The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett - James Bay: Imposter Syndrome, Trauma & Controlling The Voice In Your Head

Episode Date: August 4, 2022

James Bay is a BRIT-award winning musician who’s sold over 5 million records, and one of the most personal and authentic artists working in the field today. Never afraid to wear his heart on his sleeve in his work, his artistry has helped millions of people articulate feelings in their own heart of love, regret, and friendships made and ended. He’s definitely come a long way from the small town where he grew up, which he escaped through grasping every opportunity that came his way. There’s perhaps no industry tougher to succeed in than music, and this fear that there’s only a few that make it has haunted him at every step. So settle down and let James walk you through every step of what the creative process looks like at the elite level - where inside him it comes from, what inspires it, and how he delivers his music. James’ new album ‘Leap’ is out now. Follow James: Twitter - https://twitter.com/JamesBayMusic  Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jamesbaymusic/ James’ new album: https://www.jamesbay.com Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo

Quick one. Just wanted to say a big thank you to three people very quickly. First people I want to say thank you to is all of you that listen to the show. Never in my wildest dreams is all I can say. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start a podcast in my kitchen and that it would expand all over the world as it has done. And we've now opened our first studio in America, thanks to my very helpful team led by Jack on the production side of things. So thank you to Jack and the team for building out the new American studio. And thirdly to to Amazon Music, who when they heard that we were expanding to the United States, and I'd be recording a lot more over in the States, they put a massive billboard in Times Square for the show. So thank you so much, Amazon Music. Thank you to our team. And

thank you to all of you that listened to this show. Let's continue. I remember writing Hold Back the River, and everybody at the label jumping for joy and thinking that they had a hit on their hands. I dreamt about being on those stages in front of all the people that my heroes were in front of. I remember this burning desire. I was dead certain that I wanted it more than everyone. Chaos on the Calm comes out. Debut's at number one.

That's crazy. And the winner is James Beck! Thank you so much. This is insane. Nobody could have made us understand it was going to be traumatic.

Who I was on the Chaos and the Calm campaign, I needed to stop all of that for my soul and my mental health. Yeah, it's pretty

fucking intense. Ed Sheeran invited me to open for him in football stadiums around Europe. And the bit I hate to admit, and I'm anxious to confess, is that life can take a toll on people. To be male and talk about your feelings, it was more about, can you suck it up though? It's all like an act. Would you do it all again i'm really concerned about what happens next so without further ado i'm stephen bartlett and this is the diary of a ceo i hope nobody's listening but if you are then please keep this to yourself james so you're a 90s baby yeah 1990 same as me 1992 okay what about those early years defined you and the person you would go on to be? When you look back at the dots and say, well, that, that and that is the reason I am who I am.

What are those first dots? I grew up in a kind of commuter belt town called Hitchin in Hertfordshire, which is about an hour outside of the centre of London. I hated going into London. It's horrible, busy, noisy, smelly, awful. The quiet calm of my little hometown was perfect it was safe pretty much safe um i'm the youngest of of me and my brother um and then there's my parents my mom and my dad

and we don't have my i only have one cousin who was born 10 years after i was born so we were small family it wasn't a big crowd. It wasn't the sort of noisy experience growing up. In that respect, my parents are pretty fiery people. And they're kind of party animals in a way. They're very social. They're very loud and kind of excitable. So I feel that was going on sort of all the time they had people around all the

time and they kind of I suppose inspired me and my brother to sort of be okay in all sorts of social situations and I think all kids myself included go through moments of shyness and moments where they're a little more outgoing then maybe a little more shy again than outgoing again. I remember most vividly the sort of shyer times. And I stood behind my older brother, who would lead nine out of ten times into any situation with other kids or whatever. So I felt I was a more timid person, gentle, compared to my parents and my brother who were more um

just louder were your parents affectionate in a kind of uh i want to say like wartime way stiff upper lip kind of way my dad was older than other dads um still a great dad but he might you know he was 42 when I was born uh he's nearly 75 and he comes from like very well his parents were you know his dad was flying fighter planes in the Second World War. Most of my friends' parents, parents' parents, like there's another generation usually involved, whereas for me it was my dad's dad who was doing that. So my parents come from this, you've asked if they were affectionate.

They were affectionate in their sort of steely way. It wasn't sweet and sugary and cuddly, to be honest. For example, when I showed some vague interest in performing of any kind, my mum was less, oh, that's nice. She wasn't really, that wasn't her energy. Her energy was like, okay, if you're into it, do it and do it like, mean it. Go on. Like it was with a bit of a smile. It wasn't like, it was encouraging,

and I got on board with it. But ultimately, it was like, if you're going to give it a shot, don't do it by half. Look at, and she'd name any one of my heroes, or any one of her heroes musically. You know, my parents are big music fans she said look at what they give it you've got to give it that and without quite

saying it she was saying you know you have to be believable it's all like an act um so affectionate they were encouraging and and they were excited by, for example, when I got into music and wanting to play an instrument and performing and all that, they were excited about it, I think. But they weren't like, if I wasn't into it, they weren't, you know, if the one and a half times in the early, early days that I kind of went,

oh, I don't know if I want to play guitar actually. It's probably a bit hard. They weren't like, oh, and they weren't saying try harder then they were just like all right okay what about your dad then when he finds out that you want to be you know you might want to piss you that avenue well one thing my dad and both my parents um said a lot about and kind of required of me was that I would do something to earn some money. And actually go back to, I was 12 or 13 when they first said pocket money's done. And I think I know a lot of kids who were getting that till sort of 16 at the time, some of them longer because there

was various kids whose parents weren't, they didn't need their kids to get a job. They just wanted their kids to be kids and have a nice time. And I guess it's not that my parents didn't need their kids to get a job. They just wanted their kids to be kids and have a nice time. And I guess it's not that my parents didn't want me to have a nice time, but from like 12 years old, they were like, there are jobs you can get. There's a paper route.

There's this, there's that. And there was my dad who had loved music and going to see music live since he was, you know, much younger, since way before me and my brother came along. He was definitely like, there's a job at the market.

Like so-and-so's kid is working down at the market go and ask him how he got the job try and get the other shift and i did i got that shift my brother got that one of the shifts as well and at 13 in january at 4 a.m i was on my bike on the way to the market in the dark shivering my nuts off. I remember the anxiety dreams that I would have before getting up for that. Because as a teenager, I just wanted to be asleep for hours and hours and hours. And you're supposed to.

We know more about that now. It's really good for teenagers to get as much sleep as they can. Kids of any age, but teenagers apparently, very important. My dad didn't know any of that, not interested. If James wants to buy guitar strings because he's snapping them off his guitar half the time, then I can't. He's like, I can't know any of that, not interested. You know, if James wants to buy guitar strings because he's snapping them off his guitar off the time, then I can't, he's like, I can't keep paying for that. Which I respect.

I didn't at the time. My dad and my mum, but also because my dad had had jobs as a kid, you know, helping someone at like a, a you know a corner shop or something he like heartily believed in that and was trying to instill that in us from clearly you know very early on because whatever our hobby might have been he's like I don't want to have to fund it and I understand that we don't come from money you know we don't my mum was sometimes working and sometimes not because you know she was being a stay-at-home mum half the time um but and my dad was was you know bringing in the the big bit

that that paid for the family to sort of exist um yeah so he he was uh he believed as long as we could sort of fund the things that we wanted to do more or less then they were doable you you talk a lot about how um having idle time is really really important to discovering who you are and being a creative and and finding yourself something it's actually a concept that i've not really heard before talked about from one of my guests is the importance of just having a window of time and I imagine even today when it comes to creativity that's that's maybe a big part of your creative process can you talk to me about that that early age then how idle time helped you to become who you are um almost against the odds basically it helped me become who I am today and it helped feed my creative everything

what do I mean by that? my mum's the type of person who so when I was a kid in the house if I was having some idle time another way to say that is if I wasn't doing anything middle of the afternoon she'd be on me straight away

or my brother like what are you doing? you can't do nothing you could tidy your room you could come and clean this thing for me you can go out the back garden and do this thing for me you could do that what do you mean you're doing nothing that's my that's a vivid memory and it's not like unfair i i respect it in certain ways, but I know as a, at this point, someone who's sort of professionally kind of creative and, uh, you know, wound up in a position where I can sort of call that my job, that it's very important to be staring out the window. There was some quote, I can't remember who said it. And somebody told me it the other day, and I haven't got any sort

of reference names for you. Sorry, but a uh just say it was Einstein Einstein perfect um Einstein's wife said to him what you doing he was looking out the window he said I'm working and that was it and it's perfect for a creative that because it's bang on if I'm staring out the window into space as the rest of us might say then it just looks like I'm staring into space but I'm probably having an idea for a song or a lyric or working something over in my head I find it hard to say that stuff to you or anybody without worrying that I sound pretentious or like a bit of a dick but I know that's the experience when I was a kid thinking about something I wanted to draw

whatever it may have been and having some of this like idle time like I say my mum was like on me like no that's not okay so maybe that's why I

I'm sort of concerned even now that I look like a pretentious idiot no I can i have to say i completely agree and it's it's logically it makes a ton of sense that you have to clear the mind to allow new ideas to arrive and that we all i mean every business every person that works in a business will know the best ideas don't come from a boardroom they don't come when you're trying to think of them they come when you go for a walk or you're in the shower yeah all these places where you have that space yeah um so it

makes perfect sense i remember that david gilmore and pink floyd said every time i sit down guitar in hand to write a song in that really creative mood i want to write a song and i'm gonna and it's gonna be great nothing comes and it is generally that way so it's quickly a long time ago it quickly made me understand and sort of cherish the opportunity to to sit around with the tools nearby and just exist and think and dream and play by which i mean play guitar play music but just play creatives and just people generally i think have a lot of guilt associated with just sitting around but it seems to be so incredibly imperative to creation it's a huge huge part of it it's probably 95 of the reason why it ever works, if it ever works. 95% of it is about not watching a clock, there not being any sort of consequence.

