James Bay

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. This episode is also available as video on YouTube. You can visit Nora Jones channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there. Hey, I'm Nora Jones and today I'm playing along with James Bay. I'm just playing along with you. I'm just playing along with you. Hey, I'm Nora Jones and welcome to the podcast with me today and always is 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 10 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 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 going to 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 going to hear some great music, new and old from across his catalog. This was really fun and I hope you enjoy this episode with James Bay. I could have a leave through the rain. Here in the vigil and the bar. Little candle in the jar. Just to find you go home. Nobody told us this rain on our shoulders would keep us apart from the morning through the dawn. If love is a door that we walk through together, then how come we can't find a key? Nobody told us this rain on our shoulders would keep us apart from the morning through the dawn. If love is a door that we walk through together, then how come we can't find a key? Nobody told us this rain on our shoulders would keep us apart from the morning through the dawn. If love is a door that we walk through together, then how come we can't find a key? I broke the speed limit to gas to you. I took a road where there was no road. Now we don't ever get it right. Couple sail boats in the night drifting all along. All the places that we went, I went back to them again just to find you go home. Oh my God. It's very, wow. Shaking it out because it feels, it's very exciting. I was saying about like big necked guitars. I heard Jack White say that he likes big necks 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. 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 chord by saying better than B flat. So that's for that. And that requires heavier strings. But the heavier strings is somewhere to put some adrenaline because it's hard. It's like Bendham and stuff. That's really. Or else I'd be like all this crazy like I just. You feel like it tames you? 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. She's probably not that healthy. Trying to stay. But there's something in all of that that sort of creates a friction that feels important to the art. It's actually very potentially. It probably is that push and pull. 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 in my view, certainly with you, 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. It's all kind and sweet. 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 be listening to the Velvet Underground to be lost in sort of what's happening. What is that noise in the background? Yeah. And you could be sort of on the edge of your seat. And it's all subjective. So it's all allowed. And that's cool. But the other thing that I'm really going for, and even some of my favorite 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 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 can hold it in so well too. And it sounds, 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, I know you can go there, but you don't have to. And I'm trying to... And that's the thing is you don't want to have to. No, I'm trying to mature into that more and more. And I'm 34 and it's taken me a long time. That is a maturity thing that takes a minute. Younger people definitely go there quicker. Yeah. And I really have for a long time, I certainly did when I started out and like it reveals itself in my sort of more my lead guitar playing, but probably all my guitar playing and my singing, which are my main two things that I do. So well, by the way. Well, that's very kind, but like... I know what you're saying though. Yeah, I'm enjoying 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. Yeah. 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. Yeah. 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 about the world. And we keep evolving and changing and that's the beauty of doing it. That's why Willie still is doing it because he gets a kick out of it. Yeah. 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 at it that there's always been, you know, reason for them to go again, to put another tour on or whatever. Same for Willie. 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. I guess. There's, there's that too. Yeah. 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 10 and a bit years, you know, pandemic aside, like I have, 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 a, 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 an eight track recorder that me and Tom, who's still in my band, Tom is my oldest friend of none since I was three. Okay. He plays bass in my band. And then my brother, Alex, like the three of us, you know, and a couple other band mates at the time chipped in on an eight track recorder. How old were you? We were 13, 14. Okay. 