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Hey, I'm Norah Jones and today I'm playing along with James Bay.

I'm just playing long Wey, I'm just playing lone Weezy.

Hey, I'm Norah Jones and welcome to the podcast with Me today and always, Sarah Oda.

Hi.

Hi.

Our guest today is the Grammy nominated, brit Award winning singer songwriter James Bay Yay.

He broke through with his debut album, Chaos and the Calm, and he is celebrating the ten year anniversary of that debut album this year.

That's so exciting.

We have not met until this podcast was filmed, and he's just a delight and an incredible singer.

Yes, you're going to hear about his process in the studio and how he's involved when he's working on music.

You're gonna hear about his.

Surprising country vibes even though he's from outside of London.

Yeah, kind of unexpected.

He's got a little bit of country there.

Yeah, it's a little country.

Yeah.

And as always, you're gonna hear some great music, new and old from across his catalog.

This was really fun and I hope you enjoyed this episode with James Bay.

I broke the speed limits to Getty.

That's a girl, and there was no road.

Lost my keys and common sense John, the guns, John de fence, just to find you go home?

I turned lines off in the kitchen.

That's a neat.

Drive, the roses in the city, well the cold, then on the break, just to find.

No glody.

So's the sway on our shoulders would keep us up from.

The morning through the dark.

If the molly is though that we walk through again, then outcome we can't find her key.

I brought the speed limit to getting.

I cut the valley through the rain, held of angel and the barn, little candle, there's a job.

Just to find you go home, nobody, jo that's the way on.

Our should that's well, keep us apart from the morning through the door.

Doll is a door that we walk.

Through there again?

Then how come we can't find the keys?

M oh my sold that's the swain on of.

Should's would keep us apart from the.

Morning through the dark.

Flood is her door that we walk through the again?

There?

How come we can't find the keys.

I brought the speed letting to guess you, I took a road where it was no road.

Now we don't ever get it right.

Couple samples in the name drifting along all the places that we win.

I went back to them again.

Just to find you go, oh my god, it's very wow mm hmm, shaking it out because it feels it's very exciting.

I was saying about like big necked guitars all that adrenaline, and I heard Jack White say that he likes big next and he does all these things on his stage to make it a bit difficult for himself because that's where he can put the adrenaline.

Oh and I loved that, and even down to like I play everything like a whole step down.

That's actually for like I love a C shaped core by saying better than B flat.

Yeah, so that's for that, and that requires heavier strings.

But the heavier strings is somewhere to put some adrenaline because it's like bend them and stuff.

That's really or else I'd be like and like all that's crazy, Like I just you feel like it teams you.

Yeah, yeah, it keeps me in a sort of strangely sort of necessary cage just a tiny one and I and it's and the cage is saying like, keep fighting to get out of me, like it's a funny little thing we do me.

And the sort of performance that is very funny experience, I know, it's a bit weird.

And what's funny about it also, I figure, is that I'm out there and people are like, oh, you know, he does the nice soft sad songs, and it's like I'm up there like a sort of coiled spring.

It's probably not that trying to stay.

But there's something in order that that sort of creates a friction that feels important to the art.

Potentially, very potentially is.

That pushing Paul.

You know, I'm trying to think if.

I have what I have like that.

I have to say like and maybe you'll think of something.

But like for some artists perhaps and in my view certainly with you, the the the sort of golden effortlessness of your delivery is a whole different beast and very inspiring and just something that I know you understand this.

You sort of have to make the listener or the audience member feel so safe that they can relax into whatever's happening.

That's so kind and sweet.

Well, I just think I think that's a great show, yeah, or a great record made when the listener is lost in that great way.

Yeah, you can you can be you could be listening to the Velvet Underground, the Velvet Underground to be lost in sort of what's happening?

What is that noise?

In a boutround and you could be sort of on the edge of you see, and that's it's all.

Everything is all subjective, so it's all alloud and that's cool.

But the other thing that I'm really going for, and even some of my favorite like rock and roll bands or like ultimately just sort of noisier artists do it very well.

But I just feel like, oh, I'm loving this because they've got it your music.

Yeah, That's that's my experience, and so I'm going for that myself because I'm inspired by so many people who can do that.

Yeah.

But I think you you're you can hold it in so well too.

And it sounds like it kind of to me now that you have said that, it does kind of sound like there's something in there that the push and pull I can feel in the best way.

Okay, Well, that's a huge compliment.

I appreciate that.

It's like it's like, I know you can go there, but you don't have to.

And I'm trying that that's the thing is you don't want to.

Have to know.

I'm trying to mature into that more and more, and I'm thirty four and it's taken me a long time, but that is a maturity thing that it takes a minute.

Younger Younger people definitely go there quicker.

Yeah, and I really have for a long time.

I certainly did when I was starting out, and like it.

It reveals itself in my sort of more my league guitar playing, but probably all my guitar playing and my singing, which are my main two things that I.

Do so well.

But very kind but I know, I know what you're saying that.

Yeah, I'm enjoying that as I hopefully sort of mature more and I feel it a little bit more recently that I'm enjoying the way I'm able to sort of harness the power, as it were, and like hone it because I want to.

I want the delivery and then the reception for the people in the audience to be a certain thing.

And I'm getting closer than I've ever got I don't ever want to fully get there.

That's the other strange truth.

Well, you never will ever fully master any of it, right, And that's why we keep doing it.

That's one of my favorite things, and.

We keep evolving and changing and that's the beauty of doing it.

That's why Willy still is doing it because he gets a kick out of it.

But you know what, I think you can say a similar thing for so many of the kind of older sort of legends and icons that keep going that the Stones.

You know, these guys they clearly love it, Yes, and there's another there's another angle that's it's clearly the main thing that they kind of know how to do and the main reason that they know why to get up in the morning.

Yeah, that's also okay, because they've been so great that there's always been, you know, reason for them to go again, to put another tour on or whatever.

Same for Willy, Yeah, it's it's there's there's a few different reasons, aren't there, And they're so powerful.

Yeah, some people just don't want to be home.

Yes, there's that too, Like you don't know how to be home?

Do you tour all the time when you're not doing an album cycle.

I've tried to if I'm honest, like if I look back over the last ten and a bit years, you know, pandemic aside, like I have tried to.

You know, if I'd say to my managers, my team, I just want to work.

It really means touring more than anything.

Yeah, I didn't start music from isn't it fun to write songs and sort of work out different ways to record them in our bedroom sort of perspective.

I did a bunch of that.

We had a eight track recorder that me and Tom, who's still in my band.

Tom is my oldest friend.

I've known since I was three.

He plays bass in my band, and then my brother Alex, like the three of us and a couple other band mates at the time, chippin on an eight track recorder.

How were you?

We were thirteen fourteen, Yeah, and so we would do that kind of thing.

But we were doing it in between working out and finding out where we could do another show someone else's living room, a pub, a bar, a club.

