Speaker 1: So, how's your summer going. I have to laugh at
Speaker 1: how as adults we are so preoccupied with the temperature
Speaker 1: outside in comparison to how completely uninterested my children are.
Speaker 1: All they care to know is whether or not the
Speaker 1: sun is shining, can they get wet today? And is
Speaker 1: it too early for the first popsicle? Remember those summer days?
Speaker 1: I hope you allow yourself to revisit that time, even
Speaker 1: if it's just for a few stolen hours after a
Speaker 1: long day at work, or if you're lucky, maybe you
Speaker 1: can escape back into your childlike attitude towards summer for
Speaker 1: an entire glorious day or weekend, go on a camping trip,
Speaker 1: and suddenly you will be back in your childhood. Allow
Speaker 1: yourself to remember how wonderful it was to lay in
Speaker 1: wait for a grasshopper to come your way as he
Speaker 1: chewed on the end of a piece of tall grass,
Speaker 1: or how you would squeal in delight when the cold
Speaker 1: water from the sprinkler hit your bare back the first time.
Speaker 1: Play some music that reminds you of your fourth grade crush,
Speaker 1: and revel in summertime once again. Today's guest on love
Speaker 1: to someone may provide our children with memories of their
Speaker 1: favorite summer. He's a three time Grammy nominated and britt
Speaker 1: Award winning multi platinum singer, songwriter, producer, and guitarist who
Speaker 1: hails from the UK and that you have heard played
Speaker 1: on my show quite a bit with hits like let
Speaker 1: It Go and Hold Back the River. His music is
Speaker 1: soulful and stirring and speaks to that in all of
Speaker 1: us that yearns for and believes in the power of love.
Speaker 1: I invited him to join me today because he's got
Speaker 1: some brand new babies to brag about. The first is
Speaker 1: his new daughter, Ada, who made her entrance last fall.
Speaker 1: That's a hard act to follow up, but apparently it
Speaker 1: inspired some new music. His third full length album, Leap,
Speaker 1: was released on July eighth, and he's getting ready to
Speaker 1: hit the road on his much anticipated North American headline
Speaker 1: tour in August. I'm so looking forward to this conversation
Speaker 1: with the delightful James Bay, But first I want to
Speaker 1: do a little bragging myself on one of my podcast sponsors.
Speaker 1: I absolutely love everything that comes out of a box
Speaker 1: labeled Balsom Hill. They're huge sail this month will let
Speaker 1: you save big and bring home the magic of Christmas
Speaker 1: all July. You can get up to fifty percent on
Speaker 1: that dream tree you've had your eye on for so long.
Speaker 1: I've been using Balsom Hill decor in my home in
Speaker 1: my studio for years now, and everything still looks as
Speaker 1: fresh as the day it arrived. I say, it's never
Speaker 1: too early to get in the Christmas spirit, So I wait,
Speaker 1: find everything you need at Balsom Hill dot com, but hurry.
Speaker 1: The mid July Sail ends on Monday, August one. Welcome
Speaker 1: to love someone today. James Babe has kind of taken
Speaker 1: the world by storm, which is kind of weird because
Speaker 1: you seem so laid back, thank you so much, and
Speaker 1: so not about hype, and yet there's all this energy
Speaker 1: swirling about you right now. I think personally, I think
Speaker 1: because your sound is so unique, well, hype is pretty stressful, yeah, right, so,
Speaker 1: and you know, I've had my I feel as though
Speaker 1: I've had some experiences with it this far, and it's
Speaker 1: pretty it's pretty stressful, so I try to keep a
Speaker 1: little distance from it if I can. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of cool because everything I've read about you, or seen
Speaker 1: about you, or followed about you, you're pretty down to
Speaker 1: earth and laid back and I love that. Thank you. No,
Speaker 1: I appreciate what you're saying, and I understand and like,
Speaker 1: there are so many different ways to approach talking about
Speaker 1: this and to think about it and to approach it
Speaker 1: just myself as an artist, and I you know that
Speaker 1: those ways change. They kind of change as I grow
Speaker 1: and over time, you know, I'm I'm looking at it
Speaker 1: right now, I'm coming into I'm obviously I'm on album three.
