper Scottish winter, with lots of snow and minus 10 outside. Distractions were few and far between. You could wrap up and go out for a nice walk along a freezing cold beach if you wanted – and we did. But we were there to focus, and it works for us, as it did with the last album. And what we came out with from that session were the demos which went on to become this album.” There’s definitely an epic feel worthy of the landscape, almost Waterboys-like, not least with Andy’s trumpet. “I think you’re right. Not a bad comparison, I guess. We’re an odd band in that respect. There’s a lot of technology on this record, but also a real sense – with the violins, the cellos, the trumpets – of mixing and matching elements of what people might call organic as opposed to a more processed sound. And it’s about getting that balance right.” I love the accompanying video for Nothing But Love, but wonder if you’ve missed a trick. There was a great opportunity here for you to pay tribute to the setting by all donning kilts, carrying bagpipes, in a nod to Slade’s Run Run Away. And if not bagpipes, you could at least have tried mandolins. “That’s a great idea! I’ve got a kilt actually, so I’m alright!” Can you remember back far enough to recall what there was to distract you back in your Factory or Sire days, before Gold Mother took you on to that whole new level, long before mobile phones and social media? “Things were different in those days. We were all based in Manchester and there wasn’t a great deal else to do. We constantly rehearsed between the sparse number of gigs we could arrange and organise. We would rehearse for no reason. We’d get in a room and just bang away for hours, day after day, working out what we were as a band and trying to write songs … in a very hit and miss kind of way. “There was virtually no communication between us. We were an odd little band! Now we’re geographically scattered around, so have to be more organised in how we work together. Everyone’s shipped in and we lock ourselves away, start first thing in the morning and work away until we go to bed. It’s great – productive but really good fun as well.” Are you a family man between your stints with James? “I haven’t got young kids, which makes things a little easier, but I’m married and away from home a fair amount. But Tim’s got young sons, Saul’s got two kids and Mark’s got two. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to pull people away from their responsibilities, but it’s the nature of the job. It can be difficult at times but you make the best of it.” This summer marks the 30th anniversary of debut LP Stutter, the first of two for US label Sire, produced by Lenny Kaye and Gil Norton. Ever wonder how it got to be 14 studio albums? “All the time! It always seems daft. I’ve never been able to project beyond where we are. It’s never felt like something that could be a long-term thing. I’ve never thought, ‘Right, we’re going to do another three albums then …’ My imagination won’t go beyond where we are! I think if this one goes okay, BMG might want us to do another record. That’s as far as it’s ever gone for the last 35 years! “Something might happen that changes that. It’s never felt like it’s completely up to us whether we carry on if or if we don’t. Circumstances can be imposed upon you. I think that’s quite a healthy attitude. I’m not sure what phase of our career we’re in now – whether we’re in our autumn or twilight years. But whatever there is left now, I’m going to make the most of it, throw everything into it.” Speaking of time phases, it’s 25 years since the world really went mad for James, in the wake of the re-release of Gold Mother, with one of the biggest-selling singles that year, a gigantic GMEX date and all that. In fact, the live experience has always been a key component of the James experience. Do you struggle to personalise such big venue shows? “James has always been about playing live, connecting with people on a personal level. We play the songs we want to play and if it feels like we’re going through the motions with a song we rest it and put songs on the set-list that require us to be present to perform them. “That’s kept for us our vitality and spark on stage, and I hope that translates to an audience. We ask quite a lot of a crowd. We won’t just go there and play everything they want to hear. We’re still here after 35 years, but I don’t know how long we’d last if we tried to do what we thought people wanted. I think it would just go horribly wrong, we’d hate ourselves and split up. “We’re quite selfish in that respect. We do what we want to, and I think that’s the way we can give people the most we can. There are challenges when you play somewhere huge like Manchester Arena. A different kind of relationship has to be projected to the back of the place to make people feel involved.” Yet somehow, for all their Manchester shows before now, the album launch involved a first for the band – playing the Academy 2. “I can’t believe we’ve never played it before. I’ve seen so many bands there. It was such a pivotal part of my musical background – as the MDH in those days, the debating hall. It was the same for Tim and Saul. They were at the Uni going to see bands, while I was living in Manchester, getting signed in by students to get into those gigs. “That’s why we’re playing there – because of all that history and the impact it had on us. I was in a band then, and would say, ‘One day I’m going to be up there!’ I’ve said that in a few places in Manchester, and played pretty much everywhere else since. That’s why playing the Apollo was so important as well. I’ll never forget that. It was the same for The Ritz. But for some reason it never quite happened with the MDH.” I suppose you kind of leap-frogged it, going from smaller venues to much larger ones in such a stratospheric rise. “I guess we did. There’s a time in your career where that would be the venue to play, but we missed it.” Going back to the band’s pre-Tim Booth days, tell me about your experiences with fellow founder members Paul Gilbertson (guitar), Gavan Whelan (drums) and then Danny Ram (vocals, later a cage-fighter) rehearsing in a scout hut in Withington. “That was down to Paul having his garden back on to this scout hut. We could climb over the fence and then we were in. When we started we had no idea what we were doing, so the Scoutmaster used to tune our guitars. I think we were pretty bad, I’ve got to say. Thankfully, I haven’t got any recordings.” The band went through a string of names – from Venereal and the Diseases to Volume Distortion, then Model Team International, Model Team and finally James. But long before that came that very first show at Eccles Royal British Legion, in early 1980. Were they a committed four-piece back then? “Massively! We absolutely loved it and were completely addicted to it. It’s just that we weren’t very good! I was just addicted to the buzz. It was so alien to me. I’m quite a shy person really, but loved the fear and self-consciousness. It was awkward and horrible but at the same time like a fairground ride – that mixture of excitement and terror. I was completely and utterly pulled in. I didn’t think, ‘I’m going to make a career out of this’, but definitely wanted to do it again and wanted another gig.” The following year they got to support The Fall at Manchester Poly. So who was it that then spotted Tim, this drama student from Leeds, dancing in a Manchester nightclub in 1982, subsequently deciding to invite him to join you? It would have been Paul. He was a keen dancer himself. We had this mad idea to get somebody dancing, Tim turned up, and because he was at uni we thought, ‘Great, he can help us write lyrics!’ That’s how it came about. For his first gig, we were supporting Orange Juice at Sheffield Leadmill, when we were still called Model Team. I can still picture him on stage, doing backing vocals, dancing, shaking a tambourine, looking terrified – wide-eyed and completely and utterly terrified!” He was obviously a great fit though, soon graduating to lead singer. “Absolutely. He grew into the role. Again, I don’t think he felt, ‘I’m going to be a singer in a band’, but there was a mad turn of fate and a few odd twists that could so easily have not happened. We might not have bumped into him that night. If so who knows how things would be now.” That takes me to the band name, which people still seem split on. Was it down to your Sunday name or a nod to Orange Juice guitarist James Kirk? You were certainly big fans, as early tracks like Summer Song suggest. “Me and Paul loved Orange Juice and that whole Postcard thing. We were huge fans and they very kindly took us on for about three gigs – I think we did Oxford and Reading too. There was definitely an influence in the music we were doing, and it was Paul who suggested the name. “We picked up on it at the time because someone in the band had that name, but no one ever called me James. I was Jimmy then, and I’m Jim now. It’s never really felt like my name. I knew the undercurrent was that Paul idolised James Kirk! So what’s the right answer? I don’t know – some weird kind of hybrid between the two!” You probably know a lot of this, but I should at least try to summarise some key moments that followed. By the end of 1982 the band had a support at the Haçienda, as filmed on A Factory Outing, leading to a deal with Tony Wilson’s iconic label. The Jimone EP followed in late 1983 and was a single of the week in the NME and Sounds, the first of many John Peel radio sessions following, plus a Brixton Academy support with New Order. In 1984 guitarist Larry Gott replaced Paul, the band soon touring with The Smiths at the invitation of Johnny Marr and Morrissey. In fact, it was only while preparing for this interview that I vaguely remembered – with the help of an old diary – that I saw James on The Smiths’ Meat is Murder tour at Guildford Civic Hall in late February 1985. The band went on to release the Stutter and Strip-mine albums for Factory, then a self-financed live LP, the brilliantly-titled One Man Clapping. All were indie chart successes, as was an early version of Sit Down, Tim, Jim and Larry now augmented by David, Mark, Andy and Saul – the band’s ‘magnificent seven’. But although I liked James from the start, I admit to Jim I only really started paying proper attention in late ’89 with the single Come Home, snapping up Gold Mother on Fontana vinyl seven months later. And that was the album that broke them commercially, going on to sell two million and yield three hits, triumphant appearances at Glastonbury and supports with The Cure at Crystal Palace Bowl and David Bowie at Manchester City’s Maine Road following, ending that year with two sell-outs at Manchester’s 15,000-capacity G-Mex venue. Another big year followed, 1991 a re-recorded Sit Down spending three weeks at No. 2 in the charts, the band headlining Reading Festival and bringing Manchester traffic to a halt with a free concert from a rooftop overlooking Piccadilly Gardens. Then came 1992’s Seven album, the first US and Japanese tours, an open-air concert at Alton Towers for 30,000 broadcast live on Radio 1, and another Glastonbury appearance. In 1993, an acoustic tour with Neil Young was followed by Laid, produced in Peter Gabriel’s Real World studio by Brian Eno – the first of five James albums he was involved with – and selling 600,000 copies, breaking the band in the States. The list of new highs continued, 1994 seeing further Eno-production Wah Wah, an appearance at Woodstock Two, an extensive US tour, and much more. Eventually, Whiplash finally appeared in 1997, the next year’s Best Of compilation shifting 900,000 copies, topping the charts and going triple-platinum, fuelling a sell-out arena tour. That part of the story ended in 2001 after Pleased to Meet You – like 1999’s Millionaires also produced by Eno – as internal as internal tensions led to a farewell tour that included an MEN Arena show recorded for a live album and DVD. At that point, the general band feeling was that it was all over for good. Yet five years later Tim, Jim and Larry – who had left in 1995 – were jamming again, and by 2007 the band were writing prolifically and on a UK tour, 35,000 tickets selling out in hours. And 10 years and five more albums beyond that reformation, the love for James remains. From The Hacienda to the rooftops of Piccadilly Gardens and from a Radio 1 Live festival in Heaton Park and one-off at Blackpool’s Tower Ballroom to Beijing’s Heineken Beat Festival, three nights at a Greek amphitheatre in Thessaloniki in 2009, Castlefield Bowl in 2014 and beyond, there have been many memorable James shows. So, off the top of his head, can Jim pick out a couple of venues that have stood out since that low-key Eccles debut? “Glasgow Barrowlands is probably one of the best if not the best I’ve ever played. It’s a strange venue, in a rough part of Glasgow, where the carpet sticks to your shoes when you go in, but there’s an atmosphere that is just absolutely priceless. “And Manchester Ritz I absolutely love. We’ve done a couple of nights there which were absolutely amazing. We started a tour there, with Happy Mondays supporting, doing two nights. It’s great. Everyone’s really close and the floor’s sprung so you’ve this kind of bounce you get from the crowd. …

James released their album Girl at the End of the World on March 18. The band explains the video for the title track as “a haunting affair depicting a family in mourning, while unbeknown to them the ghost of the ‘departed’ dances among them.” Directed by award-winning filmmaker Kris Merc (his video for James’ other single “To My Surprise” is an official selection for the Annecy International Film Festival), the video stars model/actress Alexandra Chelaru, and dancer Brandon Powers, who’s also responsible for the choreography. James frontman Tim Booth says the video was produced on a tight budget, and “made from the generosity of [Merc’s] spirit and sticky back plastic,” adding, “it contrasts the release of the departed with the grief of those left behind.” We spoke with Booth as he readied for the band’s upcoming tour. Culture Collide: The last time we spoke you mentioned embracing the kiss and the car crash, which you intended to mean embracing both ends of life’s spectrum. On “Girl at the End of the World” you pick up where Le Petit Mort left off with more songs about life and especially death. In fact the title song is about a near death experience with an SUV. Then I read your twitter and see you just survived a car crash. What’s going on here? Tim Booth: Holy shit! [Laughs.] I wrote the lyric a year ago. The lyric I came up with was about someone dying in a car crash and really embracing their lives and all the people they love, and hopefully seeing all the people they love in that last minute. When I re-read the lyric I got really scared because all of my lyrics tend to come true, but usually about a year later. This has happened frequently to me over the years. I saw the car crash in Topanga about a year earlier so I thought it was finally safe to release it. We moved up north to the Bay Area for about three months, and wound up moving back because my son missed his friends and his school. We came back and I told my wife I was really nervous that I’m going to be killed in a car crash. As we were preparing the new mixes about 2 weeks ago, I was driving home on the freeway and someone hit me from behind and spun our car around. Time just stood still and I was able to turn to my son and ask if he was okay, and see that my wife was okay. I watched in the rearview mirror as the guy who hit us spun around 180 degrees facing a wall of traffic coming at him at 60 mph. It was like someone stopped a wave of traffic and we were all okay. No one was injured. My son and I both had this calm feeling where we knew we were going to be fine. It’s amazing how quickly the brain processes everything as it happens. Yes, time literally slows down. I’ve actually had multiple near-death experiences. I stopped breathing in a hospital once and was revived. You get really peaceful. Nearly drowning in Hawaii was the second time. There’s a real moment of surrender I think which is really beautiful and which is what I think that song is about as well. Wow. That’s a lot to take in. [Laughs.] Yeah. It just wasn’t my time to go I guess. You could probably get three more songs out of that alone. It doesn’t work like that. My life is so intense I get experiences like that every week. Don’t worry, I’m not short of material. [Laughs.] What made you start with that song? The lyrics came out in the first jam. Then I woke up around 4 am and wrote some more. I tend to wake up at 4 am just hearing some words. When that happens you know you’ve got something good and you don’t mess around or you’ll be betraying your muses, you just go with it. When you think about it, every time you get in a car, you’re just a few inches away from death at any given moment sitting in several tons of metal moving down a highway. Yes, but I think even more than that, the bookends of life: birth and death, and we don’t know where we come from and we don’t know where we go to. In between one of the strongest connectors is sex. The French call it ‘La Petite Mort.’ Little Death. All of Aristotle’s work really is living life as if you’re preparing for death. I think that’s what we have to do is live life like we could go at any moment. Because it can. I got that from my mum dying two or three years ago in my arms and how beautiful and peaceful that was. Then my friend dying and my not getting to say goodbye to them and how devastated I was from that experience. Really if you want to live, in the philosophical way is to live every day as if it is your last. These themes were present in your solo album Love Life, the last James album La Petite Mort and now with Girl. I’m a one trick pony! [Laughs.] No, the opposite actually. You’ve taken those themes but they sound different on each album. I think I’m honing in on something and getting clearer and putting it into the way I live. Most of this record isn’t about death. It’s more uplifting. Though there are two songs connected to that element of la petite mort Do you have material from this album left over, or will you start from scratch on the next one? Usually we start from scratch, but there is at least one song that we still have that we worked with Brian Eno [on] that we couldn’t figure out. That’s very intriguing! He worked with us on “Nothing But Love,” on that small arpeggio that I think is important to the song. How hard is it to get ahold of him, since he is such a busy man? When I’m in London I ring him up for dinner or I go ’round. He also has an a cappella group every Tuesday where these people go to his house. They’ve been coming around for about 15 years and singing a cappella songs. I’m invited to that when I’m in London. I go over and wind up singing these songs I’ve never heard before trying to wing it with these really good professional singers. Wow. I’d love to be a fly on that wall. He is without a doubt one of the most interesting men of our time. He has the most fascinating brain I’ve ever encountered. He’s always working on projects that most people will never hear about, and they’re always intriguing. I took my then 10-year-old son around to meet him last year. They were both born on the same day. For about two hours, Brian was like some mad magician from a Disney film. There we are in a dark room full of incredible pulsing lights sort of like stained glass windows that are computer generated. [He was working on this for] hospitals, so [that] people have a room where they can be really peaceful as they wait for scary diagnosis or test results. We said something like, ‘Brian, the only thing you’re missing is smell, and he says, ‘Oh come on in here and I’ll show you my smell laboratory!’ He takes us into a room where he’s created all these smells that don’t exist in reality, and he shows us a scent like motorbike fire and violet. My son was a wide eyed 10-year-old realizing [it’s possible] to live in a constant state of creativity and excitement, somewhere between an artist and a scientist. What an inspiring experience at that age. Yes and then he stayed for the a cappella group which was amazing. What an amazing friend to …

THEY’RE best known for their breakthrough hit, the crowd pleaser Sit Down, as well as Laid, Come Home, She’s A Star, Born of Frustration and Say Something. But 1990s favourites James are not a band to rest on their laurels. One of the UK’s most creative bands, known for their diverse style over 13 studio albums, they’ve been back in the studio, are back on the road and back on the festival circuit. Girl At the End of the World is the latest offering from the seven piece Manchester indie band. They’re touring the UK with it, heading to Bournemouth’s 02 Academy on Tuesday, and are playing the coveted opening slot at Glastonbury this year. And guitarist, violinist and percussionist Saul Davies is thrilled with the band’s 14th offering. “I think it’s a development from our last record and it’s a really good record. I’m proud to have been partly responsible for making it and it seems to be getting a very positive response from people, which is not something we take for granted. “It’s a brave record in the sense that sonically it probably doesn’t sound like a traditional James record. I guess some people might find that a little bit annoying, but I like it a lot. We’re very happy with it.” The band, who rose up through The Haçienda days, have racked up 12 million record sales and weathered a five-year split, have been in the rehearsal room putting the finishing live touches to the new tracks. But they’re careful not to over rehearse. “A real stage energy works well for us, the sense of surprise, the feeling that something might go wrong. A lot of energy comes from that and it’s one of the reasons our live shows are really good. It’s a mixture of confidence and familiarity and a bit of danger! It’s what being an artist is all about!” Davies retains a hint of the Liverpool accent of his birth, although he now lives in Scotland, where he grew up. Talking with an occasional stutter, he tells me: “I’m more nervous in every day life than I am being on stage. Nerves are not something we suffer from, more a nervous energy. If you walk into our dressing room with five minutes to go before a big show, it would be more like expectation than anything. ” James originally signed to the iconic Factory Records in 1982 and went on to produce a string of massive hit singles. They have always been renowned for their stunning live show. More than 30 years on, has it every gone horribly wrong? “Oh yeah” laughs Saul. There’s been tech that breaks down or worse. In the early 90s, half of us were playing Born of Frustration in the wrong key and it sounded awful. We started having words! “We headlined the Saturday night at Reading Festival once (in 1991) and not many bands get to do that. Say it’s been going from 1970 to 2016, then only 46 bands can say they have done that and we’re one of them. How amazing is that? “But we basically played every song on a new album (Seven) that we hadn’t even finished recording yet and we didn’t quite know how to play it. It was a challenging show. Although one of my mates who was backstage loved it when I thought we’d blown it, apart from the b side Maria’s Party. “You can’t please everyone all of the time. But we love digging up ancient b sides and making them into classics. Our audience demand the unexpected. The last thing James want to do is trundle out all the hits, but you should certainly expect some …