We kind of from the earliest moment we sort of lived, and I certainly lived to play live.

So that's carried through into my sort of desire at this point with the great luxury of having this as my career and my work purpose.

But that's great.

It doesn't come without struggle, of course.

Boy today is yeah, and.

Just like missing people at home, you know, missing family, missing my family, like do they.

Ever come out?

They do?

They have done, And it's on tricky thing.

Which is I don't know all about it, but but I I just adore getting on a plane and a bus.

All of them are such luxuries because some people, you know, get on a train in a van or maybe even less than that.

And I've done all versions.

I've been around America in a car for six weeks, in the backseat of a sort of four seater car with a bunch of and the trunk sort of thing.

And then I've done you know, I've been around on two buses and all kinds of other stuff.

And I'll take any version.

Yeah, I will take any version.

I like the bus version.

I do like the bus version.

Also there's things about it that are kind of really difficult.

But I don't sleep good on the bus anymore, which I'm only realizing now maybe I never did.

I think you kind of take whatever you sort of on a bus if you wake up that's good because it means you're asleep, and that's as best as it can get.

So but no, I love it.

I love the Toll, and a part of me very much lives to Toll, just lives to play live, you know.

I'll do all sorts of things from being sort of based at home.

But that's really good because I feel like that's well, first of all, it's the only way to make money sometimes nowadays because they buys reckers.

But yes, also it's just it keeps the music alive.

I think there's a lot of artists who are a little more insular, or they don't like to tour, or maybe they don't tour between stuff and they get kind of rusty and they Yeah, I think that would be hard for me.

Yeah for you.

For me, yeah, that would be hard.

I agree with you.

I don't practice a lot, you know.

I don't like to play at home that much.

Well, it's interesting.

One of the guys in my crew on this tour, we've been on this tour for about five weeks out of six, and it was really he said a really nice thing, and he wasn't even he was kind of saying it to the bunch of us that were sat on the bus and not even directly to me.

He said, it's nice right now, he said, because at this point in a tour, typically you learn the set, and everybody in the crew in the band learns the set, and you just know.

You get to a point where you know what's happening tonight and you know what you're doing in the setup of the venue and the stage and everything.

You just know, and you can get a little bit like I know what I'm doing and almost get a little jaded, even within the sort of micro climate.

Oh absolutely yeah.

But me, well, he said, that's not happening for him on this and he didn't feel like it was happening for anyone really, And he said, the reason for that is that I'm changing quite a few songs in the set most nights, and sound checks in the last sort of six to twelve months have changed for me.

I was a really kind of pedantic sound checker doing, you know, two thirds of every song in the set for every who.

But that's a long it's a long sound check, and I wasn't necessarily sort of singing the whole sound check, but I was checking every guitar.

I'm a bit of a super geek for guitars, and I changed guitar on most songs, which is intense, but I love it, and my soundtext have become rehearsals, and that keeps us from being rusty, from getting rusty because we're having to I'm having to sort of invent and reinvent or I'm choosing to invent and reinvent different aspects and segues between songs, and I'm getting the band to really play.

Yeah, they have a better time.

They're like galvanized all day and all night.

We're having like in between moments between having a drink on the bus or going to this place or whatever it may be, doing laundry, we're talking about that transition ye song seven, the song eight, or like how we play into verse two on hold Back the River or whatever it may be.

And it's just it's exciting.

It's the best.

It's everything that I was sort of going after when I was a kid and we were just playing seven shows a week in the same town.

And so in that respect, like you're saying, like to get out and be touring as often as possible, keeps you from getting rusty, keeps me from getting rusty.

I think, because I know what rusty feels like too.

Yeah, as long as you have enough songs to switch in and out and you're not doing the same exact set every night, or if you're playing with musicians and you are being loose with it and you're not playing it the same way every night, both of those things are happening for me.

Yeah.

And I'm not saying, like, reinvent the song just for this, but like, you know, just sing it a little, sing it from your heart, sing the words, don't think about everything else.

It's so it's such an exciting thing to do that for me, and I've always wanted that to be my sort of life in and around shows on tour.

Yeah, on this last in the last four or five months of touring, I've brought my first ever medley into my set.

Yeah.

I've never medley did anything.

And the only reference I really had in my mind, even though I know loads of artists have done great medleys, was when I saw Beyonce in twenty sixteen and I watched her turn up with this absolute powerhouse set, like a powerhouse new album yeah, which was all new material of course, and the medley in that show of like stuff from between like two thousand and three and two thousand and seven or something.

Was just unbelievable, and it saved It's got so many there's so many reasons to do it.

It saved her voice from singing like all of Love on top all of Halo.

She just did like a chorus and averse.

And then you've got more songs on the set too.

Then you get more songs in the set, the audience still get a taste of what they want.

So it's that fan service thing and I'm just fascinated by all of it.

I love getting into it.

And then last night I actually took that medley out of the set and it's going back in the set tonight.

But it meant I could do other songs.

You know, we've been doing speed Limit as a band, and it's very different really to how it sounds on the record.

And even if the audience think it sounds similar, because it's the same song.

Yeah, and we're not diverting from the song too much.

I know that for us, we're having to really think about it in a sound check, which, like I said, is now rehearsal.

Yeah, and it's I love it.

I love I am just I love obsessing I got.

I did an interview the other day and a guy asked me to talk about He said, you know, how do you assemble the set for being an opener, doing a festival, and doing like a.

Headline show, those are three different things.

Yeah, you know, I love it.

I don't know really and you know, for me also in that perhaps for lots of solo artists, there's the sort of solo presentation as well, whereas maybe just you know about it when it's you and just a piano, or maybe you and just a guitar, just you and an instrument.

Yeah, it's you got to rethink it.

Yeah, you have to rethink everything.

I rearrange it.

I'm a total nerd for all of it.

But that's great because it means that you have an environment that is enjoyable for everyone and you're enjoying it.

Yeah, that's that's what you should be doing.

I feel that.

And I can get to a set list where my like wider team all go.

That set list is great.

Now, what what privilege to be in that scenario?

Wait, do you obsess over set list kind of and then overthink it and then switch stuff out in the middle of the show.

And then regret it, and then there could.

Be some of that I took and the Medley's made up of three songs that I know the fans love, and I just took it out last night, so they didn't get any of those.

Yeah, it's easy to ever think it, but you kind of can't have it all.

But like, well, that's what live is.

It's that moment you just do what you're going to do and then you breathe, and then you it's the next moment.

I like, if I didn't play the Medley in DC, I just I'll do everything in my power to get back to DC exactly, and I'll play those songs.

Do you look at old setlists from towns you're in?

No?

Is that a thing?

I like that.

I started doing that just to see, like what I played the last time I was in the city, if I was in the city, like maybe two years before.

And I'll try to avoid certain things.

Just for the sake of being different.

Yes, that's cool.

