As James prepare for their biggest UK arena tour to date, the band are gearing up for a series of shows that promise scale without sacrificing intimacy. With dates across the country, including a stop in Newcastle on Friday 10th April, this tour marks another chapter in the story of a band that has never stood still. Liza-Lou Campy caught up with founding member Jim Glennie to talk planning, pressure, curiosity, and what still drives James forward.
April will see your biggest arena tour yet. How’s the planning going? Has it changed how you think about the live show?
The planning is going well, thanks. We have a few surprises lined up for the tour which will hopefully come together and be good fun. I think you always have to treat every venue differently. A small venue has very different needs to an arena, or even a festival field. When you’re playing an arena, the challenge is scale, but you still need to find ways to make it personal. You have to create moments of intimacy and connection, even in a huge room. That’s always the trick – making sure it still feels human and immediate, rather than distant.
When you’re building a set for rooms this size, what do you pay most attention to? Are there certain songs that become ‘definites’? And will there be surprises?
We don’t actually write the set-list until the day of the show, and each day it changes. That’s just one of James’ quirks, really. There aren’t any ‘definites’ as such. We like to chop and change things around every night, so no two shows are quite the same. Adding deep cuts and oldies is always good fun, and of course it’s important to get recent and new material into the set as well. That said, we do have a decent arsenal of big hits to call on. It’s really about getting the balance right and keeping things fresh for ourselves as much as the audience.
When you imagine the first night of the tour, what are you listening for on stage?
The first night is always a bit scary, to be honest. No matter how long you’ve been doing this, that feeling never completely goes away. We do have a couple of warm-up gigs beforehand to blow the cobwebs away, and hopefully that will help settle things. Once you get through that first show, everything tends to fall into place.
You’ve been the one constant in James. Do you still feel pressure? And what’s shifted most in how the band works together?
Yeah, I’ve been around since the very beginning, but I don’t really feel pressure as such. Most situations that come my way, I’ve experienced before in some shape or form. That helps. That said, I do think it’s crucial to keep pushing yourself. The last thing you want is complacency. You should always be striving to get better, to improve what you do, and I think that’s very much part of the James ethos. That attitude has stayed with us over the years.
How much of being in a long-running band is musical instinct versus knowing when to say nothing?
As a general life lesson, learning when to stay quiet is incredibly important. The secret to being in a band for this long is having great relationships with the people you work with – first and foremost, your fellow band members. That comes down to consideration, kindness and support. If you get that side of things right, everything else becomes easier. You can do this job and still have a happy, healthy existence. It is possible, and that’s something we’ve learned over time.
When new songs come in, what’s the instinctive sign that they belong to James?
James actually has quite a broad spectrum when it comes to what fits as a James song. If anything, we’re always looking to expand that as we write. It’s cool to release things that don’t necessarily sound like us at first glance. That said, the quality has to be there. We’re very aware of the legacy we’ve already created, and the challenge is to live up to that, or even exceed it, without standing still creatively.
And finally, what do you hope this tour will add to the band’s story?
I guess our goal for every gig is the same as it’s always been: to uplift people and send them home buzzing. So hopefully, a lot more of that, please.
James head to Utilita Arena, Newcastle on Friday 3rd April. Tickets, priced from £42.50 in advance, are available at seetickets.com.