English rock band James originally signed to the iconic Factory Records in 1982. They have since gone on to produce a string of massive hit singles, including Sit Down, Come Home, She’s A Star and Born Of Frustration. Now, 34 years on, they’re touring in support of their 14th album, Girl At The End Of The World. Lauren Foster catches up with the band’s violinist and guitarist Saul Davies… James’ 14th album, Girl At The End Of The World, was released earlier this year. For those who haven’t listened to it yet, tell us a bit about the album… Bands always say that their latest record is the best one they’ve ever made. I’m not saying it’s our best record ever, but it’s certainly been met with a really warm and positive response, so I would say it’s a good record. For us, the album before, La Petite Mort, was a real watershed moment. It was a different kind of record to anything we’d made before. I think A Girl At The End Of The World accompanies that record; it could almost be a double album in some ways, although they were written at different times. There’s nothing on this latest record that was written previously. This one has got a more electronic sound, which pleases me because I have to play less guitar – less is more, ha ha. I think it’s a really interesting record. It’s quite a typical James record because stylistically it isn’t one thing. Some bands make a record on which, in a good way, all the songs kind of sound like they’re from the same band, and that’s great. When you hear a Suede album or a New Order record, they make great records but you know that’s what it is and you have that particular type of mood or sound in your life for 40 minutes. I think we always make it a little bit more difficult for our listeners because we’re not consistent in that way. Our records kind of lurch from one thing to another. It’s very much a sign that we make records that we ourselves like. We won’t omit something from a record because we don’t think it fits the tone of the record. We’ll only omit something because we think it’s shit. At the same time, if we like something collectively then we’ll put it on a record, even if it slightly disturbs the balance of that record. That’s what we do, really – we make quite unbalanced, weird pop records. You joined James in 1989. What was it like becoming part of an already-formed group? I’d never been in a band as such. I’d done little bits and pieces but I hadn’t really been in a proper band, so I didn’t really have any preconceptions about what it would be like. Also, the band was going through a massive flux at the time. Gavin, the original drummer, left, and Dave, our current drummer, joined at the same time as I did. Shortly after, Mark the keyboard player joined. Then Andy the keyboard player joined, so it was very much in flux – a watershed period for the band, I suppose. Dave is a very different kind of drummer, so it became more muscular and more direct. Gavin was more skittery and odd. I joined at a point where the band was changing from being a very, very indie, very scratchy, low-fi thing to something a little bit more muscular – not that muscular, let’s face it, but something a little bit more dreamy. Gold Mother – the first record we ever made – has got some more reflective moments on it, like Top Of The World and a song called Crescendo; they’re more expansive. Other influences were coming in too – the post-punk thing, the skittery rhythm thing. The Orange Juicey type stuff that they’d been doing was giving way to something else that was a little bit more solid. I must’ve contributed to the process; I was there. You were discovered by band member Larry Gott at Manchester’s Band On The Wall. What did you play on the night to catch his attention? We laugh about it sometimes, how moments in people’s lives define how the rest of their life will be, and how, as you approach that moment in time, you have no idea that that’s what’s actually happening. I say this to my kids. You’ve got to try everything because you don’t know what the domino effect is going to be. I’d left Manchester by then. I was living in the south of England, working down there, and I went back up to Manchester for the weekend and went to Band On The Wall. We used to go to Band On The Wall all the time because it was cheap to get in and full of loons. Larry was there, and his mate asked if anyone wanted to get up out of the audience and play something. I had my violin with me. I hadn’t wanted to leave it in the car because it could’ve got nicked. Larry’s mate said, ‘Tell that bloke there to get up, I wanna hear what he can do’. So I ended up on stage, playing. I found myself just getting shoved quite reluctantly onto the stage. I couldn’t really hear anything and I didn’t really know what I was doing, but it worked out well. I played one note, I think it was a G, and I just played one long note for about a minute, which I thought was quite cool. Larry also thought it was very cool. The thing is, I could play properly, but it’s only when you get to the point where you can play really well that you play less. So he obviously thought, ‘This guy must be really good because he’s chosen to play only one note’. Either I was fucking useless and could only play one note or I was near genius. And you were offered the job on the spot? Yeah. I had lots of people come up to me, about eight or nine people, asking whether I wanted to be in a band, and I was like, ‘No no no, I don’t want to be in a band’. Then Larry was like, ‘Do you want to be in a band that’s signed to a major record label?’, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I do actually’. The next morning, I went into a room with Larry, Jim and Tim and we made a racket together. Although it was just a jam, it was also an audition. We were just making noise together, but they only wanted to work with people who could improvise, who could just get in a room and make a noise that might have some coherence about it, without it being the form of improvisation that commonly people think of. Anybody can do something flash, whether it’s football or whether it’s music. It’s a different language when you get together in a room and communicate through music; when that music is meaningful. In our case, it’s usually about finding simple things, finding parts of a jigsaw that fit together to make something which, further down the line, people will hear on a record or at a gig. Where was your first gig with James? Within 10 days of meeting these guys, we were on tour. I know we played Hull University and Newcastle, and the Free Trade Hall in Manchester, which is now a hotel. The Mancs have got no sense of their own history. How can they just turn The Hacienda into flats, the Free Trade Hall into a fucking hotel? The city will come to regret the fact that those landmarks don’t exist. They can’t even be visited. You can’t go to where The Hacienda was. You can’t come over from Seattle with your kids on some musical pilgrimage, to see where all that late ’80s, early ’90s British indie music you loved actually came from. The Mondays did the Hillsborough gigs. I went to both of those gigs at The Hacienda – legendary cultural moments – and now the place where they happened has gone, so there’s no reference to them other than the anecdotal history. The scousers did it with The Cavern – knocking it down, then building it again down the road and saying, ‘This is The Cavern’. Well no, it’s not. Why do you think James have managed to survive for so long, through so many scenes? Because we genuinely weren’t really part of anything. We knew that at the time, in Manchester. I remember doing lots of interviews in the early ’90s, especially after Sit Down kicked off. Obviously other bands around us were doing brilliantly well and gaining international recognition – The Roses and The Mondays and the rest of it, The Smiths to some extent. The media was very keen to find a capsule and try to lump everyone together. There were those things going on in Manchester, that’s absolutely clear – and it wasn’t only then but later on as well, with Oasis and all the rest of it. We’ve always said that we’ve got nothing to do with those other bands. They were bands we took on tour, they all supported us. All the bands, to some extent, looked after each other. We all went to each other’s gigs. I remember going to The Mondays’ sold-out gig at G-Mex. I went there with Jimmy and got on his shoulders. It was brilliant – we were down the front, just going mental. Similarly, the year before, we’d sold out two nights at G-Mex and I remember The Roses and New Order being there. James’ real gig was supporting The Fall. If James wanted to be anybody, it was The Fall in ’82/’83 – although that would be hard to imagine, listening to our music and listening to Mark E Smith. It was about clever, gobby, working-class lads sticking up two fingers to everybody, and some of it became real pop music. The attitude was all the same – that feeling of being very alienated and very northern. Everybody knows about all this stuff. That’s why, to some extent, we still have a voice, because we have this incredible fan base that weirdly has grown. We’ve sold more tickets on this tour than any other UK tour. It’s also weird because it’s not like we’re becoming more mainstream; it’s not like we’ve suddenly made some big pop record. We haven’t suddenly become a band looking to have mass appeal, but we’re certainly finding a wider appeal. One reason why that is, in truth, is that we’ve had unbelievable support from 6 Music, and that really does help. Are there any songs you’ve grown to dislike over the years? No, not really. We’ve got quite a big catalogue. We play everything, so it’s really nice when we get to the point where we go, ‘Actually, on this tour, what we’ll do is give songs X, Y and Z a rest and bring in some of these others that we haven’t played for a while’. We’re constantly chopping and changing our set. In that process it’s really nice when we reach the natural point at which we want to leave a song behind – not because we don’t like it, just because we feel we’ve probably gone as far as we can go with that particular tune for the time being. When our fans start to expect a certain thing, I think it’s right that we change it. That way, we can keep ourselves and everybody who’s into us on their toes a little bit. So for example, we’ve got a big tune called Getting Away With It. It’s a massive live tune but we’ve played it quite a lot on the past couple of tours, so we won’t play it this time. There’s also a song called Come Home, which was always a massive tune for us, but we probably won’t play that. We probably won’t play Laid or Sit Down either. We’re taking out all our biggest hits and replacing them with other big songs that we don’t play as much, like She’s A Star, Born Of Frustration, Sound, Say Something. These are all huge songs, Top-40 songs. She’s A Star was a massive song for us but we almost never play it. So we’re thinking we’ll do something weird with it on this tour by playing it with violin and cello and piano. That sounds like it could be sugar-coated nonsense, but because we don’t play in tune very well, it’ll be slightly underlying, which will be great. It’ll probably sound more like The Tindersticks than Elton John, I would imagine. We’re constantly trying to change things around, simply because we get a little bit bored with it. The obvious one is Sit Down. Other than when the tune first came out, when we were promoting it, we’ve never actually felt obliged to play it. We’re very aware that some people are coming to see James for the first time, so we’ve got to get the balance right between playing our new record, giving people songs which they’ve perhaps forgotten about and also playing to the gallery, but not doing it in such a way that we feel like we’re playing on some fucking cruise ship. What’s the biggest change you’ve seen to the music industry over the years? I think that’s simple – buying has gone to streaming. For some years, as sales were declining, everyone was like, ‘What’s going to happen in its place?’ and it’s clear now that, in 2016, streaming is the industry. The industry is basing itself around how to maintain a business around streaming. The other thing I would say is that it’s gone from the record being the thing that makes money. In terms of paying your bills and all the rest of it, as a musician, that’s what you do, but now the only way we can make money is by playing live, so that’s a big difference. People used to lose money playing live, but that was a way of driving sales of records. Now people stream stuff, listen to it, then go and see the gigs. Consequently it’s knocked away a lot of the complacency that the industry had about itself. I think now a lot of the people left in the music industry – the people we work with, for example, BMG – are real music fans who’re dedicated not just to having a viable business – which means at least breaking even if not making money – but also to the genuine old ideas. They want people to hear our music. The same week we released our record, they released the Primal Scream album. They want to get this music out to people, not because they think they’ll make money out of it but because, culturally, they sense it’s important that bands’ music, as long as it’s good, gets heard. James are opening Glastonbury festival this summer, playing the Other Stage at 11am. It must be such an honour to be asked to open one of the best-loved and most prestigious festivals in the world… Of course it is. I think the trick for a band or an artist is to let the punters and the media get caught up in the euphoria that exists around those kind of events, especially Glastonbury, then turn up, play and keep level-headed about it. We’ve played at Glastonbury four times before but not recently. I think the last time we played was ’98. We’ve always done really well at Glastonbury and we’ve always really enjoyed it. I think there’s something quite nice about us playing at 11am – apparently there’ll be 40,000 to 50,000 people in front of us, which will be great. I suspect it might be a little bit overwhelming to know that, not necessarily in front of us but around us, there are 175,000 people! I might find that a little bit claustrophobic. What some people find very special, I might personally – and this is not a James perspective – find overwhelming. I’m talking to you while looking out of my window in the middle of the highlands of Scotland. I quite like solitude and not being around people. But of course it’s an honour to play Glastonbury. The festival has its detractors but, rightly or wrongly, it has a really important place in British culture. It becomes a focus for the whole of the summer, and to be involved is fantastic. And finally, what are you looking forward to the most about being back on tour? We’ve done three or four warm-up gigs with this new record, so we’ve kind of learned it and know what we’re doing. We’ve got some rehearsals coming up next week which will cement that. I can’t wait to be armed with a mood; with some lights around us and a mood in a room. There are three or four songs off this record which I’m genuinely looking forward to playing because so far, when we’ve done them in these tiny little gigs, there’s been something happening. I think some of that is our audience going, ‘I can’t believe they’ve done it again, this is great’. That’s the feeling I get. If you love a band, there’s always some trepidation around a new record because you’re wondering whether it’ll be as good as the last one. So it’s always a relief to find out that it is. That supercharges the room a little bit, and that’s what I’m looking forward to the …

Since forming over 30 years ago, James have released 14 albums and toured all over the world. Their latest album, ‘Girl At The End Of The World’, was released on March 18th and to promote it the Manchester band are playing a 15 date UK tour including a show at Newcastle City Hall tomorrow. Callum Thornhill chatted to longest serving member, Jim Glennie, to find out more about what is happening. Callum: How do you think your Newcastle City Hall date will differ from your last gig in Newcastle at the 02 Academy? Jim: The rock n roll mayhem will have to be held back, but I don’t think it will have a massive effect on the North East audience. I have to admit, the North East crowd are always very vocal and come for a good time. Callum: Do you have any fond memories of the North East? Jim: I haven’t been to the North East since Christmas – my wife lives there. It’s a part of the world I’m familiar with because of the family gatherings. I wasn’t familiar with the countryside there, but it’s actually an incredible part of the world. Callum: The tour is titled ‘Girl at the End of the World tour’, but will you still be playing the ‘classics?’ Jim: It’s all about getting the balance right. When we play our own shows we get about two hours so there will be a lot of the new album, simply because we want to play it. We’ll be doing a few off the last record but then we will shove some more obscure tracks in there including maybe some B-sides or album tracks we haven’t played in a long time that people won’t expect. Obviously we have to play the bigger, anthemic tracks that people have come to love us for, but the idea is for people to go away feeling positive. Callum: Is playing the obscure tracks a way to keep things fresh while on tour? Jim: Absolutely. With this tour, we’re taking out a new record with songs we haven’t played before and we like the fear and uncertainly of having to make a song work. You look down at the setlist and think, uh-oh, and make sure it works – it’s the same with the oldies that we haven’t played in years. We have to keep it fresh for us so we have to be selfish for ourselves or we would get bored. Playing the same songs every night would be soul destroying. Callum: I heard that Brian Eno influenced ‘Girl At The End Of The World’, explain more… Jim: It wasn’t massive, but we had a few problem songs in the studio and Brian is brilliant with weird and wonderful ways to fix things. We’ve worked with him on five albums, so we took him them songs. We went to him with ‘Nothing But Love’, which is the big single of the album, and he helped to sort it out. Eno is wonderful for that, he is a great guy to work with all round,but when a song gets stuck he smashes them up and comes up with new ways for things to develop. Callum: You released Greenpeace Palace Concert for Record Store Day which sold out straight away – how did that happen? Jim: It was mental. I love Record Store Day – I think it’s a great idea. We recorded the album and only one song went on the Greenpeace compilation album so it is nice that it is finally out there. The rest of it was sat there untouched which was a shame really. Obviously, everyone charges down and it will probably be stuck in someone’s collection unplayed, but it will eventually make its way out to the big wide world so it will be shared and exchanged. It’s quite painful for people because there are a whole bunch of James fans who aren’t getting it, but that is just the nature of Record Store Day. Callum: What are the plans for after the tour? Jim: A few UK festivals, a few foreign festivals, then we are going to the Southern Hemisphere. 2016 is full of exciting things really as it’s always a big year when a record comes …

Girl At The End Of The World (single promo), a promotional release by James. Tracks: Girl At The End Of The World (radio edit) / Girl At The End Of The World (album version)

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Girl At The End Of The World

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Move Down South / Catapult / To My Surprise / Girl At The End Of The World, / Alvin / Waking / Feet Of Clay / One Of The Three / Just Like Fred Astaire / She’s A Star /Dear John /We’re Going To Miss You / Surfer’s Song /Bitch / Attention / Moving On / Nothing But Love

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The Greenpeace Palace Concert is released as part of Record Store Day limited to 1,600 copies worldwide on double clear vinyl. James perform a session for BBC Radio 2’s Dermot O’Leary show. Prior to the UK tour kicking off the band invite twenty lucky fans to join them at an open rehearsal in the London studio where they have been preparing for the …

(review from Even The Stars) James warmed up for their fifteen date UK tour with an intimate rehearsal set at Music Bank in Bermondsey in front of a specially invited group of twenty fans. As well as running through the whole of their recent number 2 album Girl At The End Of The World, they included some rarities in the set including one that hadn’t been played for seventeen years. Music Bank is part of the Biscuit Factory complex just off the Jamaica Road in south east London. Dodging the Millwall fans pouring out of the nearby New Den, the competition winners congregated and were led up via a maze of staircases and production lifts to the top floor studio where the band had been beavering away for days rehearsing for the tour. The majority chose to sit on the cushions placed on the floor ready to witness a unique performance that most of the James fan-base would give up an arm and a leg for. Before we start, Tim tells us that Adrian isn’t present today as his other band are playing a festival in Buxton (and there’s lots of terrible Buxton-related puns later on) so the performance becomes even more unique as a result. Saul appears dressed in what looks like a sailor’s hat and is immediately on good form. In a band full of creative sparks, his is often the most maverick one, his multi-instrumental talents allowing the band to take their songs to different places, approach them from oblique angles and reinvigorate them. This up-close and personal experience gives us a real insight into the workings of the band. There’s jokes about who starts a song (“It’s Adrian” to laughter), playful interchanges between them, Tim asking his sister to go and get a manager to “print out Bitch”, checking the Arsenal score and at one point Tim opening and closing curtains to ensure the seated fans aren’t blinded the sun setting over the adjacent railway lines. And the music? One of the problems with listening to a record at home is that you often, as a non-musician as I am, find it difficult to distinguish. The raw mix, very different to that we’ll experience in the halls of the land over the next three weeks, brings this into even starker focus. There’s parts of the new album that the natural assumption is that it’s guitar or keyboards when it’s Jim on bass or Andy on trumpet and it’s fascinating to see that. One of the reasons Girl is such a powerful record is that the bass has come to the forefront and live that comes across too, both in the sound, but also in the way Jim moves as he delivers the killer lines. Alvin and Waking are played in front of a fan audience for the first time, the former’s French lyrics now don’t seem as strange as they did on first hearing and live it promises to be a crazy two and half minutes like the single it probably could have become whilst the latter sees Andy shoot blasts of trumpet through it that bring the song to vibrant passionate life. The band have talked about this being a powerful album to play live and that comes across even if these circumstances. All twelve songs are performed tonight and make the tour setlist. Attention is a huge song, one of those journey songs that James do so well that come out of their songwriting process of jamming and piecing together sections of them into a song. When they’re played live, they take the listener on a trip through their creative minds. Move Down South is another example of this as are Surfer’s Song and Catapult. The songs feel like they’re going to implode at any moment under the sheer weight of their own momentum, but that’s the thrill that both audience and band get with James, that pushing of the envelope to its very limit; hurtling towards the abyss, taking the blind curve with nowhere to swerve, but coming out the other side unscathed and invigorated by the experience. As ever with James there are surprises in the setlist. A four minute instrumental opening ushers in One Of The Three, a song they haven’t played since 1999 and one of our personal favourites (we named our James website after it). It’s absolutely beautiful, subtle, understated and a million miles away from the greatest hits and the new album. However, that’s one of the reasons James are so special; behind the hits everyone knows there’s so much more, moments of experimentation, others of vulnerability and fragility that big bands don’t deal in. Just Like Fred Astaire and She’s A Star are performed in stripped-back form, Jim’s absolutely beautiful acoustic bass (even as a non-musician I want one) taking centre stage as the songs are recreated and reinvigorated before our eyes. We’re Going To Miss You makes a welcome return too, and as it comes to its ending as five voices join in unison, the whole song is uplifted and taken to a new level. James have always used backing vocals to great effect, but on this album and the live dates around them they’ve even surpassed themselves in this regard. Whether it be at the moment where Nothing But Love becomes a wondrous celebration of love or in the intricacies and delicate tenderness of Feet Of Clay, the impact is tangible. It’s Nothing But Love that they finish on, appropriately given it’s the song that seems to have sparked their current resurgence. They then take time out to chat to fans, take pictures before heading off to Bristol for a production rehearsal the following night at Colston Hall before the tour starts. The fans disperse back to all corners of the UK (a sign of the dedication of James fans that people have dropped everything at a few hours’ notice to make it here – the competition was touted as for Londoners but I think there’s two pairs of winners maximum within 50 miles of it). It’s rare for a band to drop their guard and invite people into their inner sanctum, willing to be seen warts and all as part of their preparations. It was an experience that the fans there will never forget. James played Move Down South, Catapult, To My Surprise, Girl At The End Of The World, Alvin, Waking, Feet Of Clay, One Of The Three, Just Like Fred Astaire, She’s A Star, Dear John, We’re Going To Miss You, Surfer’s Song, Bitch, Attention, Moving On and Nothing But …

Nothing But Love / Dear John / Say Something / Girl At The End Of The World

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Oh My Heart / Born of Frustration / Upside / Tomorrow / Bubbles / Hey Ma / Senorita / Waterfall Boom Boom / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Whiteboy / Sometimes / Laid / Lullaby

