James

The James gang, 2020: (l–r) Andy Diagram, Saul Davies, Adrian Oxaal, Jim Glennie, Tim Booth, Mark Hunter, David Baynton-Power

indie scene of the early 1980s has undergone numerous lineup changes, stylistic swerves, breakups and breakdowns and has rarely been easy to pin down. Originally signed to Factory, James rose during the heady days of Baggy, when “Come Home” and “Sit Down” became outlier indie-dance anthems. In the ’90s, during a fruitful collaboration with Brian Eno, the likes of “Laid”, “She’s A Star” and “Destiny Calling” shoved them into a short and awkward clinch with Britpop.

Following a hiatus in the early ’00s, they have continuedtoflourishintomiddleage.Thetrialsofthe pastyear,however,threwupanurgentexistential question:whatmakesJamesJames?AllTheColours OfYouoffersnewandconvincinganswers.Though thebandhavenotbeeninthesameroomsince September2019,inabsentiatheyhavemadewhat theyconsidertobeoneofthefinestrecordsoftheir career.“WecalledthisbandJamesbecauseit’sthe nameofahumanbeing,”saysBooth.“Wewanttobe asmulti-dimensionalasahuman,ratherthanas narrowasaband.”Thechoruschantonanothernew trackisbothamantraandamanifesto:“We’reallin, whereverittakesus…”

ALLTheColoursOfYouwasmadeinextreme circumstances.Duringitscreation,Jamesparted fromtheiroriginalproducer,Boothlosthisfatherin-law,whilesingerandbandwereseparatedby5,000 miles.Itonlyworked,saysGlennie,becausetheyalready hadtherawmaterialfornewsongs–andbecausethey’re oldhandsatimprovisation.

EveryJamesalbumbeginswiththefoursongwriters–Booth,Glennie,DaviesandkeyboardplayedMarkHunter –conveningoverseveraldaystoplaywithoutany

“THERE’S A MAGICAL LANGUAGE BETWEEN US”

TIM BOOTH

discernible road map. “It’s one of the most difficult but fulfilling parts,” says Davies. “To get in a room with Jim, Mark and Tim and make a racket.” “It’s so delicate,” says Booth. “On the best days it’s ke we go into a trance. We’re listening to each other o intently that we create a third thing that’s separate o us. It may be the best and most joyful thing about eing in James. It’s private, it’s secret – a magical anguage between the four of us. It is the essence f what we are.” The path to All The Colours Of You began in July 2018 ith exploratory sessions in rural Yorkshire, then later n Sheffield and Gairloch, a village near Davies’ primary residence in Poolewe on the Scottish west coast. Afterwards, each member started working remotely on the long, formless musical pieces: chopping them up, adding, subtracting, shifting sections, exchanging ideas. The hard work, says

Glennie, “is trying to cobble those hour jams into listenable five or six minutes that we call demos”. At this point in the creative process, James normally rent an Airbnb and come together again for a few weeks to finish the record. This time, it wasn’t possible. When the pandemic struck last March,

Booth was in California, the rest of the band in Europe.

They had studio time booked with producer Charlie Andrews, “but Covid made it really difficult”, says Booth. “Also, he ended up blowing us out for Alt-J! We love Charlie and we’ll hopefully make another record with him again.”

Their record company forwarded names of potential new producers. They all seem astonished that Garret ‘Jacknife’ Lee – whose list of credits includes U2, REM and Taylor Swift – agreed to work with them. “He’d normally be out ofour league,” says Booth. Fate lent a hand when Booth discovered that he and Lee lived in the same canyon, two

Mega-star: Booth on stage at Womad, 1993

miles from each other. “I drove to his house in the pitch black up these winding canyon roads,” Booth recalls. “He’s got this fantastic man-cave with thousands of albums and keyboards. I was there for a couple of hours and I thought I’d been there 20 minutes. We just got on brilliantly.”

Zooming Uncut from that “deconstructed studio”, strings of fairy lights illuminating his pink hair, Lee laughs. “I immediately liked Tim a lot. He’s the most talkative person I’ve ever met. He’s a really open human, very curious about his body and the possibilities of the mind. He was always drinking some weird tea. The leftovers looked like a sea sponge.”

Days after their first meeting, Lee sent over a 30-second snippet of the title track. “I just burst out laughing,” says Booth. “I thought it was wonderful. He then constructed the whole song, and all four of us just giggled with glee at the craziness.” “They were giddy,” Lee confirms. “Giddiness is a very important thing. It doesn’t necessarily feel right but it makes you think, ‘Fuck, can we do that?’ You’re excited and a bit afraid.”