Speaker 1: And it's been nearly ten years of sort of operating
Speaker 1: as I guess a professional artists, recording and touring because
Speaker 1: I signed a record deal about ten years ago, and
Speaker 1: I've been touring a little bit before that, and then
Speaker 1: I got really busy with that and recording once I signed,
Speaker 1: and then twenty my first album came out. So it's
Speaker 1: not quite been ten years of sort of putting albums
Speaker 1: out yet, but still I've been through different versions of
Speaker 1: like how to approach it, and of course on the
Speaker 1: first album that you are when you're brand new, and
Speaker 1: there's this thing they refer to as the shock of
Speaker 1: the new, which is always a very enticing and sort
Speaker 1: of delicious prospect for any music fans around the world.
Speaker 1: Myself included when I'm experiencing other artists, you know, debuting
Speaker 1: UM it, a lot of hype comes with it, and
Speaker 1: there's and and and there is the machine. You know,
Speaker 1: there is the music industry machine that that really kind
Speaker 1: of rears its head. And it's all a lot to
Speaker 1: take on, UM and a lot to deal with. And
Speaker 1: in my experience now, since then and since releasing you know,
Speaker 1: other music and other albums UM, I've had too. You
Speaker 1: have to kind of grow a thicker skin UM. But
Speaker 1: you have to learn which parts of it too. I've
Speaker 1: decided that there's parts of it that have been worth
Speaker 1: sort of embracing UM and kind of owning, and there
Speaker 1: are parts of it that I've had to learn to
Speaker 1: distance myself from because they can be I think it's
Speaker 1: actually kind of fair to say that there are there
Speaker 1: are versions of sort of hype and excitement that can
Speaker 1: get a little toxic and a little intense. Uh So,
Speaker 1: I'm so I'm trying to really UM see these sides
Speaker 1: of my life and work, and the line between those
Speaker 1: things blurs enormously. UM from from a from a hopefully
Speaker 1: a slightly more kind of wise perspective, but that's always
Speaker 1: relative to the amount of time you've been doing something,
Speaker 1: and I guess maybe I haven't been doing this that
Speaker 1: long in the grand scheme of things, and you know,
Speaker 1: next to how long I want to be able to
Speaker 1: do this for. Yeah, and if you configure that balance
Speaker 1: out now, you'll get to do it a lot longer
Speaker 1: because you'll live a lot longer, I hope. So you
Speaker 1: know what, let's just like, let's just touch on the
Speaker 1: kind of the pressures. There are so many different evolving pressures, um,
Speaker 1: and the music business is a good number of decades
Speaker 1: old at this point. If we if we look at,
Speaker 1: you know, the pop music business really kicking into gear
Speaker 1: some time around maybe the fifties, then it's then then
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's not old now because it's clearly
Speaker 1: going to kind of last a lot longer. But things
Speaker 1: have sort of changed and evolved over that time. And yeah,
Speaker 1: i'd really like, I know, even at what I think
Speaker 1: is the beginning of my career, still I know i'd
Speaker 1: love to do it for a long time yet, So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I've got to I've got to be I've
Speaker 1: gotta stay savvy in any way that I can stay
Speaker 1: savvy and stay grounded and uh, and you have a
Speaker 1: little one. I understand that kind of helps with that
Speaker 1: grounding process. Now. I mean, so my daughter Aida, she
Speaker 1: is nearly nine months old and um pulling herself up
Speaker 1: on the edge of the coffee table yet correct and
Speaker 1: the be table it is far too sharp. So that
Speaker 1: needs to go. M. Duct tape, duct tape, and um.
Speaker 1: Pool noodles. Yeah that I feel like pool noodles. Nice
Speaker 1: pool noodles are the answer for toddlers for everything. You
Speaker 1: can put them on the edges. You just slice them open.
Speaker 1: You know, go to a dollar store and get a
Speaker 1: pool noodle, slice it open, put it on the edge
Speaker 1: of everything. Oh, I love that. That's a great Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great one. So that's going to be happening
Speaker 1: as off tomorrow. But she so yes, what a way
Speaker 1: to bring everything back down to earth for me as
Speaker 1: an artist and you know, as a human being and
Speaker 1: now as a father, but like just the artist part.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've already mentioned about how that there's
Speaker 1: a line between my work life and my and my
Speaker 1: sort of personal life. Um, and there's a very blurry
Speaker 1: line as as a as a songwriter, M. The things
Speaker 1: sort of come very close to each other all the time,
Speaker 1: but having a baby really does bring everything back down
Speaker 1: to earth, and abuse took full wave, but in a
Speaker 1: very sort of stark and real way as well, because
Speaker 1: she doesn't understand even now, she doesn't have a clue
Speaker 1: what I do or what what what it's about. When
Speaker 1: I get like at some point in the in the
Speaker 1: in the early hours of the morning, or some crazy
Speaker 1: time at the random time in the afternoon or late
Speaker 1: at night. She wouldn't know about the late at night one.