I'm not sure if it matters.

No, it's it, It doesn't.

No, that's what I mean.

I don't know how many.

Repeat customers I have, you know what I mean?

That are we're going to be like, well, it's similar to the last show, because usually it's so different by then.

Anyway, you know, yeah, it is.

It's I'm in a sort of like ongoing conversation, and really I feel like I'm in an ongoing seminar with the the Icon shell Crow, who I released the song with recently, but she has talked to me about how she's taken recording releasing songs has taken a little back seat for her.

Because of that, I feel double privileged that she's on a song that I've just put out.

But she said, because you know, I've got a lot of music from a long career and a large she was talking about how a large sort of percentage of the audience are very much she was trying to sort of accept that they're coming for the older stuff, and it meant she decided that it meant she could slow down on writing and releasing newer stuff.

I don't think she's done, and I hope she's not done putting new stuff out.

But like I say, I'm in this ongoing sort of seminar, but I'm listening to her sort of thoughts and feelings as they sort.

Of It's really interesting to hear that yeah, because I feel like if she feels pulled to a song, she's going to do it, I hope.

So she just doesn't feel the pressure to release new material.

No, maybe that seems to be the thing.

And that's a beautiful scenario.

She says, like that, what a wonderful situation to be in, even though she's still an artist that loves to write and record and release.

But yeah, I mixed my setup, and like I was saying earlier, when the team, the wider team says that a bulletproof set, now, wow, what a compliment.

Yeah, and then two shows later, I want to dismantle it, Yeah, because I got other songs I want to play.

I feel is it a little because they said.

That, Probably it's a self destructiveness.

That's that's weird and true about artists.

I think sometimes I think sometimes we've just got to kind of if it gets too soft and lovely, you've got to get some friction back into the mix.

Well, I've done bulletproof sets before, and then I know that I have a big show, like say, I have a big city in four days, So I'm like, cool, that was the perfect set.

I'm going to mix it up for a few days.

And then we'll do the Bulletproof set in London, and then we do it and it just doesn't have the same thing.

So it's totally an alive, evolving Absolutely.

It depends on everything, temperature, the audience.

It's why it's live music.

Yeah, we played in Mexico City the other night, and they're unbelievable.

They go so crazy for people when they make the effort to go all the way there because it's far.

Obviously, the last time I played there was ten years ago, and then I played there again, so some people said, you know, we've been waiting ten years for you to come back.

I was very grateful of that.

And then the next time, we're paying for Philadelphia, poor old Philadelphia.

Love them.

They couldn't compare.

And they were great, right, they were great, and they're very intimate and sort of vulnerable and some arms folded.

It's like sports fan, I kind of need it.

You're crazy, like Mexico City, and they're like, no, no, we've come for you to like be very earnest.

And I thought, and I realized it a little bit more in hindsight, but I did partly realize it in the set.

I thought, I really appreciate you Philadelphia for wanting that sort of version of what is just a very live and ever changing thing.

My only other hack, I guess, which I felt like I learned in the pandemic a very strange time where people were jumping on the internet, artists were going up on Instagram, live streams or whatever.

I saw Chris Martin, who's certainly got a lot of hits under his belt, big songs and probably a handful of bulletproof sets.

He went and did live stream thing and he found it.

He's got this great sort of kind of goofiness, I guess, and he clearly found it quite bizarre that the sort of worlded shutdown and people were just tapping and typing into his live feeding say play this play that play Yellow Bay the Scientist.

So he's like reading as it goes bying yellow okay, and he do like verse and chorus, and then he'd go and you know how the rest goes?

What else have we got?

And it was amazing to sort of watch, and you can felt everybody around the world sort of tuned in and sort of laughing.

I've kind of applied a little, I know, I talked about them.

Talk to you about the melody the Medley thing earlier that I've applied a little bit of this to my shows because I get this anxiety and it's a really like I sort of feel blessed to be in a scenario where this is my anxiety live.

I have to set this ready.

I'll be doing the show and there'll be signs in the crowd saying please play this song.

And it was never in the set list, and I'm stressed because I'm like, I want to plead.

I guess no.

That is always stressful because if it's not in the same Yeah, you're like a people pleaser, you know, as a performer in some respects.

So I'll do the Chris Martin verse and chorus.

Oh, and everybody cheers, and it's very unexpected and it's very off the cuff, and that keeps it live.

That's always great.

I've done that, and it's usually a song I haven't rehearsed with the band.

I never told them to learn, and that I just haven't done in so long.

So I'm like, wow, I guess I'll do a solo version.

I've played in La the other night and a lady in the audience had a sign for a song of Michael Incomplete, which is from my last from my first album.

Band don't know it.

Some of them do, but we've never done it as a group together.

And then the next night I had some time at a free night and gea a hotel cafe in La who I know very well.

It's a great venue, and I said, can I come and just do some songs, just kind of impromptu informal.

She said yeah, so I let people know on social media it was going to go and do that.

And this lady came with her same sign from the night before and I hadn't played it the night before, and I said, yeah, absolutely, I'll give it go.

I've got some of the lyrics wrong.

I forgot some of the lists.

She probably loved it had a magic that one.

Yeah, exactly.

It goes live is the thing.

I think.

Do you want to do another song?

Let's do another song?

And that last song was from your new album It was it was Some.

Changes All the Time, which came out in October twenty four.

Yeah, did you self produce that?

No?

I worked with Gabe Simon.

He actually put his hand up and said can we be co producers on this?

I said, gay, because I haven't other confidence.

I'm very busy with the production of my music.

Yeah, I know, I'm even if my name's not on the productions.

Like, I'm pretty much involved in big times everything every every day.

Two and that's and I'm a pain in the butt.

Yeah, same boy, boy.

I fight the fight.

There is the right fight.

Get better at fighting that fight, and I will take any advice you've got because I'm I'm I'm learning and growing and learning to just be better at that.

And Gabe actually makes an amazing kind of space for me too.

You know, I've said this before and it always feels kind of prickly, but like one of my favorite I love Gabe so much.

I love working with him, and I treasure the ability we have to argue.

Ah, that's nice.

We argue great.

You can clash and.

We do it great.

It's yeah, we do it so great.

And that's one of my favorite things about working with him.

I mean, there are so many things I love and he's a great musician, a great producer, he's a great writer.

And you know, on this record, he invited me to write during recording.

Is this the first time you've done that?

Yes?

I remember my first time so.

I don't want to go deep into this we want, but what it's based on is it's expensive to make a record exactly like you've got to pay for time and the clock is ticking.

Yeah, and that's stressful because I find that stressful.

I didn't grow up in a world where I could just sort of throw away like time and money or whatever.

So it's very anxiety inducing for your you know, collaborator and producer to go, hey, should we just like stop recording for a bit and not worry about the list of songs that we've gotten, see what we want to write?

