Interview with JAMES’ Saul Davies
Written and edited by Millie Cain.
Sat outside his home in a pair of Ray-Bans and a denim shirt, he looked so classically rock.
How are you feeling about playing the First Direct in June?
Of all the arenas we play in the UK its my favourite, its really powerful sounding its great to be on stage in there, being under the lights just feels amazing. I don’t know what they did right when they built that place, but it was something right – because playing arenas can feel quite soulless. But actually, I love it. What were the iconic venues in Leeds that are probably gone now? It’s a bit like in Manchester, all of our towns had these amazing venues and a lot of these venues have gone.
We’re lucky, we have a real, across Yorkshire really, an amazing audience and an amazing connection to our audience, so that venue always sells out when we play there, and it always sounds amazing, and we always look forward to playing it on our tour. A lot of people say that, but it is actually true. There are other venues that fall into that category, like in London, Wembley is a belter, it’s quite different really to Leeds, its older and it just sounds amazing. It’s a tight and powerful sound, just everything sounds hyper in there. A lot of these sheds are horrible, but I suppose with music, it’s not where its natural place is to play. I always feel like it’s a bit of a shame, to pay (so much quid) but we’ve nothing to do with it, we don’t get anything from the bar or the t-shirt prices.
There are definitely special places to play though, recently you’ve played the Apollo in Manchester in aid of Music Feeds Live, and how was it organising such an event with so many other artists?
That was my initiative, my (something?) where I am now. We did it online during the pandemic and donated the money raised to food banks and then we thought we want to do – (interrupted by dog Nell “alright Nell” laughing) we wanted to do something physical, you know on the stage. So we decided to take on that venue, and we had an amazing crew, The Farmer, Star Sailor and Chicane, Simon Armitage and it was amazing. It was difficult, hellishly stressful, we got some money from to the Trussel Trust that came, people brought food on the night, food parcels, made donations. It was really worth doing but hard you know. But it also was a good reminder that there isn’t many of those kinds of events. So we should do this, its difficult and a bit tricky to pull off.
Yeah, it’s really worth it for donations but raising awareness as well is so important.
Yeah, and showing and being able to say well look we’re gonna show solidarity for those who need that support, and it doesn’t go unnoticed that people do that work and support and it doesn’t go unnoticed that people need that support. No one person or one organisation, of course, is ever going to sort that out, I think that’s a mad spaghetti junction of problems and issues that we wont ever really be able to solve I don’t think any time soon. At the same time, I do think its right that people who feel like they’ve got the energy to do something, do it.
The new album is coming out in April, there was 86 jam sessions in the course of 3 weeks and there is a bonus CD ‘Pudding’ coming out, in your experience how are the jam sessions used creatively, and which track was most enjoyable to make?
Now there was a period in the late 90s where we did things slightly different, we’d all work on stuff at home and send it off to Tim and he would come up with vocals and stuff and they would become our songs. But that was short-lived, For us in James, it’s been 42 years, we just do it that way, we just get together and jam and it’s a bit of a mess and its inefficient and its hugely invigorating at times.
Yeah, it sounds pretty intense…
It is very intense yeah; we go into a room, and we don’t know what to do and we just do stuff. Some of it, a lot of it, is shit. Oh, that doesn’t work or that one sounds like it does, and sometimes you go back to the ones that were really cool, and it turns out the one we thought was shite was actually really good. And then we try to make a structure out of the racket that we’re making. Its cool you know, it’s not very efficient or an easy way to work but it’s the way we do it. Its not an easy way to work. But it’s the way we do it, its hugely challenging and hugely rewarding. I think on this record I had a big hand in a few of the songs on the record, finding them in jams in the first place and identifying bits of them that I thought could work and putting them together in a way that then we presented to the group as a possible. And they made it all the way through to the end. There’s a song called “Shadow of a Giant” that I really like on the record, which I didn’t put the jam together, but it was always very fast, and its now a very slow song, but it was originally a double tempo, twice as fast, and my suggestion was to half time it and give it this fatally kind of feel about it, and they put violin on it, which I was very happy with that performance. A guy called Jon Hopkins who’s known a lot for his electronic music, he played piano on it, so it was cool. There was another song called “Butterfly” which I really liked and I kind of put together really, but it’s a bit of a mad piece of music, but I do really, really like it.