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. What is 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 like career and my work purpose. But that's great. That you love it. It doesn't come without struggle. Of course. Boy, oh boy. Today is, you know, yeah. Yeah. And just like missing people at home, you know, missing family, missing my family, like, um. Do they ever come out? They do. They have done. That's its own tricky thing. It's just our tricky thing. I bet you know all about it. Yeah. But, uh, 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 and 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 and backseat of a sort of four seat car with a bunch of guitars in 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. I also don't, I 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. Yeah. You know, that's the best as it can get. So, but no, I love it. I love to tour and a part of me very much lives to tour. Yeah. I love to just 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 nobody buys records. But 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, I think that would be hard for me. Yeah. For you. For me, 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. It's interesting. My, 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. For 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 12 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 song. Wow. But that's a long, that'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 change guitar on most songs, which is intense, but I love it. And my sound checks 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 from song seven, the song eight or like how we play into verse two on Hold Back the River or whatever it may be. Wow. And it's just, It's exciting. It's the best. 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. 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 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. 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 medleyed 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 2016. And I watched her turn up with this absolute powerhouse set and I like a powerhouse new album, which was all new material, of course. And the medley in that show of like stuff from between like 2003 and 2007 or something was just unbelievable. And it's got so many reasons to do it. Saved her voice from singing like all of love on top, all of halo. She just did like a chorus and a verse. And then you got more songs in 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. 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 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'm just a 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. I really, and you know, for me also in that, perhaps for lots of solo artists, there's the sort of solo presentation as well, where it's 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 think everything, 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. And 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 will go, that set list is great. Now, what a, what a 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 the medley out last night and the medley is, yeah. And the medley is 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 things. And it's easy to overthink 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. And 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 set list 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, this is 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 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, I'm, I'm in a sort of like ongoing conversation and really I feel like I'm in an ongoing seminar with the icon Cheryl Crowe who I released a song with recently, but she has talked to me about how she's taken recording and releasing songs has taken a little backseat for her. Because of that, I feel double privilege 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. Yeah. And it meant she decided that it meant she could slow down on writing and releasing newer stuff. Oh, interesting. I don't think she's done and I hope she's not done. Yeah. Putting new stuff out, but like, like I say, I'm in this ongoing sort of seminar where I'm listening to her sort of thoughts and feelings on that as they sort of evolve. That'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, that seems to be the thing. And that's a beautiful scenario. She says like, 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 set up. And like I was saying earlier, when the team, the wider team says that was a bullet proof set. Now, wow, what a compliment. Yeah. And then two shows later, I'm going 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 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 got to get some friction back into the mix. Well, I've done bullet proof 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 bullet proof set in London. And then we do it and it just doesn't have the same thing. It's so wild. So it's totally an alive evolving. Absolutely. It depends on everything. It's wise. The temperature, the audience. Yes. 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 10 years ago and then I played there again. So some people said, you know, we've been waiting 10 years for you to come back. I was very grateful of that. And then the next time we played in Philadelphia, poor old Philadelphia, love them. They couldn't compare. And they were great. They were great. They were great. They were great in their own right. They all stood there very intimate and sort of vulnerable and some arms folded. It's like sports fans. I'm like, I kind of need you to go 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 was sort of world of shutdown. And people were just tapping and typing into his live feed and say, play this, play that, play yellow, play the scientist. So he's reading as it goes by 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 to you about the, talked to you about the melody, the medley thing earlier, but like I've applied a little bit of this to my shows because I get this anxiety and it's a really like sort of feel blessed to be in a scenario where this is my anxiety life. 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 play, I guess. No, that is always stressful. If it's not in the set. 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 yeah. Yeah. And everybody cheers and it's very unexpected. Yeah. 