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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 in the calm comes out debbie is the number one that's crazy and the winner is jasper 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 [ __ ] 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 yourself [Music] 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 in a kind of commuter belt town called hitching 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 mum 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 uh in that respect my parents are pretty fiery people and they're kind of party animals in a way they they're very social they're very loud and and and um kind of excitable so i feel that that was going on 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 uh i think all kids myself included go through moments of shyness and moments where they're a little more outgoing than maybe a little more shy again than outgoing again i remember most vividly the sort of shire times and i stood behind my older brother who would lead nine out of 10 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 well your parents affectionate in a kind of uh i want to say like wartime ways 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 uh my friends parents parents parents like there's 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 uh they were affectionate in their sort of steely way [Music] it wasn't 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 it was with a bit of a smile it wasn't like it was like it was encouraging and i got on board with it but um ultimately it was like if you're gonna give it a shot don't don't do it by half look at and she'd name any one of my heroes and 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 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 okay what about your dad then when he finds out that you want to be you know you might want to pursue 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 are getting that until 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 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 round there's this there's that and there was a 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 one of the shifts as well and at 13 in january at 4 00 am i was on my bike on the way to the market in the dark shivering my nuts off i remember the like 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 like we know more about that now it's like 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 you know if james wants to buy guitar strings because he's snapping him off his guitar all the time and i can't he's like i can't keep paying for that which i respect i didn't know the time um my dad and my mum but also because my dad had had jobs as a as a kid you know helping someone a like a you know a corner shop or something he 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 mom half a time um but um 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 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 from 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 um what do i mean by that my mum's the type of person who so when i was a kid in the house you know if i if i was having some idle time another way to say that if i wasn't doing anything middle of the afternoon she'd be on me like you know 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 could 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 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 the other day and i haven't got any sort of reference names for you sorry but a guy said uh let's just say it was einstein einstein perfect um einstein's wife said to him what are 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 in 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 um 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 idol time like i said my mum is 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 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 the 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 david gilmour 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 going to
and it's going to be great nothing comes and it's 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 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 having you not not watching a clock not there not being any sort of consequence and we put i put hundreds of consequences on myself we all do um but as soon as you do those things the kind of the quality starts to sort of lessen um so yeah it didn't help that experience when i was a kid of my mum sort of going no no no no no get yourself busy yeah you got 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 and 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 um but that unfortunately that that even that small sort of pressure that i felt then has ended up as like so many like you say you've met so many creative people who feel that sort of guilt
it has um heightened the sense of guilt so it's a strange one to juggle and uh and i find myself fighting against it and that's a that's really inconvenient to what i'm trying to do as a passion 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 someone about your theirs um insecurities i had an insecurity so in school in like primary school as a young kid i was um i was a fast runner i was good at drawing and painting i had this a 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 i think back about the worries that i had about 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 i had an ambition and a dr and a drive that wanted to be really really good at these things um 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's dangerous territory because there's enjoying things and being really good at them and then there's a 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 are 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 um why why why was i why did i worry about that stuff but yeah i wanted to i wanted if 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 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 if i 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 i have a baby now we have a nine-month-old daughter and and and um adam ada adam some people do pronounce it some of you it is much better to be fair i learned this but um lucy went out to kader 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 gift it's a it's a that was a uh 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 was an hour into that time because i
looked at the clock i didn't need to but i still carry it uh it's [ __ ] frustrating was there any anyone in your circle at that early age that made you feel like that wasting weight quote wasting time or not using time in a evidently productive way was meant that you were a lazy person yeah is that it was that was part of the language of 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 that 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 so and it felt like middle class came like later in life i think my parents are there now but like that's slightly sort of besides the point what i mean is um time was precious uh and you had to the the 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 a that was yeah in my wider circle as a kid around you know my 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 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 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 the other and me and matt were doing our gcses and we were in like a biology class we did the same 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 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 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 chili peppers or