And I put hundreds of consequences on myself. We all do. But as soon as you do those things, kind of the quality starts to sort of lessen. So yeah, it didn't help, that experience when I was a kid of my mum sort of going, no, no, no, no, no, no. Keep yourself busy. Yeah, you know, if you're not, you know. It was almost, if you're not, if I don't see you kind of playing

and getting something from the playing, then you're not spending your time you could be helping me you could be doing this you could be doing that is there is there a is there some homework you haven't done and yeah there probably was like hundreds of bits of homework I hadn't done but I was already so into trying to write a song or get better at playing the guitar or being creative in some other way that of course I was pushing the homework under the rug. But that, unfortunately, even that small sort of pressure that I felt then has ended up, like so many, like you say, you've met so many creative people who feel that sort of guilt.

It has heightened the sense of guilt. So it's a strange one to juggle. And I find myself fighting against it and that's uh that's really inconvenient to what i'm trying to do as a passion and and actually for a living suddenly what insecurities did you have at that young age i spend a lot of time talking about all of mine but no man ask someone about your there's um insecurities I had an insecurity. So in school, in like primary school as a young kid, I was a fast runner.

I was good at drawing and painting. I had this selection of things that I was good at. And like the talk in the classroom was that I was the best at running. I was one of the best at football. I was the best at drawing. And I'm not fully sure how, but that started quickly to really matter to me

to the point that as far as, you know, what insecurities did I have? I think back about the worries that I had about, well, what if one day I'm not the fastest? And what if somebody draws something better than me? And I hate to admit that. I don't know why I felt those things. But I had an ambition and a drive

that wanted to be really, really good at these things. And as a kid, yeah, I wanted to sort of be able to feel like I was the best at them. Why? Do you know why? I don't know. Well, I know it's dangerous territory is what I wanted to say. I know now as an adult that that's dangerous territory because there's enjoying things and being really good at them.

And then there's a difference between that and whatever somebody decides is the best. Why? One theory as to why one of my theories i suppose just as i think about it now is that i could maybe then sort of maybe i could validate idle time i think i really enjoyed and to this day I really enjoy, having an endless amount of time and space to create. And I'll throw that thing about being the fastest runner sort of off the table for a minute

because it doesn't really sort of relate to the context of the other things I loved then that have sort of fed through into my life now. Why did I worry about that stuff? Yeah, I wanted to, I wanted, if I could be, if I could say people think I'm really good at this, then I could have a reason for why I should be allowed any amount of time to focus on them.

Yeah. And you could present that evidence to who? My parents. Anybody trying to stop me doing it. A part of my conscience, because I have a conscience that feels guilty. I'm looking at the clock all the time it made me a very punctual person but I also look at the clock out of paranoia

how much time have we got how much time have I got and it shouldn't matter at all to creativity that but I find myself doing it all the time you know I actually I have a baby now we have a nine-month old daughter and Ada. Some people do pronounce it Ada. Ada's much better to be fair. I learned this. But Lucy went out, took Ada out the other day.

And because Lucy's the absolute greatest, she was like, it'll just give you a load of time to just have a guitar, you know, next to you and think about the things that you sort of you see what i'm getting at she just gave me hey you just do you for a bit and it's a it's a that was a incredibly generous given now i know what it's like to be you know a first-time parent and it's it's a it takes a village um uh and still an hour into that time i knew i still an hour into that time, I knew I was an hour into that time because I'd looked at

the clock. I didn't need to, but I still carry it. Uh, fucking frustrating. Was there anyone in your circle at that early age that made you feel like that wasting, quote unquote, wasting time or not using time in a evidently productive way was what meant that you were a lazy person was that is that it was that was part of the language of of who and what i grew up around um you know yeah like i say like we didn't we weren't a sort of we weren't like a particularly wealthy family neither were any of the sort of friends that that that my family had or you know everyone was somewhere between working class and sort of just about middle class but I felt a lot of penny pinching all the time partly probably

because of what my parents come from so how they operate. And it felt like middle class came later in life. I think my parents are there now, but that's slightly besides the point. What I mean is time was precious. And you had to, the language around idle time was, you know, don't waste it. Before anybody had thought about what anybody was doing with idle time, they were already being told not to waste it. That was, yeah, in my wider circle as a kid around, you know,

my family and my family friends and friends of friends. That was the energy. So there was like a pressure. And there was, of course, yeah, a narrative that said, oh, he just sits around all the time. He's so lazy. Not directly to me necessarily, but if anybody was doing any sitting around of any kind for any prolonged amount of time, lazy guy.

So it was a negative thing and I felt a pressure and a sort of self-conscious need to stay away from that while all the while I absolutely kind of craved it for for being a creative kid who wanted to draw and paint and explore music did you get the impression that people in your family and close to you had high hopes for your future? You know, I do think that they thought I really wanted the kind of things I've achieved. I do think that they believed I wanted this stuff. And I think they saw that in my, how I went about my days um I remember a friend of mine who's still such a

good friend of mine Matt we learned to play guitar together me and Tom who I mentioned who who plays bass in my band and and Matt and my brother Alex and I you know we were all playing guitars at the same time learning to do this that and the other and me and Matt we were doing our GCSEs and we were in like a biology class we had the same science class and we were talking and Matt is a brilliant beautiful soul who is sort of

he's a total party animal but he's wonderfully sort of earnest in his own way as well and we were sharing the pressures of what we're supposed to do after our GCSEs after our A-levels are we going to do uni oh my god who are we going to be what are we going to do and he said man one thing's for sure I don't think you'll ever have an office job and I knew how he meant it and I really I really appreciated it and I've never forgotten it and I think I've brought it back to him I've brought it up with him again

since and in a strange way it felt like he was a guy, you know, you asked what my parents would say. Well, he was someone who was very close to me at the time as well, who I felt believed in me. What's funny is he was one of 10 of us who were all starting to play the guitar at the same time. We all looked at Jimi Hendrix or the Red Hot Chili Peppers or any of our rock heroes in the same way and we wanted it. We wanted that. Because you do when you're 14. Yeah, I want to do that. And I remember this burning desire. And I can't tell you even to this day whether it was the same or less or more than any of the other guys. But in the moment, I was dead certain that I wanted it more than everyone.

And I did sit with my parents some nights with some music on the TV or on the radio or coming off the record player and almost get emotional about how badly I wanted to do that kind of thing, make that kind of sound. Like when I grow up was the sort of thing I was saying. And they didn't take the piss out of me. They were very straight faced about it. I think it excited them. And obviously they had no idea if it was actually going to happen, but they did encourage it. So my very long-winded answer to your question,

if you called them up, is, yeah, I think they would have believed or hoped that i'd have sort of got close maybe even half as close as i've come um yeah and off you go to study music right in brighton um it's it was it's really a wonderful thing to hear that one of the real sort of catalyst moments in your early career was just a clip of someone, some punter in a pub recording you singing. Yeah. That ended up on... YouTube.

