Music
Five things you should know about James Bay
The headwear-loving, hotly-tipped British singer-songwriter gives us some essential information.
Six things you should know about James Bay
© Republic Records
If there’s such thing as a safe bet for stardom in 2015, it’s probably James Bay. The English troubadour has become a word-of-mouth sensation over the past couple of years but with a debut album due on March 23 and a Launched at Red Bull Studios performance on the UK’s Channel 4 on February 4, he won’t be keeping anything under his hat for too much longer.
1 – If you’re only familiar with his acoustic style, Bay’s debut may surprise you. What I like about it is it sounds like a debut album. Debut albums usually have a lot of different flavours because you’re exploring as an artist. Anybody who’s developed a trademark sound over their career always started out not knowing what it was. There’s new colours and new sounds and those are the things that I’m most excited for people to hear. I’ve been a solo singer-songwriter but that was partly convenience. It’s easy to just be able to turn up at venues with your guitar. Still, while I’m starting to do full band stuff now, I’ll always honour the solo thing whenever I play. If you can hold a crowd on your own then that’s the sign of a great performer.
2 – He’s up for collaboration and he has at least one famous fan. As much as I’d be terrified to even be in the same room, my dream collaborator would probably be Feist. I’m so in awe of her ability and talents. But there are so many great voices around at the moment. It would be cool to be just a guitar man with killer riffs and back up someone like Sam Smith. He’s got songs that are in my kind of world when you break them down to their bare bones. I’d love to do that kind of thing. I had some cool appreciation from Taylor Swift too. And she’s like the Queen Of Pop at the moment!
3 – He might be familiar to fans of the Rolling Stones. I was on their bill at Hyde Park in summer 2013. Although I was one of many acts and I wouldn’t want people to think that I had an hour to play, right before the Stones or anything like that. Understandably, they were off-limits for everyone else. They had a small village assembled and then everybody else had the rest of the backstage area. The rumour was that backstage at all their gigs, Mick Jagger has a 25-metre running track set up for him! So there was all that kind of stuff going on. It was pretty mad. That whole day was a series of bucket list moments.
4 – He’s not shy about where he wants to get to. I’ve got lots of ambition, to be honest. I want to play my stuff in the biggest rooms I can with as many people as possible waiting outside ‘cos they can’t get in! I decided a while ago that if I was going to go for this, I was going to go for the top rung of the ladder. What’s the point in just aiming to finish third when you could lift the cup at the end? I’m never going to get a first chance to do any of this again. I wasted precious homework time playing guitar so I’m gonna go for it all!
5 – Although at the moment, he’s not even the top James Bay on Google. Yeah, there’s a large body of water in Canada, isn’t there? I’ve never been sadly. But it’s certainly on my list. It wouldn’t quite be a hometown gig obviously but it would feel a little bit like that. We could have a poster saying ‘James Bay At James Bay’!
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