any of our 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 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 they like 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 i think they would have believed or hoped that i'd 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 7 pm and by 7 am add million views had 2 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 i'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 you liked 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 got today called him up and said we'd love 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 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 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 are [ __ ] so lucky you know but um 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 seven or eight 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 have they don't know who i am and they haven't 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 um trials it was all trials uh it's all training um 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 um and then i'd do an original they i i'd play the verse and they just talk talking away and i play the chorus and they're still talking then i'd play the bridge and a few heads would turn and i think i 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 is 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 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 times 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 [Music] 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 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 their 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 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 um if they haven't come to see you intentionally or or it's not a private you know actual sort of venue where people buy tickets to come up then they've every right to and 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 i mean 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 gotta 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 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 all right 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 for the people who had no idea who i was and i remember you catch some eyes and people going oh there 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 learnt very early that their tension is is the thing we'll all listen to a good song yeah but you know people forget the ones 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 it again and try harder um so yeah it does it does change to me 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 any of the stages that i'd seen my heroes on you know 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 or any live stuff that i got to see on tv you know that was broadcast on tv um 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 and tom we were in a band as 13 14 year olds and then we were in another one as 15 16 year olds and and 16 17 and to 18 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 when you so six weeks after that clip of you singing in a pub yeah um six weeks after that clip goes online you end up signing a record deal in new york right yeah it was there was two visits to new york so it was probably more like sort of a couple of months two or three years for the story to say six let's go six it was actually it was 98 days yeah and four hours very quickly after that 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 wasn't on spotify so i had to go on sorry about the music there you go okay you're only 16 quid i wish it thank you what was that like then that
first ep goes out into the world does your life change at that point um there was a change it all felt too fast i think once i 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 um i don't know what to call it it's a record label obviously this this this 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 they basically looked at me having visited uh new york a couple 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 gonna put you in the c now and i was like whoa um so it it it was fast uh but within a year you've got a headline sold out uk tour yeah that was and and you know on the one hand yes on the other hand it was rooms full of 50 to 100 people but they were all there to see me for the first time ever they were all they'd all bought a ticket because somehow they 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 on to 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 which is kind of sweet burn camp days kind of yeah but it wasn't okay in 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 couple of months between signing recording that ep and releasing it it felt very fast and it was exciting but yeah i've been in this training mentality where 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 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 um 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 your second eb comes out let it go and your album comes out in the same year album was march 2015. okay ep was was so same six months it was 2014 into 2015. and uh let it go um had come out towards the end of the summer before and and then and then the album in 2015 and uh 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 um 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 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 worked 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 um
and it kind of took off but let it go it 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 um i i got on stage in this sort of valley type shaped bit of land throughout this outdoors festival because there were sort of banks of grass at the sides quite a big stage and it felt like quite a lot of people saw three four thousand people i was like wow this is exciting and they all sang the words to let it go every single word particularly the choruses and we filmed it as well like 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 incredible he said you're in front of 20 000 people i there like no way i said they were all yeah they're 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 um that was a real moment where everyone recognized that there was whole back of 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 moved 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 l.a 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 l.a 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 are on a plane where's the idle time out of time on a plane is like not whatever but it's all sort of cracked up to be you can't get your guitar out and start writing so um i guess it's like emergency rest time in
a way and try and get your head down on a plane which is as we all know kind of tough but um yeah it 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 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 yeah so many times in my life i was listening to it before and i almost start to feel the feelings of like the relationship heartbreaking that i was going through when i was when i was that age funny man bro i played that song all the time all the time 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. i took two stints and it came out in 2015 um but i finished recording in january 2014. uh september 2020 was the first time i listened to it after i finished recording it well i just i played those songs so much and i had the time in my life but like i just i didn't you know it's gonna 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 heaped 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 going 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 in the calm comes out davey's 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 um 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 um three of us are watching the show in la and it's like her 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 roller coaster ride and it