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JAMES rocker Saul Davies is planning to sit down and give a geography lesson at the SSE Hydro – because he thinks many Scots don’t know enough about their own country. Saul, who was born in Oldham but now lives in Lairg, Sutherland, laid into Scots for their lack of knowledge about their homeland. He said: “One thing I find great about the Scots is that they don’t know where things are beyond Stirling. “I have been brought up in Scotland and even when I mention Callander to a Scot, they say they think they know where that place is but when you mention Crianlarich to the urban Scot, he scratches his head.” Saul jokes that he is planning to get a map out to teach fans at the band’s Glasgow gig on May 19. He added: “People know Aberdeen is up there and kind of important but they think it might be in Norway. “I think at the Hydro we’ll have a whiteboard out and a stick so we can have a geography lesson for the Scots. “According to most people in the Highlands, Nicola Sturgeon seems like a strange creature who doesn’t know where the Highlands is or what it is or what people do there. “I am an Englishman but having been brought up most of my life in Scotland I think that gives me the right to pontificate on all things Scottish.” James, who are No2 in the album charts with Girl at the End of the World, have promised fans will be treated to big hits as well as plenty of surprises. Saul, who plays guitar, violin and percussion, said: “The 12,000 at the Hydro will be there for some anthems, old and new, and some catalogue surprises because they are songs they haven’t heard since Zeppelins were flying through the air.” James, fronted by Tim Booth, found fame in the late 80s and are best known for hits such as Come Home, Sit Down, She’s a Star and Laid. They’ve sold 25million albums in more than three decades together. Saul said: “When we split up in 2001 we never thought we would ever get back together. We’ve signed a three-album deal with BMG and here we are in our 35th year with a major label and a fan base and sold out gigs. “How did we get here? If I was a footballer I would have just scored a winner in a cup final at Hampden.” The new album – which lost out on No1 to Adele’s 25 this week– was made in Scotland before completing the sessions at London’s RAK studios. Saul said: “We wrote the album in Scotland, in the Tolbooth in Stirling. We set up on the top floor and made a lot of noise and wrote a fair chunk of the songs up there. “Then we went to Gairloch in Wester Ross and wrote the rest of the album before going to RAK studios in London. “That’s where we officially recorded but we used a lot of the initial jams and bits of audio from Gairloch and Stirling.” For the RAK recordings, they enlisted the help of their long-time collaborator Brian Eno as producer. Saul said: “We respect him and love him to bits. He reframes us a little bit and we apply that to our music. “Our latest single Nothing But Love is getting a lot of support. “It’s a big festival tune and we felt we could have fallen into a bit of a trap with the song but he helped to reframe it. “I make no apologies for James being anthemic. All bands need songs that open doors if they are ambitious. “Nothing But Love looks like it’s one of those songs that will open doors.” The band are looking forward to a return to the Hydro, which they last played in 2014. Saul said: “I like it as a venue. Because we are good on the stage and because we have an amazing catalogue and new stuff to play, this is the end of a process that started with us getting in that room at the Tolbooth. “We can make people feel that although they are in an arena that they could be in the city’s Oran …

SINCE forming over 30 years ago, James have released 14 albums and toured all over the world. Their latest album, Girl At The End Of The World, was released March 18th and to promote it the Manchester band are playing a 15 date UK tour including a show at Newcastle City Hall. I chatted to bassist Jim Glennie to find out more about what is happening at the minute. The north east date is at Newcastle City Hall – can you recall ever playing there? “I’m not sure if we have. We have played the Academy the last few times we have been to Newcastle. The rock n roll mayhem will have to be held back, but I don’t think it will have a massive effect on the north east audience. They are always very vocal and come for a good time. It [City Hall] looks lovely, I seen some pictures on the internet.” Do you have any fond memories of the north east? “I haven’t been to the north east since Christmas – my wife lives there. It is a part of the world I am familiar with because of the family gatherings. I wasn’t familiar with the countryside there but it is an incredible part of the world.” The tour is titled “Girl at the End of the World tour” – will you still be playing the ‘classics?’ “It is all about getting the balance right. When we play our own shows we get about two hours so there will be a lot of the new album, simply because we want to play it. We will be doing a few off the last record but then we will shove some more obscure tracks in there. Maybe some B-sides or album tracks we haven’t played in a long time that people won’t expect. Obviously we have to play the bigger, anthemic tracks that people have come to love us for. The idea is for people to go away feeling positive.” Is playing the obscure tracks a way to keep things fresh while on tour? “Absolutely. With this tour we’re taking out a new record with songs we haven’t played before. We like the fear and uncertainly of having to make a song work. You look down at the setlist and think uh-oh and making sure it works – it is the same with the oldies that we haven’t played in years. We have to keep it fresh for us so we have to be selfish for ourselves or we would get bored. Playing the same songs every night would be soul destroying.” Brian Eno influenced Girl At The End Of The World – explain more. “It wasn’t massive, but we had a few problem songs in the studio. Brian is brilliant with weird and wonderful ways to fix this. We have worked with him on five albums so we took him them songs. We went to him with Nothing But Love which is the big single of the album and he helped sort it out. Eno is wonderful for that, he is a great guy to work with all round, but when a song gets stuck he smashes them up and comes up with new ways for things to develop.” James released Greenpeace Palace Concert for Record Store Day which sold out straight away – how did this go down? “It was mental. I love Record Store Day, I think it is a great idea. We recorded the album and only one song went on the Greenpeace compilation album so it is nice that it is finally out there. The rest of it was sat there untouched which was a shame really. Obviously, everyone charges down and it will probably be stuck in someone’s collection unplayed, but it will eventually make its way out to the big wide world so it will be shared and exchanged. It is quite painful for people because there are a whole bunch of James fans who aren’t getting it but that is just the nature of Record Store Day.” What are the plans for after the tour? “A few UK festivals, a few foreign festival then we are going to the southern hemisphere. 2016 is full of exciting things really – always a big year really when a record comes out so it is nice to always be …

Back in January, Even The Stars spoke to Tim Booth of James for Louder Than War magazine, published in the March edition. This is a more complete version of that interview than the one published due to space constraints in the magazine and sees Tim talking about the making of their recent album Girl At The End Of The World. Girl At The End Of The World is James’ fourteenth studio album. Their tale is a long and curious one, starting when three teenage football hooligans accosted a student Tim Booth in a Manchester University cellar and took them on a road via Factory Records, two albums in the wilderness with Sire Records to assuming the mantle of the biggest band in Britain with the chart success of Sit Down in 1991. They were always too angular, too stubborn and inventive though to follow the path mapped out for them shunning stadium rock for the acoustic tones of Laid and the improvised Wah Wah. After a short break, they embraced electronica with Whiplash, shot back into the limelight with a million-selling Best Of and two further albums Millionaires and Pleased To Meet You before calling it a day in 2001. Ahead of their time, they reformed in 2007 insistent on releasing new material rather than resting on their substantial back catalogue. Hey Ma came out in 2008 and was acclaimed by fans as a career highpoint and they’ve subsequently released two mini albums The Night Before and The Morning After in 2010 and La Petite Mort in 2014. This month sees the release of Girl At The End Of The World and we caught up with front man Tim Booth to talk about the making of the album. Like its predecessor and much of James’ work, Girl was written during intense jam sessions at founder member Jim’s guest house in the wilds of Northern Scotland. “We wrote it up at Jimmy’s place again in the Highlands. We did it in January and February last year, completely cut off. We had a slight difference this time round in that we hired Swiss Ron (tour tech and eighth live member of James) to be tape editor for Jimmy and me.”   “Usually if one of us wants to edit songs we have to hijack someone who can operate the technology like Mark and he works his arse off and we feel really bad about it. We hired Ron so we could do more editing and be more efficient.  We would produce three weeks of material, hours and hours of jams and plough through them for months, but this time we came out of there with tonnes of edits of short-listed songs which was unusual for us.” “I think for the first time no other songs were added later. We were working on everything whilst we were up there. I was pretty conscious about setting beats fast and danceable. We asked ourselves what about the last record we’d like to carry forward to this one and I liked the grooves. Jim’s become such a groovy bass player and so that’s really tempting to keep pushing and it draws Mark out, although this time he didn’t need any beckoning. There’ll be no stopping him in future, he’ll turn into a huge egomaniac.” Following those sessions James were reacquainted with Max Dingel who produced La Petite Mort and during the sessions Brian Eno dropped in to help out with the album’s second single Nothing But Love. “We sent Max the demos after the Scottish session, he loved them, really got them. Our record company and management weren’t too sure, our demos are usually just for us. Famously Geoff Travis asked us when we handed him the Gold Mother demos whether we were taking the piss, testing him, but they were unlistenable.”  “With Brian, I just phoned him up. I thought we’d got stuck on a couple of songs, one was Nothing But Love, the other one that didn’t end up on the record we’ll save because it’s really good, but we didn’t nail it. He did a lot on that other song, but on Nothing But Love it’s just that arpeggio that’s unmistakeably Brian. He would have done a lot more but he ended up working with someone else as he got an offer that he couldn’t refuse. It was great to work with him again, he’s a beautiful man.” One of the most exciting parts of the James live experience is that they thrill in revealing new songs, road-testing them often in unfinished form to gauge audience reaction. This time round though, only Nothing But Love had been heard by the James fan base. Tim however has no concerns that the songs will stand up in their live set. “I genuinely think nearly all of them will work. I suspect we’ll be playing most of them live. I think there’s some really killer live songs, I think Bitch will sound great live and something like Waking, which isn’t a traditional James song, has a lot of room for trumpet to have fun, there’s a lot of joy in the music, it’s very uplifting. I can see us doing nearly all of them live.” Not road-testing songs meant that fans weren’t exposed to the development of the songs and lyrics. It’s a complex process involving many rewrites and often very different subjects being addressed.  Dear John, mooted as a future single being a case in point. “That’s the only song I’ve ever written a completely different lyric to and been stuck between them. The other is about child abuse in the Catholic Church. We were all split. I’d never done that before, where I was totally happy with both lyrics. Usually I work out what direction it’s going in. This one I sang both and handed both in as I didn’t know which was the best of the two and neither did anyone else. That was a strange one for us, a very different process as I think lyrics write themselves so I didn’t know what to do.” “I’ve got this great app called Scrivener that I’m using to write my novel. Some lyrics definitely came straight away like Move Down South. We hadn’t even decided to move up north at that point and it was strange as when we did, I couldn’t understand the lyric, but then when we decided to move back it made sense.” (Tim and his family moved from Topanga, on the outskirts of LA to San Francisco and back again during the album’s recording.) “I’ll write a song six or so times and then do a compilation and see if something’s being suggested. There are certain lyrics where you get them very quickly, Girl I got on the second take and came pretty formed. I knew what that was about pretty quickly. And, just as we mixed it, Jimmy was coming round a corner and a guy was speeding straight for him and four cars made space for him at the last moment, seconds before they collided. I’m assuming that song was about that incident.”  I’ve got a microphone and often I’ll just jam lyrics, I don’t know what I’m singing about, really random making stuff up with the music in the background. I improvise, I jam along to their backing track and go looking for extra lyrics. I still wake up at four in the morning with lyrics in my head.”  “There’s multiple versions of lyrics on Scrivener. Tracks like Born An Arsehole, Jesus, Feet Feet Feet and Nothing Is Real which ended up with different titles and Bouncing, Animal and Poodle Jam which didn’t make it on the record. The last one I got a lyric in one session, a really punky song that I really like. They have completely different lyrics to what we ended up with, they can really shift.” The aforementioned Move Down South is one of what James call their journey songs. “It was a strange one that Mark grabbed and made into what it became. A lot of that song is his arrangement of an hour-long jam where it goes from part to part to part. We love journey songs in James, we’ve always gravitated towards them, they’re more intricate, you can express yourself more. You know they’re not going to be singles so you can be more extreme.  Once you get a song you know is going to be a single, a big song, it can make you a bit safer with it.” Attention is one of the album’s most dramatic moments; a song of several very different sections and wild changes in pace. This came from the rather disjointed and accidental way it came together. “That was an hour and twenty minute jam. There’s two bits of singing there, one ten minutes in and the other an hour in and I had no way of joining them together and so what I did was fade the keyboard and then fade the other bit in. I thought we’d find something, but people loved it so it stayed that way. It was originally a lot slower and Larry accidentally speeded it up when we were playing it back and people liked it so we ended up doing it that way once we found the right tempo. It was a difficult one though, half the band wanted it slow, half wanted it fast, we’re usually a lot clearer in our demarcations, but this one was right down the line.” Do you lose songs sometimes because of that? “Some of us thought the speeding up had really fucked the song, but it’s turned out wonderfully. Sometimes a song goes down a completely different route like the song we did with Brian. We’d come to a stop, down a dead end, he added some amazing things to it and it was this big song, as big as Nothing But Love, and couldn’t break it out of its shell, but Brian did that and we couldn’t then follow it up, so we held it back hoping we can work back with him. We’d gone off on this big procession as we do and then, bang, there’s a cul-de-sac. Nothing But Love was one, some people thought it wasn’t a single, Jim and I right from the start thought this was the big song on the record. My only concern is that it is classic James and the album we’ve moved into a different sonic area, there’s only that and Girl that’s in that area. I love the song, I’m more excited by the dance grooves.” Tim then goes back to Attention, clearly one of his favourites on the record.“The second half of it, I thought that lyric (“this is you, this is me, underneath the manzanita tree. By the fire we are forged, we are baked, we are shaped”) couldn’t stay. People in Europe won’t know what a manzanita tree is and they’ll go “he’s singing about fire again” as I do that a lot. What happened though is as we moved back to Topanga, a father of twins at my son’s school died and the kids went to the principal and wanted to do a native American fire ceremony over four days. The twins would sleep by the fire and we’d sit there in silence for three hours or sing. It was the most profound response to death I’d seen.  At the end the fire dies out, the kids and the wife and the parents were there and it’s devastating, an astonishing community response to support the kids in their grief.  People would hang the names of people they’d lost and were missing on the tree – I put Gabrielle Roth and my mum on that. Those kids will be profoundly changed by that experience. I know I use fire a lot and was prepared to be slagged off for it, but that’s what that lyric is about.”   There’s a song called Alvin that’s sung in French. Tim’s modest about his command of the language. “Kind of French, you’re being very generous. I’ve forgotten why I sang it in French, I’d never done it before and it stuck.” It’s got a lot of Laid about it which Tim acknowledges. “It probably had a chance of being a single until I decided to sing it in my awful French but it ended up like that. It was a whim, I’d never sung in a foreign language. It was a way of twisting it, it’ll be a bugger to learn. I have no satisfactory answer for it.” Alvin is also quite short as are a few of the songs on the record. Tim explains that this was something they intended to do in the recording process. “There was a conscious decision to keep the songs shorter. Waiting is two minutes thirty, Girl is three, Alvin is two minutes twenty, but then you do have Move Down South which has the potential to be even longer live and Attention which would have been longer had we not speeded it up so much, 20 bpm is a lot.” The single To My Surprise has a video that has a tale of corporate and political greed and a system that just makes the rich richer and leaves the rest behind. A lot of the ideas in it came from Tim, and he tells us that this is partly down to him having lived in America for the best part of a decade. “Moving to America politicises you more. It’s more frightening. It could boil down to a choice between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. He had a breakthrough moment in the last debate, he got labelled as the politics of anger and he embraced it, very cunning politically. There’s a good 20-30% of Americans out there who are very angry, in the centre of the country who haven’t had their way, been ruled by a black President, which consciously and unconsciously has riled them. It brings it out of you here, there’s always been that side to me, but it’s more much in your face here. It’s much more right wing, the Democrats are like the Conservative party, so what does that make the Republicans.” “I got to get input to Kris on the video for To My Surprise. It says so much about the world, the more frightening side of the world. He worked his arse off for it, once we were on the same page, they were working through the night, he kept adding detail, although he had a happy ending, so I changed that.”  May sees James embark on their biggest tour since they reformed in 2007. They’ve just signed a three-album deal with BMG so it seems like there are high expectations of this record, something which Tim concedes. “The record company and management went from being sceptical of the demos to thinking we’ve given them far more songs to work with, that they can put to radio, that we can make videos for than we did last time. They think we’ve made a much bigger record so accordingly they’ll give us a bigger budget, but it’s hard to say obviously. I think To My Surprise has done more for us than the first track last time Frozen Britain, it’s more unusual and interesting and I got to input to a brilliant video.” We then asked Tim what he expects James to do after the May tour has finished and he looks to go back to some of their favourite places as well as exploring some new ones. “We’ll do summer festivals then we’ll see. I’m really hoping we’ll go to South America again, I’m hoping we’ll get some big support slot with a huge band and get to go to places we’ve never been before. We’ll go fishing.  Greece and Portugal are very important to us, I’m sure we’ll still go there. We’ll hopefully get together and write at some point.” Outside of James, Tim has released two solo albums – Bone and Love Life – as well as having appeared in a Batman film as well as some independent productions, but he explains now that his focus away from the band is on becoming a published author. “I’m writing a novel which is a big undertaking after James.  I’ve no idea, I’ve written seventy five thousand words of a first draft, I’m nowhere near finished, it needs a lot longer. It’s terrifying writing a novel, you need much more peace and quiet, I can’t write it when I’m travelling or doing James stuff. It’s a real dive deep inside yourself that has to be sustained across a desert of length.” “Because La Petite Mort became all-consuming, I didn’t do anything on it for six months and I thought I’d blown it, but I managed to get back into it and I came back after making this record in September and it’s suddenly falling into place and the characters are writing their own scenes. Again, I’ll drag myself out of bed at four in the morning and two characters will do a thing that I hadn’t planned and then someone else walks into the room. It’s great, it might not be great to anyone else, it’s doing what songwriting does, has a life of its own, you’re collaborating with the characters and it has a life of its own.” There’s a very evident belief in Girl that you get from talking to Tim (a belief that became real when the album hit number one in the midweek charts before having to settle for number two behind the phenomenon that is Adele). Even when I suggest that this record wasn’t as immediate as most of their previous ones, he isn’t fazed at all, considering this revelation and coming back to it later. “I’m not concerned that it took you a few listens to get into it. Patti Smith’s Horses took me a number of listens to love it. I’m really excited by the dance grooves and I think this is one of the strongest records we’ve written in a long …

After launching our new music section with Shoot Music, we have another fantastic interview with indie musician, Tim Booth. Tim Booth is from indie band James and we chatted to him about this love for Anna Kournikova and how he got into tennis. How did you get into tennis? My Mother had visions of me being a pro!!!! Some neighbours had a tarmac court that we resurfaced. If you were a tennis player, which pro would you most play like and why? Well my ego says Andre Agassi: loved his artistry, his Zen and his bad boy. In reality someone ranked 169 – just clinging on to his passion as best he could Which tennis player would make the best frontman? Sorry to be such a boy but Anna Kournikova What song would you listen to in preparation for a tennis match? Iggy pop “ I wanna be your dog.” What tennis court would you most like to play on? Wimbledon Centre Court What is your favourite sporting movie? HBO’s “7 days in hell” – outrageous tennis mockumentary Who would be your dream doubles partner? Anna Kournikova Who is going to win Wimbledon this year? The amazing Serena Williams and Andy Murray Which tennis player would you like to duet with? You already know the answer to this! (Anna Kournikova) If you could write a song about a tennis player who would it be and why? I could write an angry punk song about how the length of time it took Ivan Lendl to serve made me switch off tennis for years! But I think I would stick with eulogising Agassi. P.S. I played at schoolboys junior Wimbledon when I was 17. We got knocked out by the winners, but got more points against them than anyone …

James’ guitarist talks on Girl at the End of the World, living in Scotland and not being forgotten ‘It’s an interesting time for us,’ says James guitarist Saul Davies. The band have long since escaped their status as 1980s indie also-rans and crossover Madchester and Britpop-era success story to become one of British music’s most enduringly familiar success stories. ‘There’s a lot of stuff out there, isn’t there? A lot of bands, lot of artists, lot of films, lot of games, the internet: there’s a lot of shit going on. It’s easy to forget a band, so when people tell us they like the record and they want to talk about it, it’s quite gratifying really.’ The record in question is Girl at the End of the World, the Manchester-formed group’s 14th album in precisely two decades since Stutter in 1986. As heard on the comeback single ‘Nothing But Love’, there’s a folksy, homespun edge to it, even if the group have returned once again to electronics (Brian Eno is involved again). Davies explains that it’s an album which sounds very much like the place in which it was written: Scotland. It wasn’t a cosmetic or convenient choice, but rather one born of where many of the band’s senior members now find themselves. Although singer Tim Booth lives in America, bassist James Glennie has lived a few miles north of Ullapool for almost a decade. While he still retains the Liverpudlian accent of his birth, Davies was raised in Scotland from the age of eight. First he lived in Paisley around 1974, because his parents taught at the nearby Kibble School, and then the family settled in Callander. He moved back there three years ago with his young family and sent his children to the same school he attended. ‘I was living down in London and hating it,’ Davies remembers. ‘One day I just said, “kids, do you want to go to school in Scotland?” London was awful, I feel for people who have to go through that, and I feel so privileged that I’m able to just decide, “we can live anywhere, so let’s live somewhere cool”. My wife, bless her, agreed. It feels like I’m joining a circle; I know every inch of these places as I ran, cycled and fished in them in the 70s and 80s. I had no ties for many years and I enjoyed touring the world living out of a case, but then I had kids and started rediscovering an affinity with these places I once knew.’ Girl at the End of the World was written between the Tolbooth in Stirling and in a house in Gairloch where the band stayed for a few weeks. ‘The Tolbooth gave us the top room to write in and lots of gear, and we just went in and made a racket,’ he says. ‘They were so kind to us; we did a mad show for about 70 people in their theatre to say thank you. To my ear there’s a weird Scottish flavour to the record, a Celtic kind of theme. I guess you can’t help but be influenced by the place you’re in.’ Last year Davies took his family even further up north to Sutherland. ‘At the end of my road there’s a sign which says, “Land’s End: 58 miles”. I can sit in the glass room at the side of my house and it’s an incredible reminder of the power of the place I’m in.’ What can he see? ‘Fucking nothing! And everything. That’s a really strong reminder of our place in the world and it’s why I love writing up there. You just batten down the hatches and get lost in it. In Scotland there are very highly urbanised and contemporary attitudes to modern life sandwiched up against some of the most stunning and violent natural landscapes on the planet.’ He speaks eloquently and at length of Scotland’s music scene and its political energy, lending evidence to the idea that understanding a country or a culture can be easier without a leaden sense of over-familiarity. ‘Scotland’s full of English twats who think they’re Scottish,’ he laughs. ‘And you can quote me on that. But my granny was from Govan before she moved to Oldham and she used to tell me stories about what it was like to be brought up there in 1915 or whenever, literally sharing shoes and all that, like in any urban centre in the UK: Sheffield, Liverpool, Manchester, wherever. She was a displaced Scot who went elsewhere for a better life, and I’ve always taken her experience of that with …