Speaker 1: But suddenly I might be all dressed up and walking
Speaker 1: out the door to do something, to make a video,
Speaker 1: do a show, and like that's gonna you know, her
Speaker 1: her like approach to understanding that is going to change
Speaker 1: and change and change. And I have to stay with
Speaker 1: my feet planted strongly on the ground. Um as I
Speaker 1: as I kind of help her kind of understand what
Speaker 1: I'm doing, and so as not to like I've been
Speaker 1: trying to do all this time, so as not to
Speaker 1: just exist in my head in the clouds. Right, you
Speaker 1: don't impress me as somebody who would ever exist with
Speaker 1: your head in the clouds. I could be very wrong.
Speaker 1: Like I say, all I see is what I read
Speaker 1: and what Manny has shared with us, your record guy
Speaker 1: who has been a dear friend of ours for the years.
Speaker 1: But you seem, um, I'm not saying you're not affected
Speaker 1: by all the popularity, press and and sweet things people
Speaker 1: write about you. You know, we've changed the spelling of
Speaker 1: your last name from bay like bay watch like go
Speaker 1: out on the Ocean to bay as in babe because
Speaker 1: you're you're adorable. And I saw one article about why
Speaker 1: you are every man's man crush right now. Yeah, yeah, well, look,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know that there is a very
Speaker 1: tiny percentage of a bunch of that stuff that is,
Speaker 1: if I'm being really real, is probably worth accepting as
Speaker 1: I moved through this life and try and carry on
Speaker 1: in the capacity that I have been doing for the
Speaker 1: rest of it, I need to just leave it. Because
Speaker 1: you've been in a long term relationship with somebody. I
Speaker 1: heard you say that you don't need women flirting with you,
Speaker 1: hitting on you, You don't need any one liners because
Speaker 1: you are with the person that you want to be with,
Speaker 1: And I thought, I love you for that. Oh, thank
Speaker 1: you so much. I feel as though I am I
Speaker 1: really do. Me and Lucy, we've been together since we were.
Speaker 1: We grew up in the same town. Where is that
Speaker 1: a small place right in the really I know England,
Speaker 1: the UK is a very sort of strange shaped country.
Speaker 1: But if there's a center point right in the middle,
Speaker 1: that's where we're from. Um it's called Hitching. There's about
Speaker 1: thirty thirty thousand, sorry, thirty thousand people there, so it's
Speaker 1: not a big place. Um, it's pretty suburb sort of
Speaker 1: suburban and suburban, suburban, what's the word whatever, Yeah, one
Speaker 1: of those words. It's pretty suburban. It's it's it's about
Speaker 1: an hour outside of London, which is kind of good
Speaker 1: when you're a kid. Sort of eventually it's not too
Speaker 1: far to get to that big exciting city. But like
Speaker 1: beyond that, it's, um, it's pretty run of the mill.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not incredibly exciting. Um, it's very easy
Speaker 1: to kind of grow up there. It was a pretty
Speaker 1: safe place. Everything's very local, so it was that was cool.
Speaker 1: But then they get to the point when when anybody's
Speaker 1: anything between sixteen and sort of nineteen years old, like myself,
Speaker 1: you gotta go, I gotta get out, I gonna move.
Speaker 1: I went when I was eighteen, Um, I moved away
Speaker 1: to sort of kind of discover myself eventually as as
Speaker 1: a as a solo artist that I wanted to be um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, no, that's where me and me and Lucy
Speaker 1: met there. We grew up there, and now we're living
Speaker 1: in big, scary London and traveling the world now and again,
Speaker 1: which is crazy. So I read in one of the
Speaker 1: articles that you found a guitar in the house that
Speaker 1: you were living in. Yeah, somebody just left a nice
Speaker 1: guitar lying around and you discovered in the basement. Kind
Speaker 1: of it's it's pretty much that. So my my my
Speaker 1: uncle owned a guitar for probably ten years, never learned
Speaker 1: to play it, and sold it to my dad. My
Speaker 1: dad owned that guitar for probably fifteen has never learned
Speaker 1: to play it, and put it in a cupboard in
Speaker 1: the spare bedroom in our house. And when I was
Speaker 1: eleven or maybe even younger actually, but I found it.