will involve trauma and it is trauma he said and we know all about it each 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 um beforehand and we we 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 nile 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 from the carmen's 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 um and i love so much about what happened and i would i would love to experience that again um but also it 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 i'm having a great time i've just put out my third album and i'm i'm 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 got 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 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 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 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 um it was interesting who uh received the second album who 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't i can't sort of speak for people but um 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 um 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 um it peaked at number two in the album charlotte 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 that just
reigned supreme for so long in 2018 at the top of the charts 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 it's there's a 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 was always the curse of happiness it's always the killer thing because if i told you when you were whatever age yeah your album would date would peak at number two in the album charts you'd be the [ __ ] moon i would leak yeah jump for joy yeah definitely sorry that's awesome we go again on that i would jump for joy i did not mean that sorry but would you move the order of things honestly 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 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'm 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 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 love that music and uh 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 um i can't control any of that the only thing i can control is what i create and that i do there is 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 um so 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 we wouldn't have changed the the things around you know the order of things when you when you spoke about mental health 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 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 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 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 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 the should never be the sort of first choice i i remember feeling like it was it was more about can you suck it up though it's like your dad talking my dad has been been on his own journey with mental health previous to me even being born he he had some struggles and he did he did talk to some professionals about it and i really respect that so actually it wasn't my dad talking um 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 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 when it 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 that 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 mixture that's when you did the tour with uh ed sheeran and 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 encountered various sort of people fans or not or people i work with or people interviewing me or whatever who and this is ultimately like really quite flattering they think i'm you know i don't know how to put it other than like 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 uh on the one hand i'm being you know it's really disproportionate and and 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 part there's a voice in my head saying why aren't you doing the stadiums you 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 way and so i do want those kind of uh rewards of selling out such an enormous venue and so many and so often in the way that he adds an example and and also i will say that he 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 open a second opener me the third opener and then him and it it was pretty wonderful and exciting to find that in in almost every stadium it was 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 bell why isn't it your show why don't you have your own stadium show or you know even a you know arena show or 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 [ __ ] me yeah it's pretty [ __ ] 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 i i you know i'm holding myself to a standard that might be unrealistic but then i'm so driven and i f 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 um deep inside because it's it's it's sort of a voice i recognize from various chapters of my life uh it's on the one hand i was i was too sort of timid and uninterested in 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 playing guitar to the point where it's it's you know you're able to confidently play well and 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 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 the height or how high 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've have a very close and long-standing relationship with people i cherish and they're saying james like mate um you you've got to sort of reign that in you've got to try and find a way to round that in because
because it's okay more okay then i've i'm i'm able to realize half the time so um and i don't want to jeopardize my relationship with them or or all sorts of people um i'm working out therefore that i can potentially control some of the unhappiness and 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 on this podcast that's had so many exciting guests some of those voices say yeah they just they 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 um so it's it's versions of one of that one voice and it's versions of that other voice that are speaking often in my head and and that's what they're saying all of these voices they have 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 that 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 the longer i sort of exist with these
voices the 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 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 that's just a good thing um but sometimes the voices get so loud that that i don't go and do these things and i and and i my life remains kind of gray 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 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 i've i've learned a little bit more about sort of being able to quiet the the negative voices or control them a little