It’s hard to believe James are in their fourth decade of making music. But then this is a band that have outlasted 1980s indie, Madchester baggie, Britpop and countless other musical fads and fashions in that time. And that’s their secret. People have tried to lump them in with prevailing trends, but James just don’t fit in neatly anywhere. They’re out there on their own now, like they have been from the beginning. “To be fashionable is the death knell,” says guitarist Saul Davies. “We had a brush with the Madchester scene but did everything we could to avoid that. We were sort of part of that but nothing to do with it musically. We were always just completely contrary. We had more in common with The Fall. When I joined in 1989, we were seen as this very odd band who would never get any recognition beyond the north west.” Things didn’t quite turn out like that. In the 1990s, James hit the big time with singles like Sit Down, Come Home, She’s A Star and Born Of Frustration, and have sold more than 12 million albums worldwide. None of them are household names or instantly recognisable, but they’ve got a large and loyal following. James’s new album, Girl At The End Of The World, recorded with producer Max Dingel with input from Brian Eno (“he always brings something contrary or unusual to the process”), has just been released and it’s James doing what they do best, their own thing, irrespective of whatever else is going on. Allied to the eccentric lyrics and catchy hooks are dance beats and euphoric electronica. It’s an accomplished album from a band still at the height of their powers after all this time. But that doesn’t mean it was a doddle to make. Not by any means. “Bands talk about that difficult second album but it’s the trickster 14th one that’s the real ************,” says singer Tim Booth on recording Girl At The End Of The World. As with their last album, 2014’s Le Petit Mort, the new long player was recorded in the Scottish Highlands with the band retreating to an 18th century coaching inn and setting up the creative environment they needed. “There was no deliberate plan to make it dancey,” says Saul. “We just got in a room together and made some noise. We often write to a drum machine and set it at 120bpm with a kick drum keeping time so that makes it quite dancey. You end up with beats and pulses. The dance elements were more buried in the last album but they’re more overt now.” Saul has recently moved up to the Highlands with his family and, having spent most of his childhood in Scotland, felt very comfortable to be back recording north of the border. “As you get older you gravitate towards where you’re from,” he said. “The north of Scotland, you either get it or you don’t. It’s not for the faint-hearted but it’s not as isolated as you might imagine. You do have neighbours and there is a real sense of togetherness. You look after each other, the landscape can be brutal but the people are really cool.” Singer Tim Booth describes making the album as “a collaborative process allowing ample room for improvisation, intuition, skill and dumb luck.” Saul says making it in the Highlands was “a chance to get away from any distractions. You can just get your head down.” Tim reckons the process can be chaotic but the band embrace that and the happy accidents it can throw up. Besides, Saul says, the band are in a pretty good headspace these days. “We’re just in our 35th year as a band. People say it’s weird that we’re getting better but I think that’s true of us,” says Saul. “Live, we’re a very consistent band, we give our best on stage. “We’ve been working at it long enough. That’s what kept us going. James can be very skittish, unpredictable but we’re lucky to have made the mistakes we did.” These ‘mistakes’ include refusing the cover of NME back in 1985 when Morrissey was saying James were his favourite band. They also refused to put their huge hit single Sit Down on the US version of their Laid album as they’d already released it Stateside which must have affected sales. “We have ideas around fairness and treating fans well, not exploiting them” says Saul. “We treat our fanbase with respect. That’s why we haven’t ended up playing on ******* cruise ships.” That fanbase will be turning out in force for James’s forthcoming tour with the date at Southend’s Cliffs Pavilion followed immediately by three nights at separate venues in London. A lot of the tour had sold out weeks before it even starts. “We’re really looking forward to the whole tour and to be playing some of the smaller venues on the coast,” says Saul of returning to the Cliffs Pavilion. “It’s a nice tour for us, it’s basically sold out, so the venues will be packed to the rafters. We’ve sold more tickets on this tour than we’ve ever done.” Still going strong, still doing their own thing. James play the Cliffs Pavillion, Southend, on Tuesday, May 3. The album Girl At The End Of The World is out on BMG Recordings now. Find out more at …

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James release Girl At The End Of The World. After sitting at number one in the midweek charts, the band have to settle for number two at the end of the week, their joint-best placing for a studio album. In the launch week they play in-store shows at HMV in London, Manchester and Glasgow as well as busking / signing in Leeds and Newcastle. They perform sessions for Absolute Radio, BBC 6 Music’s Lauren Laverne show, Radio 2’s Chris Evans show including a cover of Beyonce’s Halo and BBC Scotland’s Quay Session including a cover of Glasvegas’ Daddy. And in a packed launch week they perform Nothing But Love live on BBC1’s prime-time The One …

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About the song Daddy’s Gone (Glasvegas cover) by the band James.

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Girl At The End Of The World / Just Like Fred Astaire / Daddy’s Gone / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Feet Of Clay / Catapult / Dear John / Say Something / Nothing But Love

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Feet Of Clay / Dear John / Girl At The End Of The World

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Girl At The End Of The World / Feet Of Clay / Dear John / Nothing But Love

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Sit Down / Nothing But Love / Just Like Fred Astaire / Halo

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About the 2016 song Waking by the band James.

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About the 2016 song Surfer’s Song by the band James.

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Dear John / Girl At The End Of The World / Feet Of Clay / Nothing But Love

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About the 2016 song Nothing But Love by the band James.

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About the 2016 song Move Down South by the band James.

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About the 2016 song Feet Of Clay by the band James.

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About the 2016 song Dear John by the band James.

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About the 2016 song Catapult by the band James.

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About the 2016 song Bitch by the band James.

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Halo, a Beyonce song covered by James.

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Bitch / To My Surprise / Nothing But Love / Attention / Dear John / Feet of Clay / Surfer’s Song / Catapult / Move Down South / Alvin / Waking / Girl at the End of the World

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About the song Alvin by the band James.

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Attention, a 2016 song by James.

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About the song Girl At The End Of The World by the band James.

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Nothing But Love / Dear John / Say Something / Girl At The End Of The World

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Metro newpaper interview with Tim Booth

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James are soon to embark on a nationwide tour (which rolls into Newcastle on May 17), having just released 14th studio album ‘Girl at the End of the World’. I spoke to bass guitarist Jim Glennie about the album, the tour and life at the heart of one of the U.K’s most enduring bands. It’s been 34 years since Jim Glennie formed James, the band which took his name. After as many spats, break up’s and comebacks as you would expect of a band of such vintage, James are back and sounding as good as ever. The new album certainly has Jim in buoyant mood. ‘I think it’s a great record, I’m really proud of it, it sort of picks up where ‘La Petit Mort’ left off. It’s almost like what we learned from the previous album, we’ve used that as the start point with this record.’ There is certainly a feel good vibe about the album which sees the band reaffirm their dancefloor roots. Produced by Max Dingel, Jim tells me that Brian Eno was also involved. ‘We took him a couple of songs, one was the single ‘Nothing But Love’, we knew we’d written a great song but we thought ‘there is something missing’, so we asked Brian what he would suggest, and he put keyboards on it, sort of arpeggiated keyboards which have become a real key feature of it, even though it is a little bit alien to the rest of the song, but in total Eno style, it just works brilliantly.” The band have had hit albums before of course, but perhaps are often seen as a ‘great singles band’ or a ‘great live act’ which has rather unfairly left albums such as ‘Laid’ or ‘Millionaires’ overlooked, even though they more than hold their own with any records from their era. It’s an assessment Jim agrees with: “I think that has happened, perhaps some of the records have slipped a little bit under the radar, but it feels a little bit different with this one, there seems to be a little bit of a new buzz about us, which is bonkers fourteen albums in.” And in terms of those previous releases which may not have hit commercial or critical heights, he is philosophical “It’s just part and parcel of the industry we are in, sometimes you feel you’ve released a great song or album and it doesn’t seem to engage for whatever reason, but it’s still there in the annals of music history, and at some point in the future, long after we’re all gone, some kid somewhere will bump into it, and think ‘wow this is wonderful’, so it’s there forever more” James are somewhat notorious for not just ‘bumping into’ their older songs, but rather kicking them into the long grass, as Jim explains when I ask him about the setlist for the forthcoming tour. “Obviously we’ve got bloody millions of songs to choose from, so we tend to change things around every night. We’re not a band that will go out there and play songs we don’t want to play, and quite selfishly we go out and play the songs we want to do, and I guess that’s why we’re still here after all these years. We’ll happily do a tour without playing ‘Sit Down’ or ‘Laid’ but we have a pretty big portfolio to choose from. We are kind of (currently) debating the pool of songs that we are going to choose from for the tour, it’s often nice to surprise people with things from 15 or 20 years ago that they wouldn’t expect to hear.” I ask about the tour and the relationships within the band, Jim has had a fractious relationship with lead singer Tim Booth over the years, and I wonder if the confines of a tour put an extra strain on that. “We’ve reached an age now where you can demand your own space a little bit, and you can go off on your own for a little while. It’s like a family, you fall out, you make up, it’s just gonna happen. We’ve matured now though, gone are the days of big rows and punch ups!” The Newcastle gig is one that Jim is looking forward to in particular. “My wife is from Consett, so I’ve spent a lot of time up in the North East, I love it up there. When I was courting my wife, she was living on Westgate Rd (Newcastle) and I’d go up there every weekend, I really loved it and I think the people are amazing. We’ve had some great gigs up there, we’ve always had a really loyal fanbase, real heartfelt passion.” It’s a relationship that looks set to continue as well as Jim tells me that the band are committed, contractually, to at least two further albums. “It’s never felt like a long career stretching out ahead of us and it still doesn’t. We take each album as a blessing. It feels like it’s in the lap of the gods but as long as we are enjoying it, long may it last.” Here’s hoping it …

James are back releasing their 14th album, Girl at the End of the World, a record that the band considers as their best ever. I had the privilege to interview Saul Davies, the violinist and guitarist for James. It was a relaxed and laid back conversation, at one point even the local plumber joined us, we talked about the band, the new album and their upcoming tour. I was first introduced to James in 2014 when spontaneously attending the not so well known festival, Umbria Rocks. I saw the band perform in field filled with a grand total of around 150 people, my memory is of Tim exclaiming, “Wow, what a big field!” Despite the lack of numbers, James created a magical atmosphere providing more than just music. From this one experience, I bought all their albums and became aware of just how huge the band are. They’ve performed at every festival, Glastonbury, Woodstock 2, Coachella and have played with big names such as The Stone Roses, Radiohead and The Killers. They’re critically acclaimed and commercially successful having sold over 12 million albums worldwide. James formed in 1982, emerging at the tail end of the 80s, they survived through the scenes of Madchester, Britpop and remain current today whilst others have faded into oblivion. I was intrigued as to how the band have kept going, when asking Saul what their secret is to, he gave the simple reply; “we just keep writing and keep making records.” “If a band continues to make music and find itself creatively viable there is a chance people can enjoy what you’re doing. As soon as a band stops writing automatically you become like a little of a tribute band to yourself and I think that artistically it is not credible and difficult to maintain a credibility.” James have had a long and illustrious career, I wanted to know if there was an album which Saul was particularly proud of, a question he found difficult to answer, having a mixture of responses; “I think the last record we made prior to breaking in 2001, Pleased to Meet You is a great record. I’m very proud of La Petite Mort, I think it’s a lovely record. This record Girl at the End of the World I think is like a progression on La Petite Mort and kind of accompanies it. These last two records I do feel very strongly about.” Saul had mentioned the band’s break in 2001, James had a hiatus from 2001 till 2007. It seemed for Saul during these years things “calmed down a little bit”, a time in which he married and had children. He stressed the fact that the break in 2001 was meant to be a permanent fixture with “absolutely no inclination to get back together again, it was something that wasn’t on the cards.” At this moment in the interview Saul had a knock on the door from his plumber thus we had to quickly postpone our conversation. Crisis averted, we returned to the interview and I asked what got the band back together in 2007; “A desire to write more music again, we had some years apart…then we wondered what it would be like if we wrote something together and when we started writing it was apparent that we were writing some half decent material and one thing led to another…suddenly we were out on tour supporting an album that we’d made.” We then went on to talk about the upcoming album Girl at the End of the World, I wanted to know what we were to expect from the album after hearing two pre-released singles, Nothing But Love and To My Surprise. These songs are filled with techno dance beats, which Saul described as “not that representative of the album.” His description of the album made it sound like it is filled with electronic, rock, club epic, “German sounding thing…big dance thing…mad keyboard flying thing,” so we were to expect a variety of things… “I don’t think there is one particular theme that runs through it all…It’s difficult to categorise, there’s one song called Alvin which is in French for Christs sake, Tim decided to sing in French which is funny because his French accent is dreadful.” James’ previous album La Petite Mort did extremely well with a hectic year of live shows, it seemed it would be a difficult one to follow. Saul however seemed confident in saying “Anybody who likes the last record looks like they’re probably really going to enjoy this one as well” and explained how many said Girl At the End of the World is actually better. This May the band are endeavouring on what is said to be their biggest tour to date, playing to 60,000 fans across 15 shows. I asked what fans should expect from the two and a quarter hour set, “it has to be long because we’ve got a lot of songs.” “Night by night it will change. We’re not a band who want to do the same set every night…we’ll play seven or eight new songs, we’ll play some old catalogue material…we’ll still play two or three songs from the last album, we love playing songs from that record.” Many have named the sold out Manchester show as the sure highlight, I wondered if the band regarded Manchester as the best night being where they originated. I seemed to have hit a nerve as Saul insisted this wasn’t the case and each show was special in its own way; “We must make our shows as special as we can everywhere we go for those people making the effort to even get to that show …I’m not paying lip service to this, it really is the case and I think we put a lot into our shows, they’re quite emotional…we’re doing something, we’re a band but we see ourselves as artists, it’s an enterprise, not just about business, it’s about making music.” Saul then came down from his inspirational speech and went back to the subject of Manchester; “Of course its special in Manchester because one way another that’s where the band is from and that’s where our heritage is so yeah it is special, we would be a different band if were from somewhere else, it has defined who we are.” After talking for half an hour it was time to go…the questions were answered, the septic tank was fixed, the interview was over. Thanks Saul. Girl at the End of the World is released 18th March alongside a major headline UK tour in May, the band will also be appearing in stores across the country in March for album …

The music world is a harsh climate. Its inhabitants, though a hardy breed, face the cold, bracing weather of public opinion and struggle to find sustenance and success in the saturated soil of modern rock. For bands who’ve been around for a while, all it takes is a change in the wind for them to grow tired and lifeless. James is a survivor. Formed in 1982, its members have put out album after album, and after a brief death when vocalist Tim Booth left in 2001, they rose again to fight for life in 2006, and have since gone on slam out three more albums. Jim Glennie, the bassist and apparent namesake of the band, makes it clear that James had been his job for almost his whole life, and the albums they’ve made follow a path of progression. “You become different people – I’m not the 15-year-old boy I was anymore, I’m a fifty-year-old bloke with kids and grandchildren! Those albums reflect those massive changes, from this spindly sparseness on Stripmine to the more experimental period to the anthemic period where we had some success, then disappearing off to the States. I think that had a big influence on us. “I never felt like we were gonna be in it for a long time – it wasn’t something that existed beyond the record we were working on. It never felt any more concrete than that. We’re still excited by what we do and we’re still finding new ways to present our music to people. Since we got back together in 2006, we felt like we were kind of under the radar, but after La Petite Mort [the band’s 13th full-length release] something shifted and a lot of people heard us for the first time. So, you kind of circumvent the industry, when you play a gig and there are loads of young people there – people get into you each time you do something, and that’s really exciting.” This, in a way, is the real strength of James as a band. They have managed to hit their stride creatively in a career spanning 30 years and still boast a sizeable fan base to support them. Over time, their sound has morphed and won them supporters in many places. Brian Eno, the pioneer of ambience, is one such fan, and was involved in the production of a number of James’s albums mid-career such as Laid, Wah Wah and Millionaires. He is often credited with inflicting his ambient tendencies onto the band, and I wondered what influence current producer Max Dingel, an apparent Pro-Tools master and sonic perfectionist, had over the recent albums. “I think La Petite Mort was kind of a shift sonically for us and that was implemented by Max. We wanted to push things a little bit, and Max was the perfect person. He concentrates massively on the sounds – it’s about crafting the sounds and creating space for them. I think he’s given us the kind of grit and the power that we get live, but the difference is in the way he crafts the songs. Some of us weren’t so sure about the process, but I think the success of La Petite Mort has validated it. And also we love it, we kind of grew into it, so it seemed like a no-brainer to do another one with Max to kind of pick up where we left off.” Their new album Girl at the End of the World, out on 18 March, promises to be as intricate as their previous release, La Petite Mort. Having been written entirely in Scotland, the solitude seems to be the only thing that carried through: “I don’t think Scotland specifically had an effect on the songwriting, it was more that we were locked away in the middle of nowhere in the Highlands in January, minus ten outside, and that could have been anywhere – Alaska, Newfoundland, Scandinavia, anywhere freezing would’ve had a similar effect on the album. It was something we needed to do, we locked ourselves away and spent all day writing, and that became the core of the album.” In terms of tracks, ‘Girl at the End of the World’ promises a mix of straight-up pop songs and some structurally looser ones. “I love the big journey songs. I love the tension – the ones that don’t just go verse-chorus-verse-chorus, but the ones that go part-A-part-B-part-C-part-D, and I’m really looking forward to playing them live. ‘Girl at the End of the World’, it’s just a simple little pop song – I only join in on the chorus, but I love the directness of it.” On the subject of live activities, Tim Booth’s serpentine swerving and seductive stage presence are renowned, and I ask whether the band has anything special in store for the upcoming UK tour. “We’re a bit shambolic when it comes to organising things. We tend to have a lot of ideas last minute that we try and implement and then cobble things together into a show. It’s going to be a lot of this new album obviously, we’re desperate to play it to people. I think we’re going to shift around some of the tunes we play and work on some back catalogue things, but we’ve got so bloody many to pick from!” Although James has never quite dominated the musical landscape they reside in, as some bands do, they have maintained an impressively consistent trajectory on the path of British rock. They are career musicians – long-distance runners that make the music they love making, humbly and wholeheartedly. Girl at the End of the World hopes to be as big-hearted as the rest of their catalogue, and with refined production and a wealth of experience to draw from, it should build well on top of the success of La Petite Mort. They have survived for this long. Thankfully, it doesn’t look like they’ll be giving up the gun anytime …

