Indie-pop pioneers, James, are heading to Sedgefield this August to play Hardwick Live. The ‘Sit Down’ stars have a busy year of touring ahead so Kyrie Morris caught up with guitarist Saul Davies for a chat about their upcoming shows, recent albums and the decline of pop.
Here in the North East we certainly know how to party. What are your past experiences of playing to northern crowds?
People are always up for it! I mean, you pay the kind of money people pay to come and see us these days then you’re going to want to get your money’s worth. People keep coming back to see us which is pretty amazing really, so they must be having a pretty good time. You always get one or two people who have had a bit too much to drink but that’s expected.
James have been making music for over 35 years now…how much has the music industry changed throughout that time?
There are two things here which always get confused, I think: there’s the creative side and the business side. I think the business side has changed completely but I’m not sure that the creative side has changed all that much, although we have more technology at our disposal from the creative perspective. Essentially, at the end of the day, someone writes a song and you find a way to record it and then share it with people. The sharing part has obviously changed as we used to get all our info from the NME and other outlets, and now we don’t – we get our info from all over the place. We actually miss a lot of important cultural information because there’s so much flying around, you know what I mean? I suddenly discovered The Cure have released an album last year and they’re one of my favourite bands and I didn’t even know they’d done it.
And the business side?
There are just so many different platforms and places to get news from now – it’s obviously just the evolution of our society. How the business reacts to all of that is about business, but I’m not so much bothered about the business side of things as what I recognise is the business comes and goes. But in terms of making music and being creative, I don’t think that much has changed really. If you’ve got a good idea and a way of expressing it then I think you end up with something we call a song and one way or another you will find a way of getting out there. I think if you go into music thinking you’re going have a career it’s quite likely that you won’t; but if you make music because you think it’s f****** great fun, then things will naturally fall into place.
James head to Hardwick Live this August. For further information, please head to hardwicklive.co.uk.