Speaker 1: I knew it was there, so probably I was like
Speaker 1: seven or eight, two years past, and I always thought
Speaker 1: about it being there, and I didn't think sort of
Speaker 1: too much more than that about it because I was
Speaker 1: interested in other stuff. And then I heard fantastic guitar
Speaker 1: riff a brilliant record called Layla by Derek and the
Speaker 1: Domino's Eric Captain's Band in the early seventies. It blew
Speaker 1: me away and I knew. I sort of felt this
Speaker 1: like lightning bolt shock of emotion rushed through me, and
Speaker 1: I sort of said to my dad, I have to
Speaker 1: don't help, I have to learn how to do this.
Speaker 1: I have to know. And it's that's how sort of
Speaker 1: sensational intense I guess kids are supposed to be. And
Speaker 1: I remember it sort of vividly. It's like, no, I
Speaker 1: gotta do it right now. I'm gonna learn. And I
Speaker 1: know there's a guitar in this house, and I didn't
Speaker 1: put together in my mind that he was playing that
Speaker 1: riff on a fired up, plugged in electric stratocast that
Speaker 1: like Fender electric guitar um, and that all we had
Speaker 1: in the covered upstairs was like a nylon string, a
Speaker 1: classical like acoustic guitar that you play like Flamenco music on.
Speaker 1: So I rushed to it and I just, you know,
Speaker 1: cut to the next cup year or so. I was
Speaker 1: just giving it my best shot. Eventually, one thing led
Speaker 1: to another, and I got a little bit better, a
Speaker 1: little bit better and then I got an electric guitar,
Speaker 1: and then I was off and away by the time
Speaker 1: I was twelve years old, Wow, I was. I was
Speaker 1: not much older when I started playing with a shape
Speaker 1: recorder and pretending I was on the radio. Really, so
Speaker 1: you should have been, you know, it was a different
Speaker 1: time even for me. Went back at that age, like
Speaker 1: we did have a computer in the house, but like
Speaker 1: it was a couple of years until like the Internet
Speaker 1: was so like accessible and YouTube existed, and when that
Speaker 1: stuff came along, I was I had up until that point,
Speaker 1: I've been listening to records UM and just picking out
Speaker 1: the notes and like learning to play by ear, which
Speaker 1: was a pretty invaluable sort of skill to to to
Speaker 1: build up. And then by the time YouTube came along,
Speaker 1: I'd already bought like a billion DVDs of my favorite artists,
Speaker 1: and then I was watching on YouTube and rewinding and
Speaker 1: slowing it down all my stuff and trying to learn
Speaker 1: from sort of watching people in every way that I could.
Speaker 1: Because I didn't have the patients for lessons, I tried
Speaker 1: lessons for a little while. I didn't have the patients
Speaker 1: for being so I was moving a little faster than
Speaker 1: that UM and then eventually a lot faster than that.
Speaker 1: So any all the like kind of I didn't have
Speaker 1: like a cell phone or anything either. I'm not quite
Speaker 1: the generation that that with like twelve year old had cellphones.