YouTube. And I will say it was at a time when there were YouTube sensations popping into the charts, getting signed by big record labels. Very exciting. Because they got 500,000 views overnight. They put the video up at 7pm and by 7 by 7 a.m at million views had two million views that video that went online with me it was there for six weeks or more 25 views maybe maybe 26 views um and i didn't i wasn't i hadn't thought about it i met the guy because he filmed me and he said he'll put it online. You know, he'll do like a little sort of filter on it,

little edit. Thanks, man. Great. I'm just glad you learnt my song. And I didn't hear about it until this record label found it with its 25 views and they called up my manager. I had a manager at the time,

still same manager I've got today. Called him up and said, we love this we'd love to meet you meet james um can we fly you to new york which was a sort of that's where they were based that the record label it was just a very whirlwind exciting experience just to go and meet these guys they just wanted me to come and sit and sort of play for them like in the flesh and um and so i did and they went on to be the label that i sort of signed to after a second visit and it was all very exciting given that it feels like you know that was one of a million

open mic nights that i was performing at that time just rolling up putting my name down playing three songs moving on to the next one what has that taught you about knocking on doors and you never know which one's gonna open you know what i mean because as you say people look at that and go oh fucking so lucky you know but um what what does that what has that told you about the nature of how life happens and I guess it's taught me to use the idle time my idle time in that in those years was long empty evenings that I filled with finding open mic nights to hone my craft sounds a bit pretentious again,

but it's exactly what I was doing. It's exactly what I was doing and it's exactly what I'm doing at every gig I do today. The only difference is that there seems to be some people today who are actually there to see me and they've done a bit of homework. They say they like my songs and that's so flattering. But every single show I do to this day,

I just want to be a bit better. I just want to deliver a slightly more effortless every time more effortless hopefully more moving and enjoyable experience for the people standing in front of me back then

it was 7 or 8 maybe 11 or 12 people smattered around a bar privately trying to have a drink probably after work trying to catch up and I'm in the corner barking

and they don't know who I am and they haven't paid to see me or anything. And I want their attention. And I don't just want their attention. I want the thing that I've written to be good enough to effortlessly turn their head. That's how it has to go. And I had a lot of time to fill with those trials. It was all trials. It's all training. So I did. And I remember earlier than when that thing was, when that guy filmed me in that bar,

I remember years before that when, for example, I was taking a couple of originals and a couple of covers to an open mic night. And people really enjoyed my delivery of the covers, which was really encouraging. And then I'd do an original and I'd play the verse and they're just talking away and I'd play the chorus and they're still talking then I'd play the bridge and a few heads would turn and I think I'd go home that night thinking the bridge has got something but the other bits need work clearly the other bits need work because I didn't have them in the

verse and I didn't have them in the chorus but I had them in the bridge and that's why it was all training and so I go home this was when I'd moved to Brighton actually particularly I had a lot of idle time between lessons and the course I was doing and I filled it with just trying to be better just soaking up I was going to a record shop this is just right before streaming sort of exploded uh it wasn't like a thing so I was buying records still um the difference I suppose for my generation at that time is I put them on my computer and stick on my mp3 and I could walk around without a stack of cds in my pocket or in my bag anyway I was soaking up as much as I possibly could uh just trying to get better trying to create a more enjoyable experience for anybody who's in front of me because that's all I love about music and that's what I want that's why I want to do it because I for some reason I want to be able

to create that for other people people often overlook that part but it seems to be if there was a sort of a through line or a common thread between all the guests i sit here with whether they're comedians or they're music artists the ones that have become really successful and also really unique and and yeah unique is the right word really unique is you get this like bit before where they were performing to no one and kind of just doing it for the love of it for themselves. And it seems to be that that, in fact, that moment is the defining moment when no one's there,

when there isn't the arenas and there's that part there, that 10,000 hours part that they talk about is the most important part. Somehow I think it probably is. Everything that might follow that or that does or everything that followed that for me has been so important. But there are moments in the very beginning for anybody whatever they're

doing that are vital to how to what happens next um 10 000 hours is is the right like description and reference um and all those open mic nights and i was busking when i was in brighton as well which is kind of wild. You're just walking down the street with a guitar on your shoulder, and then you stop amongst all the other people you're walking next to. And you have the balls, the confidence, somehow the courage

to start singing at people in the middle of the street. It was always terrifying until I was sort of getting into the first chorus of a song. And then I could almost sort of getting into the first chorus of a song and then I could almost sort of blend in um but but give it some to try and catch some people anyway those all of that those times they are vital it's about learning about what doesn't work it's about sometimes you know there's people who are like hell bent on talking over you and they've every right to.

They've every right to. If they haven't come to see you intentionally or it's not a private, you know, actual sort of venue where people buy tickets to come, then they've every right to. And it's how, it was always about how I managed in those situations. I remember going into noisy pubs

that wanted to hold an open mic night at the same time. And someone plugging me into a PA saying, go on, and me thinking this place is rammed and they're all just having the greatest night of their lives, just having a big old chat and they're drinking their pints and all this. And I've got to sing into this and i remember being so excited i remember thinking i'm gonna get them all i don't know that it worked every single time but i remember winning over rooms and leaving so these weren't open mic nights actually i remember in between the open

mic nights there'd be some individual who'd seen me and say will you come and play at my pub which felt like a real win will you come and play at my pub on Thursday night on Saturday night whatever it might be Sunday night I say yeah all right and half the time they'd say there's 20 quid in it for you and I say oh absolutely play for an hour sure you could pay me nothing to play for two hours at that time and I'd have done it I just wanted the opportunity the stage the microphone the opportunity and I remember yeah a couple of like really busy rooms full of people who had no idea who I was and I remember you catch some eyes and people going oh here he is you know another guy plugging in a guitar you know let's all sort of speak up a bit when he sort of pipes up i remember thinking i'm gonna get you it's

interesting one of the really interesting things i was just thinking about as you're explaining that story is how the environment in which you started your career in those pubs noisy pubs trying to you know get people's attention you described it as actually changing the music you would go home and say okay the chorus held them yeah but this part didn't so the environment actually changed the creative because you you realize that attention you learned very early that attention is is the thing we'll all listen to a good song yeah but you know people forget the ones that aren't that aren't good enough that's a that's a a quite a sort of brutal sort of comment in itself because i i you know i can't guarantee that every song I've ever written will hold every room in the world every time. But I still love it enough to try again and

try harder. So yeah, it does change the music. It absolutely changes the music. Because until I changed those things, I was just playing, I was playing something that wasn't, because I was often going back to the same rooms. Not always. And it always eventually changed. But I would go back to the same place because that's just another place that I knew I could go and play a few songs. Um, and if across a two week period, I didn't get around to changing some stuff and I still played the same song, then it just wasn't every time it wasn't working. Every time I was getting them for the same minute in the song, maybe it was the second chorus or something. So yeah, it, you have to adapt. If you just keep taking the same thing and ultimately flogging a dead horse, I was never, if I kept doing that, I was never going to be on any of the stages that

I'd seen my heroes on. Now, when I was a kid at home and I was being affected by all that stuff I saw on TV, on VH1 pop-up video, or even music in movies, or any live stuff that I got to see on TV, you know, that was broadcast on TV. I dreamt about being on those stages in front of all the people that my heroes were in front of. So many people singing their words back. And I was never going to get there if I just stubbornly took around the same song that I wrote when I was 17, that I might have thought in my heart of hearts was so incredible. That doesn't matter. I have to open my mind up to what other people think and accept it I was trying to understand and learn that as a 16 year old 17

year old before I got to Brighton um when we were me and my brother and Tom we were in a band as 13 14 year olds and then we're in another one as 15 16 year olds and 16 17 and 218 into 19 then i left the bands kept changing i just said another one and another one often i was moving it on right because uh something wasn't quite good enough and so i thought well let's change it into this and let's change it into this thing and let's tweak that bit and that bit and let's make that bit better and we'll change the band name and we'll be this and it'll be fresh for people and then we'll keep them.

I don't know why I was thinking about that back then in such a sort of like A&R kind of mindset, but I was and I still sort of do. So six weeks after that clip of you singing in a pub, six weeks after that clip goes online, you end up signing a record deal in New York, right? Yeah, there was two visits to New York, so it was probably more like sort of a couple of months, two or three.

Better for the story to say six. Let's go six. It was actually, it was 98 days and four hours. Very quickly after that clip clip you end up signing this record deal and then soon after that your first EP comes

yeah to the world The Dark of the Morning yeah five tracks I listened to it earlier on oh yeah

it wasn't on Spotify so I had to go on Apple Music there you go you owe me 16 quid I wish it was 16 quid on Apple Music just for the subscription

of Apple no no no it's all good it was really it's a really great album thank you what was that like then on Apple Music. Just for the subscription of Apple. No, no, no, it's all good. It was really, it's a really great album. Thank you. What was that like then? That first EP goes out into the world.

Does your life change at that point? There was a change. It all felt too fast. I think once I signed a record deal, as exciting as the initial sort of part of the ride was, everything started to move quite fast. And in hindsight, what I realized, I was nervous about the pace of things, but I had this huge, I don't know what to call it.

It's a record label, obviously. This huge like backing, this body of people who wholeheartedly believed in me and wanted to sort of throw me kind of in at the deep end, but really just sort of throw me in the ocean where it's all really going on. I've been like on the shore, training, open mic nights, little shows, solo acoustic stuff, whatever, writing, trying to get better, staying up all night, writing, using all that idle time.

Learning to swim. Learning to swim. And then they basically looked at me having visited New York a couple of times and played them some songs and gone, oh, you're ready to be in the sea. You're not like surfing a big wave yet, but we're going to put you in the sea now.

