MUSIC INTERVIEW: JAMES MORRISON

English Singer-Songwriter Pushes Past Pop, Breaks Free from Romance, Gets Personal

By: Team Buzzine

February 3, 2012

In the middle of the last decade, a singer-songwriter with the formal version of an already famed musical name made a lot of conversations about music a lot more confusing while he swiftly sold two million global copies of a debut album entitled Undiscovered. A rush-released follow-up album, Songs for You, Truths for Me, earned a second round of multi-platinum sales certifications for James Morrison, but ultimately failed to meet the artist’s own critical standards. So a break was called. And then, during that break, everything in James Morrison’s world changed…

Now returned from his musical intermission, James sat down with Buzzine’s Stefan Goldby outside of The Sayers Club (one of Hollywood’s most bold-faced venues) to talk about The Awakening - an album inspired by the lessons he learned and about the remarkable power of music to deal with feelings too big to handle in any other way.

Stefan Goldby: After a couple of very successful albums to begin your career, you called a halt and took a significant break before recording this third album. When you returned to the music world, what were your initial goals for this record?

James Morrison: To come away with a record I felt really proud of, for one. Not that I didn’t do that before, but I just felt like I didn’t have the time that I needed. I was in a pressure cooker, so I wanted to get out of that and take away all the pressure of the timescale in which I had to write it. I took about a year-and-a-half to write all the songs, and we recorded it in about two weeks. So I had all the time I needed to kind of get all the stuff that I wanted to get and feel good about, and I just wanted to bring it back to a more live-sounding album.

The second one was a little bit more studio, and it lost a little bit of its soul, so I wanted to get that back. And I’ve become this ‘romantic James Morrison’, f***in’ singing love songs, and that really did my head in, because I didn’t feel like that was where I was coming from. That’s not the place I started out from, so I just wanted to get back to a more sort of centered version of me really. All I wanted to do was come back with a record I was proud of that had more of a live feel, that was a little bit more electric guitar-based... not rock-y, but a little bit less pop.

SG: Was that kind of a direct reaction to how quickly the second album, by circumstances, was forced to follow the first?

JM: I think so, yeah. I just felt like I was stuck in this weird pattern that had been created by everybody else’s perception of me, rather than what I thought I needed to do. I got trapped into that whole thing of, “Well I’d better do what they like, or else they might not like me,” whereas this time, I didn’t give a s***! I just did what I wanted to do…

I lost my dad, I had a little girl, so those two things happening in my personal life really made me weigh everything up and think, “I’d rather just be the artist that I want to be or nothing at all.” I’d rather have just f***ed off and grown a beard in the mountains and not come back, than try to fulfill the idea of what they thought I was: ‘James Morrison the romantic guy’, or whatever. So yeah, that was one of the main things I wanted to get out of the way, really.

SG: You mentioned what would be two pretty major events in anybody’s life... this album is a very public way of dealing with your father’s death and your daughter’s birth: How much of a conscious decision did you make to put those things out there within the music?

JM: What else could I do? There was nothing else I could do. Writing about it just gave me a way to focus on something creative that was a positive. Losing my dad was just negative: There was nothing positive to get out of it for me, really. It kicked me hard, and I lost a little piece of myself when my dad died. So I had to find a way to get it back by doing something, and writing about it just felt like the only natural thing I could do that would deal with it.

It was personal and I was a little bit worried about how I was going to sing the songs every night, if I had a reminder of how s*** it is that he’s not here, and I couldn’t cope with it on stage… that was my only worry, but in terms of being personal within the music, to me, that’s the one thing I’ve got that separates me from just being a pop singer – to try to sing about things that are real and meaningful to me. Even though it’s quite personal, it’s easier for me to sing about it than it is for me to talk about it. I can sing about it all day and feel enough space from it to get through it, whereas talking about it is a lot more difficult. To articulate what you feel about it is harder when you talk about it than it is when I’m singing songs about it.

SG: Even though you grew the album from such a personal starting point, you also opened up your musical world to more people than ever before, whether is was Kara [Dioguardi] or Dan [Wilson] on the writing side, or producer Bernard Butler in the studio itself. Why do that? You really could have gone, “This is my album. I’m going to go into a corner and deal with this.” Why bring so many new people into the mix?