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 that I just haven't done in so long. So I'm like, well, I guess I'll do a solo version. I played in LA the other night and a lady in the audience had a sign for a song of mine called 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 Gia, 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 I 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 a go. I got some of the lyrics wrong. I forgot some of the lyrics. She probably loved it. We had a magical little one. Yeah, exactly. You know. I mean, there 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 from Changes All The Time, which came out in October 24. 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, Gabe, because I haven't had the confidence. I'm very busy with the production of my music. Yeah, I know. I'm very involved. Even if my name's not on the production. It's like I'm pretty much involved in everything. Big time. Every detail. And that's... And I'm a pain in the butt. Yeah, same. Boy, oh boy. Absolutely. That is the right fight. I'm getting better at fighting that fight. And I'll take any advice you've got, because I'm learning and growing and learning to just be better at that. And Gabe actually makes an amazing kind of space for me to... You know, I've said this before and it always feels kind of prickly, but like one of my favourite, 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 it's... We do it great. It's... Yeah. We do it so great. And that's one of my favourite 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. Ah, I remember my first time. Right, so I don't want to go like deep into this. No, it's important. We can if you want. But like... It's important. What it's based on is it's expensive to make a record. Exactly. And like, you've got to pay for time and the clock is ticking. 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 got and see what we want to write? Because I have a very busy 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. It was called Up All Night. And then there are other ways that I love working with Gabe. So Speed Limit is a song that... It didn't really need to change an awful lot from... The demo was a voice note. It didn't need to change an awful lot from that guitar and a vocal. But we 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, place close, kind of thing. You know, that kind of feel. You captured it. Oh, thank you. 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 bleed on the vocal mic of the guitar amp 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 do 10 more takes if I like it or not. And he loved it. I went and I came back and he said, you know, he really like twisted my arm. So 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 chopsticks from the Chinese takeout that we had the night before. And those are what are recorded on that song. And like we barely played any symbols. Anyway, yeah, that speed limit. Yeah, it's from, 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? I'm not really in the environment when making a record, but like I'm trying to give my absolute everything, every fiber of my being to the thing. And I want it to feel good and great, you know. Yeah. Is that what, like what's it like for you when you make a record? 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 when you're making the first one? Are you talking about? No, I'm talking about after that. Making the second and beyond. I'm just talking about after that. Yeah. I think the first one, I was just sort of ignorant. We didn't know it was going to be that big. We didn't think dream it was going to be that big. That ignorance is truly bliss, isn't it? 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 going to make something that big. Well, I wasn't stupid. I knew I wasn't going to ever make something that big again. Okay. And I haven't. Well, you got very close. And I'm happy with that. You know, it's totally fine. 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, 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, 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 just sort of shut the outside world out at that point. That's nice. And the band was all my best friends. That's cool. Yeah, it was great. You can hear it. Yeah. And I did some of their songs as well. We were all kind of getting into songwriting. So we just sort of focused on each other and the music. And I think I also had 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. But everybody called it a jazz record. So I got like a little wary of labels. Yeah, I guess you do. I've been called like folk and acoustic in ways that I think are so okay, but are so like 5% of who I am as an artist. But that's the problem with like believing all that stuff or reading it. 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 though? But it's probably my biggest radio, my only radio play. This is it. I wanted to say though, like just that there is a really great version for all artists of 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 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. Even my version of the thing, 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 that. And that's something you can't really put into words. It's a feeling. Yeah. So when people try to write 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. It never makes the record. You know what I mean? 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 where you play guitar. 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 Puss in Boots where I play guitar. It's more of a country leaning thing. What did you do with Jacque? Oh, so Jacqueer. Was that you? Was that Nora Jones? Yes, that was, so Jacqueer King produced your first album. First one, yeah. Yeah, in Nashville. So he produced my fourth album, which was the first time I worked without my original band, my boyfriend, et cetera. We had broken up. It was like a big, I wanted to change my sound up. Sure. 