And I was like, whoa. So it was fast, but- Within a year, you've got a headline, sold that UK tour. Yeah, and you know, on the one hand, yes. On the other hand it was rooms full of sort of 50 to 100 people

but they were all there to see me for the first time ever they'd all bought a ticket because somehow they'd found my music they'd found the EP which again like

because of where streaming was at it didn't go straight onto Spotify and Apple and all that stuff it was some like SoundCloud like thing it wasn't even SoundCloud

that it went onto where people had to go and find it and they think they hadn't they had a choice maybe to pay pay if they wanted to it's kind of sweet like band camp days kind of yeah but it wasn't okay it wasn't even band camp i mean i don't know i wasn't there yet but um so i had those songs and they they were like let's record there was like a couple of months between signing, recording that EP and releasing it. It felt very fast and it was exciting. But yeah, I'd been in this training mentality, which I was doing kind of at my own pace. I was trying to do it all the time. I was constantly training, as I say. But I didn't appreciate there would kind of be an end to that in a way. In another respect, I'm sort of still training. But at that time with what was going on,

it was like, no, we're going to step up a gear now and there's a few more people involved and they're going to push you onto bigger stages literally and metaphorically so I didn't feel fully ready for it and I'm kind of glad I don't think you're supposed to ever be completely ready

for any of these things things move even faster from then on right because your second EP comes out let it go and then your album comes out in the same year album was March 2015 okay the EP was was so same six months it was 2014 into 2015 and let it go um had come out towards the end of the summer before and and and then and then the album in 2015. And I remember Let It Go as a song. I loved the song. I've never known really, I can't write a song and say,

that's a hit guys. That's just not, I can't, I don't do that. I've tried. I've tried. But it's not really sort of my calling to be able to do that. I write the songs and I remember writing Hold Back the River and everybody at the label and my managers and everyone sort of my calling to be able to do that. I write the songs and I remember writing Hold Back the River

and everybody at the label and my managers and everyone sort of jumping for joy and thinking that they had a hit on their hands, which is very exciting to be a part of. And I think at the time I thought, really? How do you know that? And then they did their thing. They went to work and they got that song around the world. And I got that song around the world, I suppose, as well.

And it kind of took off, but Let It Go was an interesting moment because I remember doing lots of different festivals in America and song around the world, I suppose, as well. And it kind of took off. But Let It Go was an interesting moment because I remember doing lots of different festivals in America and all around the world. I remember a place, there's a festival called Outside Lands, which is in San Francisco or near San Francisco. And I got on stage in this sort of valley type shaped bit of land throughout this sort of outdoors festival because there were sort of banks of grass at the sides. Quite a stage and it felt like quite a lot of people sort of three four thousand

people i was like wow this is exciting and they all sang the words to let it go every single word but particularly the choruses and we filmed it as well on my phone or whatever and it was amazing and i came off stage and the promoter said i hadn't i hadn't met him i was like one of the newer artists on the festival he said that was that was incredible. He said, you were in front of 20,000 people there. I was like, no way. I said, they were all, yeah, they were all singing the words. He said, yeah, 20,000 people singing the words. He said, we'll have you back.

I said, thanks. And I sort of went on my way. But that was a real moment where everyone recognized that there was Hold Back the River and there was Let It Go as well. And Let It Go might be able to carry this album as well. So that was, things move faster again. I remember actually, as far as things moving fast,

we got on a plane after that show in San Francisco at that festival. We flew down to LA, we crossed the airport, we got on a plane to Australia, we flew for 15 hours, we did a show in Sydney. And then we got on a plane and we flew back to LA and carried on the tour. So we went to Sydney to do a show for about, we went to Sydney for about barely 36 hours.

30 of them were on a plane. Where's the idle time? Idle time on a plane is like not what it's all sort of cracked up to be. You can't get your guitar out and start writing. So I guess it's like emergency rest time in a way to try and get your head down on a plane, which is, as we all know, kind of tough. But yeah, idle time starts to sort of disappear a little bit.

And it felt like writing a song in a hotel room on tour felt like such a heavy cliche to me that I was never very good at that either. I've got better at it now. But we had a lot of time in hotels and I was crap at using that that idle time to to write more songs what did you feel like throughout that process so you put you know you put the album out um in 2015 it was right so 2015 put the album out that is a smash hit um let it go is one of my favorite songs oh it's so funny

because when i listen to that song it takes me back to so many times in my life so many times in my life I was listening to it before and I almost start to feel the feelings of like the relationship heartbreak that I was going through when I was that age and I played that song

all the time I'm glad you like it, thank you it's funny how music has that power of just sending you back to... For what it's worth, just as a sort of, maybe an interesting little sort of side fact, I recorded that album at the end of 2013

and at the beginning of 2014. Two stints. And it came out in 2015, but I finished recording in January 2014. September 2020 was the first time I listened to it after I finished recording it. Wow. I just, I played those songs so much

and I had the time of my life, but like, I just, I didn't, you know, it's going to have something to do with the bit of perfectionist in me and we all have a bit of that, but like so much sort of pressure and hype felt felt heat onto that first release for me that first big album release that I couldn't listen to it and I still don't really I mean I don't I suppose typically I don't spend my time listening to my music once it's out I have to do so much listening as we're finishing the productions and the mixing and then once it's out it's it's less for me it's so much for the fans but the the frenzy around that music on the

first album in a ways and i don't um i don't resent anything or anyone here but i it stopped me listening to it i was playing those songs every day somewhere in the world live and um yeah i didn't i didn't feel a need or a desire to listen to it at all so it was interesting six seven years later listening sort of for the first time and for the first time listening and go this is decent this is okay work harder though keep trying that's really the other voice that sort of rings in my ears chaos and the calm comes out debuts in number one that's crazy yeah wow the things that that sort of does to you emotionally and psychologically and that i it's a it's a it's a little bit of a trauma in its way actually i was this not to sort of drop names, that's not really my style,

but I was at a show, a great artist called Maggie Rogers who was just fantastic. I know Maggie and I'm a big fan at the same time. And I was watching the show with Sam Smith and Niall from One Direction.

Three of us are watching the show in LA and it's like her debut album show and she's had a really great reception, particularly in America, but in various corners of the world as well. And it's a party. It's like a big event. It's really fun. And she's playing a great show. And Sam said, she's about to go on a rollercoaster ride and it will involve trauma. And it is trauma, he said. And we know all about it. Each one of us three, he was talking to me and Niall, he said, we know what that's like. And he said, we know that nothing could prepare us,

could have prepared us for it. And that nobody could have made us understand it was going to be traumatic in a way beforehand. And we see it now with Maggie and we're fans of hers and we're so excited and we can't, you can't communicate that to someone. And because I use the word trauma, it's good and bad. And again, I wouldn't change a thing.

And I don't think Sam would or Niall or Maggie, I don't think any of them would change a thing about their ascents that they went through. But you just said to me, Chaos on the Car went, you know, debut album went straight to number one. It did. And it was amazing. And I'm still trying to work it out to this day.

You know, when I talk about sort of trauma, because it really affects and changes someone's life and changed my life. And I love so much about what happened. And I would love to experience that again. But also it changed so much about me and my life. And I'm still trying to work that out. Does any of that make sense?

All of it makes sense. Cool. The part of the trauma that changed you, what is that part? Great expectations follow. That's difficult. And I thought my duty was to come with something brand new again, second album, third album. And I'm having a great time. I've just put out my third album and I can't believe I even get to say that. It went in, it was number four. It's a top

five album. Not everybody gets to say that about their third album so i'm so grateful for the reaction i really am and yet there's a part of me that you know spent such a long time promoting that first album after it came out that you know uh i would like to create that exact same experience again for different music that i've made that is easier said than done every single time the chances of anyone getting a number one album at any time there's only one number one spot you know um me as a lover of so much music with so many influences and inspirations different artists records songs i put a handful of those into at the end of the day I put a handful of those into my first album what inspired it you know and then that created uh me as an artist and I arrived you know the

shock of the new on my debut album and a bunch of people around the world said yeah I'll buy that literally and metaphorically I'll buy that I'm into that and I represented something to them I can't believe that to this day into that. And I represented something to them. I can't believe that. To this day, I can't believe I represented something to them that they were willing to sort of buy into and want to share and kind of agree with and feel the words and the melodies in their way. And then another album.

It's time for another album. It was about showing a different side to myself. And I appreciate now in the fullness of time with the greatest perspective or with greater perspective years after my second album release, that only I am in my head. Nobody else is. So it was interesting who received the second album, who of all the people that got on board for the release of my first album and followed my music and me as an artist, some of them came for the second album. Some of them, I guess, kind of went, oh, it's not the same thing. So I'll just sort of come back when maybe it's, I don's, I can't sort of speak for people,

but my expectation naively was that I could do the same thing again by surprising people with something they hadn't had before because they hadn't had my debut album before. And it didn't quite go the way I hoped it would go. As I say that, I don't want to sound ungrateful because I had so many people around the world really love my second album. And I'm so grateful for those people. It peaked at number two in the album charts.