Having nailed one song, they continued working track by track. “I got sent all the jams, which was a pleasure and a bit daunting,” says Lee. “They might play a sequence for 15 minutes, then deviate. Tim is singing things off the top of his head. Then they would identify bits that they liked.Idgetonthephone to Saul and we’d talk about parts. It was like cracking a code. It wasn’t a one -way thing; we would respond to each other, but had they been in the room I don’t think I’d have been given the licence to be so cavalier. I could be less reverential to the source material. They never said no. They weren’t recoiling, and the fact they were so curious encouraged me to go further. The exciting part for everybody was finding newness and perhaps rediscovering some things they had forgotten about.”

How James were saved by the “playful and curious” Brian Eno

JAMES worked with Brian Eno on five albums, beginning with Laid in 1993 and ending with Pleased To Meet You in 2001. “We’d been trying to workwithBrianfrom the first album,” says Booth. “It was constant. He was massive for us, more mportant than ame. Before Eno, used to shoulder a lot of the burden of production. I’m n ignorant nonmusician, but I know what I like and I push eople. Musicians on’t like being told y singers what to o and I took on that urden. It isolated me from the band ometimes. Then Brian walked in and took hat off me. I knew the apt i fth hi o b co on ow am s ju mo n t Hisbrainissoplay curious. A problem problem, it’s an adv It’s infectious. He’s a virus! He stops you getting egotistical about protecting your parts; you just become “He stops you getting egotistical”: curious.” Eno in 1992

FOR some groups,havingtheir singer sequesteredwitha producer 5,000milesaway, shaping their jamsintosongs,wouldbe a nightmare. “It wentverysmoothly, but it could have beenanabsolute disaster,” agrees Glennie.“Tim,bless him, was doing hisbesttorepresent us collectively. Heknowswhatwe’re trying to do and hetriedtobeas inclusive as possible,butitwas difficult. Becauseofthelogisticsand the time difference,therewasonlya small window whereyoucouldsensibly communicate. Wecontributedasbest we could, made suggestionsandhelped out in whatever waywewereneeded. Thankfully we’veendedupsomehow with something we’rereallyproudof.” Booth is still theonlymemberof James physically tohavemetLee. “I actually don’t feellikewe’vemade a record, in a way,”admitsSaulDavies. “That doesn’t mean that I’m not attachedtoit,orthat I don’t think it’s a fabulous additiontoourwork,butI think the remoteness of it has mademefeel…remote, frankly. I see it like this: we generatedallthepiecesof the jigsaw, and they put the jigsawtogether.Andit’s great! I’m very much in favour ofpeoplecomingalong and getting our jams and raw filesandsaying,‘Here’s my take on what you guys are.’ It’snotremixing,it’s reimagining. I would make someboldclaimsforthis record. It’s a really artistically crediblerecordbecause of that process.” Booth agrees: “Thewholealbum has been a joy to make. Jacknife takessuchdifferent angles to us than anyone else would.Thesongsarebig and accessible and yet still James.”

Lyrically, the tracks confront thepresentheadon. In 2018, when James called their lastalbumLivingIn Extraordinary Times, nobody realisedhowmuch stranger the world would subsequentlybecome.On All The Colours Of You, Trump, BLM,theenvironment and Covid dovetail with more intimateconcerns.“Tim is a great writer with a wide reach,”saysYouth,who co-produced their 1992 album, Seven.“ItmeansJames can go from the deeply personal totheglobalpolitical.”

The title track is a perfect example,“aPolaroidof lockdown in America” that capturesboththebig picture and the peculiar difficultiesandrewardsof compressed living during quarantine.“Bothmysons moved into our house,” says Booth.“Wehadtowork out our relationship, go deeper intothat.”“Beautiful Beaches” – “burning down the houses,we’resurrounded” –recountsthatflightfrom environmentalcatastrophe, n epically existentialopenerand k. “I’m so happythatwestart ine, ‘We’re allgoingtodie,’”he l song aboutdeath.VeryJames!” gular takeonmortality.He n acute liverdiseasethatwas diagnosed.Itledhimtoexplore ghtenmentthroughmovement, lternative medicine.“Alotofmy en trying toworkoutwhatthe hink happensateitherendof two bookendsoflivingand g,” he says.“Idon’tthinkI’dbe ve today if Ihadn’tgonedown at path. I wassosickforsolong, ndiced thewholetime.Iwas ally fed upwithlifeandquite

James in the US, August 1994: (l–r) Tim Booth, Jim Glennie, Mark Hunter, David Baynton-Power, Saul Davies and Larry Gott

willingtogo.Istoppedbreathing inhospitalwhenIwas21anditwas beautiful.Ididn’twanttoberevived. IwasabitresentfulwhenIwas!So Ihavequiteapositiveoutlookon death.OfcourseIgrieveforpeoplewho havegone,andanuntimelydeathis somethingelse,butoursongsabout deathareuplifting.”