Tim Booth on his fury at musical ageism, his love affair with Brian Eno and the spooky ways his lyrics come true. Band at the end of the world James and Tim Booth (centre) look suitably delighted with their new album. “People think ‘Surely James were biggest around Sit Down in the 90s?’ Well, we’re bigger now.” If James singer Tim Booth’s claim seems unlikely at first, then their new album Girl At The End Of The World has just matched the No 2 peak of three of their past albums (90s discs Gold Mother, Seven and Millionaires.) The self-confessed “awkward Mancunian band who never fitted anyone’s pigeonhole” are also set to play to 150,000 people on their marathon tour in May – more than any other tour in James history. They then open the main Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury on June 24. “We aren’t fully appreciated, because the media goes with cool” So it’s no wonder that Booth has plenty of anger at the fact that James have been in the margins ever since their debut album Stutter 30 years ago, back when Morrissey was pretty much their only mainstream fan. “We still feel outsiders,” spits Booth. “There’s a large part of the cultural media that only looks at music made by people younger than 28. We don’t like that. We don’t like sexism or racism and we don’t like ageism either. “We know that if a young band had made our new single Nothing But Love that it’d be a smash hit. But because of the way the media is set up, it’s virtually impossible for us to have hits now, unless a miracle happens. “We aren’t fully appreciated and we aren’t seen for what we are, because the media goes with cool – bands who are less vulnerable and more obvious.” And it’s true that James have always been unfashionable. Even when they had hits like Laid, She’s A Star and the all-conquering Sit Down they certainly didn’t belong to rave, grunge or Britpop. But it’s that outsider spirit that drives the band on, determined to prove doubters wrong. “We’re bitter we aren’t appreciated sometimes,” admits the shaven-headed frontman. “But that bitterness drives us, makes us go ‘Well, we’ll just have to make even better fucking music.’ It’s an inspiration! “And it’s working for us. We aren’t very cool, we don’t play the game, we sometimes won’t play our big hits for a year in concert. But James have made it through for 35 years. Our heritage says we have to take risks, and that’s why we’ve survived.” “Brian Eno turned down millions to work with bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers and REM to work with us for a pittance” If Booth’s words look angry in print, he says them with a smile. He may not be a typical bloke, but he can’t half swear for a Buddhist. Brought up in Bradford before he met his bandmates at Manchester Uni, he’s also a Leeds fan, which must be fun in an eight-piece Manc band. And Booth is right about James taking risks. Fourteen albums in, and Girl At The End Of The World essentially sees James discover rave music. It starts with two minutes of pounding keyboards before Bitch’s self-mocking vocals kick in. Like previous album La Petite Mort, the new record was written in the Scottish highlands. “It was three weeks of no internet and hardly any phone signal,” recalls Booth, 56. “It was isolated and lonely. It’s the band basically speaking in tongues, a completely made-up language that only we understand. The only respite was to take myself off to go hiking up a mountain in the sleet and snow.” Booth talks excitedly about setting the band’s drum machine on a fast tempo in order to encourage its fast pace (“I’ve danced in James for years, but we don’t always give ourselves the best music to dance to”) and off the throbbing Attention began as a ballad before “some people in the band speeded it up to a mega-fast, comedy Pinky & Perky speed”. But he later admits that Girl At The End Of The World was “the hardest record we’ve ever had to make”. He’s reluctant to expand further, explaining: “The turmoil is how bands like Oasis sell themselves. But we protect ourselves in James and close the wagon train.” However, Booth may well be referring to guitarist Larry Gott, who is on sabbatical after not joining James’ tour in 2015. Is Gott still a member of James? “I think you’d have to ask him that,” says Booth tersely. Booth is much happier talking about how Brian Eno helped them on the new album. Although produced by The Killers associate Max Dingel, Girl At The End Of The World’s recording saw Eno join James in the studio for the first time since 2001’s Pleased To Meet You. “Brian says it quietly, but he does say that James are his favourite band,” grins Booth. “So many bands have come up to me going ‘How do you get to work with Brian Eno so much? We’ve been trying for years!’ And these are big bands like REM and Red Hot Chili Peppers who would make Brian millions, that he’s turned down to work with us for a pittance.” Influential U2, Talking Heads and Coldplay producer Eno has “the best mind I’ve ever encountered,” according to Booth. “There’s no such thing as a problem to Brian, only exciting ideas that need to be looked at. He’s so positive and playful. “Sometimes, sure, we’ll go on a dead end with Brian for hours, but then he’ll just go ‘Nope, didn’t work, let’s turn around and go this way.’ I feel so happy to see him every time and it’s still a love affair with Brian.” Booth also admires Regina Spektor, saying he was unable to write a song for three months after he first saw the New Yorker in concert. “When I’m hit by music, I’m really hit by it,” he enthuses, adding he “wept and shook” the first time he saw Sufjan Stevens play, deadpanning: “He was even better the second time.” But Booth admits he’s not completely immune to writing off ageing musicians himself. “When I saw The Rolling Stones, they were awful, a pantomime,” he sighs. “Most people get stuck and become parodies of themselves when they get old. It’s the same as before, but not as good. But it’s not about age, it’s about being alive. Leonard Cohen, Abdul Ibrahim, you still go ‘Holy cow!’ at them.” So how do James avoid becoming a parody? “Because we make songs from the subconscious. It’s five songwriters moving all at once, and we don’t control it. We’re less predictable because none of us know where we’re going.” It’s at this point where Loaded’s interview with Booth takes a turn for the sinister. We’ve spoken to plenty of singers who say their lyrics were trying to tell them something about their lives, but none have been able to demonstrate it quite so precisely as Booth. He explains how Blue Pastures from James’ 1997 album Whiplash was about a man committing suicide in the Lake District by laying down in the snow and refusing to get up. Before the song was released, it’s exactly what a friend of Booth’s then-girlfriend did. The song was played at his funeral and his widow phoned Booth, asking how he knew her husband was going to kill himself. “I don’t sit down to write songs about an event,” he states. “I’m fishing around and I believe the unconscious has access to the past and to the future. They’re all the same to the unconscious, so a lot of my songs tend to come true.” Which, yes, does sound a bit like mystic bobbins. But it’s hard to deny Booth is onto something when he describes new song Attention. Booth lives in Topanga in the Californian desert with his wife Katie and their 11-year-old son Luka. Attention was written when the family moved north in California to the affluent Berkeley suburb, but they moved back to Topanga eight months later, largely because their son was unable to settle in Berkeley. “I’d written this song with a chorus mentioning a manzanita tree,” recalls Booth. “I thought to myself ‘What the fuck? No-one in England will know what a manzanita tree is. It’s a shitty chorus reference.’” Booth tried to write alternative lyrics “20 times”, but kept coming back to the same lines. They described a couple sitting around a manzanita tree watching shooting stars by a fire and “By this fire we are shaped”. Shortly after Booth’s family moved back to Topanga, the father of twin classmates of Luka died suddenly. “We know how we touch people’s lives, because they frequently tell us” The children at the school requested they hold a Native American death ceremony in honour of the twins’ father… where families gathered around a manzanita tree by a fire, watching shooting stars. “You give offerings to the fire,” says Booth. “The twins slept by the fire with their mother, and it’s the most profound acknowledgement of death I’ve ever experienced.” Told you Booth wasn’t a regular bloke. But he’s one it’s impossible not to warm to, and whether or not James play the hits on that May tour, 150,000 people will go home happy. “We know what we’re capable of,” summaries Booth. “We know how good we can be live, though some shows fail and we fall. “But we know how we touch people’s lives, because they frequently tell us. We do what we’re most passionate about and have people thank us for it all the time. That’s an amazing position to be …

Boasting a run of UK chart singles and an American college radio hit in ‘Laid’, James enjoyed phenomenal success in the 1990s, establishing themselves as a prominent fixture of the Manchester indie scene whilst avoiding the Britpop tag. The band split in 2001 following the departure of singer Tim Booth but burst back into life six years later – and the seven-piece have been prolific ever since, with a number of tours and new studio albums. Daniel Jeakins spoke to founding member and band namesake Jim ‘James’ Glennie ahead of the release of their latest record Girl At The End of the World to talk crowning career moments, a new three-album deal and their reformation. Hi Jim. You’re in the process of promoting your latest record Girl At The End of the World. How’s it all going? “Really well, thank you. We’ve got a really busy schedule lined up – we’re doing lots of in-store performances, BBC Breakfast and things like that. Personally I’ve been really pleased with the reaction we’ve got from the new material – we really enjoy the challenge of bringing new songs to our audience and not just playing the same old songs. We’ve always wanted to be an active band in that sense.” Your last record, La Petite Mort, was labelled as being about the death of (singer) Tim Booth’s mother. Does this latest album have a similarly specific subject. “Not really no, this album isn’t about anything in particular. Obviously there are certain songs you can point to which are about things Tim has experienced recently.” You’ve been extremely prolific since you reformed – you’ve toured pretty much non-stop and this will be your fifth album since 2008. Obviously the hunger hasn’t died? “We’ve always been a band that want to constantly update our sound. It might be hard to believe, but ever since the beginning it’s kind of felt like every album could potentially be the last one. We’ve never had any assurances that we’d be able to carry on – actually now is the first time we’ve really had that assurance. “Our new label (BMG) have given us a three album deal, with this being the first one, so we’ve got plans to release more going forward.” You’re the only member of James who has been a part of the band for its whole duration – what would you say are the highlights of your career? “I could reel off things we’ve achieved and amazing things I’ve done, but it’s the small personal things that really stick in the memory. Growing up I was a huge fan of The Jam and I remember seeing their name written above the Apollo and thinking ‘I wonder if my band will ever get to play there’. Then years later we headlined the Apollo and our name was written in the exact same letters – sentimental stuff like that is what really sticks out to me.” You’re known for playing very different sets every night and not sticking to the same selection of songs – why did you decide to vary your performances? “I think it’s important to play a set that suits your setting. I remember we had a flight delayed when we were due to play Latitude so we ended up playing the day after in one of the tents at 11:30am. With that kind of set you have to respect that everyone’s a bit hungover, so we played a lot of quite intimate ones. “If you’re on late afternoon when everyone starts drinking again you bring out the big anthems. Most bands like to rehearse a specific set list, which is a lot easier for our lighting and sound guys, but we like doing it that way. It does lead to a lot of arguments before the gig when it comes to choosing what songs we play …

Tim Booth believes the James’ younger fanbase is helping the band top the charts. The rock group are on course to knock Grammy Award-winner Adele from the Number One top spot on the Official UK Album Chart with their 14th album ‘Girl At The End Of The World’ and frontman Tim Booth believes he has the younger generation of fans to thank for its recent success. In an interview with NME magazine, he said: ”It [2014’s ‘La Petite Mort’] reached a lot of people, especially the videos. We were noticing a younger audience coming to our gigs, so I think the last one set up this one [‘Nothing But Love]. We know we’ve made a pretty magical record and we believe the record will stand up to the scrutiny so it feels great. ”There aren’t many people who can break through the glass ceiling of age and it looks like we’re gonna be one of them.” But when it comes to knocking Adele off the top spot, Tim isn’t convinced the group will be able to up against a ”force” like the ‘Hello’ hitmaker. He explained: ”We’re very happy with how things are going. We think the force of nature that is Adele will push us out of the way at the last moment. James is like a little cottage industry compared to a corporation and I can’t see us holding onto that Number One spot by the end of the week. ”We’re going to do our best obviously and we’ll be very happy with Number Two or Three or whatever we end up with. It’s just really nice that it’s surprised a lot of people. ”We improvise songs, we can’t write hits, we have not a clue how to do that and we aren’t interested in that, but every so often a big song just turns up. It’s like you’re fishing for trout and you suddenly catch a massive great pike by complete error. We knew we’d caught something quite big with ‘Nothing But Love’. We’ve got another one called ‘Dear John’ which is gonna make people be quite surprised too, because it doesn’t sound like a James song in some ways. I’m looking forward to that one coming …

TIM BOOTH, 56, is the lead singer of the band James whose biggest hit was Sit Down in 1991. PATTI SMITH: Horses (Sony) I heard this at boarding school after I was told that my dad had gone into hospital. I was devastated and couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t played it before and the song Birdland is about a boy losing his father. At that moment I connected to music in a way that I’d never done before. WIRE: Pink Flag (EMI) An overlooked punk classic. I interviewed them when I was 17 by pretending to be a journalist from the school magazine and watched them perform these songs. It’s one of the most inventive, crazy records ever. PIXIES: Doolittle (4AD) The Pixies were way ahead of their time and influenced the grunge movement. The arrangements are well crafted and singer Black Francis is the king of scream. They invited us to their Brixton show and it was one of the greatest gigs I’ve seen. SUFJAN STEVENS: Carrie & Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty) Magnificent. It’s very folky and partly about the death of his alcoholic, schizophrenic mother. It’s a great record to chill out and it’s so vulnerable. I saw him live last year and it’s so hard to hold an audience with stillness but he did it. REGINA SPEKTOR: Soviet Kitsch (Sire) She’s a classically trained pianist and can do musical things that I can’t dream of. The song Us is written from the point of view of statues of Soviet dictators and sounds like it has come from a musical. Her voice can make you weep but there’s lots of humour. BRIAN ENO: Discreet Music (EMI) I’ve lived with this record for 35 years. It never ceases to hold me. It’s one of Eno’s early ambient records and got torn apart by the press because everyone was into vocals at the time. I use it to relax. …