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. Jacqueer 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 Blackbird? No. No, we made it in New York. Oh, okay. We did one session in LA and one session in New York. Fair. I didn't know if he was like a Blackbird based, you know, Blackbird in Nashville. That's right. No, I didn't go to Nashville with him, but... Sorry, so yeah, my ribs are roundabout way of wanting to talk about you playing guitar, but let's play a song and then... But that is, yeah, 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 player. Well, I just want to talk about the sort of transition, I guess, between you have a primary instrument that you have. Yeah. And then you have, again, you get like drawn to like, well, people know me as this. I want to do this. Exactly. Anyway. I do think that was a 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. Yeah. 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. Yeah, it's funny how... Because I only knew through like four chords. Yeah. So I come away with me, I wrote on guitar. Wow. Yeah. That's cool. And those are the only chords I knew. I mean, there's so much magic in there. Yeah. But yes, the song, but just the process, you know, that's... Yeah, it's interesting. That's really cool. Sometimes you have to strip it back to the beginning. Yeah, because, you know, obstacles and like... My stomach is growling. There's Peter, right? Yeah, we've got the Peter. Yeah. Um, obstacles and, you know, ways that you struggle become part of the discovery of something new. Yeah, your limitations are what make you. Limitations. Otherwise you're just going to be too good. Right? Yeah, that's what it sounds like. Just too good at it all. Absolutely right. That's not interesting. It kind of isn't. Yeah. What do you want to do? I was thinking elephant, the elephant. Yeah. Who's the other singer on this one, on the record? Maggie Anton. Oh, I love it. She... I love her voice. It 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. It's great. 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 Cheryl Crowe, which is just a very exciting, like, you know, big flex. Yes. And we did a song with John Batiste for this deluxe thing. Also a big flex. A huge... I was like, well, 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. Mm-hmm. 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... She got... We said it, the song, of course, first. Were she based? 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. Cool. Texas and Tennessee. She makes great music. She's got a fantastic voice. That's awesome. 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. It's so awesome. Because it was like the acapella thing where I was just... She was just filming her on her phone while she was putting a take down. So, yeah, that's Maggie singing on here. And 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 harmony and everything. No, I like that too. I'm going to resist the urge to put a harmony on. No, you know. I might stick one in. Please do. Look at everything we've just said. Let's keep it live. But I also really love Unison. Yes. I love that. I love that. I've never 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 enjoy. I like the low. Yeah, not just because I'm on tour and I'm trying to, you know, chill my voice. Yeah, no, it sounds great. And I'm going to try it on your lovely old Gibson guitar here. One, two, three, four. I run away, I run away to get my heavenly face. A little truth, a little lie, I get the perfect mix. Call up a shrink, a medium, I need an exorcist. I'm letting out, I'm letting in, I'm working through some shit. I don't want to feel this way, crushing me like I'm not delicate. This is my revenue, time to stare dead in the face. There's no other way around it. I can't run from it, but I can't hide. See the elephant from every side. Now I'm standing on the coquise side, screaming allergies into the night. Screaming, save me from the wreck I am. Pull me under, pull me up again. I'm so dumb, believe it, I've been living insane. Let the light back in. Let the light back. Let the light back in. Let the light back. Let the light back in. Let the light back in. Let the light back in. Let the light back in. Let the light back in. A little faith, a little faith, a little courage now. Up on the wing, up on the wave, on to another town. It's gonna feel a little strange and then a lot somehow. But if I'm learning anything, I gotta knock back down. I've been terrified to change my fate. Took an emotional holiday from all this disarray. Trying to stare dead in the face. There's no other way around it. I can't run from it, but I can't hide. See the elephant from every side. Now I'm standing on the coquise. Screaming allergies into the night. Screaming, save me from the wreck I am. Pull me under, pull me up again. I'm so dumb, believe it, I've been living insane. Let the light back in. Let the light back. Let the light back in. Let the light back. Let the light back in. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh. Now I can't run from it, but I can't hide. See the elephant from every side. Now I'm standing on the coquise. Screaming allergies into the night. Screaming, save me from the wreck I am. Pull me under, pull me up again. I'm so dumb, believe it, I've been living insane. Let the light back in. Let the light back. Let the light back in. Let the light back. Let the light back in. Let the light back. Let the light back in. Let the light back. Let the light back in. That was fun. There's so many bits of my own song that I sort of forget are coming. Yeah. I'm just like, okay, uh, yeah, it's like this. Well, I mean, this is a lot of words for me to say. I know it is, but it was really fun. You've crushed it. I thought that was great. That was really cool. Yeah? What's the piano? What is this guy? What is this? This is the Steinway and Sons. Oh my goodness me. It's from the 20s. Oh, wow. The 1920s. 