Yeah, I can't, I really cannot complain in the slightest. And when the one above it is this, it's a soundtrack to a movie, it was The Greatest Showman, that just reigned supreme for so long in 2018 at the top of the chart. There was various number of other artists who didn't unfortunately sort of beat that soundtrack either. So they all kind of went to number two as well.

But it did. It peaked at number two. People loved it. And they're still telling me that they do. And I'm, you know, there's a real sort of a clash between my gratitude towards all of those that reception and the other part of my brain that i suppose bought into the hype of my first album and wanted the same frenzy in hindsight now if you could go back and you could just move the order of things you know what i'm going to say right you could just move the order of things would you maybe put you know electric light first oh good

i don't know because then that would have managed the expectations right the expectations is always the curse of happiness it's always the killer thing because if i told you when you were whatever age your album would date would peak at number two in the album charts you'd be over the fucking moon i would leap yeah i'd leap a jump for joy yeah definitely sorry that's awful we go again on that i would jump for joy i did not mean that but would you move the order of things honestly no no no no no no no no no i wouldn't move the order of things at all um because the psychological difficulty comes from purely the fact that you have to almost compete with your own success right yes it does but it was all my choice at the end of the day and i do stand by i love electric light and um it came when it came i i what's interesting is electric light i'm so proud of and I adore it

every song, it was also a reaction to what I felt personally to me was like almost overkill on my first album I had had enough of who I was when I was roaming around the world on the

Chaos and the Calm campaign what I represented and the songs that I was playing, I needed to stop all of that for a minute for two reasons. One, it was exhausting. I keep wanting to throw this in. I was very grateful to have that experience, like beyond grateful. But I just, for my soul and my mental health i needed to creatively kind of go elsewhere um uh so so so i did and i also just had like i say to you as

as a creative more than one thing or one set of things inspires me to do what I do and I wanted to celebrate that in the music I created for a second album so I went deep on David Bowie and Blondie and Prince and LCD Sound System all that list of artists and more I love I love that music and I don't know that that resonated in the same way with all the fans of the first album. It certainly did with some of them and maybe it didn't so much with others. I can't control any of that.

The only thing I can control is what I create and there is so much of a part of what I create that I do for myself, which I think is the same for every artist. So I chose to do that uh so you see what i'm saying in ways it was a reaction to something i needed to do as a reaction to how my first album campaign had gone so i wouldn't have changed the the things around you know the order of things when you when you spoke about mental health there yeah when was your first sort of introduction to mental health good question um because it of course has become so talked about in the last five years it's suddenly become like more okay than ever to

speak openly about it my first introduction to mental health when i asked that question i mean you're i remember at one point thinking so the timeline of my relationship to mental health. When I asked that question, I mean, I remember at one point thinking, so the timeline of my relationship with mental health is people with mental health. At one point, maybe 10, 15 years ago when I was younger, I thought it meant that you were crazy. And then as I experienced things myself, and then there was a word for them, I understood that we all have mental health. Yeah.

And that we're all, none of us are too tough to experience different mental health predicaments at times. And then going through my own journey with mental health yeah and that we're all none of us are too tough to experience different mental health predicaments at times and then going through my own journey with mental health that's when i was like ah okay i understand now as a kid i thought it meant someone was unhappy and you couldn't help them depressed and and and unable to be helped um and as i grew up, I remember struggling with, you know, as a teenager, to be male and talk about your feelings wasn't, should never be the sort of first choice. I remember feeling like it was more about, can you suck it up though?

Is that your dad talking? My dad has been on his own journey with mental health previous to me, even being born. He had some struggles and he did talk to some professionals about it. And I really respect that. So actually it wasn't my dad talking. It's funny though.

He comes from those kind of attitudes. Both my parents come from those kind of attitudes. You know, it's that stiff upper lip thing again. That kind of brush it all under the rug thing again. I come from that. You know, difficult things we don't talk about them then or we shout about them no in between

and I didn't want the chaos of the shouting as a kid and as a teenager I never wanted that it was always too much to deal with so I joined the sort of brush it under the rug brigade um and so it took me until

i was into my 20s it took me until i was touring extensively and relentlessly so really only five six maybe seven years ago for me to sort of finally understand that life can take a toll on people when it's relentless, when work is relentless or when anything in life is sort of relentless and weighing down or bearing heavy. It can take a toll and it's okay to talk about that,

to try and relieve some pressure and some strain and some stress. That came as a result of various individuals that I was touring with or that I knew doing their own touring, needing to stop for a bit, maybe speak to a therapist to help them. And then it was okay. So it only came in the last sort of few years for me.

Reading back through your story, 2019 was a bit of a mix year. That's when you did the tour with Ed Sheeran. i i was reading about almost this conflict that you're undergoing which is i need to show up and perform and be who i you know who i have this responsibility to be but also this other conflict of like you just weren't feeling good yeah uh i sort of have encountered various people, fans or not, or people I work with or people interviewing me or whatever who, and this is ultimately really quite flattering, they think I'm, you know, I don't know how to put it

other than bigger than I feel I am as an artist. I don't know if I agree with them. And so I felt like an imposter syndrome, essentially, in that time. On the one hand, I'm being, you know, it's really disproportionate and probably unhealthy when I think, okay, Ed Sheeran has invited me to open for him in football stadiums around Europe for three months. There's 80,000 people every night. Wow. And the bit I hate to admit, and I'm anxious to confess, is that there's a voice in my head saying,

why aren't you doing the stadiums? I call myself all sorts of names. Why isn't it your show? Come on. I feel ridiculous saying that I also just it's a little embarrassing because I'm doing good

and I don't want to sort of get ahead of my station or I don't want to seem like big headed but I tell you I am very ambitious and driven

everybody is I understand that and I am in my headed, but I tell you, I am very ambitious and driven. Everybody is, I understand that. And I am in my way. And so I do want those kind of rewards of selling out such an enormous venue and so many and so often in the way that, Ed's an example. And also I will say that, he was kind enough

to have me on that tour as the main support act who would go on right before him. There was three of us most of the time, you know, opener, second opener, me, the third opener, and then him. And it was pretty wonderful and exciting to find that in almost every stadium, it was a third of that crowd,

which rounds out approximately 20 or 30 000 people singing all the words to my songs which was just again i was very thankful in that moment that he brought me in front of such big crowds because it was exciting to see that i my music was still reaching and it stopped my ambitions and my drive feeling silly the bit the bit i was a little bit confused about there is you're saying you felt like an imposter in those moments but the voice is saying so i would expect the voice in your head to be saying why are you here but the voice in your head is saying why aren't you at the top of the bill why isn't it your show why don't you have

your own stadium show or you know even a you know arena show whatever it may be why your crowd's not bigger yet james gosh that's such an insidious thought isn't it because if you're james bay big and you still have that voice whispering about that fuck me yeah it's pretty fucking intense and i appreciate that like it's probably a bit cruel cruel is a good word it's just a it's a standard issue i suppose it's a sort of sorry it's a standards issue it's uh you know i'm holding myself to a standard that might be unrealistic but then i'm so driven and i or i feel so driven and ambitious to achieve those kinds of things that I can't shake that voice. Where's that voice coming from?

Deep inside. Deep inside because it's sort of a voice I recognise from various chapters of my life. On the one hand, I was too sort of timid and uninterested in drinking and partying as a teenager to sort of go out and get amongst it. On the other hand, that voice was talking to me back then saying, don't waste your time doing that, James. Get better at songwriting. Get better at singing.

Get better at songwriting get better at singing get better at playing guitar get to the point where it's it's you know you're able to confidently play well and make it look effortless get to that point and then you know then maybe we can have a night off well you got to that point and i'm still i'm still yeah i'm still working in my mind is there not a bit of a fear in in terms of listen if I'm if I'm playing in a big arena there's 20,000 people they're all singing the words back to me and I still have that voice whispering inside my head saying this is not enough or you've not achieved enough then that voice will always be there regardless of the height or how high up the ladder you are I think so I think therefore trying to kind of come to terms with it is one of my big exercises at the moment.

Because it's holding your happiness hostage, right? Kind of, yes. And I know that it's winding up my managers, for example, who I have a very close and longstanding relationship with, people I cherish. And they're saying, James, mate, you've got to sort of rein that in. You've got to try and find a way to rein that in

because it's okay. More okay than I'm able to realize half the time. So, and I don't want to jeopardize my relationship with them or all sorts of people. I'm working out therefore that i can potentially control some of the unhappiness and make my life better and easier as a result i'm just trying to tame the various voices what do those voices say today? They say...

Some of them say, well, it's very nice to be here. You've been invited to talk on this podcast that's had so many exciting guests. Some of those voices say, yeah, they just had someone pull out so they've got you last minute because you know they you know there was someone exciting who who you know who clearly you're a backup you're just you're just a backup you know you're just somebody who they thought all right i guess you know there's a there's a voice that's quite extensive in those kind of details and and sort of takes me apart a little bit.