Nothing But Love, a 2016 Video by James. Tracks: Nothing But Love

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original link – https://themouthmagazine.com/2016/03/19/tim-booth-james/ IT WOULD BE FAIR TO ASSUME THAT FOR THE NEW JAMES ALBUM FRONTMAN TIM BOOTH MIGHT HAVE CHOSEN TO WITHDRAW HIMSELF SLIGHTLY – 2014’S LA PETITE MORT HAD BEEN A RAW, VIVID AND SOMETIMES PAINFULLY EXPOSED TREATISE ON SEX, DEATH AND SPIRITUALITY. tim featYet, on GIRL AT THE END OF THE WORLD (out this week) he continues unprotected ‘soul mining’, offering up another twelve nuggets from the coalface of the human condition. As ever, it’s deeply affecting – though this time it takes a few more listens for the songs to sink in and begin working that familiar James magic. It’s a much more experimental album, musically (though those with conservative tastes have no real cause to panic – you won’t be filing it alongside the cult classic, improvisational and Brian Eno-produced WAH WAH). In an often exhilarating move, on GIRL AT THE END OF THE WORLD James stride into what is, for them, sometimes unchartered territory. Keyboards are much higher in the mix and more central to the songwriting process. Though there are hits apparent here, this time round James have reconvened to produce one of their most dangerously ambitious records to date… In this new interview with The Mouth Magazine, conducted by telephone, Tim Booth speaks about GIRL AT THE END OF THE WORLD – and yet, as ever, we occasionally find ourselves wading into deeper waters throughout our conversation… HELLO AGAIN TIM, HOW ARE YOU..? Hi, hello again! Yeah, I’m good – but tired… We’ve been running around doing different weird things in London for a few days. We did the Chris Evans show on Radio Two this morning – but you have to get up at about five o’clock to do that… It’s not really what we signed up for when we joined a rock ‘n’ roll band. I WONDERED IF YOU MIGHT HAVE GONE OUT ON THE TOWN WITH MR EVANS AFTER THE SHOW… Aha… Ha ha. I don’t think he does that anymore. I think he goes straight to TOP GEAR these days… I’m back at the b&b, and I have to pack to leave. Oh, hmmm… There’s a cat in here… How’d that get in the house? Is that good luck or bad luck? I HAVE ONE CURLED UP HERE NEXT TO ME ON MY DESK, LISTENING TO YOU… IT’S GOT TO BE GOOD LUCK, I THINK? Yeah, you’re right. It’s good luck. I moved into this Airbnb thinking “This’ll be good, they’ll be good company for me”… But they’re really strange cats though, these ones. They’re psychotic cats… THE LAST TIME WE SPOKE WAS ABOUT A YEAR AGO – YOU WERE JUST ABOUT TO ENTER FESTIVAL SEASON, I SEEM TO REMEMBER, TOWARDS THE END OF THE LA PETITE MORT CAMPAIGN… SO, LETS TALK ABOUT THE YEAR INBETWEEN. YOU’D WORKED INCREDIBLY HARD ON THAT ALBUM, AND EVERYTHING FOLLOWING IT, SO WAS THERE TIME OR THE INCLINATION TO TAKE STOCK, OR A BREAK… OR WERE YOU STRAIGHT INTO THE PROCESS FOR THE NEW ONE? Oh, straight into the process. After LA PETITE MORT it felt like we had some momentum and we should keep it going. We went straight into the studio in Scotland, a kind of converted manor house. We made a DIY studio again, like we did for LA PETITE MORT, and worked our arses off, really, for three-and-a-half weeks. We had a great time making all these new songs that you can hear now. This was all in minus five or minus ten degrees, by the way! THE CLOSENESS THAT THAT SORT OF ISOLATION BRINGS, AND THE RESIDENTIAL APPROACH WHEN YOU’RE WRITING AND RECORDING… WHAT DOES IT OFFER THE MUSIC? An intensity, I think. When you’re writing songs with each other, really what you’re doing is you’re building a relationship, building a language – and so it’s more about listening than anything else. Like, I remember on about the fourth or the fifth day we had this amazing day. This thing, improvised between us, was so delicate and fragile that any wrong move would have messed it up. Everybody just hovered for about twenty minutes, high as kites in this careful listening process. We never actually made a song from that moment, but it wasn’t about that – it was about listening, it was about the communication and the connection. The next three or four songs ended up being really big songs, because we’d reached that level and developed that bond. … A LEVEL OF TRUST… Yeah. There were five of us writing, and we all knew we were there to catch each other. If someone does something risky or wild you don’t leave them out there alone – you go out there to them and see what you could do to make that work in a song. So, in James, there’s a lot of trust and there’s a lot of communication. I GUESS IT’S A CASE OF LEAVING EGO OUT OF IT, TOO? LIKE YOU SAY, IN THIS BAND YOU’RE ALL THERE TO CATCH EACH OTHER – NOT TO CATCH EACH OTHER OUT… Certainly that – but there is a fair heft of ego which turns up now and again. Trust me… But that often comes much later in the process – when people have got attached to songs. You get attached to the version that you’re hearing, and then somebody else takes the song in a completely different direction. So there can be resistance, but you have to keep letting go and keep letting go… It’s like loving a song, getting attached to it, but then letting go of it… All at the same time. JAMES_ALBUM_BLUEAS A BAND WHICH HAS WORKED SO WELL TOGETHER FOR SUCH A LONG TIME, HOW DO YOU NAVIGATE THOSE MOMENTS? IS THERE A DEMOCRATIC PROCESS OR IS IT MUCH MORE ABOUT ONE-TO-ONE LOBBYING? It happens in many ways. Sometimes we talk it through and it becomes a bigger discussion. But we’ve found that if two people have two different ideas, we’ll try them both. It’s often quicker to do that than to sit discussing it, because it’s so easy for people to get entrenched in what they think is right, or the right way… Sorry, I’m just putting some clothes on. I’m freezing in this house… … YOU’RE NOT… NAKED… ARE YOU?! No, no! I’m not naked! ‘Naked interview’, ha ha… But I certainly haven’t got enough clothes on for this weather… FOUR OR FIVE LAYERS, THEN? Yeah, definitely… I’m actually shivering with the cold. It must be my Californian blood. A LOT OF JAMES’S MUSIC GROWS OUT OF IMPROVISATION, SO YOU CAN GIVE THINGS THE ROOM TO DEVELOP BUT ALSO HAVE THIS INTENSE EYE ON WHAT’S WORKING AND WHAT ISN’T… Actually, we’re thinking of doing some improvised gigs – wholly improvised gigs – with timers. So we’d set a timer for six minutes and try and improvise a song to six minutes, and at the end of that improvisation we might set a timer for fifteen minutes and see what we can do to improvise one for fifteen, you know? That’s the writing process that we use, and it’d be interesting to see how it would come over in the live environment. That’s why Brian Eno came to work with us. That’s what made him want to record the improvised album WAH WAH alongside LAID. Eno had heard us improvise, and he believed that was what actually made us unique. I think he’s right, so I think we may try two or three gigs where we just improvise… IT’S A BOLD IDEA… Yeah. People will get their ticket and on it it’ll have to say ‘Purchase of this ticket may entail a really bad concert’ – because obviously we don’t know what’s going to happen. If you buy a ticket you’re buying a ticket to a lottery because we may be on that night – or we may not be that great that night… … AND ‘GUARANTEED NO HITS’… Yeah! Absolutely… ‘Guaranteed no hits’… WHEN YOU’RE IMPROVISING, DO YOU FIND YOU HAVE TO ‘GET OUT OF THE WAY’ OF THE SONG, SOMETIMES, WHEN IT’S COMING? Well, yeah. All James songs come out of improvisation – and that’s really the band’s only way of working. It’s absolutely our strength and it’s absolutely our limitation. So it’s… … CAN I JUST INTERJECT AND ASK WHY YOU WOULD SAY THAT IT’S A LIMITATION? Because we don’t know how to write towards something. If somebody said “Write a hit single, three and a half minutes long, which does x, y and z” – which is something a lot of people can do – we wouldn’t know where to begin, ha ha… What we do is we fish. We fish for songs. We write a whole load of songs and then if we’re lucky there’s a hit in there, in the pool. There might be a song in there that you know will somehow connect with many people, in a way the other songs might not. The thing is, you don’t necessarily love that song more than the other ones. JAMES_ALBUM_BLUESO HOW DOES THAT APPLY TO THE NEW ALBUM? Well, my favourite songs on GIRL AT THE END OF THE WORLD are probably ATTENTION and MOVE DOWN SOUTH – which are not hit singles. They’re more like journey songs, which are really strange and idiosyncratic – and songs that only a band like James would make… But the hits have a certain kind of clout to them. They’re bruisers. They can go into a radio station and fight it out with ten other songs by whoever. They might get on the ‘b’ list or the ‘a’ list or whatever, because they’re songs which show their muscle. They’ve got that something about them. We can’t plan to write those sort of songs. Whereas with singer-songwriters you get these people who seem to be able to consistently make those kind of songs – and make themselves very wealthy in the process. We write a lot and if we’re very very lucky one of those might turn up. THAT’S INTERESTING. I REMEMBER TALKING TO JIM (GLENNIE) JUST BEFORE LA PETITE MORT CAME OUT AND HE TOLD ME THAT THE SONG CURSE CURSE ARRIVED VERY LATE IN THE DAY, NONE OF YOU REALLY KNEW WHAT IT WAS, AND SO IT WAS ALMOST DISCARDED. IT WASN’T – AND, EVENTUALLY, IT CAME OUT AS A SINGLE, PROBABLY ONE OF YOUR BEST… SO YOU’RE CLEARLY NOT A BAND WHO ARE OVERLY PRECIOUS… NOT THAT YOU DON’T TAKE GREAT CARE WITH EVERYTHING YOU DO… I THINK I MEAN THAT ALL OPTIONS ARE OPEN AT ALL TIMES… Oh absolutely. COME HOME was an afterthought on GOLD MOTHER. It was just about the last jam we did – after we’d finished recording the album. we liked it so much we put it on there… CURSE CURSE came a bit late and, actually, I don’t think we quite got it right. I think there was more to get on that song – but it didn’t get the attention it probably warranted because it arrived so late. You have to go with the songs you’ve got, really. The songs that are ready in time… There’s that deadline, always. SO IN THE CASE OF CURSE CURSE (AND ONE OR TWO OTHERS OVER THE YEARS, I EXPECT) IT’S IN LIVE PERFORMANCE AFTER THE ALBUM CAME OUT THAT YOU COULD STRETCH IT TO WHERE IT ‘NEEDED TO BE’? Yes, absolutely. That process is where we find that the songs get much better. Some of the songs are far better, live, because we reshape them and push them about and, as you say, stretch them in the effort to find better ways to make them work… Better ways to get to what they are, I guess. That can be a bit frustrating sometimes because, live, you end up with a far better version than the one on the record – which is the one that everyone hears. IT’S QUITE SOMETING TO EXPERIENCE THAT – THERE’S AN EXHILARATING SENSE OF DANGER ABOUT IT… IT MUST BE INCREDIBLE FOR YOU TO BE IN THE EYE OF THAT PARTICULAR STORM AT A GIG..? Yeah. We leave quite a few songs ‘open ended’ when we play them live, and people can sense that anything could happen. That means it could go wrong as well as it could go right. People can feel that. We could be indulgent. We could mess up, if we don’t listen properly… But it brings you right into the moment, rather than playing the same thing every night – which is where, I think, it becomes a theatre performance and lacks vitality. And maybe truth? The way we do it, it becomes a living communication with the audience that are in front of you right now and it will never be repeated. That’s the real excitement of it, I think. IF THERE’S THE POTENTIAL FOR THINGS TO GO WRONG, IF THING DO GO ‘TITS UP’… … Ha ha ha… … WHAT’S THE BAND’S RECOVERY MODE? You don’t panic. If the song really goes wrong you find a way out – you summon improvisation or maybe you make a joke about it. The good thing with us now is that we’ve got to the place where when something goes wrong it’s actually an opportunity to connect, and to make the gig special in a certain kind of way. Essentially there’s nothing you can do if it collapses, so it gives you an opportunity to connect with the audience in a different way, I think… To admit that you tried something and it didn’t quite come off… To go vulnerable. JAMES_ALBUM_BLUEIT’S INTERESTING THAT YOU WOULD USE THE WORD ‘VULNERABLE’… I DON’T THINK THAT’S NECESSARILY WHAT PEOPLE EXPECT FROM A BAND OF YOUR STATURE. NO-ONE EXPECTS A BAND OF YOUR STATURE TO PUT THEMSELVES OUT THERE SO NAKEDLY, AND YET THIS BAND CONTINUALLY DOES. HOW DIFFICULT IS IT FOR YOU TO CONTINUE DOING THAT YEAR AFTER YEAR? IS THERE A PERSONAL COST TO YOU? THAT’S WHAT I’M GETTING AT… Oh, yes. My lyrics are always personal. I write from the unconscious. What happens is, I write and I think “What on Earth is this I’m writing?” – but I get a sense that that’s the right lyrics for the song, though I don’t know what its about. Usually, literally round about the time the album comes out, it becomes very clear to me what the lyrics are about. That can often be very very painful. Ha ha… Or very difficult or very self-revealing in a way that I had no idea when I wrote it. This particular album, GIRL AT THE END OF THE WORLD, people will get some of the songs and get some idea about what some of the lyrics are about but… trust me… every single lyric is deeply personal. And I’m actually paying for quite a lot of that, right now… … RIGHT, OKAY… ‘COS I’D WONDERED – AS YOU EXPOSED YOURSELF SO MUCH ON LA PETITE MORT – WHETHER THIS ONE MIGHT ACTUALLY BE SOME SORT OF A REACTION TO THAT… LIKE AN ELASTIC BAND… WHETHER YOU’D NEEDED TO GO AWAY AND LICK YOUR WOUNDS… No… No… It’s turned out to be the opposite, ha ha ha ha… In some ways LA PETITE MORT was quite cathartic in that it enabled me to express the grief I was feeling. Less for my Mum, because she died so beautifully and there was a real completion about her death, than to my friend Gabrielle. That was sudden and there wasn’t a sense of completion, and that took me years to grieve. So LA PETITE MORT did have a cathartic aspect to it… but this new record has blindsided me… HOW SO? I’m not going to give you too many details because some of the details are so personal, but a song like MOVE DOWN SOUTH… That line – “move down South” – came in the first improvisation, so we got that. Usually I trust the first lyrics I get if there’re some good ones there, and I liked that… I had a sense that I wanted to move up North, to San Francisco, and I couldn’t work out why this song was “move down South” when we were going to move up North… And we moved up north to San Francisco, in the summer – but by the time the song was mixed, my family had persuaded me to move back down South to Tapanga… Including my eleven year old son, when the mixes came through, going “Dad, even your bloody lyrics are telling you you’re meant to move back down to the South, but you’re not listening”… He completely got me ‘cos he knows, my whole family knows – it’s a running joke actually – that my lyrics come true after the event… There’s a song that I’ve been quite scared of – GIRL AT THE END OF THE WORLD itself. It was envisaging being in a car crash, a head-on collision, and going over the edge at Tapanga canyon – and hoping that at that moment you remember all the beautiful moments in your life. But I’ve been quite nervous about that song, genuinely, because most of the lyrics tend to come true. Literally come true. OH, GOD… THAT’S PRETTY SCARY… Well! When we mixed that song, about a week later I rang Jim and he’d just been driving round a hair-pin bend and there was a car overtaking four other cars, coming towards him at fifty miles an hour, head-on. Luckily the four cars, at the last second, had slowed down enough to allow the car back in. He missed it by a split-second and was left shaking at the side of the road. So with the lyrics coming true thing, we’re hoping that’s what GIRL AT THE END OF THE WORLD was about, that particular incident – which, thankfully, didn’t actually end up with a fatality. I’VE ACTUALLY GOT GOOSEBUMPS. THAT’S BLOODY TERRIFYING. Yeah! Well, also we called an album WHIPLASH and the second gig on the tour I gave myself whiplash, and I was disabled for two and a half years. So we’re aware that these things seem to act almost like spells. But there’s nothing you can do – you get a lyric and you get a lyric. There’s not much you can change. I do remember once writing a song about being stabbed, but I decided we weren’t going to put that one out… JAMES_ALBUM_BLUETIM, I’M GOING TO TRY SOMETHING SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT HERE, FOR THE NEXT FEW MINUTES. OVER THE LAST WEEK I’VE BEEN CANVASSING QUESTIONS FOR YOU FROM JAMES FANS ON SOCIAL MEDIA… Oh, that’s good… Okay… … SO, HERE’S THE FIRST, THOUGH I THINK YOU MAY HAVE JUST ANSWERED IT OR TALKED A BIT ABOUT IT… “WHO IS THE GIRL AT THE END OF THE WORLD? AND, WHAT IS AT THE END OF THE WORLD?” Mm-hmm, yes. The girl at the end of the world, from a boy’s point of view or from a gay lover’s point of view, is… Well, who are you going to think of at the last moment before you die, you know? Who is the girl at the end of the world? That’s different for every individual. OK… “THE LYRIC “AVALANCHE VOLCANO” IN THE NEW SINGLE NOTHING BUT LOVE… WHAT DOES THAT PHRASE MEAN AND WHAT DOES THE SONG MEAN?” People talk about love songs, the joy of love, to be in love… This is more, you know, “Oh shit… I’m in love with this person”… They may not be in love with you, it may be a totally inappropriate love… It’s “Oh-oh” kind of love. It’s a love that threatens your life, in a certain kind of way… or all the safety of your life… … YOUR STATUS QUO… Yeah, that’s right. So “avalanche volcano” is that it’s gone off like that. It’s not an easy going kind of love. IT’S GREAT TO FEEL THAT SORT OF INTENSITY ONCE IN A WHILE THOUGH, ISN’T IT? OR EVEN JUST THE ONCE? Erm, I think it’s what some people actually crave, the kind of love some people live for… But, yeah – absolutely. It makes you feel alive. OK… “TURNING UP THE KEYBOARDS FOR THE LAST COUPLE OF ALBUMS HAS GIVEN JAMES A NEW LEASE OF CREATIVE LIFE. TIM, DO YOU AGREE?” Yes I do. And I was probably the most responsible for that on LA PETITE MORT. I was, like, “Right. We’re not having this anymore Mark” and I just kept on bullying him to turn up. Because, what would happen is, we’d get to mixing a new record and we’d suddenly hear these amazing keyboard lines – but nobody had fed off them, nobody had bounced off them, or shaped the music around them because we’d never heard them while we were jamming or creating the songs. So I just said “This is what we’re doing. Mark’s getting turned up”, ha ha… So we turned him up, in the room, and people bounced off him and he took up space. He’d have a great line for certain songs, like CURSE CURSE, and then that means the whole song has to make the room for that keyboard line… I think by the time this record was coming through Mark had got enough confidence to go “Okay, this works, this is worthwhile”. So he’s continued with very little bullying since, ha ha… OK… “LARRY (GOTT, GUITARIST) IS SITTING OUT THIS TOUR. WHERE IS HE, AND WHY IS THAT?” You’d have to ask him. OK… I will just say that in James, many different things go on internally and we don’t use them publicly. We just don’t. Many bands – say Oasis, the Mondays – have used their internal frictions publicly. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s their choice. But in James we circle the wagons. That’s partly why I think we’ve survived so long. OK… HERE’S THE LAST FAN QUESTION… “WITH ALL THE TWISTS AND TURNS OF A THIRTY YEAR CAREER- AND YOUR OFTEN REFERRED TO ABILITY TO ‘SNATCH DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY’ – HOW HAPPY ARE YOU WITH WHERE JAMES ARE IN 2016?”… MYSELF, TIM, I THINK THE LAST TWO YEARS HAVE BEEN A REALLY HIGH WATERMARK, BUT… … Yeah, I think so too. Musically, I feel it’s been very much a high watermark. These two albums feel great, they’re up there with nearly anything else we’ve done… But sometimes we get a little pissed off that we don’t get as much recognition as we feel we should have done. That’s probably our own fault – we’ve been a difficult band. We made a lot of choices like that in the ’90s – for instance, not allowing the American record company to release SIT DOWN as a single when they came and begged us. We made what could be considered artistic choices, but some of them may also have been foolish choices. SO YOU HAVE REGRETS? Well, no. You can’t really regret. God knows if we’d actually have been able to handle any more success. Possibly not. I think you get what you can handle – or, rather, I think we’ve managed to get what we can handle. James was fairly dysfunctional in the late ’90s – as people. We had a lot of casualties, but I think it could have been a lot worse if we’d had more money or more success. JAMES_ALBUM_BLUEIN THE HOSPITALITY AREA BACKSTAGE, LAST TIME WE MET, I’D NEVER SEEN SO MANY PUNNETS OF STRAWBERRIES IN ONE PLACE… Ha ha ha… I don’t actually remember all the strawberries! THERE WERE MILLIONS! That sounds like an unusual day… Well, perhaps we’d had a fantastically benevolent strawberry farmer visit us bearing all of those punnets as gifts..? … SO IT’S CLEARLY A HEALTHY MACHINE, IN GOOD SHAPE… BUT HOW EQUIPPED IS IT IN TERMS OF CREATIVITY AND, LET’S SAY, MIDDLE-AGED APPETITE, TO CONTINUE ON? Most of us are quite healthy. We’ve gone through different phases. Different people have gone through many different phases – all of us have, really. I’ve always had to be healthy ‘cos I was born with an inherited liver disease and that’s kept me on the straight and narrow – which has probably saved my life, really, when I look at what’s gone on in this band. DID IT GET ‘ROCK ‘N’ ROLL’… Well James aren’t known for being a ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ band but when we did Lollapalooza with Snoop Dog and Korn and Tool and all those bands, we were known as the heaviest band on the tour, the wildest on the tour. We were the band that stole the golf buggy carts and crashed them, and we were the band that partied every day and that the other bands couldn’t keep up with. It’s funny. THAT’S REALLY SURPRISING! Well, again, we closed the wagons and didn’t make publicity on it. Well, we make publicity on it twenty years later, ha ha. That’s when we’ll talk about some of these things! At the time we don’t tell people these things. But that’s James – we have a private life and we look after ‘the family’, and that’s been important to our longevity… So, mainly we’re pretty healthy. I can’t think of anyone in too much trouble at the moment… But there’s always somebody tottering around quite close to the edge, ha ha… … HA HA… THERE HAS TO BE… Yeah, there has to be. It’s almost like we take it in turns. We take it in turns to be the band dickhead. And at various points in time everyone’s been the band dickhead, ha ha… … HA HA… WELL, TO ROUND UP… … Who’s the band dickhead? Probably me! … HA HA… IS THE FUTURE FOR JAMES OPEN-ENDED OR ARE THERE DEFINITE PLANS? ARE THERE THINGS YOU STILL NEED TO SAY, AND IS JAMES THE VEHICLE YOU’RE HAPPY TO USE TO CONTINUE SAYING THEM? So long as it stays so fresh and exciting – which it is – then yeah. It depends also on finances. We’re an expensive band and if we don’t have a record company behind us it becomes tricky. I wouldn’t like to record an album to follow this one unless we can bring really great people on board to make it sound as good as this one. Part of leaving after the PLEASED TO MEET YOU album was that I didn’t think we could ever top it. WHY’S THAT? I felt like we’d reached a creative peak, but we were so damaged as a band that I thought “We’re not going to top this so let’s go out on a high”… So it’s actually always hard to know. We might decide the same on this one – like, ha ha, “How can we follow this one? Maybe we should stop”. God knows, we just don’t know. The other big thing is, how long can we keep on physically improving our concerts? At the moment there’s a real sense that we’re still getting better as a band, as a live band. That’s so contradictory to what people expect from ageing, isn’t it? There must come a point that you can’t match, that you can’t beat. And I don’t want to go past that. I really don’t. I want us to go out with people knowing that we were at our peak – and the peak for James was not the ’90s… I THINK THE LAST TWO ALBUMS – LA PETITE MORT AND GIRL AT THE END OF THE WORLD – MORE THAN PROVE THAT, TIM. THANKS VERY MUCH FOR YOUR TIME AND GOOD LUCK WITH WHATEVER COMES NEXT… Thank you, my pleasure. The same to you, too… The thing is, you can’t look into the tea-leaves, as much as we might try… Actually, I do look into the …

À quelques jours seulement de la sortie de “Girl at the End of the World”, leur quatorzième album, James nous a accordé les instants nécessaires pour nous rassurer sur l’avenir du groupe et évoquer le bon vieux temps : le leur comme le nôtre. C’est que “Seven” m’a aidé à réviser le baccalauréat au début des années 90, puis “Laid”, “Whiplash” et surtout “Millionaires” m’ont ensuite accompagné jusqu’à la fin de mes études. Sans relâche : albums, singles déclinés jusqu’à trois parties distinctes (qui firent les heures glorieuses du marché du disque et des charts dans les 90’s), album solo de Tim Booth & Angelo Badalamenti, tout y est passé. L’histoire aurait pu s’arrêter en 2001, l’année du split après l’album “Pleased to Meet You”. Mais le retour inespéré en 2008 avec “Hey Ma” allait relancer la machine et réveiller la magie. “Girl at the End of the World” est le quatorzième album de James en plus de trente ans de carrière. Est-ce plus difficile après autant de temps d’écrire aujourd’hui une collection de nouvelles chansons, ou bien est-ce au contraire plus facile avec l’expérience ? Écrire des chansons a toujours été quelque chose de facile au sein de James. Il nous suffit de nous réunir et elles apparaissent tout seules. C’est la suite qui devient plus compliquée pour nous ; je veux parler des arrangements, de l’enregistrement et du mixage. Ces étapes-là ne sont jamais faciles pour le groupe et elles nous posent d’ailleurs parfois de sacrés problèmes. Il y a sur ce nouvel album la chanson “Attention” dont la construction est plutôt complexe, qui me semble plus expérimentale que sur aucun autre album, depuis “Wah Wah”. C’est comme si trois chansons se retrouvaient compactées en une seule. Tu sais, avec James, le processus d’écriture est assez bizarre. Nous improvisons tout, et ces improvisations peuvent durer jusqu’à une heure sans s’arrêter. Quand vient ensuite le moment d’assembler les différentes parties entre elles pour en faire un morceau, on se rend compte que les sections qu’on a décidé de garder sont très différentes les unes des autres, et que tu es à des kilomètres de la structure traditionnelle couplet/refrain. “Attention” fait partie de ce type de chanson, que nous appelons d’ailleurs entre nous les “journey songs” (en français, “les chansons qui viennent de loin” -ndlr). En écoutant l’album, j’ai trouvé que chaque chanson proposait sa propre ambiance, son propre style, revendiquait presque son indépendance. En fait, pour ce disque, les sessions d’écritures ont été plutôt condensées. D’une manière générale, nous nous autorisons la plus grande variété et le plus de variations possibles au sein même des chansons de James. Mais je pense que le caractère propre des chansons se développe de lui-même lorsque l’on travaille sur chacune d’entre elles séparément. D’une certaine manière, tu t’évertues à leur chercher une personnalité et au final, elle s’impose d’elle-même. C’est ce qui explique sans doute ce que tu as perçu en écoutant le disque. Le nouveau disque va bénéficier d’une sortie cassette ! C’est un format qui revient très doucement, encore à la marge. Comment cette idée a-t-elle germé ? Ha ha ! La bonne vieille cassette. Personnellement, je trouve qu’elles ont quelque chose d’attachant. Lorsqu’on nous a demandé si nous voulions voir le format cassette apparaître dans les différentes versions et bundles que nous allions proposer pour ce nouveau disque, nous avons répondu “oui”. Maintenant, je ne sais pas vraiment combien de gens vont réellement les écouter, j’ai peur qu’ils les gardent comme objet à collectionner… Pourquoi est-ce que James n’a pas joué en France depuis le milieu des années 90, alors que vous continuiez de vous produire en Europe ? Est-ce par un manque d’auditeurs, ou des ventes de disques décevantes chez nous ? Pour tout te dire, je n’en connais pas vraiment la raison. Nous avions de vrais problèmes avec notre ancienne maison de disques en France à une certaine époque, mais c’était il y a bien longtemps. Ceci dit tu as raison, quand j’y pense, la France est tellement proche de chez nous que de ne jamais y jouer me semble complètement ridicule aujourd’hui. Je me souviens d’une époque où vous offriez jusqu’à trois inédits sur chacun de vos singles. Cette période est malheureusement révolue, puisqu’aujourd’hui le marché considère qu’un single est juste un fichier MP3 avec une pochette dédiée. Tu as raison, et crois-moi, nous mettions tout notre coeur à la réalisation de ces faces B, qui devenaient des morceaux un peu cachés, préservés de l’énorme attention que demande un album. Comme toi, l’époque où nous incluions des b-sides sur chacun de nos singles me manque. « C’est difficile de me souvenir si loin en arrière, mais sincèrement, je n’aurais jamais imaginé être encore là après tout ce temps. » À propos de singles, quels sont ceux prévus pour “Girl at the End of the World” ? Le premier extrait qui a été envoyé aux stations de radio fut “To My Surprise” en novembre de l’année dernière, et celui qui passe en ce moment est “Nothing But Love”. Pour ce qui est de la suite, je n’en sais encore rien pour l’instant. Est-ce que tu te souviens de ce qu’étaient tes attentes avec le groupe au tout début de James ? Est-ce que tu imaginais qu’un jour il y aurait un quatorzième album ? Wow! C’est difficile de me souvenir si loin en arrière, mais sincèrement, je n’aurais jamais imaginé être encore là après tout ce temps. Tout ce que je peux te dire, c’est qu’avec ce nouvel album j’ai le sentiment que nous nous sommes stimulés autant que possible. J’espère bien qu’il y en aura d’autres à venir : je suis prêt pour nos quinzième et seizième …

James play two intimate shows at Manchester Academy 2 and London Scala where they reveal the majority of tracks from Girl At The End Of The World for the first time live before heading to Dubai Jazz Festival for their first show in that country. The first “proper” single from the album, Nothing But Love, is …

Sometimes / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Just Like Fred Astaire / Dear John / Attention / Sit Down / Sound / Laid / Come Home

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Bitch / To My Surprise / Catapult / Move Down South / Dear John / Top Of The World / Feet Of Clay / Girl At The End Of The World / Surfer’s Song / Senorita / Waltzing Along / Say Something / Interrogation / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Just Like Fred Astaire / Nothing But Love

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Bitch / To My Surprise / Catapult / Move Down South / Dear John / Top Of The World / Feet Of Clay / Girl At The End Of The World / Surfer’s Song / Senorita / Born Of Frustration / Say Something / Interrogation / Attention / Moving On / Nothing But Love / Just Like Fred Astaire

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Patchy, with peaks … Commendably still opting for spontaneity after all these years, the lads have whittled down some dance-tinged jams into workable songs and the result is an LP that, while unfocused, still has plenty of drive and energy. Sure – there’s some bad ideas here, but hell, at least they’re experimenting. And sounding like they’re enjoying it while they do.