JM: I just didn’t feel strong enough to make the whole record on my own: I was too close to it, you know? One of the first songs that I wrote was “Six Weeks”, and I had the idea of the chords and some of the melody, but “Six Weeks” was the first song that I wrote since he died, and it was literally six weeks since he’d died. So it was still a really delicate time for me then, but I felt like I was sitting at home kind of doing nothing, so it was either that, or get into the studio and force myself to deal with it.

And doing that just gave me a momentum to keep going and to focus on something other than the fact that he wasn’t there. So it just helped, working with people that I’d worked with before, who have got an outside view. I think if I had made it on my own, it could have easily been quite a maudlin album, and I didn’t want it to be that.

Plus, I like working with other people: It’s nice to get an outside view of what they think you are, and to work with someone who is really good at a completely different thing: I’m not that great a pop writer, but I’m good with melody and I’m good with interjecting a feeling into the music, so working with people who are really good at that side of pop writing with what I do, together just gives it two different sides of the story, and I like that.

SG: When it came to Jessie J, what was the spark, and how do you think that song is different with her involved than what it would have been if it was just you alone, other than that you’re not as good at singing the girl parts?

JM: [Laughs] I think working with Jessie J, to me, just opened up the song really. It was a really personal song for my dad to give him a kick up the arse in a subtle way. And working with Jessie, whether it was Jessie or someone else, just helped the song to open up to interpretation for everyone else and make it more of a universal thing about believing that, if it’s all crashed down, the only way it can go is back up again.

So I like the fact that it made it more universal, for one. Two, working with Jessie J – she is a completely different artist. She is the image, the look, the voice, the songs and the tracks… so for me, it was just having the other side of the coin on the record. It was just nice having a completely different flavor that people initially were like, “What? Jessie J and James Morrison – I can’t see that happening.” And I like doing that: I like spinning people out, like, “How’s that gonna sound?” And when she recorded the vocals and I listened back to them, it just sounded great, it just sounded like the right thing.

The only reason I’ll ever work with someone is if I think it’s gonna work for the right reasons: Even though she’s a very commercial artist, I think her voice is just so good that she can pretty much sing the phonebook and it would sound great. I just wanted to get a more subtle version of her on my song, to show other people that she is another type of artist as well.

SG: With a little bit of distance, which you now have some of, what about the record are you most proud of?

JM: The greatest thing, I feel, I’ve achieved is to capture all those feelings that I was feeling at the time around the time that I lost my dad, in a positive way. And I feel like I wrote songs that are a lot more meaningful than the other two albums. They’re a lot more personal.

On a personal level, I really relate to the songs, and that was always something that I wanted to get across: My first song was “You Give Me Something,” which was a hint at being a singer/songwriter, but dipping my toe into the pop world, and that was fun for a while. But then, when you start getting out of your early twenties and start having a kid, and you decide to weigh up what life’s about, I just wanted to write something that, if it was the last album I made, I’d be happy with it. And I wouldn’t have been happy with leaving it on the second album. So that was the main thing I’m proud of, really, was that I captured those feelings and I can still listen to the album and think, “Yeah, I did exactly what I needed to do at that time to feel good about music again.”

SG: Right now, tonight, you’re about to play a showcase here in Hollywood. You’ve been at Paramount Studios earlier today showcasing for film people. But you’re shuttling back and forth between different worlds right now: On one side, in the UK, you are already ‘multi-platinum James Morrison’. And here in America, for the most part it is more like, “Who did that song?”

JM: Exactly. [Laughs] I like that.

SG: How do you mentally balance bouncing between those two worlds?

JM: I think it’s really nice for me to come somewhere and start again. It’s nice to have no preconceptions of what I am and just to come in totally fresh. I like it: I like the fact that no one knows who I am. I have to try that little bit harder and sing that little bit harder, and just give it everything I’ve got, basically, to win people over.

I think this album definitely feels a lot more on a flow for me, as a singer and as an artist, to get myself across to people. So I feel really good that I’ve got that chance to come back with this album, and already it feels really positive. So I enjoy it. I actually like the fact that you’ve got to go into this tiny little room with a s***ty sound system and make it sound good, in the hope that I’ll come back with my full band and do some bigger shows. It’s good: It keeps you grounded as an artist as well. I think it would be boring if everywhere I went, I could sell out arenas. There would be nowhere left to go… in my mind, so I like it.