Speaker 1: I didn't have one of those until later. So all
Speaker 1: of that, like idle time. They say it's so important
Speaker 1: for creativity to just have hours where you don't actually
Speaker 1: have anything to do. Well, you've got like free time,
Speaker 1: and I really used that and to sort of mess
Speaker 1: around with the guitar endlessly. Can I give you some
Speaker 1: some motherly advice, Please do not give your daughter access
Speaker 1: to devices to distract her when she's little. That that
Speaker 1: that so me and Lucy both are really keen to
Speaker 1: do exactly what you're suggesting that. I know it sounds
Speaker 1: old fashioned, and I know I'm the mean mom. And
Speaker 1: I made the mistake with some children that I raised
Speaker 1: that are older now of allowing them to have devices,
Speaker 1: you know, when they were twelve, thirteen, fourteen. I will
Speaker 1: never do that again. Never. Well, I get it. I
Speaker 1: get it as much as I can. You know, I
Speaker 1: would just love for for for Ada not to be
Speaker 1: you know, obsessed with technology too quickly. It would be
Speaker 1: great for that to sort of be a gentle and
Speaker 1: gradual thing over time. So we're going to try. You know,
Speaker 1: we're like a one TV household, but there's not a
Speaker 1: TV in every room, for example. UM, So we're trying
Speaker 1: to be We're trying to be real gradual with that
Speaker 1: because just what you said about the idle time, playtime,
Speaker 1: and and kids entertaining themselves and learning how to how
Speaker 1: to think on their own instead of constantly being entertained
Speaker 1: with media, it's so precious, it's so vital, and mom,
Speaker 1: you know me, as an adult, I'm already unhealthily kind
Speaker 1: of addicted and I hate to confess it, you know,
Speaker 1: to to to using devices, even though I'll tell it
Speaker 1: myself and anybody else. But it's all for work and this,
Speaker 1: that and the other. It's not. It's it's too easy
Speaker 1: to sort of waste an hour or four staring into
Speaker 1: a screen, UM, when you know that idle time is
Speaker 1: important to just just exercise the imagination. So your new album,
Speaker 1: UM Leap is number Is this number four, number four, three,
Speaker 1: number three? There has been a bunch of EPs in between,
Speaker 1: but yeah, this is number three, number three. UM just
Speaker 1: released a couple of weeks ago. July eight, and it's
Speaker 1: it's true to your um. I don't want to say
Speaker 1: a collectic artistic. When I listen to your music, it
Speaker 1: feels real. It feels real. It doesn't feel like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: this is a great hook and I'm gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: play four chords so that people will get stuck in
Speaker 1: their head like an earworm, and it's it feels like
Speaker 1: you're really sharing a story, an experience, or an emotion.
Speaker 1: And I love that. Thank you so much that you know,
Speaker 1: I don't mind like a colectic and all of that.
Speaker 1: Like you know, I don't. I can't. I tried to
Speaker 1: fit myself into one box and I just can't do it.
Speaker 1: You can't. Everything I read about you, people are trying
Speaker 1: to compare you to other people, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: well that's okay. You know, I'm with you. I'm on
Speaker 1: your side of that that whole kind of opinion and
Speaker 1: argument or whatever. But but people are going to do that,
Speaker 1: and ultimately, if they want to talk about my music,
Speaker 1: that's cooled. I guess I'd rather that than they didn't
Speaker 1: want to talk about it at all. So yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I you know, it's funny when I told you I
Speaker 1: I fell in love with an electric guitar riff, and
Speaker 1: I spent the best part of a year learning to
Speaker 1: play on an acoustic guitar, and in that whole moment,
Speaker 1: long drawn out moment, and I've developed a passion for
Speaker 1: many different sounds, fields styles. I love pop music. When
Speaker 1: I was a little kid, even way before I learned
Speaker 1: to play the guitar. As a small child, I had
Speaker 1: the radio when I was playing records. As a creative child,
Speaker 1: I was drawing in all those moments, but I was
Speaker 1: listening to pop music, pop songs from the nineties and
Speaker 1: the early two thousand's and even from before that. My
Speaker 1: parents had little cassette collections and stuff we used to play,
Speaker 1: like old motown stuff my mom had and all that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. So I'm obsessed with all different lanes
Speaker 1: of music. And I think a lot of my favorite
Speaker 1: artists have had so many different eras. Some of them
Speaker 1: have stuck more strongly to sort of one lane, and
Speaker 1: it's just very gently over the decades they've existed, um
Speaker 1: and and others have changed. You know. David Bowie is
Speaker 1: one who who has drastically sort of shape shifted through time.
Speaker 1: And let's Dance, which was such a massive record for
Speaker 1: him in the eighties. It's pretty different to like changes
Speaker 1: from what I think is maybe nine sixty nine Eric
Speaker 1: Clapton was in Cream, what a brilliant band or a
Speaker 1: psychedelic electric guitar experience, and then he had a huge
Speaker 1: hit with a song called Tears in Heaven that really
Speaker 1: sounds particularly different, So you know, and that's just that's
Speaker 1: just to name two sort of older artists, but there
Speaker 1: are there are there are way more up to date
Speaker 1: ones as well that that applied just as much. And
Speaker 1: all I can't you know when I'm making so leap,
Speaker 1: you know when I'm making a record, and it's the
Speaker 1: case for Leap as much as it has been on
Speaker 1: previous albums. I can't stick to one dynamic. There has
Speaker 1: to be kind of roaring and raging, racing kind of
Speaker 1: ultimately like rock music, because that's something I'm really into.