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When Tim Booth, frontman of ’90s British group James, walked away in 2001, he thought there was no going back. 15 years later and the band are getting ready to release their first album since the unintentional hiatus. In March, they’ll drop the groove — and keyboard-based Girl at the End of the World, a follow-up to 2014’s death-inspired Le Petit Mort. “When we’d finished in 2001, we’d finished,” Booth told tabloid! over the phone, ahead of their first UAE concert. “We had no intention to start again. It wasn’t a sabbatical or a rest. We’d finished. And it was a real surprise to us all in 2006 when we got back together again. I think that was important, psychologically, to believe we’d finished, for us to then come back to it fresh.” And fresh they are. The boys will bring their psychedelic onstage flair and a few new songs to Dubai with on February 24, when they perform at the Emirates Airline Dubai Jazz Festival, opening for American rockers Toto. But ahead of that, Booth, now 56, tells us the gritty details of a not-so-great gig supporting David Bowie back in the day, and why he decided to start breaking boundaries and teaching dance classes in his new home, California. What can you tell us about Girl at the End of the World? What does this album represent? The last album, La Petite Mort, was very influenced by people who died in my life, so lyrically I could give you a theme. It was a theme of death, but there was a bit of sex in there, too. This time, there’s no coherent thing that has given me that thread. It really is a song-by-song basis. There is something hopeful, and there’s quite a lot about love and passion — love as a bomb that goes off in your life and causes all kinds of fall-outs. There’s quite a lot about passion and craziness, there’s a bit about where I live in California. I live in a fire area in California, I’ve had to evacuate three times in the last few years, so there’s fire imagery and imagery of moving and being almost like a refugee. One of the things you’re known for is your dancing on stage. You also teach dance classes now? I’ve always danced the way I dance, but many years ago, I met this woman in New York, like ‘94, named Gabrielle Ross, who had a system of movement where she could teach people to go into a trance state while dancing. It was something I did naturally, but she knew how to break it down and be methodical about it, and teach it to other people. And so I teach classes where you might have 30, you might have 80 people, and I DJ music, which kind of builds — it’s not like DJing in a club where it’ll be one genre of music, like house or a genre of music that I like — it’s music that seduces people into moving a certain way, and then finally [gets them] into a place where they can let go and dance whatever’s coming up to them emotionally, mentally, physically. They may be ragingly angry — they may need to dance an angry dance. Or they may be bursting into tears. How do you dance that? How do you dance Friday night — you’ve had a really bad week at work and your boss’s been on your back and your girlfriend’s leaving you? How do you dance in those states? It’s really creating a forum for people to express themselves through dance in a way that culture doesn’t normally acknowledge. Who comes to the classes? It fantastically varies, but it’s generally people who may love dancing, but have only gone to clubs and taken loads of drugs when they were younger and danced, and now they’re older and they don’t want to take loads of drugs but still go, ‘I did love dancing.’ Last week, I taught this class to about 50, and there was a family there, the daughter who was probably twenty, the mother who was probably in her 40s or 50s, and the grandmother who was 80. And they were all in the class, and they all loved it. Raved about it. Invited me to come and teach in Greece. It’s quite remarkable, really. You get people in wheelchairs coming, you get people who haven’t danced in 20 years. We had a lady who had been part of a religion that believed that dancing was the devil — she was 60, and she was dancing for the first time in her life. And you get teenagers. This is what’s so amazing about it, because it completely crosses all boundaries. Speaking of crossing boundaries – David Bowie recently died. James supported him at a show in the early ’90s. Do you have any memories of that? It wasn’t one of his greatest shows. He’d stuck a gauze curtain between the band and himself and the audience, so the first half of the show took part behind the gauze that we were peering through to try and see him, so it was a little weird gig. It was like, ‘Oh, that was an interesting experiment.’ And then he played some great songs, obviously, that were wonderful. But I remember that, being like, ‘I’m not doing that. I’m not going to perform behind a gauze curtain, that’s not a good idea.’ But Bowie was Bowie, and he took risks, and some of them paid off and some of them didn’t. I think he was in his cocaine phase at the time, I don’t think he was in the best of states when we saw him. I loved his earlier periods with Mick Ronson, those records are probably my favourite now. Or later ones, with Brian Eno. But that Let’s Dance period leaves me scratching my head. I’ve got to say, I was as devastated as anyone else when he passed. I think he’s one of those people who, you take him for granted as your background, and then when he goes, you go, ‘Holy [expletive], the background’s just shifted.’ I think he was incredible, really. Finally, what are the biggest plans for 2016 for the band? Let’s see how well this record does. That will really determine it all. But at the moment it looks really promising. We’re very full of …

The James singer shares his life lessons ahead of Dubai Jazz Fest As the singer of Manchester band, James, the past 35 years have seen Tim Booth living the quintessential highs and lows of life as an artist and rock star. Ahead of his band’s performance at this month’s Dubai Jazz Festival (Feb 24 to 26), he spent an evening sharing his life lessons with Esquire Middle East. When we started James in the 1980s we didn’t want our music to be influenced by anyone else. The only bands that I really loved back then were ones that didn’t sound like us. My favourite band was The Birthday Party. I saw them probably 10 times, and they only lasted for two years before they imploded. I love Nick Cave now but to this day, he hasn’t been in a more ferocious band than The Birthday Party. They weren’t beyond Iggy which is saying something. Seeing Iggy Pop when I was 16 was a huge awakening. Iggy was such a contradiction. He had this masculine/feminine thing. It was like he would fight you but he was also wearing eye makeup and gold leather pants. So I loved that ambiguity. I watched him throw himself around and dance beautifully and I was like, ‘Oh wow, I can do that on stage.’ The way I danced used to get me in trouble. I’d go to clubs in Manchester early before anyone else was there so I could have the dance floor to myself. This was pre-house, and people danced in a very set way. I literally had knives drawn on me many times but I never got stabbed. To become self-realised individuals, we have to get into conflict with the culture we live in, otherwise we just end up doing what everyone has done for the last thousand years. That’s why, growing up, I loved writers such as Doris Lessing, who was amazing, Robert Anton Wilson who was this crazy psychedelic writer, James Joyce, Albert Camus… Patti Smith’s album Horses changed my life during my teenage years. There was David Bowie’s transgender thing. These artists were very important to me in giving me a sense that there were people out there who were ahead of the curve, and suggested other ways of living. I got very sick quickly in my late teens when I tried drugs because I have an inherent liver disease. I realised I had physical limitations and that probably saved my life. So many singers in bands at some point get themselves wasted by addiction. So my illness served me well in that sense as I have never been able to go down that route. My quest became, Can I go on stage and be free, like Iggy Pop or Nick Cave, but can I do it totally sober? That has been my particular challenge and my pleasure. When Western medicine gives up on you then you look at the alternatives. I turned to eastern medicine, not in some kind of new age belief in that it was better, but because I had no choice. I started meditating every day for long hours, I tried homeopathy, acupuncture and Chinese herbs, and eventually found things that really helped me and made me live with it in a very functioning way. Sounding original has never been a problem because we write through improvisation. When you improvise, you can’t control it. Someone plays a note, I respond with a vocal. The thing shifts on its own accord and we might do 100 improvisations to choose 12 or 13 songs. We never had the expertise to say, ‘Let’s make a hit song’. They either fall from the sky or they don’t. And lucky we had long periods where they just turned up. We recorded “Sit Down” twice and the first time we released it, it did nothing. So we recorded a more aggressive version a year later and it went number two and sat there for about six weeks. R.E.M. had a hit with “Losing My Religion” in the interim and suddenly the radio jumped on the indie thing, which shows how you can’t control it. It’s all about luck and timing; we’ve written some great hits that haven’t made it because they came out at the wrong moment. I didn’t go to raves because they seemed so drug-based and not something that I could do. But by around 2000 I was getting into dance music, and I used it when I DJed as a dance teacher. It was really good for me, because when you try to seduce a room of people to dance and really express themselves, you have to step outside the genre of music that turns you on. But I also use classical music or Tibetan, Mongolian throat singing… really any genre. We teach on the weekends to dance eight hours a day. You really get to other states, the same as meditation and there’s a call for this; it’s growing as a movement, like with yoga 20 years ago. In any culture through history you see the importance of dance. It is one of the basic forms of self-expression; you can see it in a child. In this culture, most people only dance when they’ve had a couple of beers or something stronger, but this is taking it back to the roots. Actually, if you do this, you end up feeling fantastic – endorphins get created and it becomes a journey of discovery, a psychological or spiritual path, as any art form that you take to its extreme can be. That for me is interesting. I’m a very lucky person in that I get to do things that I love. I’ve done some acting. I was in an indie move, I was in Batman Begins, and I did some stuff for the BBC. And they are things that creatively stretch me and get me to play and get me back to my child-like qualities. I’m writing a novel that is coming along really well. I’m working on a game I invented, that a promoter is going to put on L.A. in a few months, a party game and it could become an app. I kind of follow my intuition and if I am lucky enough it leads somewhere. The comeback of James has been very enjoyable. We took it so seriously the first time around and it was fraught with tension. When you become very successful, your life goes down a wormhole. It gets scary for a while and it takes a lot of grounding to get hold of that energy. Since 2006 it has been such a pleasure because there has been less pressure. Plus we are older and realise how lucky we are with this. I’ve always done what I wanted to do, and to be able to make money making music that you passionately love after 30 years in the same band… what a blessing! I’m full of awe and respect for Bruce Springsteen. He’s not my natural taste in music, but no one has a bigger heart on stage than that man. He influenced twice in really important ways. The first time was when I was 18. I was dragged to see him reluctantly because I was into punk. But that gig made me realise that it isn’t just tortured artists who have the fire in their belly. And thank God I saw that, because otherwise I would have probably killed myself by now. The second instance was in about 2005 after he’d reformed the E Street Band. I went to see the gig in London with great trepidation thinking that they would be crap, but instead it was one of the top five gigs I had ever seen. They’d found a way to reinvent their material and it was magnificent. It showed me that you can reform and it not be about money. A year later James approached me to reform, and if I hadn’t seen Springsteen do it with dignity and artistic credibility, I think I would have said no. My mother died in my arms, aged 90. It was like a birth and it was also beautiful. The song “Moving On” from our last album is about that time, and also the death of one of my best friends. We approached Ainslie Henderson, an animator friend of ours, about doing a video. I rang him up and kind of overwhelmed him with these stories. A day and a half later he sent a script and I burst into tears. It’s a remarkable piece of work and it’s now shown in hospitals for dying children because they often ask about what death is like, and adults don’t know what to say. It’s a higher accolade than you could wish for as a songwriter or as a band. We will never do anything as good as that ever again. You can’t plan something like that, it’s just one of those things that falls from the sky. The media tell you how appalling the world is, so we think everything is getting worse. But actually if you see the statistics, you look at Hans Rosling’s [Swedish doctor, academic and statistician] website, he does these statistics on mortality rates, literacy rates, on death rates, women’s rights, and he shows over the last 150 years, in every country in the world things are progressing. So I see those messages from corporations and news channels as being a part of the old-school trying to control and rule us through fear, because if you got a lot of fear, you need weapons, you need to spy on your people, you need a state apparatus. And to me it’s a conspiracy of keeping people acting from fear rather than positivity and love. But I am pretty positive that these changes are happening naturally within our consciousness. There has been an empathetic raise of consciousness in the West and certainly in a lot of …

Nothing But Love CD promo, a promotional release by James. Tracks: Nothing But Love (radio edit)

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Nothing But Love, a 2016 Single by James. Tracks: Nothing But Love

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James Glennie is the bassist for and namesake of English rock band, James. He is the band’s longest serving member, having been there from the first line-up through to the present. Forming the band with best friend, Paul Gilbertson in 1982 and with Tim Booth joining shortly after, James quickly got a reputation for being a very good live band. In 1985 Gilbertson was asked to leave the band, and Glennie was quite badly affected by this decision, having lost a very close friend and musical companion. Glennie stuck it out, however, and remained true to the James cause. He and the band’s singer Tim Booth often had many conflicts, with Booth leaving in 2001 to pursue a solo career. But with Booth re-joining in 2007, James have gone on to release albums and to continue to be best known for their live performances. Whilst busy preparing for their forthcoming tour, James took time out to have a chat with Kevin Cooper and this is what he had to say. Hi Jim how are you? I’m very well Kevin thanks for asking. How are you? I’m great thank you apart from this bloody weather. It’s awful (laughter). I have to tell you this, I live on the North-West coast of Scotland and the weather has been remarkably nice recently. Go away. (Laughter) it’s not always as nice as this Kevin I can assure you of that. Let me firstly thank you for taking the time to speak to me. You’re welcome. Before we go on let me just say that I first saw James here in Nottingham at the Royal Concert Hall over thirty years ago now. You were supporting The Smiths on their Meat Is Murder tour. Wow Kevin that’s amazing. I have to tell you that the Meat Is Murder tour was really mad (laughter). The Smiths were really good to us back in those days. They kindly took us under their wing and let us support them on that tour. At the time James as a band didn’t have any money and The Smiths paid for us to go on that tour with them, despite them being offered an absolute fortunate by record companies to take other bands on that tour. They very kindly took us and that was one of the big stepping stones for us starting our career within the music business. The tour lasted for six weeks here in the UK and every show was completely sold out. It was an amazing experience. I have to ask you Jim, just how is life treating you at this moment in time? Things are going really well at the moment. We are just getting into the flow of things with the new record. 2015 was a really busy year for us and things are going really well. After you released your last album La Petite Mort did you feel that there was a swing in the bands popularity? That’s right Kevin things were suddenly moving forward and to be honest it felt great. After getting back together in 2006 we have been working on a regular basis but have mainly been under the radar. However when we released La Petite Mort in 2014 there was a sudden burst of interest and enthusiasm once again from the big wide world out there. And did that bring rewards for the band? Yes it did Kevin. After releasing and touring with La Petite Mort we subsequently signed a new three album deal with BMG and The Girl At The End Of The World will be the first of those albums. So what you now have is a group of slightly more mature musicians (laughter) enjoying a slightly bizarre Indian summer (laughter). It is wonderful, absolutely wonderful. On 18th March this year you will be releasing your new album The Girl At The End Of The World. Are you happy with the album? We are all over the moon with it Kevin. We are really, really pleased with it. The only difficult part of making this record was that unlike our normal scheduling, these two records are coming out fairly close together by our standards. So we had no sooner to come to the end of promoting La Petite Mort then we were back into the studios recording The Girl At the End Of The World and that is just how BMG wanted it. They said that whilst we had got a head of steam up, and whilst we had got the momentum, they thought that we should push on and record the next album. The only downside was that everything had to be condensed into such a short space of time and that has caused us all too recently suffer from a mild sense of panic (laughter). It has just been a massive pile of deadlines and being musicians rather than business people we are not very good at dealing with deadlines really (laughter). We are used to working with a vague date being pencilled into our diaries which is fairly relaxed and moveable but this time people were telling us that if we didn’t get everything done by a certain date, then we couldn’t release it in the first quarter of this year. It would have put us back to an autumn release so it has been a little panicky from our side just getting everything done that we needed to get done within the timeframe. But that’s ok Kevin, it’s a nice problem to have. How are things working out for you with BMG, is it a nice fit? Things are really nice because they are not like a traditional record company, they see themselves as being a publishing company. They never really work with you as a company unless they are handling your publishing. They allow you to compile your own team who are going to be working on your record, and they also encourage you to employ people who are excited about working with the band together with their new project. That way you don’t end up working with a bunch of nineteen year olds who don’t have a bloody clue about what they are doing (laughter). Instead you can go out and hire people who understand the position that James have within the industry and who have got a plan as to how to make that work. The whole set-up within BMG works really well for us. The people who are there at BMG we seem to get along really well with. They are all really cool and relaxed. Plus it is a really good deal unlike it was back in the dark ages when it felt as though you were signing away your first born. BMG seem to have got this work model that is based around recording and publishing but they also join the two bits together. They are either happy enough or daft enough to want to do three albums with us Kevin (laughter). Don’t forget that you are now under extra pressure from Bono to give your work away for free now. (Laughter) perhaps we would consider doing that if we had as much money as he has (laughter). Everybody is coming up with ways to try to get their music out there to the people but I feel that we are a little sheltered from that aspect of the business because James have a slightly older demographic. But having said that, every time that you release a record, we seem to get a bunch of young kids who are getting into us for the first time. That’s one of the great things about the internet, it allows kids to circumvent the music industry and it allows people to hear the music without having to go through the machinery of having to convince people via the TV and radio that they should be listening to your music. The internet allows them to do it for themselves. I do feel sorry for the bands that are now coming into the industry and who are trying to make it work. So as I said earlier I feel that we are a little more protected from that as a large chunk of our hard-core fans still want to own a record or a CD that they can listen to and put back on the shelve. It’s a funny world out there which is constantly shifting. On the subject of records, will you be releasing The Girl At The End Of The World on vinyl? Yes Kevin it will a double album on high quality vinyl especially after the success that we had after releasing La Petite Mort on vinyl. World-wide sales of vinyl are up by 2% which I know doesn’t sound like a lot but the real story is that last year vinyl sales went up by 22% which is amazing. I love the thought that instead of people listening to the new album on a poor quality download that they have squeezed onto their mobile phones and are hearing it through their little ear buds as they sit on the train heading home after work, people will be sitting down to listen to the album with a big picture of the art work in front of them, they go to the trouble of taking the album out, cleaning it and then sitting down and actually listening to it on a pretty good system you would hope. I love that old school feeling of people not just listening to music whilst they do whatever, but that listening to the album on vinyl would be more of an occasion for them. The great thing is that it is not just oldies getting back into it by any stretch of the imagination, the kids are really getting into it in a big way. I guess that it’s funny, it’s strange just how these things come back around again (laughter). At the end of the day it’s great that people are finally realising that vinyl gives a better quality sound and more to the point it is far warmer that a CD. Yes absolutely Kevin you are 100% right. It has always pained musicians certainly from the days of iTunes and more recently streaming, seeing the quality of your music just getting squeezed and squeezed and squeezed into a worse and worse format. You go to all of that trouble to record a record; months of pain, grief, and hassle and then somebody just compresses the hell out of it just so they can get ten thousand songs on their phone. It is really painful, was it really worth all of our trouble? It is a really great feeling when someone puts your work onto a turntable and says wow, this is amazing and they are really appreciating your work. Is the album now all ready to go? Yes it is Kevin. Although it won’t be released until March we have already had to sign off on the masters. The next step now is that in the not too distant future we will be receiving test presses of the album. To be honest we were under a heavily pressed time schedule during the past couple of weeks to get everything signed off on primarily for the vinyl. We had to spend time working on the time-splits on the sides and everything. The problem with vinyl is that at this moment the demand is outstripping the supply. The vinyl recording and pressing plants were a part of the industry which simply folded. Now the demand is once again there its difficult finding someone who knows how to do it (laughter). Now that the album is finished and all ready to go, do you as a band have to forget about it until its release date because if you listen to it is there not a danger that you will want to re-record parts of it as you may thank that you could have done things differently? Yes you are totally correct Kevin. Fortunately for us it has now been taken out of our hands as it had to be finished, but the worst part is that you can find yourselves keep fiddling with the bloody thing (laughter). If you continually listen to a song then you will want to do things slightly differently because you will without doubt start overthinking things, you just do. I know from experience that that would be a potential problem for us, we would be wanting to mess around with everything. They do say that you never finish an album, you abandon it and I think that is so true. At some point it is taken off you by the grown-ups (laughter). Our collective worry was that if the album had been left with us for an extra six months we would quite possibly mess the thing up. It would be virtually impossible for us to leave it alone (laughter). So I am really glad now that we can’t do that. With regards to listening to it, yes you do need a break and what we tend to try to do is to put the record to one side. However before we know it we will be starting rehearsals for the tour; we will also be promoting the record, and we will have to know the songs and know what we are doing. So we will have to start listening to the album once again but I personally feel that a little break, to clear your mind, leaving all of that behind is very important. Is it, in your opinion, the best album that you have made? It is difficult for me to be objective Kevin. What I can say is that we are all really impressed with the album. We were all pretty impressed with what we did with La Petite Mort and that seemed to move us on somewhere with regard to recordings. I don’t think that we have always necessarily manged to really embrace the recording process and I think that sometimes it has been rather difficult for us. I think that on La Petite Mort something shifted when we managed to find Max Dingle who is prepared to put up with us and somehow get the power that we get in our live performances down on the record. Max deconstructed us and musically built us back up again. I was so impressed with him for doing that. With this record we have gone back into the studio and have tried to move on, tried to push it that little bit further, and I also think that the song writing process is stronger on this record. I think that the song writing is reflected better on this record than on the last record. La Petite Mort was the first record that had the five of us writing on it. We were very pleased with how it went but it was the beginning of a new relationship really. Instead of there just being the three of us writing, there were five of us. On this record it was bang straight in again; there was no big gap between the recordings, it has kind of moved on from there. I think the new album reflects that. Is it the best record that I have ever written, I don’t know. Having said that, I know that it is definitely up there. What was it like working with Brian Eno again? Brian’s input was kind of sporadic problem solving. We had some songs which we had some issues with which we couldn’t fathom basically, we found ourselves banging our heads against a brick wall. Sometimes some songs fall really easily into your lap; they really do whilst most songs don’t (laughter). Some songs seem fairly obvious what you are going to do and where you are going to go but you can’t seem to realise them, you can’t seem to make them work. And that is where Brian Eno comes into his own because he is such an abstract thinker that he throws you curve balls and presents you with something that is a very different kind of song to the one that you were originally trying to write. They all seem to come from a Brian Eno dimension (laughter). Eno is wonderful, he has an irreverence to music which we all find really refreshing. He is happy to abandon everything that you have worked so hard on and come up with something completely and utterly different. He is a great man to have behind you, he really is and he helps us out in our hour of need. Do you still get a buzz out of touring or is it a necessary evil? I absolutely love touring Kevin, I absolutely love it. This year will probably be different for us as the album will probably do very well and we will find ourselves on a stupid world tour (laughter). We always tend to keep the balance right because most of the members of the band have got families and so we don’t tend to disappear around the world for months on end like we used to, and let me tell you Kevin it used to be very hard. It’s a very different way of touring now as band members bring their families along with them and so we just love touring. Touring is the essence of where we do what we do, we just get out there and wallop people with our music (laughter). We love the live relationship that we have with our fans; we love the fear and we are the kind of band who does not want to over rehearse the fear out of our performances. We have nurtured that and we like that excitement. However when you have that attitude things can and do go wrong (laughter). But still things happen as well, and the crowd appreciate and understand that from us. And you are coming back to The Royal Concert Hall in May, are you looking forward to it? As you have said Kevin, we have played there before. Coming back as the headliners though is absolutely great and I am certain that it will be just as good if not better than the first time. We always have a fantastic time whenever we visit Nottingham. It’s a lovely city. You seem to have a special kind of relationship with some hard-core fans. Would you agree with that? Entirely Kevin, without a shadow of a doubt. We can never thank them enough for being so open and how they have allowed the band to develop. Perhaps that is why we are still here after thirty-four years. The fans don’t get bored of it and the band don’t get bored of it simply because we keep on changing everything all of the time. Whenever they come to see us they won’t necessarily get all of the big hits that they want, but that is just the way that it is with a James gig (laughter). If we did that all of the time we would get bored with it and pack it in. So we shift and change things all of the time. We put songs in where we have to work really hard to make it work and sometimes it works brilliantly while other times it’s a bit crumbly (laughter). But the fans love it and they appreciate us for trying. If you are shooting for something and you cock-up, the fans appreciate that. The worst thing that you can do is not to aim that high just so that you don’t make a mistake. That is so against the ethos of this band. As we have got older we have got much better at accepting that things will go wrong sometimes (laughter). We now find it funny rather than disappearing down a big black hole like we used to do back in the day (laughter). Between 2001 and 2007 when James split, what did you get up to? Despite the rumours I did actually stay in music and I still worked on productions with songwriters. I did things that I wanted to do which were fairly under the radar. I played with a lot of people who I enjoyed playing with which simply didn’t fit within the James remit. I just tended to keep everything fairly low-key. I just tried to enjoy myself Kevin. On that note let me thank you for taking the time to speak to me and I am looking forward to seeing you here in Nottingham at The Royal Concert Hall on 21st May. Thanks a lot Kevin, it’s been great. Cheers for …