Because I have a very big is he writing relationship with Gabe as well, and this time I said, okay, let's give it a swing, and we wrote three songs that went on this album that nobody had heard before we went into the studio.

The first one we wrote was the first single was called Up All Night.

And then, you know, there are other ways that I love working with Gabe.

So speed Limit as a song that it didn't really need to change an awful lot from the demo was a voice note.

They didn't need to change an awful lot of that, a guitar and a vocal, but we wanted to.

I wanted to explore this kind of like feel of it being of it sounding like it was being played in the corner of a bar.

Last thing.

Yeah, place close, you know that kind of feel.

You captured it.

Oh, thank you for But I had an appointment to get to, like a doctor's appointment or something on that afternoon in the studio, so we set up to do like a scratch version, scratch vocal, so there's like lead on the vocal micro of the guitar ramp and everything.

And I did it, and he felt really good about it, and he had this look on his face, and I thought, well, Gabe, I'm coming back because I'm going to ten more takes if you like it or not.

And he loved it.

I went and I came back and he said, you know, he really like twisted my arms, said this is the absolute take, and like while he did it as well, he played the drums down while I was singing and playing guitar.

We did it very Black Keys, very early Black Keys style, like no bass, no keys, just the two of you, just the two of us.

Yeah, and he wanted the drums to be so light.

Yeah, they're very distant.

Yeah, no, no, no sticks were good enough, so he chose the chop sticks from the Chinese takeout.

But we had the night before and those are what I recorded on that song.

And I think he barely played any symbols anyway.

Yeah, speed limit.

Ye, it's it's from this new album and I had a great time making that record.

It was intense.

It's I've sort of come to appreciate.

It's always intense for me.

Maybe it is for so many artists in different ways.

But like, I'm a little embarrassed at how much I can stress really the environment we're making a record, but like, I'm trying to give my absolute everything, every fiber of my being to to the thing, and I wanted to feel good and great, you know.

Yeah?

Is that like what's it like for you when.

It's intense for you in that you're worried that it's coming out right?

Or Yeah?

I try, and I'm trying to shed.

I'm constantly trying to shed in this sort of day and age.

I'm trying to shed concern or anxiety about how it will be received and perceived.

You can't control that.

In the studio.

It's really hard to not think about that.

But I definitely.

I think because my first record was so big, I had to just completely shut it out.

But I had again, I had the like the privilege of doing that because of the success.

Wait, so hang on, are we talking about the first one?

Are you talking about what I'm talking about after that?

Making the second?

And I'm just talking about after that.

I think the first one, I was just sort of ignorant and I, you know, we didn't know it was going to be that big.

We didn't think dream it was going to be that bad.

That ignorance is truly bliss.

So that is bliss, yes, And I think after that I had to just shut it out because I didn't think I was ever gonna make something that big or I wasn't stupid.

I knew I wasn't going to ever make something that big again, Okay, and I haven't well, and I'm with that, you know, it's totally fine.

Well, can you say anything just for me as a super fan if I may?

Can you just say anything about the second record?

Particularly?

And I know I told you earlier I'm a very big fan of that album.

But the second record is strange territory, isn't it.

Yeah, it's so strange.

So going into making it, you know, do you what do you remember?

I remember it well.

I was a new songwriter.

I only had two and a half songs on my first album, right mine, So I was still new at that and I was getting more into it.

And so my bass player at the time was also my boyfriend, and we we just sort of shut the outside world out at that point.

It's nice.

And the band was all my best friends, you know.

Yeah, it was great.

You can hear it, yeah, And so we and I did some of their songs as well.

We were all kind of getting into songwriting, so we just sort of like focused on each other, wow, and the music.

And I don't think I I think I also had like jazz phobia at that time because I had a lot of I came from jazz, but the first album wasn't really a jazz record, right, but everybody called it a jazz record.

So I got like a little like wary of labels.

Yeah, I guess you do are called like folk and acoustic.

Yeah, in ways that I think is so okay, but are so like five percent of who I am as an artist.

Well, that's the problem with like believing all that stuff or reading it or or like just not realizing that it's just what it has to be and you don't have to have any part of it.

You can't control it, really, you can't control it because someone will, you know, I'll be seen with an acoustic guitar in my hand and someone will say I like easy listening music.

I'll try and listen to music.

Oh, easy listening.

Don't get me started on that.

Well, you know what, but it's probably my biggest radio my only radio play.

This, this is it.

But like I wanted to say though, like just that there is a really great version for all artists of like making something that is easy for people to listen to.

Yeah, I just wanted to say, like, and I'm a fan of lots of your music, but the second record for me, there's that I listened to it with such ease.

But it isn't just that.

So I'm not just going to sort of put it over.

There is even my version listening.

I'm going to say I listened to it, and I find it.

I'm like so captured by how easy I find it to listen to, but how much it makes me want to play and write and sit among people and play with them.

So there's a there's a it's pulling me at the same time.

Sure it's easy and that's that's a lovely sort of feeling as a listener.

But the way that it's put when music pulls you, it pulls you, that's really exciting.

That's when it's got you.

That's really and that's something you can't really put into words.

It's a feeling.

So when people try to right about people, especially when you're young and you get pigeonholed or you get labeled a certain thing, or or you get detractors or whatever it is, it's really.

Easy to make it.

Make you want to sort of prove it wrong, even if you're not conscious of it, not admitting to being conscious of it.

So, you know, for.

Years I had this like punk rock thing I wanted to do, but like, you know, I still try to just you know, I feel like what's natural always rises to the top when I'm in the studio, and what you know, even if I'm trying to like prove something wrong, it usually isn't the best way to.

Go about it, and it never makes the record, do you know what I mean?

Isn't it?

But you needed to go down that.

Road, Yeah, let's play a song.

Let's play a song.

Yeah, I just wanted to talk about you playing guitar, but we'll go into that.

Yeah.

Yeah, because I'm mixing something up while you play guitar, and I really loved it.

I have another band called Well.

I was in a band called El Madmo where I learned sort of started playing guitar, and then I have a band called Put Some Boots where I play guitar.

It's more of a country leaning thing.

What did you do with Jaki oh?

So Jakuire?

He's like you Norah Jones.

Yes, that was so jaqir King produced your first album, Yeah, in Nashville.

So he produced my fourth album, which was the first time I worked without my original band, my boyfriend, etcetera.

We had broken up.

It was like a big I wanted to change my sound up and I needed the right producer to help me because I'm not an engineer.

I knew what I wanted, but like I didn't know how.

To get it.

Is great because he's as great a producer as he is an engineer.

Yeah, he's both things.

He's so great and he's so sweet, and he went where I wanted to go, and he wasn't trying to stamp it with his sound or anything.

Did you make it black Bud, No, we made it in New York.

Oh, okay, we did one session in LA and one session in New York.

I didn't know if he was like a black Bird based black Bird in Nashville.

That's right.