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 tune and it started driving me a little bonkers. Cause usually I don't really care, but. But is your ear for that just insane? No, I mean, 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 great. If it's a gospel song, it can be a little wonky and it sounds good. Yes. I was good. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I'll 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 out of tune. It's my point. That's interesting though. Like, you know, there is, isn't it wonderful when you sort of go back through live records from death, race, 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. Yeah. But that's like, there's this record. It doesn't matter. Have you heard Joe Cocker and the Mad Dogs and Englishman? Totally. Wow. Yeah. For a start. And then there's, it's them doing, it's him and Leon Russell doing a girl from the North country. Oh, wow. Yeah. And like the piano is beautifully kind of honky tonk. Yeah. And Leon, and they've just got, he's got a very particular voice. And then Joe Cocker 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. He's your favorite part of the whole thing. Kind of. Yeah. And this supports any of your concerns about outtune this. Totally. Ultimately you kind of end up going, no, people love it. I mean, I don't know. And then, you know. I don't really care if it's out of tune. This 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 pickup on the piano. Because you know how it is with the pickup on acoustic. It's just so much better with a microphone. My band sort of entertained me. My crew entertained me. And then we went back to normal. That's okay. I'll piano. Yeah, I get you. We did wrap it in white though this year, which was hilarious. Love that. I never thought I would want that, but. It's all liberal arts. Yeah. I had like a visual aesthetic for my new album that I really wanted. That's great. It worked. That's very cool. Same kind of question about, tell me about when you play live, how much you're playing guitar? How much what? Is it you're playing guitar? Or sometimes none? 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 were just touching on with guitar tuning. Do you sort of wig out about like guitar tuning? Guitar tuning? No. That's great. Do you? Not really. Yeah. It's for me. I don't know about you, but like, so I use in-ear monitors. Do you use wedges? No. No, we use wedges. We've been playing in-ears, but it's tricky. It's very tricky. Yeah. 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 that in-ears have helped me with it because I'm... And then the science is if you sing harder, you're going to go sharp is what people say. Oh, okay. It doesn't always happen. I'm sure you don't, but... Well, I think I probably do. Let's screw those people. Yeah, but I... From tuning of a guitar to in-ear 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. Yeah. About your ears. About the quality of the mix. My engineer is doing a fantastic job. That's the best place to be. Because 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... I'm doing... That's how it was for me 15 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 a sin? Because it's bad for your hearing? Well, yeah, someone's going to tell me I'm going to get tinnitus in this ear and the other ear is going to be all right. It's going to be all off balance. It's going to be all off balance. Some version of that might be sort of happening. I feel like ear buds give me tinnitus. Tinnitus is a high say. Well, you say tinnitus. I do, but I'm not probably right. I think I'm wrong. I have no idea. I heard people from both sides of the pond. Yeah, I think ear buds give me that anyway. Yeah, fair. You mean like ear pods or whatever? Yeah, I'm just an other ear. Whatever brand you want to know, no shade. Yeah, of course. I use just other ear stuff if I can for that. Yeah, it's better. So my thing is that even though I reckon I do sing, I feel more confident and sing better with in ears because I kind of got used to them and like worked hard to sort of make them work for me. Yeah. I still want that thing that you're getting where you can just hear everybody on stage. Yeah. I guess we make a lot of noise for good two thirds of the set. You've got a much louder band, I bet. Yeah, and I'm not far away from the cymbals. Yeah, right there. 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, no. I don't want to be that high band super tight. I don't want a huge footprint. I don't want to feel like Tom on his bass is in the next town. I don't know how 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. Yeah, they don't get it. You know, like whether it's like a recent like Jules Hollen thing or like Old Grey Whistle test or whatever, like, or I don't know, even Saturday Night Live, it's kind of a small plot, 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 a 50th anniversary of Saturday Night Live. I was obsessed with it. All these documentaries and stuff, 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 their band. Yeah. And it feels just innately musical. Yeah. Kind of love it. Okay, I have a question for you. Okay. I'm ready. I've got a beautiful guitar. I did prepare questions, I swear. Can you tell I just can just go on and on? I love it. Paul will tell you all about it. James, yeah, it never shuts out. No, it's great. I don't have to do anything. Where's the sort of country vibes come from you? What did you grow up listening to? Oh, thank you. Good question. Yeah. Because you grew up in England, but not 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. Not like English countryside. No, not countryside. Gotcha. 