bit um you can never do any one of these things a hundred percent i'm i'm learning um and there's a part of my mind that wants a hundred percent yeah here they are everywhere 100 be the headliner at this thing 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 as 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 riddling 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 yeah so like with relationships we 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 [ __ ] get on with it and it's 60 rather 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 quiet 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 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 and the ground 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 um saying what saying could have been better saying they're just waiting for ed sheeran on that tour so which they were granted but like um 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 saying 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 they've it's therapies taught me um 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 um uh i can't think of the word but i i would absolutely like like to work out how 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 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 um bringing in a broader perspective and then asking myself you know are these voices right honestly because in the worst moments i'm saying yet 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 they that's a heart 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 i feel a sort of duty sadly sometimes in my personal life private life as well to be so on so much of the time sometimes as a you know 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 um you know i again like when i go back to my parents my my family my home life they had lots of people around very social people and everything was very um up or it was shouting and fury or it was like calm water there was no in between um and it sort of it turned me into this person where you know if if 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 wet 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 gonna have to just get in the water and go through what is the river in that metaphor um the river is so many things in that metaphor uh it's all it's it's the the river is the dealing with those voices it's probably confronting you know some of the issues that i've carried forward from from my sort of childhood if not a lot of those issues the river is the fighting within an imposter syndrome an issue with imposter syndrome um the river is kind of a lot of the sort of demons that i have ultimately um 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 out the other um the perspective is is you know very important zooming out in in my life i find is is helpful very often somebody actually 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 we know everybody knows that bg's music like they know other household names and this lady was talking to me she was saying 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's been quite open with him about i'm about 10
34 i'm ancient people in pop music think they're ancient beyond 21. everybody um and he he said no you're not no you're not in that ancient they'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 what do you know about me she says you're a legend she said you're just you're a household named legend i love all your records you're brilliant he said you know what he said to her when i was 33 i just got divorced i've fallen out with my brothers um i hadn't had a song on the radio for years uh 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 you you have your big moment and then it's all down from there um 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 you know he's gonna 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
hmm i'm trying to remind myself for that knew what 31 yeah [ __ ] nuts ancient knife that is so most people don't start their careers by that point yeah i i 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 so 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 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 one 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 and 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-millionaires 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 um 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 you're sure it's good reasons oh yeah i'm talking about the the accolades here though because number one is just a comparative measure so okay and actually i'm the same i'm playing devil's advocate for the sake of conversation that's that's fair and number one is just a comparative measure there's nothing inherently special about it other than you are 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 and me as well we've we've gone wow our grammy would be great wouldn't it yeah 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 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 the most exciting ones apparently and um and he didn't suffer it seems for for that one music video grammy award and there's a handful of my other absolute favorite artists of all time who have recognized all around the world who haven't got near to certain awards 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 is getting 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 um but let's talk about it why do you struggle talking about it uh your body language has shifted somewhat yeah because i feel like a salesman oh right um that's fine no i you know i also the other reason i feel like a salesman sometimes you know but also the other reason is that like these songs that they mean a lot to me i just i write about things that mean a lot in my life you know there's been a degree of sort of vulnerability that i've sort of gone to in the writing of these songs for this new album leap that i don't feel i have 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 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 [ __ ]
stunted whatever i said go on sorry 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 um and that's becoming more evident yeah i i you 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 that 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 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 affectionate 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 was different it was different and as a result and i've talked about it um and i will talk about it now like in the writing of this album it's taken me going into a 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 those phrases were not thrown around freely in my 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 i 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 um but it it's it's it's all you know sort of so honest that it that it's of course rooted in feelings that are about me uh 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 those very personal issues and scenarios will will come out in my songs and then i'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 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 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 she knew me who went together but she knew me but like intimately as a friend before i even was certain how much i i definitely wanted to leave my safe little hometown venture into the big wide world and try and do music um [Music] and she's 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 we still live every day like it's like it could all be gone tomorrow and i and and you know as a result in the healthiest way i can possibly express i feel like i need her she's got the most um healthy and brilliant [ __ ] 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 um have you told her how much you appreciate her in person i hope so i i i i do try to and you know what in a beautiful way she'll say yeah i shout you know she'll say like yeah all right 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 um she sort of helps tame my kind of wild emotions she absolutely sort of she knows them so well and she 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 um yeah she's quite vital and i'm very okay with saying that uh we've been on a journey man we've you know we really have and i can't you know we continue to to get to be on one and that's just it's so important to me 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 seventeen uh i've noticed 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 how is the analogy i always think of it's almost like two parallel lines but at the start of our lives there these parallel lines are like the variance in terms of the direction that they can go in is so far you can become completely different person in your 20s yes and when you're 14 you don't know who the [ __ ] you are yeah fitting in so to survive all of 