And our fans will let us know if they think its shit,
Well, considering you’re still selling out arenas, there’s obviously still that audience there
I think its really interesting because I think there’s been a little bit of a resurgence of interest in a period of music where we certainly were very active in the mid-90s, and probably in a nostalgic way, looking at that era, but also in a way that you can look at any era of music and you can still inadvertently, unconsciously or even perhaps consciously, steal ideas from that time. In seeing that happening with new artists that are coming through, they’re looking at that period of time, thinking ‘it was really cool!’ and we were there when it originally happened, and I’m sure it was that cool but whatever! (laughs) You know so, I do think there’s a little resurgence of interest in that period of music, and a lot of the music that was around at that point way guitar music, so I think it also brings a little bit of focus on guitar music which I think is good. Kids getting into rooms together with instruments, just bashing out noise, I think is a great thing for people to do, it brings people together in a really nice way. And that’s more difficult to do when you’re a solo artist or you’re very electronic or whatever, but I do think its very good, there’s been a long long history in the UK, across the world, but in the UK, especially people who come from a particular social background and thinking “fuck you, we wanna be heard”.
One of the songs on the album “Rouge” tackes ageism, at the minute do you feel a lack of respect for the older generation of bands and for James as an energetic band, do you feel like there’s a point to prove while you’re touring?
No, I don’t think so, although I think people around us and the audience might think there is, and I can understand that, it is understandable, but no I don’t think we do. We can’t deny or hide the fact we all get older, one thing you get while getting older is your perspective changes quite a lot and I think there’s a tendency to believe that people get a lot more right wing and conservative as they get older but obviously, I feel like we aren’t exactly doing the opposite but we’re definitely not falling into that trap.
There was a show in Athens last year where you played with a full orchestra, what kind of experience was that?
We do feel like a mini little army as a band anyway, we could be an 11 a side football team, a mixed football team that is. But that was really special, very stressful too, we were aware of where we were and that place is just insanely special, its really something right. Its also quite controversial, being British with the Elgen Marbles, as we call them, and the rest of it, and that was all raging last year, a lot of debate about what the UK should do and what Greece wanted the UK in terms of returning those artifacts, so it was interesting to then go in there and play. I think it was viciously hot that day, its hot anyway but its 40+ degrees down there in the bowl, as the marble holds the heat, even into the late night its boiling. It was a very special night, it was a privilege to play there, I made a quip that night about standing where Plato stood and they actually were there, Thucydides and all those guys. And I know not everyone had a classical education but nonetheless we all know who Plato is. I have to say, its really magical, a lot of movement and noise around, you get towards those steps and get towards it, and you just go “wow”. For us to play there, it was just beyond special, it wasn’t an easy gig, technically, for us to pull off, because of the space, but we did it, we did a great show. It was one of the highlights of our career, we filmed it and recorded the audio, to I’d like for us to put that out.
There’s been a lot of activity recently with AI in music, would you guys ever want to get involved in that and what do you think about it?
No, my opinion is actually, well I was talking to Tim the other day and he doesn’t get my opinion at all, but I actually think Ive seen a little crack in the debate surrounding this, I think AI just another change, a technological advance, and like so many potential advances they have good and bad things happen, like every single thing that we do we enjoy the positives but create dangerous and difficult moments throughout history as humans. Artificial intelligence isn’t a thing, its not a robot, we can make a robot and AI could guide that to take over the world but that’s very much sci fi to me. I think what people are saying is the threat to our creative culture. A lot of music that has been made for a long time, back into the 50s has been very formulaic. Theres always been teams of writers, people like Elvis and Ella Fitzgerald would walk into a room and be handed a song that conforms to a certain type of style. A lot of our pop music is already very formulaic, and it is across all genres, into hip hop, rap and even grime has its own rules, and they need to follow those rules or things won’t happen when the ear needs it to happen, and it won’t work. In my opinion, this is just another tool, I think people have been cheating anyway by being formulaic and AI is just another form of cheating in a sense, and I can see that as an extension to the formulaic way that music has been made for a very long time. Some hugely brilliant songs though, just because they’re formulaic doesn’t mean they’re not good, like ABBA, almost invented their own formulaic and we have to admire it because its so well done. Some people might say that about The Beatles, I don’t because I think they’re geniuses, but some people might say that. I just don’t buy it really; I think we need to have a much more nuanced view and we need to embrace the change or then we will get fucked by it. In creative industries, if there’s one place, we should embrace change surely its in a creative industry. How do we embrace it and make it good? How do we change the narrative. And I’m fed up of reading the guardian, a bunch of tossers whining, where’s the level of intelligence surrounding this debate? I’m just not seeing it.
This album is very light, there’s hope and joy, after a few negative years, there seems to be a change in more positive music.
I agree, I think you’re right, we’ve got that song called “Life’s A Fucking Miracle”, and I think that a really good statement that Tim’s made there, that’s quite a clever one I wanna see that on a t-shirt, I want a bucket hat, to see a bunch of yobbos wearing it. But I’ve got to go, thank you so much, it was really nice to meet you, bye bye!
