James on the Stage

UK Band James spoke with City Times about their 14th album ahead of their performance at the Dubai Jazz Festival yesterday.

James have been at the forefront of British Music since they started in the heart of the Manchester music scene in the 80s and 90s. With singles She's a Star and Sit Down placing them in the top 10 of the music charts early in their career, almost 35 years later James is still creating edgy and lyrically interesting music.
Their latest album Girl at the End of the World is their 14th to date and James don't seem interested in stopping. The fact that the band is still creating relevant music, touring and gaining more fans after a long run in an industry that prizes youth over experience, is a testament to James's unique sound, talent and their attitude.
"We mess around. We don't take anything too seriously, especially these two," says lead singer Tim Booth, as he points at his two band members, Jim Glennie and Saul Davies, "they are quite funny, but only thirty percent of the time. I'm not funny at all, (laughs), I'm very serious."
City Times sat down with James to discuss music, song writing and the surreal psychic elements of their lyrics.
Girl at the End of the World is your latest album. What can you tell us about it?
Tim: The title comes from a song called Girl at the end of the World. I live in Topanga Canyon and it's got these windy hairpin bends going up in the canyon. And idiots every couple of weeks overtake on a hairpin bend and someone goes down in the canyon. I fantasise about what that might be like. When you're going around one of these hairpin bends, to see some idiot coming toward you at 60 miles an hour on the wrong side of the road, overtaking, and that's what the song is about. Like when you die, are you going to have that split second to go 'oh God I had an amazing life, remember the women I've loved and the friends I've had and the amazing moments?' You know, do you get that moment?
Some might call that a bit macabre, wouldn't you say?
Tim: I don't think so, personally. It's celebratory. I write lyrics and they often come true, for me, or other people around me. I got quite scared that that might come true for me. That bit is macabre. We mixed the song and I rung him (points at Jim) up and he'd been on a Scottish hairpin bend and a car came straight toward him, overtaking four cars.
Jim: Yeah, it's happened to me a couple of times when I lived in the North west coast of Scotland in the middle of nowhere.
So you guys should watch out when Tim is writing!
Jim: Absolutely!
Saul: The thing is we did an album in the 90s called Millionaires, and we called it Millionaires on the basis that maybe hopefully. but it never happened. So I'm still waiting for this to be proved correct.
Jim: Saul would like the next one to be called "paying of a significant portion of my mortgage". I know it's not that catchy but it will do. (Laughs).
You guys live in different countries. How does that affect the creative process when you're working on an album?
Jim: When we work together we tend to do it in blocks of time so where you set off from is not hugely important. We've been scattered around the UK for years and then manage to get together to do what we need to do.
Saul: Our time together is intense so I think it's good that we are actually separated from each other. I think it makes us weirdly efficient. The last two records were written pretty much, no - entirely, on the West coast of Scotland.
Tim: Locked away in a hotel for three weeks, with hardly any internet, hardly any phone, snowed in.
Jim: It is really fun but also intense and tiring.
Tim: Especially when the cannibalism kicks in (laughs) and we all start looking at each other. I'm so thin that they don't tend to go for me.
This is your 14th album. Does it get any easier making an album?
Tim: This was for me the hardest we ever had I think because we were edging toward a new sound. And that's always hard to know whether you're making complete fools of yourself or whether you're going to find something interesting.
Jim: And we've pushed on straight from the last record with this one. BMG, our record company, just wanted to keep things rolling, keep the momentum going so we had to try and get everything done while everything was still going on with the last record. I liked that because it gave us the chance to relate quite closely to the last album, and I think in the past we hadn't done that. There tended to be a definite end to the record and then a period of calm, and then we do the next one and I think we kind of managed to build on that, musically.
Saul: Also, the world has moved on in so many ways. People expect, everybody is looking for things to happen more quickly. It's a different era that we now live in.
Is it harder to write the songs or perform them?
Tim: We love both. Writing a song for us, is like an intimate act of communication. Improvising and building layers and then when you take them out and perform them you give them away. It's like they aren't yours anymore and you see the impact that they have. And we love them both.
Maybe performing is harder just because you have to travel. Well for me anyway. It's a lot of travel - it's a bit more stressful. You're in front of 20,000 people and you want to nail it. And yet we as a band live, we change the set every night, we improvise on stage, we give ourselves a hard time live. So life is more stressful.
Saul: We expect a lot from ourselves in both areas.