So it's versions of that one voice and it's versions of that other voice that are speaking often in my head and that's what they're saying. All of these voices, they have adverse consequences. Some of those consequences are positive in the light of the world. They turn into drive and motivation or perfectionism right which end up producing really wonderful art obviously some of the consequences of those voices can be very um personally as it relates to your happiness detrimental right talk to me first about because i want to talk about the positives about those voices that have you know manifestation

on that side but talk to me about the the negative detrimental impact of being having those voices that have you know manifestation on that side but talk to me about the the the negative detrimental impact of being having those voices the longer i sort of exist with these voices that the the the negative ones um the more they can have an effect unfortunately a negative effect the more that they can sort of um they can stop me going out into the world and doing certain things you know the more they can get into my head and sort of inhibit my ability to sort of speak to you in a free-flowing way for example or um go to a party i've been invited to by an artist i might know or by a by somebody whose work I might admire. I'm being sort of hypothetical in that respect, but it could very much sort of be a,

that could be a reality. And the benefits of coming and speaking to you and the benefits of going to some party or whatever are just that those are the things that color life. And that's just a good thing. But sometimes the voices get so loud that I don't go and do these things and my life remains kind of grey, just personally and privately. And that's not helpful to when I get that idle time back

in the moments that I do. Because all the things that color life feed wonderfully in my most of my experience into that idle time whether I do create something or not um so they they are an obstacle they are a barrier those those negative voices and I'm trying to grow and get better at sort of managing them and dealing with them and understanding that no voices, no narratives kind of go away entirely happy or sad. They don't. You know, 2019 was a difficult year.

And I've learned since then through various types of therapy, one of those is songwriting for me. Another one is typical sort of therapy as we know it, speaking to somebody. I've learned a little bit more about sort of being able to quiet the negative voices or control them a little bit. You can never do any one of these things 100%. I'm learning. And there's a part of my mind that wants 100%.

Here, there, everywhere. I want 100% be the headliner at this thing. I want 100% be able to stop those voices so they never come back. And I'm just still sort of trying to learn that there's no 100% anything anywhere. Everything is a gentle sort of balance. That's a really liberating thought though because there's

so many people that are still struggling with things after many decades and that will beat themselves up because it's still there yeah and and i actually had this conversation this week this weekend i think this weekend yeah it was on saturday morning with my girlfriend where i said one of the things i've come to learn from doing this podcast and just my own sort of early traumas is that we shouldn't hold ourselves to the standard of completely ridding ourselves of our trauma or insecurities it's really about diminishing the power they have over you to the point that your decision making can be made through another set of stories yes so like with relationships i had a lot of traumas so i still have those and

i'm still i still think to some degree a relationship is prison maybe 40 percent now it's still there but the 60 percent is like you're being an idiot fucking get on with it and it's 60 rather than less you know so it makes the decision but so yeah perspective trying to sort of gather a better and a broader perspective on your present circumstance or whatever or me on my present sort of circumstance trying to sort of get the full context certainly helps the negative voices quieten down a little bit in 2019 you said you described it as feeling like you were drowning yeah and that was definitely had a lot to do with the the negative voices and feeling like they were all getting way too loud and way too much and way too overpowering and and it could feel at times like I was sort of drowning in those.

And there was such a stark contrast between the walking on stage with the big sort of smile and the grand gestures and the performance because that's a real spike in the day. It's a real high. It's wonderful and it's a real process. And I know it to the point that a lot of it is sort of like muscle memory.

I'm in the moment. No question, I'm in the moment. I'm very present. But I know how to do all sorts of things on stage. And I know I'm good at them and I've done them for 35 minutes and I'm off stage. And the voices are back. I'm walking down the steps from the stage

and the voices are back in there. Saying what? Saying, could have been better. Saying, they're just waiting for Ed Sheeran on that tour. Which they were, granted. But like, they'd take even something like that that was okay. You know, it's okay that, you know, it's very exciting and flattering and humbling that I've been invited to open on that tour.

And that's what it is. But the voices were turning those things around on me and using them as a reason to tell me I wasn't good enough. What has therapy taught you about that? Those voices? Well, the things I've just said, really. Therapy's taught me... Very sort of crucially,

it's taught me that they're not going to go away entirely. And I think that's been a really important thing to learn and talk about again and again and again, because I can be quite, I can't think of the word, but I would absolutely like to work out what the ingredients, what the recipe is to get them to go away forever.

I'd like to know what it is and use it and be done with it and never hear from them again and so therapy's teaching me still that um it's it's actually it's not that's not the process the process is about talking with them and asking them hey you know reasoning with myself reasoning with them bringing in more context bringing in a broader perspective and then asking myself you know are these voices right honestly because in the worst moments i'm saying yeah you're absolutely right to all these voices and i'm not good enough in 2019 when you feel like you're drowning, what are the symptoms of that? What are the, what would I, what are the... That's a hard, that's a good question, a hard one to answer. The symptoms are so invisible to most people, everybody really, and often me, because

I'm, I feel a sort of duty, sadly, sometimes in my personal, private life as well, to be so on so much of the time, sometimes like a sort of drug I use to keep myself high, it feels like that because that means that I don't have to feel the sort of despair. Again, when I go back to my parents, my family, my home life, I had lots of people around, very social people. And everything was very up or it was shouting and fury or it was like calm water. There was no in between. And it sort of, it turned me into this person where,

you know, if there are two sides and a river in between and you know there are two banks and i'm on one bank and i want to get to the other bank um i always try and jump over the river uh and that's not that's that i need to get better at getting in the water getting a bit, wading through against the currents that are trying to send me downstream and like climbing out the other side and drying off and it all taking the time that it takes.

Because you typically, like the river I'm talking about is never any less than like 20 feet wide. So I'm not jumping over it. You can't. I can't fly. I'm going to have to just get in the water and go through. What is the river in that metaphor?

The river is so many things in that metaphor. The river is the dealing with those voices. It's probably confronting, you know, some of the issues that I've carried forward from my sort of childhood, if not a lot of those issues. The river is the fighting with an imposter syndrome, an issue with imposter syndrome. The river is kind of a lot of the sort of demons that I have ultimately. But, but, but getting in the water would give me sort of perspective and wading through that teaches a lot probably about like it being everything being about the

journey rather than the destination in my in my household at home it was about we're furious we need to get to not furious so we'll force ourselves straight there by blocking things out and there'll be no processing and talking about who feels what and how and how it makes them fit this that the other um the perspective is is you know very important zooming out in my life i find this is helpful very often somebody, not to go off on too much of a tangent here, but it really resonated with me only a couple of days ago. Someone from my label was telling me about her time, a long time ago now actually, but she was working with the Bee Gees

and it was in the early 90s. And their household name to us today, everybody knows the Bee Gees music like they know other household names. And this lady was talking to me she was saying I she said I was about to turn 34 and I was working with Barry Gibb and he said um what do you think of my music what do you think of me as an artist she'd been quite open with him about I'm about to turn 34 I ancient. People in pop music think they're ancient beyond 21. Everybody. And he said, no, you're not.

No, you're not. You're not ancient. That'd be silly. Because he was in his 50s or something at the time. He said, what do you think of my music? What do you know about me? She said, you're a legend. She said, you're a household name legend.

I love all your records. You're brilliant. He said, you know what? He said to her, when I was 33, I'd just got divorced. I'd fallen out with my brothers. I hadn't had a song on the radio for years. If we were doing any gigs, we were playing working men's clubs. This was the late 70s, I think.

And he said, I was 33 and we'd had our initial sort of spike, our high, our hits, late 60s, very early 70s. We had it all and it went away. And I always believed that in pop and in music and in entertainment, you have your big moment and then it's all down from there. He said, and then someone offered us the opportunity to write a soundtrack for a movie. The movie was Saturday Night Fever. And obviously ever since then, you know,

he's talking as a 50-something-year-old. He said, it's just been up and up and up from there. And now you're telling me I'm a household name. He said, I, unfortunately, if I'm honest, he said, I still struggle with all sorts of these demons that I'm not good enough and having this and that success. But he said, I've got more perspective now and I appreciate when you tell me that, you know,

you think my work is so well known. And I thought before all that, that it was all over. I just thought it was a decent bit of wisdom from obviously, yes, granted, he's a total legend. And he's going to be quite a good example in that respect. But like, so easy to slip into that mindset of like, it's all done. You've had your time. But life is long. I'm trying to remind myself of that.

You're what, 31? Yeah. Fucking nuts. Ancient. No, I'm joking. That is so, most people don't start their careers by that point. Yeah.