No, I didn't go to Nashville with him, but sorry.

So, yeah, it was a roundabout life.

I wanted to talk about you playing guitar.

But let's play a song and then and then but that is yeah, well we'll talk about that.

I want to know about that, because, by the way, that was a great experience.

I just I'm a terrible piano player.

And I'm a terrible guitar.

Well, I just want to talk about the sort of transition I guess between you have a primary instrument and then you again you get like drawn to like, well people know me.

It's this, I want to do this exactly.

I do think that was the thing for me.

But also I think it was just fun and I think it was just easier to write songs on guitar because I knew too much about the piano and I was thinking too much when I was trying to write songs weren't spilling out of me on the piano, but they were on the guitar.

It's funny because I only knew through like four chords.

Ye, so come away with me, I wrote on guitar.

Wow, Yeah, that's cool.

And those are the only chords I knew.

There's so much magic in y Yes, the song, but just the process.

You know.

Yeah, it's interesting sometimes you have to strip it back to the beginning.

Yeah, because you know, we've we've got the pizza obstacles and you know, ways to the ways that you struggle become part of the discovery of something new.

Yeah.

Your limitations are what make you.

Otherwise you're just going to be too good.

Right, absolutely right, that's not interesting.

It isn't What do you want to do?

I was thinking Elephant?

That elephant.

Who's the other singer on this one on the record?

Maggie and Tone?

Oh I love it?

I love her voice?

Was she I've still yet to properly.

I've met her on the phone.

Oh, yeah, here we go.

I need to.

I need to.

This is the time we live in.

I need to meet her very properly in real life.

I hope I can do that because she wasn't in town when I was recording this.

But Gabe again, you know, he said, you're making these We're making these songs.

He said, where You've got a song with Sheryl Crow, which is just a very exciting, like you know, big x y.

And we did a song with John Batiste for this deluxe.

Thing, also a big flex, a huge.

I was like, how is this possible?

And he said, let's talk about maybe we could get like somebody who's a little less known and on their way up.

And because we've all been there, yeah, I've been that person.

And so they knew Maggie and called her, and then I spoke to Maggie and she was very excited she got we sent it the song.

Of course, first well I can't work it out because she was somewhere.

She was in Austin at one point and maybe Nashville, so she's somewhere between those two Texas and that and Tennessee.

She makes great music, She's got a fantastic voice, and she really Carrie, who played drums on a lot of this music and helped just production and everything.

She sent me a video of when she was recording Maggie singing, and I was completely like stopped in my tracks because it was like the a cappella thing where I was just she was just filming her on her phone while she was putting a takedown.

So, yeah, that's Maggie singing on here, and uh, it's a funny one.

I really like how there's such a duet sort of detail to this, but it's not like busy with like harmony and everything.

I like that too.

I'm going to resist the urge to put a harmony.

You know, I might stick one in.

Please do look at everything we've just said.

I also, I really love Unison.

I love that.

I love that.

I've never liked sung something so in a really wonderful way.

There's a sort of one dimensional nature to what I'm doing in this song.

It's all very low and kind of I really enjoyed.

I like the little yeah, not just because I'm on tour and I'm trying to, you know, chill my voice.

No, it sounds great, and I'm going to try it on your lovely old gibs and guitar.

Here.

I've run away.

I've run away to get my heaven leaf face, a little true f attle line, I get the perfect mix.

Call up a string.

Come me.

I ain't eat an exorcist.

I'm let him out.

I'm letting then.

I'm working through some shit.

I don't wanna feel this way crushing.

Me in like am out there.

Lookay, this is my reading.

Trying to stand any that in the face.

It's going away around it.

I can't run from it, but I can hide see it all fing.

From the every side.

Now I'm standing in on the cooky side, screaming at the Jesus too the lane, screaming save.

Me from the red gum.

Pull me in under, pull me up again.

I'm shutting, leave it.

I be living in sitting.

Lead the lie back, and lead the lie back.

Let the light back again.

Let the lighted back, Let the light back again.

A little faint, a little face, a little combage.

Now up on the way, go up on the way on to the other town.

It's gonna feel a little strange and let a lot somehow.

But if I know than't anything, I gotta.

Nd back down.

I've think ll find the chape trying to say.

Took an even pushing on other day from all this to super trying to save down in.

The face, she's all the way around it.

I can't run from me, but I can't hide she needlely from very side.

Now I'm standing on the coolky.

Side, screaming and Jason too the make screaming, save me from the rag guy, from me under, for me up, bocket.

I should I believe in sin Bad.

The light bag and bad the light Bag.

Bad, the light Bag, Bag, the light back.

Pay the light Bag.

No, I can't run from it, but I can't Hi see it out from from movies.

Si.

Now I'm standing on the corky side screaming at Jesus to the light, screaming and saving from the rick game, pull me under, pull me up, berking, So don't believe it.

I'm giving in said bare the light back again, Bad, light back.

Dead, the light back Dead, the light Bag.

Tad the light back, the Live back, the Lime Back.

Live, the Lime Man.

That was fun.

It's fun.

There's so many bits of my own song that I sort of forget are coming.

Yeah, just like okay, yes, I mean a.

Lot of words for me to say it.

But it was really fun.

You've crushed it.

I thought that was great.

It was really cool.

Yeah, what's the piano?

What is this?

What is this?

This is the Steinway and Sons.

Oh my goodness, it's from the twenties, well, the nineteen twenties.

How are you on piano geekery?

I'm not very geeky, that's cool.

I do play a Yamaha.

On stage, and that's a you're going out with strings, you're not going out with like a digital situation.

No.

I tried to go digital this year because I was last time I went out.

I was convinced that it kept going out of tude and it started to driving me a little wonkers because usually I don't really care.

But is your ear for that?

It's just insane?

No, I don't usually care.

Depending on the song, okay, you know, like if it's a country song, I don't care.

That's it's a gospel song.

It can be a little wonky and it sounds good.

Yeah good, Yeah.

Yeah, there's certain songs.

You know, I come away with me.

I do this thing where I go I go like, I mean, I'm copying Duke Ellington.

But perfect it didn't sound good attitude.

It's my point.

It's interesting, though, like, yeah, there is, Isn't it wonderful when you sort of go back through live records from past and like you you hear somebody caught in a moment that you know they're trying to make so beautiful and it's and it's out.

But that's like, there's this record.

It doesn't matter if you heard Joe Cocker and the Mad Dogs and Englishman totally right, like wow yeah for a start, and then it's them doing it's him and the on Russell doing Girl from the North Country.

Oh wow yeah, and like the piano is beautifully kind of honky tonk, like yeah, and Leon and they've just got he's got a very particular voice.

And then Joe Kokov reaches for some sort of falsetto detail that's not really available to him, and where he kind of Matt knows all about it, where he kind of winds up at is I don't know, somehow magical.

Is it your favorite part of the whole thing?