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They ought to be heading towards the end of their careers. After 33 years and a six-year break-up, it ought to be all over bar the shouting for Madchester indie icons James. But rather than heading into the autumn of their years, James are enjoying an Indian Summer. Their most recent album, 2014’s La Petit Mort, was their best since 1993’s Laid. It was written following the death of singer Tim Booth’s mother in 2012 as well as the death of his best friend. A beautiful set of moving and quixotic songs, it re-connected James with the British public. This spring, they’ll hit the road and a stadium tour to promote their new album Girl At The End Of The World, which is out on BMG Recordings on March 18. Their tour reaches Birmingham’s Barclaycard Arena on May 20. Booth is proud of the record: “Bands talk about that difficult second album but it’s the 14th one that’s the real killer. “As always with James it’s a collaborative process allowing ample room for improvisation, intuition, skill and dumb luck. From the outside our process looks like chaos but chaos is our friend and we have a history that gives us confidence that something magical will eventually appear. Most of my best lyrics are unconscious typos so don¹t ask me what it’s about; your projection is as good as mine. This was perhaps the most difficult and stressful album we have ever made. I hope you find it as rewarding as we do.” James have sold more than 12 million albums worldwide since signing to Factory Records in 1982 and produced a string of massive hit singles, including Sit Down, Come Home, She’s A Star and Born Of …

About the song Poodle Jam by the band James.

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About the song Animal by the band James.

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About the song Bouncing by the band James.

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To My Surprise, a Video by James. Tracks: To My Surprise

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Saul Davies from indie band James on 34 years of making music, why they owe everything to their fans and how he was discovered at a blues night. YOU could say that James owe everything to their listeners. More than three decades have seen the Manchester indie band rise up through The Haçienda days, rack up 12 million record sales and weather a five-year split. They are well aware that fans have stuck by them through thick and thin. But do not ask the Manchester indie band what their secret is because they are still trying to work it out for themselves. “We might be one of the luckiest bands in the UK,” said Saul Davies, guitarist, violinist and percussionist. “So many of our peers have dwindled and 34 years of a band existing and making records and doing great gigs is quite unusual. “People take that for granted and even we do as a band, Maybe that’s right that we just get on with it and don’t think about it too much. “But nevertheless we’re in some exalted company of bands that have been around that long and still make records.” The band have recently announced their 14th album, Girl At The End Of The World, which will be out on March 18, 2016. The seven-piece band’s tour will also take them to Manchester Arena on May 13. Saul added: “We’re putting more tickets on sale for this tour in May than we’ve done for any other UK tour in 25 years. “We’re not sliding away. It’s the opposite if anything and it’s a very interesting phenomenon. I don’t know what we’ve done to make that happen. “We’re a band that you either get or you don’t and the people who have got us have stayed with us. That is quite a remarkable thing as a lot of bands gradually lose people.” The Girl at the End of the World is James’ follow-up to 2014’s La Petite Mort which again saw them team up with long time collaborator Brian Eno and producer Max Dingel, who has worked with The Killers, Muse and White Lies. Saul said: “It felt natural. We knew his working methods and he knew ours so it made it easier. “Those who are familiar with our last record will find some similarities but this is more of a pop album. “La Petite Mort was darker in many ways and I think this shows another side of us. I’m quite looking forward to people hearing it and seeing what their reaction to it is.” James are also one of the few bands who have consistently put out records every two or three years. “I would say that we’ve always wanted to stay creative and busy,” added Saul, whose favourite artists are Duke Dumont and Hurts. “It’s the industry around us that has dictated that there are big gaps between our records. “But we’ve had a lot of support from our record label BMG and so they’ve encouraged us to release another album relatively quickly “We also felt that we’d gathered some momentum after La Petite Mort so it felt sensible not to leave it too late.” And despite having massive hits like Come Home, Sit Down, She’s a Star and Laid, Saul said the band never feel pressure to play the old favourites. “That’s also testament to the audience,” he said. “We have a big bag of tunes. I think we had 17 top hits and that’s pretty healthy. We don’t play all of them and I think our audience would be annoyed if we did. “We’ve made our way through our career and through the industry by being a little bit difficult “There are some big arenas we’re playing and there will be many people who have come to hear the new record. “It’s amazing that we’ve managed to create that bond with the audience. We look forward with a great deal of anticipation to being on stage as I genuinely think we are a much better live band than we’ve ever been.” Arena tours are a far cry from Saul’s beginnings at Band on the Wall in Manchester. He was discovered by James’ Larry Gott during an amateur blues night. “It used to be amazing there,” added Saul, who started to learn the violin when he was eight. “They had bands there six nights a week from all over the UK. Larry was intrigued by a violin that I had with me. I just brought it out the car as I didn’t want it to get stolen. “But he persuaded me to get up and play and then all these people suddenly gave me the opportunity to join bands “I think nine people asked me as soon as I walked off stage.” It was, of course, Larry’s offer that Saul accepted and soon enough he was swept up in the ‘Madchester’ scene of the late 80s and early 90s. “It was a culture shock,” said Saul, who now lives in the Highlands of Scotland. “This was during the time of the Haçienda and when Afflecks Palace was big and all this mad stuff was happening. “It was an exciting period of time. “We, as a band, were probably on the outskirts of all of that stuff that was going but nevertheless we were involved in it.” Saul’s first Manchester show was at the Free Trade Hall. He added: “I remember Morrissey came to see that show and New Order were there. “I’d only been in the band for two and half months and given that The Smiths and New Order were two of my favourite bands it was amazing to …

Girl At The End Of The World (album promo), a promotional release by James. Tracks: Bitch / To My Surprise / Nothing But Love / Attention / Dear John / Feet Of Clay / Surfer’s Song / Catapult / Move Down South / Alvin / Waking / Girl At The End Of The World

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James announce the release of Girl At The End Of The World in March 2016 and a fifteen-date UK tour to follow in May. The first single from the album, To My Surprise, is released with a video by celebrated New York director Kris …

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New Album Released March 18 2016 James are proud to announce their new album Girl At The End Of The World out on BMG Recordings on 18th March, plus a major headline tour for 2016. James are one of the UK’s most creatively restless and loved artists. Known for their unique and diverse style over their 13 studio albums, they’re both critically acclaimed and commercially successful, having sold over 12 million albums worldwide. The band originally signed to the iconic Factory Records in 1982, and have since gone onto produce a string of massive hit singles, including: Sit Down, Come Home, She’s A Star and Born of Frustration. Now, 32 years on they have come up with a record that the band consider their best ever. Girl At The End Of The World sees the band team with producer Max Dingel (The Killers, Muse, White Lies) with the legendary Brian Eno infusing his unique influence into the blend. The new album is both anthemic and euphoric, with it’s simmering electronica continuing James’ long connection to the dance floor. The band’s trademark songwriting and Tim Booth’s distinctive vocal & evocative lyrics prove once again to be amongst Britain’s finest. “Bands talk about that difficult second album but it’s the trickster 14th one that’s the real M*&^%R F&%$#R,” says Tim Booth of the making of the new record. “As always with James it’s a collaborative process allowing ample room for improvisation, intuition, skill and dumb luck. From the outside our process looks like chaos but chaos is our friend and we have a history that gives us confidence that something magical will eventually appear. Most of my best lyrics are unconscious typos so don¹t ask me what it’s about; your projection is as good as mine. This was perhaps the most difficult and stressful album we have ever made. I hope you find it as rewarding as we do. OYSTER- GRIT-PEARL.” Jim Glennie says ‘The essence of James is live. The pleasure never diminishes. I can’t wait for us to get our hands on these songs in front of the best audience a band can have’. The Girl At The End Of The World Tour spans the UK, including a giant hometown show at Manchester Arena and a 3 date takeover of London at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, O2 Forum Kentish Town and O2 Brixton …

Psychedelic indie rock survivors James are heading back to Hull for the first time in 25 years – and it’s set to be a wander down memory lane for guitarist Saul Davies James openly admit they’re not the easiest of bands to support. The Mancunian indie outfit, best known for trippy pop masterpieces such as Sit Down, Confusion and Laid, has never been an outfit to settle for the easy option. Instead of resting on their considerably bushy, multi-harmonied laurels and pumping out crowd-pleasing “best of” tours and rose-tinted 90s love-ins, they’ve refused to play the nostalgia game; deciding instead to confront fans with new material and shy away from their best-known chart hits. But for James’ Hull-raised guitarist Saul Davies, the band’s membership of the awkward squad is something all veteran bands should aspire to. “We’ve never been ones for just going out and doing the old hits,” he says. “If we ever turn into a tribute band to ourselves then I think that’s the point when we should give up. “But I think we’re lucky we have the fans that we do. It’s quite dangerous to go in front of 20,000 people and play a lot of songs that no-one ever heard before. But, when we do the new stuff it gets a really good response and, I think, because we know we’re a good band we have the confidence to be able to go out and try new things. “You don’t want to be trapped by the past.” Saul, a former Sir Henry Cooper School pupil who spent much of his youth growing up in Hull after his parents moved to the city for work, says he will always remain thankful for the legions of fans who have stuck by the group. “We’ve done a lot to alienate them down the years,” laughs Saul down a shaky landline from his home back in his native Scotland. “We’ve not always taken the most obvious route, but they’ve still backed us, they’ve still turned out to see us.” Saul and the rest of the seven-piece outfit will be hoping the bedrock of fandom is still there when they release their new – and 14th – album, titled The Girl At The End Of The World, in 2016. The album hasn’t had the easiest of gestations admits singer Tim Booth – and this is from a band that’s endured more then its fair share of troubles down the years. They even split in 2001 before tentatively reforming six years later. “Bands talk about that difficult second album but it’s the trickster 14th one that’s the real nightmare,” says Booth of the making of the new record. “As always with James it’s a collaborative process allowing ample room for improvisation, intuition, skill and dumb luck,” he adds. “From the outside our process looks like chaos, but chaos is our friend and we have a history that gives us confidence that something magical will eventually appear. Most of my best lyrics are unconscious typos so don’t ask me what it’s about; your projection is as good as mine. “This was perhaps the most difficult and stressful album we have ever made.” The album will be swiftly followed by a UK tour which, as well as taking in some of the country’s enormo-dome arenas, will also be dropping in on Hull’s more intimate Hull City Hall on Monday, May 16. Tickets for the show are on sale and the album is available to pre-order now. Next May will be the first time in 25 years that the group has graced the City Hall stage and it looks set to be something of a homecoming for Saul. The guitarist says he didn’t insist on the band playing Hull – “if that were the case, I’ve been doing a pretty rubbish job for 25 years” he laughs – but he was delighted when he saw it pop up on the tour itinerary nonetheless. “We haven’t played Hull City Hall since 1990,” he says. “And I absolutely can’t wait. Our other guitar player Adrian is from Hull too, so the guest list is going to be a big one that night.” Saul’s memories of Hull are happy – often musical – ones. He joined his first school band in Hull, its name lost to the mists of time, and he marinated his youthful talent in the city’s buoyant music scene of the time citing groups such as The Red Guitars as early influences. “I went to a lot of rock gigs at Hull City Hall when I was a kid. Wishbone Ash, Uriah Heep,” he says wistfully. “I went to everything, no matter how preposterous it was. Then I discovered The Welly and all the bands playing there. That was my early musical education really.” Despite all the huge success James has enjoyed since forming in 1982, selling 25million albums, scoring 19 UK Top 40 singles and playing to hundreds of thousands of fans around the world, Saul admits that one of the proudest moments of his career was returning home to play at City Hall after joining James in 1989. “It was weird for me,” he explains. “Going away to Uni in Manchester, joining some odd, spiky, pop, punky band and then coming back to play where I’d seen all these amazing gigs; to come back and actually be on the stage instead of watching it. “I’ll admit when I saw it on the tour list for next year I cackled. It’s going to be a real wander down memory lane for …

To My Surprise CD promo, a promotional release by James. Tracks: To My Surprise (radio edit)

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To My Surprise, a 2015 Single by James. Tracks: To My Surprise

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To My Surprise, a 2016 song by James.

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James headline Bingley Live with Mike Vennart on guitar duties as Adrian Oxaal had prior commitments. They then head to Portmeirion for Festival Number 6 where Tim, Saul and Jim are reunited with Joe Duddell for a half-hour set with a classical ensemble in the Town Hall on the Saturday before co-headlining the festival with a full-band set on the …

Unknown

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Alaskan Pipeline / Say Something / Fairground / The Lake / Laid

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Tomorrow / Curse Curse / Laid / She’s A Star / Johnny Yen / Walk Like You / Out To Get You / Interrogation / Sound / Sit Down / Moving On / Come Home / Sometimes

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It’s announced that Larry Gott is taking a sabbatical from the band. Adrian Oxaal steps in on guitar duties for shows at Worcester Race Course as well as the band’s first visit to the Isle Of Man, a storm-ridden headline slot at Hardwick Live and Edinburgh’s Princes Gardens. James headline Expofacic Festival in Cantanhede, Portugal for the third …

Walk Like You / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Gone Baby Gone / Johnny Yen / Say Something / Laid / Jam J / PS / Out To Get You / Curse Curse / Sit Down / Sound / Moving On / Come Home / Top Of The World

Walk Like You / She’s A Star / Just Like Fred Astaire / Gone Baby Gone / Johnny Yen / Say Something / Laid / Jam J / PS / Out To Get You / Curse Curse / Sit Down / Sound / Moving On / Come Home / Top Of The World

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Come Home / She’s A Star / Johnny Yen / Sometimes / Walk Like You / Just Like Fred Astaire / Curse Curse / Sit Down / Tomorrow / Sound / Moving On / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Laid

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Johnny Yen / She’s A Star / Waltzing Along / Come Home / Gone Baby Gone / Walk Like You / Tomorrow / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Curse Curse / Interrogation / Out To Get You / Born Of Frustration / Sit Down / Sound / Moving On / Sometimes / Laid

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Waltzing Along / Come Home / Gone Baby Gone / Curse Curse / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / She’s A Star / Interrogation / Out To Get You / Say Something / Sit Down / Sometimes / Moving On / Laid / Sound

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All I’m Saying / Waltzing Along / Seven / Sit Down / Interrogation / Gone Baby Gone / Curse Curse / Say Something / Sometimes / PS / Walk Like You / Just Like Fred Astaire / Moving On / Come Home / Sound / Laid / Out To Get You and Getting Away With It (All Messed Up)

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James play a sold-out and long-awaited headline slot at Delamere Forest for the Forestry Commission as well as sets at Nottingham’s Splendour Festival, a Thursday night Kendal Calling headline and Festa do Albariño in Cambados, …

Just Like Fred Astaire / Say Something / Curse Curse / Interrogation / Moving On / PS / Walk Like You / Sound / Come Home / Sometimes / Laid / Out To Get You / Getting Away With It (All Messed Up) / Born Of Frustration

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