I guess. You know. But the drive is there. I keep coming back to things i've said before the ambition is there i've you know i'm very hungry to to be doing it what are you hungry for connection it's my favorite thing about where does that come from um in music performance creating creating writing recording releasing performing there in all of that is so many opportunities for connection not just for fans but with people i work with as well i cherish my working relationships i don't love lots of people coming in and out of my my sort of work circle i like to grow with people is there this weird paradox of the thing you're chasing in terms of like you know that peak again you talked to it about this like big moment that you were you know you stood there and you watched

this young artist who you know is going to go through it but at the same time knowing that there comes a real cost with that that because i sometimes when i speak to musicians it's i have that a lot where they're like i think i'm thinking of craig david who i think he had his number one album at 18 you know quite honestly says you know i'm looking for that moment again but it was also pretty much the worst moment of my life it's funny man yeah and it does come back to that when i referenced trauma and maggie's concert and sam what he was saying and um it's funny how that that that works but we see there are some real one in a millioners who might have two three four consecutive peaks um and all everybody else looks at that

and even the people who go through that look at it as like, but something could be better. It's funny, I can't explain that and I suffer from it like so many people do. But if nothing else, it's because I really care about and love what I do and I really want to be in it.

I really want to be kind of on the pitch I've slipped into a football analogy. But for good reasons or for like slightly toxic insidious like. Because I love the game for good reasons Are you sure? Yeah. Are you sure it's good reasons?

All? Yeah I'm talking about the accolades here though because number one is just a comparative measure so okay and actually i'm the same i'm i'm playing devil's advocate for the sake of conversation that's fair and number one is just a comparative measure there's nothing inherently special about it other than you were better than someone else i can't on that just quickly on that i can't tell you how many times uh people i work with have sort of like and me as well we've we've we've gone wow a gram would be great, wouldn't it? That would be awesome. And we've also said like five would be awesome. And we

all know that 10 would be incredible. And just off the top of my head, a household name legend called David Bowie got one, I think, posthumous Grammy award for a music video. And the Grammy award one for the music video is just as valid as the rest of them, but it's a little further down the list. You know, the big record of the year, artist of the year, all those ones are the most exciting ones,

apparently. And he didn't suffer, it seems, for that one music video Grammy Award. And there's a handful of my other absolute favorite artists of all time who are recognized all around the world who haven't got near to certain award ceremonies or whatever, and it just couldn't matter. So, but I suppose my point is that I've found it unfortunately easy to get wrapped up in the hype of those, those things. Um, I hate to confess that, but part of my working through it all

is getting it out into the open so I can hear it sort of with my own ears as well. Because music is not those things. It's so much more than that. And that's why I fell in love with it as a small child in a way that I feel is the same as I love it now. I love it just as much. I'm just as blown away by great music as I was when I was,

I don't even know how young. Let's talk about your new music. Sure. Your new album. You know, yeah, let's, we can do that.

I struggle. I struggle talking about my stuff. But let's talk about it. Why do you struggle talking about it? Your body language has shifted somewhat. Yeah, because I feel like a salesman. Oh, right. That's fine.

No, you know, also the other reason, I feel like a salesman sometimes, you know, but also the other reason is that these songs, they mean a lot to me. I write about things that mean a lot in my life. There's been a degree of vulnerability that I've gone to in the writing of these songs for this new album, Leap, that I don't feel I had been able to tap into before

and reach so um this is why i asked you the question about your affectionate parents right because you've clearly been on that journey of learning how to be a different type of um vulnerable you know the yeah you talk about it like the thank you i love you vulnerable yeah yeah which that's why i was searching for when i asked that question at the start whether you had a lot of i love you thank yous at home i'm just remembering that whatever i said was sort of we just laughed because it was so fucking stunted whatever i said go on sorry carry on no that's the point that was that's why i asked the question because you know you've been on that journey of trying to be a different type of vulnerable yes yes and that's becoming more evident yeah I you're feeling it does in this new music 100% I'm really glad and that you feel

that because I'm trying to access that for all the reasons that you're sort of circling around actually yes the optimism as well comes through in a big way well and when you talk about you know I'm trying to access a different kind of affection i am and i i had said to you i am trying to access that and i had said to you that i felt like i was i have grown up to be a different kind of affection than than the people i grew up around my immediate family um yeah i'm not afraid to say that because i don't criticize them um for how they were affectionate it It was different. It was different. And as a result, and I've talked about it and I will talk about it now,

like in the writing of this album, it's taken me going into a new depth of vulnerability to find ways to say in songs, these things, I love you, these things like I need you, these things like thank you. Because those phrases were not thrown around freely in my house. It's not to say they didn't exist in my house when I was a kid.

It's not to say they didn't exist there. But I'm not used to that environment. But I want it. And I've had a baby. And I want it in her life. And I didn't write these songs when she was, she wasn't here yet when I wrote these songs, but for half of them, I knew she was on the way.

So it changed my perspective again and it probably did affect the writing. And, but it's all, you know, sort of so honest that it's of course rooted in feelings that are about me and how I feel. And I just, I'm trying to change the landscape, my immediate sort of landscape in my life, my personal life.

And that's why songwriting is such a therapy, can be such a therapy for me because those very personal issues and scenarios will come out in my songs. And then I'm actually glad to say that I've arrived now on this third'm i'm actually glad to say that i've i've arrived now on this third album with songs that manage to say those affectionate things that we've now listed a number of times that i'll happily list again but probably feel a little probably make me feel a

little bit uncomfortable so funny but yeah i what there's a song called there's a whole bunch of songs this album i could happily and easily reference but one life has been a big moment one life is a song that has been a was a big turning point in the writing i love the gesture i've only got one life and i want you in it um as a as a lyric uh as a notion who's that for lucy 110 000 what does she mean to you? Everything. Why? She knew me before I, you know, got near the music industry. I think she knew me, we weren't together, but she knew me like intimately as a friend before I even was certain how much I definitely wanted

to leave my safe little hometown, venture into the big wide world and try and do music. And she wanted to sort of stick with me ever since. And there were many years when we had no idea where it was going or if it was going anywhere. And we're still not certain. We still live every day like it could all be gone tomorrow. And, you know, as a result,

in the healthiest way I can possibly express, I feel like I need her. She has got the most healthy and brilliant bullshit radar I've ever met. You know? Mine's not so good. Mine's sort of attracted to the shiny things and the shiny possibilities.

And she's like, I suppose I'll say she's got my back, often better than I have. Have you told her how much you appreciate her in person I hope so I I I do try to

and you know what in a beautiful way she'll say yeah alright shut up you know she'll say like yeah alright she'll she will give me

the time of day but she's steely and i love that and she's driven and she's ambitious for me for us for her for our family but i do tell her i do talk to her about it what do you think your life would be like without her? God forbid. Calamitous. Tragic. Difficult. Difficult.

She sort of helps tame my kind of wild emotions. She absolutely sort of, she knows them so well. And she, I mean, I think it's important to say like, and I do the same for her. She knows how to let them kind of run wild and free, but she knows how to sort of sharpen my focus when I'm struggling to do it for myself. Yeah.

She's quite vital. And I'm very okay with saying that. We've been on a journey, man. We really have. And we continue to get to be on one and that's just so important to me. It's a beautiful balance. It's a beautiful balance it's a beautiful balance it's a it's a beautiful thing to to hear i mean you've known this person since you're 17

i've known this since i was 15 15 you got together when you were 17 so you've been together somewhat 13 14 years now that's that's one hell of an achievement and uh especially because you often hear that those earlier relationships, when you really are changing and figuring out who you are, are the hardest to ever hold on to. Because it's kind of like, the analogy I always think of, it's almost like two parallel lines. But at the start of our lives, these parallel lines are like the variance

in terms of the direction that they can go in. So far, you can become a completely different person in your 20s. And when you're 14, you don't know who the fuck so far. You can become a completely different person in your 20s. Yes. And when you're 14, you don't know who the fuck you are. You're fitting in. Correct. So to survive all of those chapters, it's amazing. I can't explain it fully. It feels like a wonderful sort of coincidence sometimes

that we've, you know, we've, here we are all falling through life. And our paths have never veered too far away from each other's. There's something about it that all kind of just comes down to chance, which I love because she never compromised, especially in the earlier years. She had an opportunity through the degree that she did to go to America for a year and she did it.

And we decided to sort of hold on to each other in that time i didn't get to go but we sort of said we'd we'd we'd be together and just sort of see on the other side sort of thing but that's where chance goes out the window because that's hard work true and this is and this is some with the sort of soulmate analogy which can sometimes be a little bit dangerous is it can i was asked if i believe in soulmates the other day and I didn't know what to say. Cause like yes and no, right? Yeah.

Because we, we, yes, but it was, I suppose as I look back in a sort of pragmatic kind of fashion at that moment, when she went away, it was such a big,

scary, big wide world moment for her. And I went into my first year living away from hitching my hometown first time ever that i was like on my own doing my shopping for myself or like you know paying the rent for myself and to check in with each other every other day when the time uh difference allowed on sky Skype or wherever it was, or a very expensive text message, was so critical to us feeling all right.