Speaker 1: There will be softer, slower, maybe more soulful songs as well.
Speaker 1: Some will feel look more kind of stripped down to
Speaker 1: just a guitar and a voice, and some will have
Speaker 1: a bit more going on um and I really embrace
Speaker 1: all of that. And actually it's funny leap was made.
Speaker 1: It really wasn't made in any kind of way that
Speaker 1: I would like to make a record again, because the
Speaker 1: pandemic arrived on the world and I started, all right,
Speaker 1: the story is that I've finished this album in March.
Speaker 1: Oh my perfect timing, dude, right that the pandemic arrived,
Speaker 1: and we all said, okay, okay, it's okay, it's all right.
Speaker 1: We'll mix the album. We'll have to do it over zoom,
Speaker 1: but it'll be okay. And then in a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: when this whole thing's blown over, and a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks we'll hit the road, we'll be able to tour,
Speaker 1: we'll be back with the fans. And two years later,
Speaker 1: and it did, and it did exactly. It did not
Speaker 1: happen to two weeks later. Two years later, obviously it
Speaker 1: was a different story. But by the end of when
Speaker 1: we finally sort of fully understood, I finally understood that
Speaker 1: it was it wasn't just going to be a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks or a couple of months. It was going
Speaker 1: to take some kind of while I started to write again,
Speaker 1: because the world wasn't opening up in the kind of
Speaker 1: way that I needed it to to really the album
Speaker 1: I finished back in March. It wasn't going to do that,
Speaker 1: so I started writing again. I wrote through the end
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty through Christmas, and I got a bunch
Speaker 1: of songs together that a lot of those songs I
Speaker 1: felt were maybe a bit better than at least half
Speaker 1: of the songs on the album i'd initially finished back
Speaker 1: in So already We're We're, We're. It's like a it's
Speaker 1: like a sort of scrap book, you know, tapestry of
Speaker 1: different sounds. But I just the songs are the most
Speaker 1: important thing to me, and that they're allowed whatever production
Speaker 1: that they sort of are asking for. So what I've
Speaker 1: wound up with is an album that was half made
Speaker 1: in Nashville, all in the same studio, and then half
Speaker 1: of it was made over the Internet with different producers
Speaker 1: in different parts of the world. One producer was based
Speaker 1: in New Zealand, one producer was based in two based
Speaker 1: in l a, another one was a different guy based
Speaker 1: in Nashville. So, you know, one of them I did
Speaker 1: on my own in London. So but I love it.
Speaker 1: You know, it's the most honest a piction of making
Speaker 1: a record through those times. And I wanted to like,
Speaker 1: I'm sort of proud of the facts I've been able
Speaker 1: to document that and also going back to everything I've
Speaker 1: just been saying about, you know, staying authentic to myself
Speaker 1: and all the different music that I love and all
Speaker 1: the different sounds and kind of dynamics and genres that
Speaker 1: I love. It nods to that as well. There are
Speaker 1: there's there's like rock guitar music on this album. There's
Speaker 1: like softer, more kind of acoustic leaning singer songwriter, heartfelt
Speaker 1: emotional songs on there. The stuff that's maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit more kind of soul inspired. Um, you know, there's
Speaker 1: lots of different sounds because that's who I am and
Speaker 1: that's what I love, and that's that's how I make music,
Speaker 1: even in a pandemic. Even in a pandemic. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: I can't complain about the pandemic because I have a
Speaker 1: studio in my home and I have two homes. Actually
Speaker 1: I have a smaller farm and then I have a
Speaker 1: very big farm. So when when it's done on me
Speaker 1: that you know, this has not gone to be over
Speaker 1: in two weeks or three weeks. I took the kids
Speaker 1: and we went to the big farm. Because if you've
Speaker 1: got to be shut in. I'd rather be shut in
Speaker 1: on five thousand five acres with horses and cows, and
Speaker 1: I have a studio there. And it really brought out
Speaker 1: I think in me and my show a depth that
Speaker 1: that was a good thing. And the time that I
Speaker 1: had with my kids was so good, so good. That
Speaker 1: was beautiful and important. And I mean, yeah, look we
Speaker 1: I think we all got a moment to sort of
Speaker 1: check in with ourselves. And I know it was very