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 we all 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 be together and just sort of see you 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 soul mate analogy which can sometimes be a little bit dangerous is it ken i was asked if i believe in cell mates the other day and i didn't know what to say um because like yes and no right like yeah because 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 skype or whatever 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 it's just feel all right um she helps me do that did back then and still does and i 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 floating 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 uh more than ever before um i i've been very honest in all of my lyrics that i've ever written really but but vulnerability requires me to being vulnerable in my sort of lyric writing 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 um so so much of of of what she means to me went into this album in a more vulnerable and more direct way than it ever had before um 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 talking about my my relationship on the other hand it's a total celebration and rightly so um if she was sitting here now listen to me say that she'd be like cool down simmer down like you're getting a bit over because she's most humble person i've ever met but um yeah it was it was sort of time why leap we need another two hours for that that um um because it's something i needed it's a bit it's it's been a bit of a mantra as a word um i i sort of needed to 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 in the net will appear is a is a is a phrase a quote from a guy called john burras he said leap in 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 i 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've compartmentalized it in a different place in a different way but just to leap in many respects sort of literally uh figuratively spiritually whatever i
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 probably did interestingly 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 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 was your concept well it's john burroughs no um can't have it back no it's the way that you put it was really great and and so i've looked at it from all angles yeah if it's my concept then then i've i have looked at it from an angle that from which i do celebrate it enormously which is also the way i think you delivered it then but i've i've also sort of looked at it from a nervous standpoint and not and not moved but in 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 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 yes 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 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 all around you can be a bit more empowered you throw a bunch more perspective at it yeah exactly and sort of life context and and yeah it's their life context people don't realize that they're gonna die someday you know what i mean and i i think about that a lot i have a sound timer i don't know if it's behind me it's worth reminding is that in the bottom corner
yes that's why it's there we're looking at that guy yeah because that's the only way you can really see time yeah i think humans struggle with finality and infinity 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 this yeah we think we've got time to procrastinate yeah but now it's very true it's it's and it's and it's worth reminding ourselves once in a while just turning it over yeah and oh [ __ ] i'm going to go and leap i'm going to go and do something i've got to go and you know take a risk or else i risk nothing being my day-to-day yeah that's um that's sort of dangerous and and uh i yeah like i 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 am i 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 in 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 um so it it doesn't sort of set something in stone that i can't then you know explore sort of sharing or you know um using is the wrong word celebrating again
it's it's been it's been sort of enlightening and help me feel lighter to to share it to celebrate to celebrate like full stop because it's so easy to get it's dragged down by sort of darker thoughts that are always going to kind of exist don't like forget the the light on the horizon the silver lining that's there as well leonard cohen i'm not gonna 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 i am so excited to announce our new sponsor for this podcast and that is blue jeans by verizon for any of you that aren't already familiar with bluejeans they are a video conferencing and collaboration tool who offer an immersive communication experience that drives pretty unparalleled employee and customer engagement experiences me and all of my teams across all of my portfolio companies switched over to blue jeans a couple of months ago and we have not looked back the best thing for us has been the totally frictionless experience no glitching no sound issues no delays or any of those things that usually make virtual meetings really really frustrating we use blue jeans anywhere on any device at any time and it's perfect for my small businesses that just have 10 or 20 people to some of my bigger businesses that have hundreds of people i'm a big fan as you can probably tell so i've been quite excited for for some time to announce this partnership and in the coming weeks i'll explain the features and really why it's perfect for you if you haven't considered using or switching over to blue jeans yet but if you can't wait head over to bluejeans.com to learn more honestly it's been one of the real sort of game changers in my business 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 her how i ask it i want to say yes i want to say i'd do it all again because it was [ __ ] brilliant i wouldn't do it all again so much of it was brilliant but i 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 doctor 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 oh wow oh you know yeah see i was thinking i was 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 i there's yeah there's a there's a sort of fantastical fantasy world within which i would do it again where i was where i was just doing it but um before i said that i thought well no i really i'm 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're the person to try and search out the depth from a very very young age or clearly someone that wants to go a little bit deeper and that makes you a man of my own heart because i that's this is what i do in my spare time 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 lee 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 look thank you all right 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 i had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast my girlfriend came upstairs yesterday when i was having a shower and she said to me that she tried the heel protein shake which lives on my fridge over there and she said it's amazing low calories you get your 20 odd grams of protein you get your 26 vitamins and minerals and it's nutritionally complete in the protein space there's lots of things but it's hard to find something that is nice especially when consumed just with water and that is nutritionally complete the salted caramel one if you put some ice cubes in it and you put it in a blender and you try it is as good as pretty much any milkshake on the market just mixed with water it's been a game changer for me because i'm trying to drop my calorie intake and i'm trying to be a little bit more healthy with my diet so
this is where heel fits in my life thank you for making a product that i actually like [Music] [Music]