And all anybody's ever trying to do, whatever age they are, is just feel all right. She helps me do that, did back then and still does does and I know I do the same for her you know she's like a sort of anchor and you know the rest of me is sort of flailing around in a stormy sea How much did that go into this album Leap? How much of that those feelings towards her

and that new sort of ability to be a little bit more vulnerable? More than ever before I've been very honest in all of my lyrics that i've sort of ever written really but but vulnerability requires me to being vulnerable in my sort of lyric writing it requires me to kind of be more direct and and and open up and be more open and talk about what I'm talking about in the songs. So, so much of what she means to me went into this album in a more vulnerable and more direct way than it ever had before. And we were actually at a point I felt like it was overdue in a more vulnerable and more direct way than it ever had before. And we were actually at a point I felt like it was overdue in a way because our choice, our choice together,

has been in the last nearly 10 years where people have known about me in some capacity, in some public capacity, and I've, you know, gone around the world and sold tickets to shows and released music and all of this stuff and been on tv a bit whatever our choice together has been to keep our private life quite private but then there was a moment where it felt like she didn't exist and that was just awful it felt like that we were living a lie so it's overdue in a way that i'm saying this is

lucy she's the she's like one whole half of me and more than that here's here's what she means to me so on the one hand it's the first time i've been more sort of public about sort of talking about my relationship on the other hand it's a total celebration. And rightly so. If she was sitting here now listening to me say that, she'd be like, cool down. Simmer down. You're getting a bit over the... Because she's the most humble person I've ever met. But yeah, it was sort of time.

Why leap? We need another two hours for that. Because it's something i needed it's a bit it's it's it's been a bit of a mantra as a word um i i sort of needed it i've needed to hear it i've needed to use it i've needed to say it i've needed to exercise it uh leap and the net will appear is is a is a is a phrase a quote from a guy called john burrows he said leap and the net will appear is a phrase, a quote from a guy called John Burroughs. He said, leap and the net will appear. I read that and it sort of blew me away because I'm so paranoid about the net, where it is, when it's going to be there, how strong it is, will it hold? I hate to admit, I feel like I'm sort of revealing a side of myself that

I'm quite sort of self-conscious about but I'm very concerned about the net and I'm quite um can be so reluctant to leap if that's surprising to people because they think I sort of spend my life getting up on stage that's a different thing I know that might be confusing in itself but it's just something I I do and I know how to do and I love and I compartmentalized it in a different place in a different way. But just to leap in many respects, sort of literally, figuratively, spiritually, whatever, a struggle. What is the cost if we don't leap?

You'll never know. You know, you'll never know if the net will appear. I think we want the net to appear. We want to leap, do something wonderful in the air and land safely. And if you don't leap, there's no wonderful in the air and there's no landing safely. So you've not gone anywhere or done anything. And then you're probably dead. as well i think regardless of really what happens in the air i think like um

the leap itself is the is life and i think it also almost seems to be the case like regardless of what happens in the air you land safely part of it seems to me that even if you land on your back you you land comfortably but i've struggled to trust this yeah yeah and there's been some voices in my head that have really um stopped me sort of trusting those that beautiful sort of concept that you've just sort of presented there it was your concept well it was john burroughs no um yeah no it's the way that you put it was really great. So I've looked at it from all angles.

If it's my concept, then I have looked at it from an angle from which I do celebrate it enormously, which is also the way I think you delivered it then. But I've also sort of looked at it from a nervous standpoint and not moved. But in a fight against and in a campaign against the negativity that I've struggled with in the last few years, and actually a lot in my life, it's not just about 2019. I just was having a particularly difficult time that year um i i wanted to use it as as a as an album title to

represent so much of what is in these songs so much of the heart in these songs is about in the face of difficulty i have i have this and this and i have you and that references lucy quite directly most of the time you know that's the you i'm talking about um it's about silver linings i've struggled to see them when they've been there sometimes and i just needed to make music that's that that celebrated and represented them to remind myself um because yeah sometimes i feel like i'm drowning 2019 before 2019 you know um but there is there is there is leaping always as an option hindsight seems to tell us that the greatest risk is taking no risk at all huh you know the greatest well the most the most costly leap would

be taking no leap because if you think about that and ultimately it means it means a life of stagnation it means no challenge it means no excitement it means no heartbreak if you never put yourself in a situation to even be you know and so um and i've seen that throughout my life is just that you know sometimes when i when i think about risk actually it's a real misunderstanding of what the risk actually is the risk actually was it's funny because when i tell people i dropped out of university started a business this business made 700 million whatever they go oh my gosh you're so courageous and my head has always struggled with that concept right i was courageous or brave because in my head the courageous and brave thing to do was staying at university right that was the risk the risk was staying and potentially ending up in a life that

wasn't for me the cowardice thing to do was leaving and going for it that was the coward approach so i think sometimes if you like really like analyze yeah you know, and sort of kind of swap the order around, you can be a bit more empowered. You throw a bunch more perspective at it. Yeah, exactly. And sort of life context and yeah. Life context. People don't realize that they're going to die someday.

You know what I mean? And I think about that a lot. I have a sound timer. I don't know if it's behind me today. It's worth reminding. Is that it in the bottom corner? Bottom left? Yes, that's why it's there.

I've been looking at that guy. Yeah, because that's the only way you can really see time yeah i think humans struggle with finality and infancy the two concepts that something can end and that it can last forever we don't think we we really don't think we're gonna die right we've heard about it it's a story i've seen a couple of other people do it yeah yeah but when you think about the things you're consuming your mind with the concerns the procrastination this is not someone who thinks they're going to die right you know that there's a timer so yeah we think we got time yeah procrastinate yeah but no it's very true it's it's and it's and it's worth reminding ourself once in a while just turning it over yeah and oh shit i'm gonna go and leap i'm gonna go and leap. I'm going to go and do something. I'm going to go and, you know, take a risk or else I risk nothing being my day to day.

Yeah, that's sort of dangerous. And I, yeah, like I was just feeling quite sort of safe keeping my private life private and my, but there was so much I had to say about it. I keep my private life private and my, you know, trying to sort of say, you know what my public life is, people who are interested. And that's that.

When, I suppose I'll use this word, the most wonderful way to go about it was to share in the way that I have today with you, but also by celebrating one of the greatest things in my life that will always sort of change and evolve and has done for the time that Lucy and I have been together. So it doesn't sort of set something in stone

that I can't then, you know, explore sort of sharing or, you know, using is the wrong word, celebrating again. It's been sort of enlightening and helped me feel lighter to share it, to celebrate, to celebrate like full stop. Because it's so easy to get dragged down by sort of darker thoughts that are always going to kind of exist. Don't like forget the light on the horizon, the silver lining.

That's there as well. Leonard Cohen, I'm not going to get it right, but he said something really great about like everything has cracks in it. That's how the light gets in. You know, he smashed that when he said that. Bam. Wish I'd said that. Same. Oh oh this is an interesting one yeah so our previous guest leaves a question for our next guest right

go on okay so the question they um they left for you and i really want you to think about this because this is a really interesting one is would you do it all again um oh why are you battling with that because it's like there's consequences with how i ask it i want to say yes i want to say i'd do it all again because it was fucking brilliant i wouldn't do it all again so much of it was brilliant but there's a caveat to my answer i would do it all again if you let me like i didn't if i wasn't going to waste the time i have going forward like can i just go back in time do it all again and come back to this moment and then carry on from here as i was do you see what i mean i got you i don't want to fill the next 10 years with doing the last 10 again okay okay so but that's such a doctor who yeah yeah well it would

be you'd have to go through and experience it again so the next period of your life would be the same thing again i'm guessing from the question okay let's see this is what we don't know so because my answer the reason I say no is because I wouldn't enjoy doing it all again because you've done it. Like I personally wouldn't get the same, oh my God, wow. Yeah, see, I was thinking I was,

I didn't know that it was, I've been through it before. The old men in black. Men in black. Yeah. Yeah. So otherwise I'm answering the same as you. Okay, interesting.

I, there's, yeah, there's a sort of fantastical fantasy world within which I would do it again where I was just doing it. But before I said that, I thought, well, no, I really, I'm really excited about what happens next. What happens next? I don't know. And that's what keeps it exciting that's also what makes me sort of you know fight with all these voices but it's also what makes it exciting well james um you are a person who is particularly enjoyable to talk to oh thanks

man and i think likewise very much likewise thank you evidence of that comes you know when you're looking at those music videos and they're giving you a little bit more depth and you were the person to try and search out the depth from a very very young age you're clearly someone that wants to go a little bit deeper and that makes you a man of my own heart because i that this is what i do in my spare times probably to the detriment of you know casual social situations um but your new music is testament of everything you've said today it's it's it's evidence that you have unlocked a new sort of i almost thought it was like a wall falling and like something wonderful flowing out of it that hadn't been there before thanks man i think people who listen to leap are gonna are gonna feel this conversation um but

they're also gonna feel this this new side of you that's um created art that feels much more relatable because it's much more well-rounded if that makes sense so thank you uh it really you know i'm those are incredibly kind words and i and i i appreciate them and um i'm a bit blown away so that you that you feel that towards the music so i'll hold on to that for sure thank you thank you Thank you.