Speaker 1: difficult for for some people the last couple of years
Speaker 1: really particularly hard, and and and I feel lucky that, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm sort of fortunate that when they said, Okay, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to sit on the sofa at home for
Speaker 1: a while, that was quite sort of straightforward for me
Speaker 1: to do. That was the biggest complaint for me is
Speaker 1: of course it got a little boring and little testing
Speaker 1: at times, but like, yeah, it was there was some
Speaker 1: beauty and quality to the time that we all kind
Speaker 1: of before to spend. So now pandemic is is still there,
Speaker 1: but different. You're going to be able to tour. Where
Speaker 1: can people see you? Where can they find a schedule,
Speaker 1: how can they see the dimples in person? Did your
Speaker 1: daughter get your dimples. We're still waiting. We're still waiting
Speaker 1: to find that out. You know, she's her face hasn't
Speaker 1: quite grown enough. I can tell you quite confidently that
Speaker 1: she's absolutely gorgeous. Don't get me wrong. But then that's
Speaker 1: what all parents say about their babies. But I stand
Speaker 1: by it. Um. We are going on toys, we are
Speaker 1: and uh, you can find all the dates and stuff
Speaker 1: on my website. I'm doing a bunch of shows in
Speaker 1: the States with a brilliant bank called the lumin Ears.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go and open up for them for
Speaker 1: a while. They're playing in places including a Wrigley Field,
Speaker 1: so like some big stadium spots, which is gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of fun to to be there. The limin Ears,
Speaker 1: by the way, if nobody has ever heard of them
Speaker 1: or are seeing them, fabulous. They are such talented musicians.
Speaker 1: Oh my word, check them out if you don't know them.
Speaker 1: But so we're gonna go open up for them. And
Speaker 1: then that's through August and September, and in between those shows,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be doing headline shows of my own And
Speaker 1: really it's all just like getting back to America, which
Speaker 1: is somewhere that obviously I've not been able to come
Speaker 1: to for two and a half years or something. I
Speaker 1: used to spend between five and ten um times a
Speaker 1: year I was coming to the States typically, So it's
Speaker 1: nice to finally get back, and I'll be playing a
Speaker 1: bunch of my own headline shows, and really it's all
Speaker 1: just to sort of get things going in the States
Speaker 1: again and revisit all my fans who I've missed so much.
Speaker 1: So don't rule out UM being a busy year for
Speaker 1: me in America as well. I'm looking forward to being back.
Speaker 1: We're looking forward to you coming back, James. James isn't
Speaker 1: the only one who has information to share with you.
Speaker 1: I want you to know about another one of my
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Speaker 1: via phone eight hundred nine four zero zero five nine.
Speaker 1: That's eight hundred zero zero five nine nine. You know
Speaker 1: I I mentioned earlier a lot of things I read
Speaker 1: people try to compare you or put you in a
Speaker 1: lane with other artists. But when I first started listening
Speaker 1: to your music, the artist that came to mind not
Speaker 1: because you sound anything like him, you don't, but the
Speaker 1: honesty that I hear in your music reminded me of
Speaker 1: when I used to play Jim Crocy back in the day.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I know. Oh my gosh, you
Speaker 1: gotta look him up. He was um hm. He was
Speaker 1: ahead of his time in his authenticity and his vulnerability.
Speaker 1: And then he he died. It was very tragic, very solid. Um.
Speaker 1: But I do spot his last name is really here. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And like I said, not not your style, not your voice,
Speaker 1: but your transparency. I guess that's the word I want
Speaker 1: to I appreciate that it's I'm learning constantly. UM. Here's
Speaker 1: a funny thing actually, so transparency and honesty and vulnerability.
Speaker 1: There's such important qualities to songwriting. And I find that
Speaker 1: just as a music fan, you know, in terms of
Speaker 1: the music that I love and I listened to um
Speaker 1: that I discover it. It's always the sort of the
Speaker 1: notes of honesty and vulnerability and that really kind of
Speaker 1: connect lyrically and musically really and like performance wise. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm also trying to unlearn as much as I can constantly.
