Exclusive interview with JamieT :: Wessex Scene Online

Exclusive interview with JamieT

28th February 2007
Jack Marshall & James Dawson

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Mar 07 - Gigs: The King Blues at Nexus
Feb 09 - A Silent Film
Jan 09 - Interview with Corey Beaulieu..
Jan 08 - Interview with ASH
Dec 07 - The Young Knives live at Joners

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How the long did the album take to record?
"It’s hard to say cos I recorded a fuck load of tunes without any real idea of putting an album together. I had to just sit down and make a list and say ‘right, I’ve gotta start finishing some things’. It slowly whittled down to about 12 songs, but now I’ve got a load of songs that I still need to finish."

The majority of the album is made up of songs that you’ve been playing for a while, we’re you not tempted to just release 12 new songs?
"I definitely was. There was a real division in my head, one side of me wanted to do that, but then I thought well all this other material is just gonna be lost. That’s the problem these days, you spend so long playing gigs and tryin to get people to listen, that when you finally get an album out everyone knows your stuff already. I didn’t really get time to finish most of the new songs I was writing anyway though to be honest.

How much of the album did you actually record yourself at home?
"I didn’t record the whole thing at home. I did some recording in my bedroom, and then I would take them down to some studios to just beef them up a bit. I’ve always hated that credibility of ‘yeah, I did it all in my bedroom’. Who cares, do it where you want. If it sounds good it sounds good, it doesn’t matter."

Do you think your music comes across better live?
"I dunno, different things come across in different ways. A lot of the more subtle aspects of the album are lost playing live, which is more about the energy on stage. We don’t play the tracks exactly like they are on the album, it brings out loads of gaps in my song writing. We sort of tried to start again with the live band and rehash the songs slightly."

Do you prefer playing live with or without your band?
"Both really, it seems that whenever I’m playing with the band I wanna be playing on my own, then when im playing on my own I wish I had the band behind me. It’s similar with touring aswell, a lot of the time when I’m touring I wanna be recording in studios. When you do too much of either of them you wanna do the other thing, it’s almost like you’re never quite happy."

How seriously do you take the hype surrounding new artists in the music press?
"Not seriously at all. Hype is a funny thing though, Britain’s great at it. We hype everything up and then we’re like ‘aaah that was sh*it!’. You just start to notice that it’s all bo***cks. I’m not gonna say I never read it cos obviously if someone puts a paper in front of you you’re gonna take a look, but you don’t take too much notice of it. Most music journalists wanna be musicians anyway."

What age did you start writing music?
"I must have been about 15. I started playing the drums in a band and my mate left his bass guitar at my house for ages. I wanted to play the guitar really but I started playing this bass, and it all got a bit muddled and went a bit funny really. It was more of a backing to put a melody over really, not ‘check out my solo’. I’m trying to play the guitar now though, it’s f*cking frustrating! It’s just hard to get the time to sit down and just do it.

What are you listening to at the moment?
"I really like the Beirut album, and the Good the Bad and the Queen. That takes a bit of getting into though, it takes a few listens. I’ve been listening to a lot of folk music recently though. I’m always trying to get hold of new stuff"

You’ve been compared to everyone from The Clash to Dizzee Rascal, how do you describe your sound?
"It’s hard to say really. Everything I’ve written and the way I’ve recorded it is basically just me tipping my hat to other stuff, and trying to just do my own versions of it. It’s all about being brave in the song writing. If you wanna do a funk tune, do a funk tune, give it a go."

How come you went down the solo route rather than a band?
"I couldn’t get a band together! I was in a band called The Treasons for a while. Actually every member of that band was called Jamie or James, it was weird. It was a real mix of influences but we just never really got it together. I think I was still under the impression that it was going somewhere so I was just writing songs. It was more by mistake really. I was going to a lot of acoustic nights and getting more into that scene so it just sort of evolved. I’ve got one of the Treasons in my band now actually. Being in a band is f*cking long though. I was talking to the Maccabees and I was like ‘you must all be best mates’, but they just argue all the time. It’s a democracy, whereas I’m a dictatorship. You have more freedom doing it on your own."