Yeah, this is?

And this supports any of your concerns about our tune this ultimately you kind of end up going there.

People love it.

I mean, I don't know, And then you know, I.

Don't really care if it's attitude is it really?

But I feel like they've done so good with digital lately that I thought maybe they would have a cool, old funky piano sound.

Digitally that would sound better than my pick up on the piano, because you know how it is with the pickup on acoustic.

It's just so much better with a microphone.

But my band sort of entertained me, my crew entertained me, and then we went back to normal.

Okay.

Yeah, we did wrap it in white though this year, which was hilarious.

I never thought I would want that, but it had like a visual aesthetic for my new album that I really wanted.

So it's great.

It works.

That's very cool.

The same kind of question about tell me about when you play live, how much you're playing guitar, how much way you're playing guitar is often or sometimes usually I.

Throw it in the middle of the set and I'll do like three songs minimum, but five songs maximum.

And is that some of the band?

Some of that all with the band?

And now I'm going to jump to the thing we're just touching on.

But with guitar tuning, do you sort of wig out about like grtuning?

No?

Do you not?

Really?

Yeah?

For me, I don't know about you, But like so I use any.

Monitors, we use wedges.

I've tried in New Years, but it's tricky.

It's very tricky.

I get it.

It's ultimately better for me, but it's still so tricky.

And then do you sing harder without them?

This is the thing that I do think happens, and the in ears have helped me with because I mean that the sciences.

If you sing harder, you're going to go sharp is what people say.

Oh, okay, you don't Well I think I probably do those people, but.

I from tuning of a guitar to in monitors or not, they can be a struggle.

But for me, so like band members around me, and like no shade to the band members, like they are trying to dial in their in ears in a way that I stop caring.

I don't know if I have the space and time to care now about your ears, about the quality of the mix.

My engineer is doing a fantastic job.

That's the best place to be, but I just I've got too much of a show to do.

That's where you have to be, and that's where I fear that in ears will take everybody out of that moment and into their ears and their mix and how That's how it was for me fifteen years ago when.

I tried them, I'm doing the sort of cardinal sin of like pulling one ear out slightly.

Yeah, well, why is that because it's bad for your hearing?

Well, yes, someone's going to tell me I'm going to get TuS in this ear and the other area is going to be a right, it's going to be all off.

Balance some versions.

But I feel like earbuds give me.

That.

Well, I saying very you say tonight?

Is I do?

But I'm not probably right.

I think I wrong.

I have no idea.

I heard people from both sides of the pond.

Earbuds give me that anyway?

Yeah, yeah, fair you mean like AirPods or whatever.

Yeah, I'm what Yeah, of course I use just over ear stuff if I if I can for that.

But so my thing is that even though I reckon I do sing, I feel more confident sing better within its because I kind of get used to them and like worked hard to sort of make them work for me.

I still want that thing that you're getting where you can just hear everybody on stage.

I guess we make a lot of always for good two thirds of the set, and you've got a much louder band.

I bet, Yeah, And I'm not far away from the symbols.

It's rare that, like we're on a big enough stage that I can be and I don't even want to be that far away.

Yeah, I feel like my band super tight.

I don't want a huge footprint.

I want to feel I don't want to feel like Tom on his basis the next people do that.

I don't either.

That feels so wrong to me, especially when you go to a TV show and they have you' all spread out.

It's like, how are we going to play together?

And with that in mind, we're in different.

Countries, absolutely, and with that in mind, I even think it looks cooler when people are on top of each other on a TV show.

They don't Yeah, they don't get it, you know.

Like whether it's like a recent like Jules Harland thing or like old Gray Whistle test or whatever like or I don't know, even Saturday Night Live.

It's kind of a small plot, yeah, isn't it?

For Like, you can't be that far away from each other.

It's better that way I was watching.

This is massively tenuous, but there's fiftieth anniversary of a Saturday Night Live, so I was obsessed with all these documentaries and stuff and all of them obviously the musical guests, and you'll see some absolute giants on there, and they're just they're really on top of each other with Yeah, it feels just innately musical.

Yeah, I kind of love it.

Okay, I have a question for you.

Okay, I'm ready.

I did prepare questions, I swear.

So can you tell I just can just go on and I will tell you all about it, James, it never shuts out.

No, it's great.

I don't have to do anything.

How where's the sort of country vibes come from you?

What did you grow up listening to?

Oh, thank you good, good question?

Yeah, because you grew up in England, but very much in London.

Not in London.

I grew up in the kind of commuter belt outside of London, the sort of suburbs, kind of the middle of the country, very kind of suburban, middle of the road suburban.

Not country like English countries.

No, not countryside.

No, I mean, in a way, it's a small country and you're never too far away from that kind of thing.

But that's not where my town there's thirty thousand people, so not not massive, and there's it's it's a it's a busy, sort of market town, town center sort of thing with like you know, we call them like high streets and stuff, and I don't know around that it's like fields and things.

But yeah, it was pretty kind of run of the mill.

With all love and respect to my hometown, that was the experience, and that was kind of great for a kid, like growing up felt pretty safe.

But the sort of the kind of country influence that I think you're talking about, I think all kinds of different American and Americana type sounds.

Me and my brother Alex is only eighteen months older than me, and we grew up very close.

He was the lead singer in all that bands and I was a guitar player, and we wrote a lot of stuff together.

The material was respectfully sort of awful, but like also I'm very proud of it to this day because it was our first ever anything.

I feel bad it wasn't awful, but it really worked for us.

Of course, you got to learn somewhere, yeah, of course you do.

But we were listening to My parents aren't musicians, but they had the radio playing in the house all the time, and they had a record collection that sort of evolved from vinyls to CDs over time.

And.

There was a lot of like American music in there.

You know, me and my brother we liked sort of Hollywood movies and I think Americana as a thing pop culture wise, Like we were just really sort of turned on by it, and it was very natural and normal, and you know, music, pop music and film was a large percentage American in our minds.

There was There's loads of great British music, and I'm inspired by so much of that, but I think my favorite British music has probably been inspired by American music, and the same the other way around.

Well, yeah, there's such a history now of that having been the thing.

That's true.

I suppose country is pretty sort of intensely American originally.

Some of my.

Favorite Americans sounding bit I mean the stance of course.

Of course they did when they just like let It Bleed.

They've got some songs like that really really sound country and sound great for that.

There was days when Mick Jagger really sounded like a country singer.

I mean, yes, and I love all of it basically, you know, I still just sort of soak it up and I find it's very natural to sing with that kind of influence.

I try and have a sort of individual voice, a unique voice.

I'm not really trying to do an impression of anybody, but I.

Think it only works.

I don't think neither was he.

You know, I never got that sense.

Okay, yeah, yeah, no, I'm with you on that, and like, yeah, so I think I just love the sounds, and you replicate in falling short of like being your heroes, because that's impossible, you wind up as this unique thing that is you.