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 you were. My town, there's 30,000 people, so not massive. And 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 there'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. It 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 18 months older than me. And we grew up very close. He was the lead singer in all our bands and I was a guitar player and we wrote a lot of the 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, early. You got to learn somewhere. Yeah, of course you do. But we were listening to my parents, our 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. There was a lot of American music in there. Me and my brother, we liked sort of Hollywood movies. And I think Americana was a thing pop culture wise. We were just really sort of turned on by it. And it was very natural and normal. And music, pop music and film was a large percentage American in our minds. 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. Originally, yes. Some of my best favorite American sounding band. I mean, the Stones. Of course. Of course. When they did let it bleed and they've got some songs 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. 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. Yeah. Well, I think it only works. I don't think neither was he, you know. Yeah. I never got that sense. Okay. 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. Yeah. You wind up as this unique thing that is you. I like, well, that's why I sound the way I sound because just a load of American music and still is playing an enormous part in why I like doing this. Simple as that really. Yeah. What was your first band with your brother called? The Jet Kings. The Jet Kings? I tell you why. That's very cute. Yeah. It's not so bad. I know. I feel all right about that one. We were trying to think of, I can't remember. I wish I could remember the terrible names that we didn't go with, but then we just, one of the guys in the band had a guitar. It was an Ibanez guitar and it was called an Ibanez Jet King too and we saw the words Jet King. Oh, that's cool. We thought, hey, that'll do. That just made it even cooler name. We could be the Jet King. Yeah. So we were that and then later on we were Road Runner, which I didn't hate either to be honest. Oh, Road Runner's fun. But Road Runner was probably a billion bands called Road Runner. We were listening to, it's 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 an English band, but boy were they influenced by, and they did a song called Road Runner, which we loved. Oh, cool. 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 Charles cover. Anyway, we took a band name. I mean, it's not the first time we've done it. It's great. 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 11. And I sort 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 Layla? That's adorable. My dad, no, my dad's in his late 70s now. So he was really there in the 60s 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 Cremal, this information. I didn't know anything about it. He knew it all. He kind of did. And he'd been to see all those guys in the 60s. He was there in a lot of those shows and he said, well, the song finished and I said, play it again, play it 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 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 Red Hot Chili Peppers and Dias Straits and like Pink Floyd. Everybody came in with their own influences. And so Tom was the other guitar player in our little trio. And so I like 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 go, here'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 play guitar. He's less of like a lead guy, but he can do it. And he's worked it all out on his own. And he still sings and writes and plays as well. But yeah, no, it 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 in the faces and the Rolling Stones every day. That's so cool. And you'd sing. I did a little back in singing. And I got, you know, I was sort of shy about it, but I got 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 is always a big deal for me. And at the time, you know, there was people like Adele coming through. Rayla 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. Yeah. 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 try it, you know, on your own. Crazy. And it keeps going. It keeps going. Cycling. Yeah. I think I was always a huge player for me in my record collection, you know, stuff coming out of America, or 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. They just didn't grow up with it. No. 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've maybe have heard of Oasis or like they've, you know, some sort of UK giants. I don't know. I just love it. I love, I love, it's a bit too broad to say it 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. Right. Sure. That's okay. I remember one of them. Like I've known of you for a long time. I actually didn't know you were British. That's okay. 