“Recover”waswrittenfollowingthe deathfromCovidlastMayofBooth’sfather-in-law, Saville,whowasinWatfordGeneralHospitalwhile BoothandhisfamilywerestuckinCalifornia.“The disconnectofyourlastwordsbeingonFaceTime andthefuneralonZoom…It’saprettydevastating farewell,insomerespects,andalsoamassive blessing.OurlastcalltohimonFaceTime,anhour andahalfbeforehedied,wasincredible.Hetoldushe wasn’tafraidandhegotmetosinghim‘SitDown’.” Boothpauses,somewherebetweenlaughterand tears.“Thefucker!”Forweeksafterwards,heand KatewouldillicitlysneakintoTopangaStateParklate atnight.“Wewouldjustsitinwaterfallsunderthe moonwiththefrogsandsingandgrieve.”

JAMEShavealwaysoccupiedanuncertainposition inthelandscape.“Forabandoftheirstature they’reperhapsunder-representedinthecultural conversation,”saysYouth.“They’veneverbeenhip.” Despitehitsinglesandalbumsandarenatours,they stillself-defineasoutsiders.“We’veneverreallybeen cool,”saysDavies.“It’sgreat,itmeanswecanjustget onandbecreative,buttheslightdownsideisthatwe’ve neverreallyhadamomentwhereweshonebrilliantly. We’vealwaysbeenaneasytarget,butwerepresenta desireinquitealargenumberofpeopletobeheartfelt, tovoicetruismsaboutinclusionandcelebration.”

FormedinManchesterin1982byGlennieand guitaristPaulGilbertson,JamesfirstrecruitedBooth asadancer.Movementremainsanessentialpartofhis methodology.“Iteachworkshops,takingpeopleinto alteredstatesthroughdancing,”hesays.“It’ssucha universalpartofmusic,andanextradimension.”

Projectinganaurathat’spartcharismatichumanities lecturer,partshaman,parthippiecultleader,the singerisnostrangertoridicule.Earlyon,hisecstatic trances,open-heartedsearchforconnectionand espousalofalternativepathswereviewedwithdeep suspicion.“Becausetherewasnocureformyliver isease in western medicine, I was forced to go looking for stuff hat was considered cranky. In Manchester in the 1980s and in he post-punk press, they would shoot all that stuff down. They abelled us Buddhists, because hey knew we were up to something but they didn’t know what it was. I was working with shamans, using plant medicines, whatever I could find to heal me.” He points out with leasure that the world has ince “shifted big time” egarding such matters. James started as a fouriece, their spidery, ropulsive folk-rock falling omewhere between The o-Betweens and The Blue Aeroplanes.TheymadeanEPforFactoryand toured with The iths, who covered their song “What’s The World”. “People abelled us with The Smiths when we started,” says Glennie. “We ere like, ‘We started before The Smiths, we can’t be copying them!’ We were always scared to death that we’d get dragged into scenes. We tried not to jump on bandwagons or be swept along by that.” Theirfirsttwo albums, Stutter and Strip-mine, were modest indie hits, but it wasn’t until James expanded to a sevenpiece in 1989 with the addition of Davies, Hunter and rumpeter Andy Diagram that something clicked. When chart success arrived with “Sit Down”, “Come ome” and third album Gold Mother, the band egarded it with distrust. “The initial wave was weird,” says Glennie. “Because it had taken so long nd there were so many setbacks, it was like, ‘What do we do now?’ It was a strange sensation. It was almost oo important for us to enjoy.” “I remember when we were making Seven, on the ack of ‘Sit Down’, they were really concerned about eping their indie credibility,” says Youth. “I could nderstand that, but I thought, you’re an arena band nd you don’t want to be apologising for that. You want “WEMAKE tomake records that really facilitate that.” “We were so idiosyncratic, bloody-minded and MISTAKES, BUT THAT independent, often to our detriment,” says Booth. “We had such an ambivalent relationship with success. We wanted it on our terms. We railed at any idea that we

MAKES were part of the Manchester scene or Britpop, both of which tried to bring us into them. We weren’t very

US REAL” friendly sometimes, but it was a conscious decision, because we felt movements in music lasted only a few

JIM GLENNIE years, and after that it’s very hard for bands to have their own identity. That we didn’t want to get pulled into that has benefitted us long-term.” Baggyism: Booth in 1990 Playing live has always been the ultimate litmus test. “You get what we’re doing much more easily live, because of the visual component as well as the musical one,” says Booth. “I think we’re a fucking great live band. If you put [people] who think they hate James in front of us, I reckon we might convert a large percentage of that crowd.” “There’s a euphoria we can create that’s relatively unusual, and it’s because of the way we approach it, looking for connections,” says Davies. James are one of the few arena-sized bands who radically change their set each night and are willing to wing it. It keeps things interesting. They only work with lighting and sound engineers who can adapt from show to show. “Sometimes I’ve gone on with a setlist, looked at it on

Surf’s up: Tim Booth at Manchester Arena, May 13, 2016

stageandthought,nope, it’s all wrong,” says Booth. “I’ll turn to everyone and say, ‘Sorry, we’ve got to change this.’ We like the terror of improvisation.”

