Jamie T is a musician from South London whose debut album in 2007 was met with critical acclaim. He is releasing his third album Carry On The Grudge on Friday and our reporter John Goodridge has a chat about the album and some insights into the making of.
Hi Jamie, what was the motivation behind your new album Carry on the Grudge?
Well I guess it was just ready. I never stopped working, so it was just finished.
I really like the video for the new single “Don’t You Find”; it reminds me of a farmhouse and it gives me a feeling of what’s inside your head – casually strumming a guitar with a dog and a girl. Is that what you were hoping to get out of that song?
I dunno, I don’t really take as much notice of music videos as I should to be honest. I find it all a bit of a bore. When it comes to the song, it’s a love song really, so I suppose in the video it makes sense to have a boy and a girl in it and I just like dogs, so that’s why there was a dog there, you know what I mean.
There always seems to be a disconnect between the music and the video, how do you choose who is going to make a video for you?
Well I don’t really like doing music videos, so I try to have as much input as I can. I kinda work with people I like and just see how it goes. I think the best ones were the ones I was doing with my friend Adam Powell but now I think I do whatever seems like a fun day out.
I really like the “Zombie” video clip. That must have been really fun to make.
Yeah that was a good fun crazy day, being all dressed up like that. It was the hottest day of the year here, so it wasn’t easy.
I imagine there must have been times when everyone was just cracking up laughing.
Totally man. It’s mad when you look at your friends’ faces and you kind of forget everyone’s got makeup on and all that and you look back and your mate looks like he’s dead. It’s kind of terrifying but it’s a good laugh.
What can you tell me about the cover art of Carry on the Grudge? The woman breastfeeding on a bed of bare mattresses. Where did that come from?
The idea came from quite early on when I was recording the album. Between myself and my friend Emily Hope and my friend Luke Waller. Emily’s a photographer and Luke’s a painter, so we all discussed it and it changed a little bit. The idea behind it was suckling the teat of life and kind of the whole Carry on the Grudge reference is to do with growing up and being told to believe certain things and coming to an age where you’re not really sure if any of it is true and trying to make your own opinions on things. The image was trying to ay to an extent that you’re fed all this bullshit and you don’t know if it’s real or not.
Were you involved in the shoot or did you just see the final artwork?
We were all very involved in it the whole way along. Luke painted it and obviously I’m no good at painting or drawing so I left him to it, but me and him and Emily, who shot the original photo that Luke went off and painted, it was a fun few days with some old friends of mine and was nice to do something together.
I understand you grew up in Wimbledon?
That’s right, yeah.
How has it changed since the Olympics?
Do you know what, I don’t live there any more, so I couldn’t tell you to be honest. But I can tell you it probably hasn’t changed all that much because Wimbledon being the Wimbledon Tennis Town is all set up for big championships anyway. So I doubt it changed all that much to be honest. It’s pretty much dead most of the year, then obviously that two weeks of tennis the whole place comes alive. All the pubs up their prices and everyone makes a killing.
I was looking at the video of the Reading Festival and it looked amazing. How does it feel playing the new song “Don’t You Find” and having everyone singing along?
Ah, the joy of the Internet generation, isn’t it? It’s amazing. I think it had only come out two weeks before that. It was a really nice feeling having a huge amount of support from all the old fans and stuff. Everyone showed up to come and see us and it was a real surprise. We really weren’t expecting that so it was a good day.
I see you’re about to tour the UK and I saw there were tickets and a CD for £12 – that’s crazy.
I don’t think that’s for the whole tour. I think that’s for a couple of shows we’re doing for Banquet Records separate from the tour. But yeah those shows are real small and I think a lot of people are real happy about getting the tickets so cheap so it should be pretty raucous. I’m looking forward to it.
What bands would have been your inspiration or influences over the years?
I can never remember when anyone asks me the names of the bands. But I’m a big fan of punk music. So like The Clash and Rancid, always been a huge fan, Operation Ivy, anything that was on Ivy Records. I still go back to that stuff a lot when I’m making records now.
I’ve heard that people like Mike Skinner, Arctic Monkeys, Joe Strummer and Billy Bragg have been bandied around as being part of your sound.
It’s quite a good lot of people. It sometimes feels like journalists throwing names around for the sake of it. I’m a fan of all those artists. I think why we get called Arctic Monkeys we’ve been doing that record for exactly the same amount of time and no-one knew what else to call me. The Mike Skinner line is because I’m from London and I speak with a London accent in song. The Joe Strummer line is because I said I like The Clash and the Billy Bragg line is because I covered a Billy Bragg song.
So which song did you cover?
On my first record I used to cover “New England.”
Great song.
Yeah, really good song. I don’t think the cover was any good, but the original was great.
Your 2007 album, Panic Prevention was quite a big success. Is it hard to break away from that success or does it serve as a good platform to build on?