And I like, well, that's that's why I sound the way I sound, because just a load of American music has and still is playing an enormous part in why I like doing this simple as that.

Really, what was your first spam with your brother called the jet Kings the jet Kid I'll tell you why.

That's very cute.

Yeah, it's not so bad.

I feel right about that one we were trying to think of and I can't remember.

I wish I could remember the terrible names that we that we didn't go with, but then we just one of the guys in the band I had a guitar.

It was an Ibanez guitar, and it was called an Ibanez Jet King too, and we saw the words jet King.

Hey, that'll do that just made it even cooler.

We could be the jet Kings.

So we were that, and then later on we were road Runner, which I didn't hate either, to be honest, but Roadrunners, and there's probably a billion bands called brod Runner.

We were listening to.

This is interesting where we got that from a very Transatlantic band, Humble Pie.

Steve Marriott was their lead singer who was an English guy.

They were English band, but boy were they influenced by and they did a song called road Runner which we loved.

And I can't remember if that was a Ray Charles cover.

It might not have been.

They did something else that was a Ray Chile's cover.

Anyway, we took a band name.

I mean it's not the first time.

Sorry, we took a song name and we made it the band name.

And you both played guitar or.

It was funny, you know me, so I played.

I wanted to learn to play the guitar.

I heard Layla by Derek and the Dominoes or Eric Clapton when I was eleven and I sat of my dad was playing.

It wasn't often that they would play records my parents.

They would have the radio on.

But one Saturday morning he put this record on and I heard it from the top of the stairs.

I ran downstairs.

I said, what is this?

He said, this is Layla?

I said, what is Lailor?

That's adorable?

My dad.

My dad's in his late seventies now, so he was really there in the sixties when like guitar music was kind of going off in London and in the UK and in the world.

And he said, well, this is Eric Clapton.

He was in cream all this information.

I didn't know anything.

About it, and he knew all.

He kind of did like and he'd been to see all those guys in the sixties.

He was there in a lot of those shows.

And he said, well, the song finished, and I said play again, play again.

I listened to it a second time and then I took the CD out the CD player and I took it upstairs and he never saw it again.

But in the meantime, I said, I have to learn how to make that sound.

How can you know I need a guitar.

And we found out he had a nylon string classical guitar in the cupboard that he'd never learned to play.

That's so great, So I.

Learned to play that.

I became deeply obsessed my brother because we were so close in age and as friends, you know, we were always trying to do the same thing.

Really, there was a sort of probably a competitiveness as well as just a sort of bonding.

But he didn't want to play.

Initially, he was good and Tom who I talked about, who's still in my band and is I've known Tom since I was three years old.

Tom was, you know, we were at school together, and he was like, yeah, I've heard guitar music too, and I've heard like the Redult, Chili Peppers and Dire Straits and like Pink Floyd.

Everybody came in with their own.

Everybody came in their own, and so Tom was the other guitar player in our little trio, and so I kind of didn't need to.

But you know, not long after he would sort of and he did it in a sort of slightly sort of kind of shy way.

He didn't want us to sort of gore's how you do this, this and this.

Maybe he'd watched us do a lot of it by ear, so he was trying to watch us.

And then my brother, to this day is a great guitar player.

He can he can play guitar.

Are he's less of like a lead guy, but he can do it, and he's he's worked it all out in his own and he still sings and writes and plays as well.

But yeah, no, it was he was.

He was the lead guy.

He was the front man.

He was really like going after like a Mick Jagger, Rod Stewart, Chris Robinson, like hybrid.

And we were trying to be the Black Crows and the faces of the Rolling Stones, and you'd sing.

I did a little back in singing, but and I got I got, you know, I was sort of shy about it, but I got some a couple of nice compliments about my singing.

And then one day I really sort of discovered people like James Taylor, and I kind of dug deeper on Carol King and Joni Mitchell and these individuals with songs sort of you know, from the first person, classic like unbelievable songs, and I thought, maybe I can just do something on my own as well.

You know.

Eric Clapton was always a big deal for me, and at the time, you know, there was people like a Dale coming through real La Montaigne was just a giant influence for me.

So I was trying to copy all those guys and sort of step sort of step one foot out of the band life and one foot into the sort of solo experience.

John Mayer was like a big thing back then, yourself, you know, like I was hearing all this music from these great, huge like solo artists who yeah, just sort of soaring through like radio and music and showing kids once again that you can you can try it, you know on your own.

Crazy so but and it keeps goingcling.

Yeah, America was always a huge player for me in inc in my record collection.

You know, stuff coming out of America still is.

So it's very normal to me.

And I know guys from the UK who don't get it in the same way, and that's so okay.

If they just didn't grow up with it, no, you know.

Yeah, and that's that's that's all right.

And you know there's American folks who of course are just super kind of American in their in their musical existence and sort of they maybe have heard of Oasis or like they've you know, some sort of UK giant.

I don't know.

I just love it.

I love I love It's a bit too broad to say like this, but it's certainly been said before.

The American sound, I mean, at this point, I feel like it's all mashed together a little.

But I didn't know you were British.

That's okay.

I have known of you for a long time and I actually didn't know you were British.

That's one of the first times I ever went to tour in America.

I was opening for somebody around the whole country for about six weeks, and I played my little home set and then I went too by the merch stand in Boston in the Paradise Rock Club in Boston, and this old fellow came up to me with this fantastic Boston accent and he said, I thought you were a Boston local.

And I was sat there with my little clipt English accent, say no, I've come over from you know, England.

Sweet.

Yeah, it's fascinating that it is fascinating.

I guess the music unites and mattering where you're from.

But yeah, funny, how goes?

Do you want to do a song from your first album?

Yeah?

That would be cool?

Is that cool?

That would be great?

All right?

This is let It Go.

I love this song.

Thank you.

Let's see how we go.

I have no idea how to how fast the song should be.

I just count eat two three.

Mm hmm.

From walking home and talking to those to see you, and shops in evening close with you, from overst get in drug to stay in and working.

There with you.

I was sleeping in the age holding Sunday.

We don't need.

I understood the using in our hands.

It's gonna brings to our knees, So come on.

There it go to stay it be?

Why don't you be?

And ill mean?

Everything that's brow leave it to de beas?

Why don't you be?

I'll be mean, and I'll be mean, long clowns across the floor, teeth and claws and slamming doors.

You if this is all we live in fall?

Why are we doing doing?

Do any more?

I used to recognize myself.

It's funny how inflections change.

We're becoming something else.

I think it's time to walk away, So come.

On, gold, just let it.

Why don't you be?

And I'm with me?

Everything that's broke, leave it to the be.

Why don't you be?

And how me.

And all at me?

Trying to get your hand inside of my forman know it tells down belong, there's no force on earth to make it feel right.

No, trying to push this problem up to him when he says to head it on, I think most time lair.