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 opening set and then I went stood by the merch stand in Boston in the Paradise Rock Club in Boston. And this whole fella came up to me with his fantastic Boston accent and he said, I thought you were a Boston local. So cute. And I was sat there with my little clipped English accent saying, no, no, I've come over from, you know, England. That's sweet. Yeah. It's, it's fascinating that. It is fascinating. Because I guess the music unites and sort of doesn't matter where you're from, but. Yeah. Funny how it goes. Do you want to do a song from your first album? Yeah, that would be cool. Is that cool? No, 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 fast these songs should be. I'll just count it in. One, two, three, four. I think it's time to walk away. So come on, let it go. Just let it be. Why don't you be you and I'll be me. Everything that's broken, leave it to the breeze. Why don't you be you and I'll be me. And I'll be me. Trying to fit your hand inside of my mind. When we know it doesn't belong. There's no force on earth to make it feel right. No. Oh, oh, oh. Trying to push this problem up the hill. When it's just too heavy to hold. I think now's the time to let it fly. So come on, let it go. Just let it be. Why don't you be you and I'll be me. And everything that's broken, leave it to the breeze. Let the ashes fall. Forget about me. Come on, let it go. Just let it be. Why don't you be you and I'll be me. And I'll be me. Why don't you be you and I'll be me. Why don't you be you and I'll be me. Did you always have a voice? Could you always just sing? No. Really? It's a big no. It sounds like you have a very natural voice. I appreciate that. That's kind of the greatest compliment ever. Definitely for me. But no. I appreciate that. I worked hard to get it to feel that. For a long time, I was a teenager and my voice dropped. I couldn't do falsetto for nothing. Really? You sure can. I appreciate that. I enjoyed getting it to work. My brother could just do it. I come from a sort of loud, shouty family. We've got core strength to project. I had that vocally. But I don't know. I enjoyed doing it a lot. Playing in pubs and bars, you get something down the mic. And people are fine. I think that's the best way to get good. And you refine it later on. 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 tonight. I don't want to keep you. No, not at all. No, I just say thank you. I mean, it's just a beautiful studio. We're in a big busy city and this is a very peaceful little quiet corner. And that's what I think 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, I can. This is a Gibson J200. It's the Gibson acoustic guitar, 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 street and 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 10,000 hours or whatever to really kind of harness an instrument or a way of sort of performing or whatever, a way of doing something. I got a lot of those 10,000 hours when I was playing 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 standard. 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 bassy 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 was a tall guy. I look pretty in proportion with a big guitar. You, it looks tiny when you have a small guitar. I'm not like a super giant, but like, you know, like other ones, I've just got used to sort of like 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 different Gibson's that are like super old and they're not all J-200s, 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 a sort of wooden instrument to do. Sounds great. Thank you. Yeah, that's, this is, I've had this for nearly 10 years and I've got a second one. I've had the same kind of time. Nice. They're still serving the purpose. Seems worn, well worn. Thank you. Yeah. So we're going to have a swing at, uh, Eagles. Yeah, let's do this song. Okay. The Eagles. Do you do this one live? On my own. Okay. Yeah, I haven't done it with the band. Let's put it here. I'm going to use your guitar. I just taught my guitar up all big and like. Use mine. I need your heels. Tell me about it. I'm going to tell you. Tell me about my guitar. I'm going to let you guitar. How do you feel about the Eagles? Um, I like the Eagles. I'm not like a super knowledgeable fan, but I feel like they get a bad rap. I felt like I get a bad rap in America. People like to, um, 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 feel like, 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. They'd pay the way for that. They either wouldn't have an opinion like that or they would like it. It's just kind of what I think. I think you're right. I think it's one thing I think, but like, this is, we're going to have fun, fun busking. I like this one. All right. I think if we can. Do it fast as you want. Yeah. Like, yeah. Run away with it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just a little girl I'm just a little girl I'm just a little girl I'm just a little girl I'm just a little girl I'm just a little girl I'm just a little girl I'm just a little girl I'm just a little girl I'm just a little girl I'm just a little girl I'm just a little girl I'm just a little girl I'm just a little girl I'm looking for a lover Won't blow my cover She's so hard to find Take it easy Take it easy Take it easy Don't let the sound of your own Will Make you crazy Come on baby Don't say Maybe I gotta know If you're a sweet love It's gonna save you Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh You gotta take it easy You gotta take it easy Come on boy You gotta take it easy And then there you are That was great I enjoyed it, thank you Nora Thank you so much, have a great show Thanks for giving all your time Aw, that was great You're 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 Released in 2024 Second song was The Elephant From the same album Third song was Let It Go From Chaos and the Calm Which was released in 2015 10 years ago Fourth song was Take It Easy Which is the Eagle Song And it's on their self-titled album In 1972 This is an I Heart podcast