Having celebrated their 40th anniversary last year, James are back with uplifting new album Yummy. The LP maintains a prolific output since the band reformed, vowing to stop their internal chaos. Tim Booth, Saul Davies and Jim Glennie tell Classic Pop of the nine-piece’s eccentric creative process, why they’re so bloody-minded – and of their macabre sweepstake...
JOHN EARLS
Coinciding with their 40th anniversary, James were recently honoured with the Icon award by The Ivors. It’s the biggest prize in British songwriting, which many would say is overdue for a band who’ve created classics including Sit Down, Laid, Born Of Frustration and Sometimes.
The band themselves were less certain of their status when they attended the ceremony last May, as multi-instrumentalist Saul Davies admits: “We sat there, thinking about the luminaries who’d won Ivors before us, how they’d studiously sit around a piano and write songs in a technically able way. Then we thought about the unholy fucking mess James are when we write. If the Ivors knew what they were actually honouring, it’d be hilarious.”
With nine people contributing to James’ music, it’s little wonder their songwriting is different compared to most bands. “Everyone needs something to do, and everyone is so talented that what they contribute makes complete sense,” reasons Davies, a focal point of James’ live shows since joining in 1989. “It’s one reason why our records sound so full. The producer putting all our music together will go: ‘Fuck me, I’ve got 600 tracks of noise here. How am I going to do this?’ And we have to say: ‘Well, it’s over to you...’”
In truth, James’ songwriting is more structured than the cheerfully anarchic Saul makes it sound. Davies, singer Tim Booth, bassist Jim Glennie and keyboardist Mark Hunter are the main songwriters, the quartet gathering for sessions a week at a time in secluded locations close to nature – most recently Broughton Hall in Skipton, North Yorkshire – until they have enough jams to start sculpting into songs.
Glennie states 88 different jams feature somewhere in the 12 tracks on new album Yummy. And he should know, as he’s the one who assiduously takes notes on where potential magic lies: “I give sections marks out of 10, put circles around lyrics I like. Everyone else tends to use my notes to work from. I take ridiculous notes of where things change every few seconds. It’s just the w