It’s complicated that one, because it wasn’t that big an album. I mean it was a big record in the sense that people thought we were going to sell 10,000 copies and we ended up selling 180,000, so it’s big in that concept. It wasn’t that huge at the time, it’s just that over time it’s aged. People now talk about it as a seminal record, so it can only be a good thing for me if it’s aging well. I can only take that as a positive, if you know what I mean. Look, there are always going to be people going “oh his early shit was good, his new shit’s terrible” you know, because they can’t get over it. They wouldn’t be happy if I did the same thing again anyway, so I can’t win. So you’ve just got to ignore that and I’m really happy that people still want to come up to me and talk about that album. It’s ten years old and in music that’s along time.
I was looking at some of the Youtube comments and there was that type of thing being written. Do you ever go on social media and read the comments or do you try to stay away?
I don’t really go on social media altogether to be honest. I’m not really known for being on social media and I disappeared for five years. I tend to stay away from all that stuff because as much as in this day and age it’s great that music is at people’s fingertips; it doesn’t necessarily mean I have to be there at the end of the line for people. I think it’s good as a musician to be away from all that. I live my life quite separately from music, in a way, being famous and all that shit. I just go about my daily business. The times I have been on the Internet it freaked me out, so I no longer do it.
Yeah, on “Don’t You Find” there were all these comments about liking the old stuff better and it made me think how when you put a song out there people always seem to have to have an opinion.
I dunno, I think if you have the time to comment on some trip somewhere, I’m not sure I really give a fuck about your comment anyway. Get on with your fucking life mate. If you don’t like it, go listen to something else. So I’m not sure if I give a fuck anyway. I do what I do and if people like it, they like it and if they don’t, I’m not gonna become a better artist by listening to people. That’s something I’ve learned.
I guess that comes back to my original question about your new album. What was the inspiration behind it.
The songwriting was quite difficult because I was trying to write stuff that was genres that I’ve never written before. It took a long time because I had to put myself into some kind of musical shaman and I became obsessed with slower songs for a while. I was annoyed because every time I tried to say something in a song it seemed to take me forever to say it, so I spent a long time cutting down words and playing around with things and trying to get more power out of the songs and that kind of thing. It was all a real learning curve for me and it’s been hard really. It wasn’t an easy album to do, but I hope that’s better for the album. It’s an album that I didn’t really know how to make and I hope it’s more exciting for that, rather than using tested formulas over and over again.
I mean with “Don’t You Find”, even though it’s a slower song, it’s still got that energy and passion behind it.
Yeah I hope so. I think that’s a really good example for me of trying to slow things down and looking for the power in things, rather than relying on tempo as a way of getting energy up. I really like that song for that reason.
To me it’s a song that gets under your skin and the more that you listen to it, the more that you appreciate it.
That’s good; I hope that’s what people feel.
I compare that for the video clip for “Kings and Queens” where it looks like you’re hanging out with your mates, skateboarding and partying. Is that pretty much your life?
Nah, that’s no-one’s life! You’re kidding me! The house got trashed man! I wouldn’t be doing that every fucking week. That came about because I was kinda having an argument with my label about a music video. They kept spending ridiculous amounts of money on music videos. I said, “Fuck it, I’ll do it myself. Give me two grand and I’ll fucking make a music video.” So I took 1,500 of it and bought loads of lager and spent the other 500 on my mate Adam who did the video and we did it for two grand and had a party when we did it. Simple as that. So that’s how that one came about. It was a good night though. Someone came up to me that night, an old friend of mine, and said, ”this is like one of those parties you wished that you went to when you were fifteen man! This is how all parties should be!” I got fond memories of it man, there were fireworks inside the house and shit, it was crazy.
Do ever think that fans think that’s the life you lead?
Yeah I think when you’re fifteen or whatever, you take anything in from a musician. You think their whole life’s like that. My life’s not a party. Of course it’s not. I get up in the morning the same as everybody else, go to the studio and have a boring time. But I think making music back then was always about boredom really. It was being bored shitless and trying to do something with your time and I think if I hadn’t been bored I don’t think I would have ever written music, I would have been partying all the time.
I guess people write music for different reasons, to express emotions or out of boredom.
It can all of those things really, but certainly the monotony in youth culture back then; I think me and my friends were pretty bored with a lot of things around. It’s a good thing for youth to be bored really because you kinda start doing shit for yourself and making your own music.
I always think that’s where bands like The Clash filled a hole in that punk era.
Yeah, totally.
So are there any plans to tour Australia?
There are some vague plans about at the moment. I’m sure we’ll make it over there soon enough, just working out things in the diary but yeah there are plans but nothing in cement. But I’m sure we’ll be down before you know it.
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Carry On The Grudge is released Friday, 26th September on Virgin EMI.
Jamie T Australian Tour
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 21ST – METRO THEATRE, SYDNEY
FRIDAY JANUARY 23RD- HI FI BAR AND BALLROOM, BRISBANE
SATURDAY JANUARY 24TH – FORUM THEATRE, MELBOURNE
MONDAY JANUARY 26TH – ASTOR THEATRE, PERTH