So come on, head go, just let it be.

Why don't you be?

You know, I'll be me and everything that's brow Leave it to the breath, let the ashes fall.

Forget about me.

Come on, let it go, just let be?

Why don't you be?

You?

Ah?

May?

And I.

Did you always have a voice?

Could you always just say no?

Really, it's a big no.

It sounds like you have a very natural voice.

I appreciate.

That's the kind of the greatest compliment ever, definitely from you.

But no, I recognize that I work hard.

Two.

I worked hard, definitely to sort of get it to feel effort.

It's like for a long time, I guess I was a teenager and my voice dropped and all that stuff.

Couldn't do falsetto for nothing.

Oh really, you sure can.

Well.

I appreciate that I enjoyed sort of getting it to work.

My brother could just do it, but yeah, I was just I come from a sort of loud, sort of shouty family.

Oh yeah, so we've got like we've got core strength to project and I had that vocally.

But yeah, no, I don't know.

I sort of enjoyed just doing it a lot.

You know, playing in pubs and bars, you just sort of get something down the mic.

Yeah, and people are fine.

I think that's the best way to get good and you refine it later.

Yeah, you know, But no, I appreciate you saying that a lot.

Thank you, well, thanks so much for doing this.

It's an absolute dream.

Yeah.

Yeah, you've got a big show to note, so I don't want to keep you.

No, not at all.

No, I just say thank you for this is a beautiful studio.

We're in a big, busy city and this is a very peaceful, little quiet corner and that's what a thing to have.

It's fun and what a place to come to.

So thank you for having me.

You're in London, Yes, okay, I'll look you up, please do.

Yeah.

Before we do our last song, can you tell me about your guitar?

Yeah?

This is yeah, this is This is a Gibson J two hundred.

It's it's the Gibbson acoustic guitar, or one of the acoustic guitars with the biggest body now all of my reason behind playing this jumbo instrument is from my days not just playing open mic nights, but busking.

I used to stand in the busk all the time.

I lived in Brighton on the south coast of the UK for a couple of years, and I would busk for change, but really not for change.

I would just do it to play more, to play in front of more people.

I was always my favorite thing.

You know how they talk about you know, takes kind of ten thousand hours or whatever to really kind of harness an instrument or a way of sort of forming or whatever or way of doing something.

I got a lot of those ten thousand hours when I was playing up open mic nights and busking in the street.

Best way to do it.

Yeah, And like I've I tune all my guitars really just live at like D standard instead of E standards, so they'll drop down a whole step.

It works better for me that way.

I've got heavier strings which are a bit louder marginally.

And then the big jumbo body guitar made a bit more noise and kind of basy noise when I was busking because I wasn't plugged in in the Street, I was unplugged, So it all comes from that time and it's what I became familiar and comfortable with.

And I also, as a tall guy, I look pretty in proportion with a big guitar.

It looks smartness.

I'm not like a super giant, but like you know, like other ones, I've just got used to sort of I guess seeing myself with this guitar, but like I like how kind of noisy it can be, and I can do sort of intimate stuff on it, but you know, even like let it go, but the sort of dynamic range.

Really it's because this this one isn't an old one.

I have a few defer Gibsons that are like super old and they're not all J two hundreds.

But Gibson make great for touring, Like they make great stuff for taking out on the road.

That sort of still feels like it sort of breathes and shakes and vibrates in the way that you want that sort of wooden instrument to do.

Sounds great.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's this is I've had this for nearly ten years, and I've got a second one that I've had the same kind of time.

Nice they're still serving the purpose.

It seems Warren well worn.

Thank you.

Yeah, so we're gonna have a swing a.

Yeah, let's do this song the Eagles.

Do you do this one live on my own?

Yeah?

I haven't done it with the band.

Look here, I'm going to use your guitar.

I just talked my guitar up all big and use mine.

Tell me about it.

Tell me about my guitar.

How do you feel about the Eagles?

I like the Eagles.

I'm not like a super knowledgeable fan, but I feel.

Like they get a bad rap.

I felt in America and people like to not like people who have sold a bazillion albums.

That's my whole uh analysis of that.

Same with Fleetwood Mac.

I feel like it's wild to me that it's fine if they want to fill about I just think the music is great.

The music is great, and because it became so successful, some people I feel like just kind of be like, yeah, I don't really get it.

But I think if it wasn't successful.

That they either wouldn't have an opinion like that or they would like it's.

Just kind of what I think.

I think.

I think that's one thing I think.

But like this is we're gonna have fun, fun dusking.

I like this one.

I think if we can, Yeah.

Loosen my old like a sep living all time for the boneable meets you.

The bonuston me.

She's a friend of mine.

Take it.

Easy, tike itzy.

Don't have to sound in your.

Strive.

You crazy.

Laying it up while you still can't.

Don't even try umberst it.

Just find a place to make your stand.

Take it easy.

Oh, I was standing on a corn and winslaris on us.

Such a fine side to see.

It's a girl man lord.

And a flat bed floor and so down and see could look me.

Come on, man, don't say maby.

I gotta know if you sweezer, he's gonna save me.

We will we may, man, but we will never be here again.

Open the I'm find it in sack.

It is.

Easy while I'm noting down, Gorda.

Listen, mother, the world the trouble on my man looking for love bombom my cover.

She's so hard to find.

Take it.

Take it.

Easy, don't then the.

Sound always make you crazy.

Come on, man, don't say manby.

I gotta do.

If you're a swee love, it's going to say, dude, you gotta take it.

You gotta take it, you gotta take it.

That that was great.

I enjoyed it.

Thank you, Thank you so much.

Have a great show.

Thanks for giving all your time.

Oh that was great.

He's so nice.

I love a beautiful voice.

Yeah, beautiful voice.

That was really very fun.

And I love meeting people.

It's so special.

I am lucky.

I feel lucky doing this new friends every week.

Yeah, it's really been special.

I feel like for me anyway, I'm not gonna cry.

Thanks for listening to this episode with James Bay.

If you want to know the songs from this episode, here they are.

The first song was speed Limit from Changes All the Time when released in twenty twenty four.

Second song was the Elephant from the same album.

Third song was let It Go from Chaos and the Calm, which was released in twenty fifteen, ten years ago.

Fourth song was Take It Easy, which is the Eagle song and it's on their self titled album that was released in nineteen seventy two.

Special thanks to James Bay for joining us today.

Nora Jones Is Playing Along is a production of iHeart Podcasts.

I'm your host Nora Jones.

Visit Nora Jones Channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there.

This episode was recorded by Matt Marinelli, mixed by Jamie Landry.

Audio post production and mastering by Greg Tobler.

Work by Eliza Frye, Photography by Shervin Linez.

Produced by Nora Jones and Sarah Oda.

Executive producers Aaron wan Kaufman and Jordan Rundagg Marketing Lead Queen and Nake