“If we’d been out there banging through a James Best Of every Christmas on an arena tour we’d have committed suicide by now,” says Glennie. “It would have destroyed us. We like the fear, the excitement. We’ve had some cataclysmic moments on stage, we make mistakes, but we don’t mind. It makes it real, and it means great spontaneous moments can happen, too. It’s not always been the easiest ride for people to follow us, but so be it.”

IN the States, James are best known for “Laid”, the punchy, provocative title track of their fifth album, produced by Brian Eno. When the single gave them a sizeable US alternative hit in 1993, the band’s focus diverted towards America. This second wave of fame was more raucous. “We were in the States for four years,” says Glennie. “That was our party period. We were more relaxed and we enjoyed the experience a lot more. When we came back to the UK the band was fairly dysfunctional and it went downhill from there. It became quite destructive.”

“People think of James as these fluffy intellectual student types,” says Youth. “But apart from Tim they were all like football hooligans! The dynamic within the room could be heavy. Tim was bouncy, but also very introverted and moody sometimes. They weren’t always very good at expressing how they felt.”

“We all got lost in the ’90s, in different ways,” says Booth. “I got derailed a bit. I got very defensive and protective, a bit brittle and arrogant.” By the time the singer finally left James in 2001, “probably 90 per cent of us were in addiction. We were still making great music together, but it was unpredictable, dysfunctional and potentially violent. That’s why I left.”

Since their reformation in 2007, the dynamic has stabilised and their productivity rocketed: All The Colours Of You is their seventh studio album in thirteen years. “When we came back everyone had cleaned up enough for us to function and

James’s ambivalent relationship with their biggest hit

TOUCHING on fragile mental health and the need for compassion, communication and communion, “Sit Down” was a No 2 hit in 1991 and yet seems custom-built for current times. Coldplay performed it after the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing and it has even been adopted by Liverpool fans as an anthem for Mo Salah. Yet James treat the song sparingly, wary of cheapening it or letting it define them. “‘Sit Down’ is the biggest hit in Britain, but it isn’t worldwide,” says Booth. “We play it when we can play it with passion, because for us the whole gig is more important than one song. Having said that, I know it has been a really important song for people in lockdown. It comforts people, so I could see us entering a period coming out of lockdown where we’ll want that sense of unity and connection.” ommunicatemuchbetter,”saysBooth.“Wecould ppreciatewhatwemissed.Wethought,‘Thisis eallyprecious,let’sfighthardtokeepit.Wehave omethingmagicwhenwecreatetogether.’”

Glennieagrees.“We’dgrownupabit.Wevalued hebandmore,andeachother.You’reallowedto echildishinaband,evenatthegrandoldageof 7.Youcanbeaknob-endifyousodesire,butyou’ll messthingsupforyourself.Mostofushavelearned at.Wehaveourmoments,ofcourse,butthings eeasier.Wehaveadifferentappreciationofit ow.”“They’veworkedoutthatthey’rebetter getherthanseparate,”saysJacknifeLee.“Noegos nonsense.They’renotpreciousorprotectiveof theirstations,they’refreerthanthat.”

ThoughonlyBoothandGlennieremainfromthe originallineup,theband’sformativespiritisstill alive.Recently,afriendsentGlennieJames’sfirstJohn Peelsession,fromOctober1983.“Itwaslikeatime machine,”helaughs.“Justbonkers.Therewasawhole bunchofdifferentpeopleintheband,butthere’s somethingaboutthewayJamesstartedup,theethics andprincipleswebroughttothewayweplayed,which westillmaintain.Ilikethat.We’vealwaysbeenabout improvising,aboutplayinglive,aboutnottryingto soundlikeanybodyelseandplayingabroadspectrum ofmusic.Nothingcan’tbeconsidered.No-oneever says,‘Whatthefuckareyoudoing?’Wehadthatethos backthenandIcanstillhearthatonthisalbum.”

Doestheshaven-headed,extravagantly moustachioedsingerenjoyingtheCostaRicanrays alsorecognisehimselfinthemusichemadeallthose yearsago?“Yes!”saysBooth.“Iplaythoserecordsonce every15years,orwhenI’mtryingtolearnasong,andI totallyhearus.AndIstillhearmyselfinsomeofthose lyrics.”Hesmiles.“Stillyearningforanswers.”

All The Colours Of You is releasedbyVirginMusic Label & Artists Services on June4.Thebandtour the UK with Happy Mondays inNovember/ December 2021 and headline Neighbourhood Weekender on September 4

“He was never in one place too long, always moving on”: Dylan in Los Angeles, December 16, 1965