Speaker 1: That's a sort of interesting angle that that might that
Speaker 1: might surprise. But like some of the most maybe the
Speaker 1: most brilliant and beautiful and best art that's created is
Speaker 1: born of some combination of passion and naivety. If you know,
Speaker 1: you can probably know too much about a process, and
Speaker 1: then all that's in your head during the process is
Speaker 1: that your your sort of knowledge of like how something
Speaker 1: is done. It's a difficult one because you can't turn
Speaker 1: back time, so trying to unlearn stuff is hard. Like,
Speaker 1: for example, one approach that's starting to fail me now
Speaker 1: is that I made all my music on the guitar,
Speaker 1: or I wrote all my music on a guitar, and
Speaker 1: I can do a few things on the guitar. At
Speaker 1: this point, I'm not too limited. Um, So I moved
Speaker 1: to piano, and eventually I'm starting to get okay at
Speaker 1: the piano. You know. Initially, like I was playing on
Speaker 1: a piano because I didn't know what I was doing,
Speaker 1: and it was all there was so much naivety, and
Speaker 1: and that brought its own sort of excitement in my writing.
Speaker 1: But yeah, like I said, you then you learned too much.
Speaker 1: So before long I'm going to be picking up a
Speaker 1: trumpet on to write songs on it because I don't
Speaker 1: know how to play that. Glenn Campbell learned how to
Speaker 1: play the bagpipes for the same reason. Wow, well there
Speaker 1: you go. I don't think my baby or or Lucia,
Speaker 1: neither of them are going to appreciate the bagpipes. Probably
Speaker 1: not if you practice them at home. James, I could
Speaker 1: speak with you all day. Thank you for spending time
Speaker 1: with us, and the best, the best to you and
Speaker 1: your family and your baby and your music. And I'm
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to to just everything that you produce,
Speaker 1: that you that you share with the world, because I
Speaker 1: think you are changing the world one heart at a
Speaker 1: time with the lyrics of your music. That's a very
Speaker 1: beautiful thing to say. Thank you so much a lot
Speaker 1: of for having me as well. It's it's a joy.
Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to talk to you. Have a wonderful
Speaker 1: rest of your summer. Nice one. Thanks so much. I
Speaker 1: hope I see. It's some point comes to a shot.
Speaker 1: I will, I definitely will, and I will come backstage
Speaker 1: and give you a big hug and just bless you
Speaker 1: and your family in that world again. That is exciting
Speaker 1: someday soon, I hope. God bless you. Thank you, James
Speaker 1: Bay bub bye Hoamy. Summer is a time to make memories,
Speaker 1: a time to give into laziness, if only for a
Speaker 1: few moments at a time, and to savor all that
Speaker 1: is right with the world. Even though our cars now
Speaker 1: have a c it's still a perfect time to crank
Speaker 1: the tune ups, roll the windows down, let the wind
Speaker 1: catch our hair, and sing along to something that makes
Speaker 1: us feel good. I'm so glad there are artists like
Speaker 1: James Bay out there who continue to create just that
Speaker 1: kind of music, the dedication in the making, sort of
Speaker 1: stuff that will be requested by my listeners for years
Speaker 1: to come, and that the kids of today will hear
Speaker 1: when they are having babies of their own, and it
Speaker 1: will take them back to sweet summers of their youth,
Speaker 1: when all they cared about was whether or not the
Speaker 1: ice cream truck would come through their neighborhood that day,
Speaker 1: and if they could figure out if the boy or
Speaker 1: girl they had a crush on like them back. Catch
Speaker 1: up with James Bay on Facebook at James Bay and
Speaker 1: on Instagram at James Bay Music for all the latest
Speaker 1: news and get james new album Leap, available everywhere right now.
Speaker 1: You should also go to James Bay dot com to
Speaker 1: see if he'll be anywhere near your hometown while he's
Speaker 1: touring this summer, and if he is. Get tickets. In
Speaker 1: the meantime, join me on my nightly radio show, and
Speaker 1: I will do my best to help you get through
Speaker 1: the summer heat, taking your calls and dedications, sharing stories,
Speaker 1: and playing all your favorites. Give my daily podcast, Hey
Speaker 1: it's Delilah, listen to and come back and join me
Speaker 1: on Love Someone in two weeks, when I'll be setting
Speaker 1: down with another inspiring guest. I can't wait to spend
Speaker 1: more time here with you.