SG: Do you think a part of that comes from starting out in England with busking on the street and at open mics, and build a skill set through that?

JM: Definitely: I think all that experience from busking, from playing on the street and doing small little gigs in the middle of nowhere… I did an acoustic tour across America and we played in Salt Lake City in this little shed that had rabid dogs in the yard, and it was a bit scary, but it was a good gig, you know? I think all that stuff is just good experience for playing live, and just getting on with it and not being too precious about stuff.

As time goes on, you get used to what you know, and having great in-ears and sound, and you can get a bit like, “Oh, I’m not playing that…” So it’s good to have the fact that you have to just get on with it – it just makes it easier in the long run, to just get up and play wherever. That sort of experience you can’t buy, really. It goes straight back to when I was 14 or 15, busking in town and stuff. So yeah, it’s real useful stuff, definitely.

SG: Do you have something to level the playing field? Like immediately before you go on, is there something you do so it doesn’t matter if it’s an arena, a tiny shed, or anywhere in between?

JM: Yeah, I just try to remind myself that, even if it’s a massive arena, I’m still trying to sing the songs from the same place, which is a small, intimate place. I think if you try to play like you’re playing an arena, it can sound a little bit too showy, and I always try to remind myself that the songs are all personal and that’s what people like about it, so I try not to get too big for my boots.

I watched Bruce Springsteen play a gig, and he was absolutely amazing and obviously a little bit of that is great, but I’m always aware not to try to be too big for my boots on stage and keep it quite subtle. But at the same time, I’ve played arenas and I’ve rocked them out, and I’ve used the stage… ultimately, I just try to remind myself what the songs are about and what I’m trying to get across really.

SG: While we appreciate that you’re a lovely, humble guy and not the owner of a massively over-inflated ego, we need to ask you about the cool stuff too: Over the last decade or so, what is the moment that, if we were to go back to England, pinch the teenage you and say, “This is going to happen”, what would most blow your mind?

JM: I think either meeting Stevie Wonder… or I played Wembley Arena with Nelly Furtado – that was definitely a moment… the Diana Concert was definitely a moment. I don’t know, man! The Wembley thing, for me, was amazing because not only was I playing the biggest show I’d ever played, but Nelly Furtado who I’d listened to when I was at school, was singing on my songs. So it was a bit of a trip. It was a nice ego rub, to be able to say to myself, “I’m working with Nelly Furtado, who I used to listen to on the radio. Yeah, I think I’m doing all right.” It was a nice moment there, and I definitely soaked it in as well.

SG: What about having an Italian #1 in 2010, with the song you wrote for Marco Carta? Be honest: that’s just showing off, isn’t it? [smiles]

JM: I didn’t write it in Italian! Someone else translated it, definitely. I can speak a tiny little bit, but I’m not that fluent. I basically wrote a song called something like “Do It For Yourself” or “Get What You Give”… I can’t remember exactly what it was called. But it was a song that I wrote that was quite a poppy song, and I forgot about it, to be honest. And then someone mentioned, “There’s that song that you recorded: Are you happy for someone to sing it? He’s an Italian artist…” and I was like, “Great!”

I was just lucky that someone pitched my song and they really liked it. I didn’t have a clue how well it was gonna do. It was one of those songs that I didn’t really feel like it was right for me, so I was lucky that someone else did it and they had success with it. It’s quite cool to have a song in Italian and to say I’ve got that on my little tick-list. But it’s just one of those things that just happened really.

SG: We’re here at the beginning of a new year in what, for you, is still somewhat of a new market. You’re making plans for a major tour beginning in April. What is it you hope for from 2012, as far as America is concerned?

JM: Just to make a dent in the radio, to get people aware of me again. If there’s people that have never heard of me, I want them to remember my name, really, so when I come back with my full band, they are remembering who I am and waiting for the next show. I just want to make an impression enough so that people come back and see me again. So I’m not one of those guys that when I go back to England now, I’m all forgotten about. At the end of the day, I’m not messing about: I want to be a classic artist that gets remembered. So that’s what I want.

James Morrison’s new album, ‘The Awakening,’ is out now on Universal Republic Records.