Tim Booth of UK band James on why it has taken 34 years to tour Australia
WITH 14 albums behind them UK band James, perhaps best known for the song Laid, are finally touring. Singer Tim Booth’s promise on set lists.
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WITH a history that stretches back to 1982, there aren’t too many firsts for British band James these days.
However, after a few failed attempts, James embark on their first Australian tour next month.
It hasn’t gone unnoticed by very patient local fans — their Melbourne show has already sold out.
In the UK, James have had seven top 10 albums and a string of hits including Sit Down, Laid, Born Of Frustration, Sometimes, She’s a Star, Come Home and How Was It For You?
In Australia, while Sound hit the top 30 in 1991, they’re best known for 1993’s Laid — a 140 second romp (produced by Brian Eno) that was also their biggest US hit when it was embraced by alternative radio once the line “she only comes when she’s on top” was airbrushed out.
“It’s a strange song,” James’ frontman Tim Booth says. “And it’s strange to think that’s the one that’s been representing you. But we have a lot of odd songs.”
Here the James frontman talks about training their fans to enjoy new music, stalking Nick Cave and falling out with Morrissey.
James formed in 1982 but it’s taken until 2016 for you to tour Australia. Surely there’s been offers in the past?
Tim Booth: Yeah, it’s fallen through two times before. I recall there was a festival a few years ago and then there were some floods and it was cancelled. You want to try and make it co ordinate with a few countries to make it financially viable, we’re a big band.
Will James be dusting off a greatest hits set for Australia seeing as you’ve never been here before?
I’m not sure yet. We change the setlist every night as much for ourselves as the audience. It’s to stretch us and make the concert in the present. I go to too many bands who look like theatre performers. The singer says the same thing to a different crowd every night, they play the same set every night. A Monday night set should be different to a Friday night set. Because we haven’t been to Australia we might cater to that to some degrees, people have missed out on a history with us. But we don’t this to be the only time we come, we’d like to come back within a year or two years, we’ve heard that is possible. We don’t want to give you the whole book in the first sitting!
There must be certain big hits, like Laid and Sit Down, that are fixtures each show?
If you look at our sets this year we rested Laid until the last UK show, Sit Down gets rested for a year or two. The song that’s the hardest to leave out is Sometimes. That’s been the grower for people. We had about 17 hits, we have the luxury of being able to rotate. We’re a live band, even though we’ve done something 14 albums. We’ve made some good records but live is where we’re strongest.
That 14th album, Girl at the End of the World, was only kept off the No. 1 spot by Adele in the UK this year. Some bands with a history struggle getting people to be interested in new music, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for James?
This sounds cocky but we train our audiences over the years. They like seeing us improvise. If we play a new song it’s our challenge to make it as good as a hit. Obviously there’s nostalgia in a hit you can’t compete with, but we have to get present and make sure the new songs have something that people get excited by. Sit Down was played for two years before we ever released it. James is about improvising and taking risks. We don’t buckle on that, that’s who we are. If I play a greatest hits set I feel a bit of a fraud. It feels really uncomfortable. Afterwards I feel like I have to have a wash. We did one recently as we had to get a replacement guitarist, so we made it simple and played a few extra hits. I felt dirty afterwards, like a slut. I really did. What we’re about is a live concert, communication between a band an audience on that night in that place. It should change every night. I read a review of the Rolling Stones when I was about 18 and it said their shows were the same every night, and that they could be playing anywhere, and I thought ‘I’m not going to be in a band that does that, that’s embarrassing’. I saw Leonard Cohen three times, I love him, he’s the most articulate and intelligent man, yet his talks in between songs to the audience were the same every night. I was mortified. It felt like “Come on Leonard, for God’s sake, you’re a hero, don’t do this’. Whereas Sufjan Stevens was remarkable, I saw him three times, he wouldn’t talk for 90 minutes, then he’d do this rambling monologue for 10 minutes. The first time I thought it I thought it was scripted but it’s different every night. I was blown away. I became a singer because of Patti Smith, she was a poet, she improvised. Birdland is the reason I became a singer, that’s a nine or ten minute song, there’s bootlegs of it that go for 15 minutes. It could have crazy lyrics, that woman went so far out.
Nick Cave was another act who inspired you ... have you met him?
I lived in Brighton for a long time, you’d see him around in a black suit with a thundercloud behind him. I met him at his worst when he was really strung out after the Birthday Party split. It wasn’t comfortable. I made an early choice not to go down the tortured artist route he went down. But I love his music, I’m glad he’s gone down that route. He’s been the great songwriter of my generation. I saw the Birthday Party eight or nine times, that was a band. The two live performers I was most inspired by were Iggy (Pop) and Patti (Smith). The Birthday Party were the only band I ever saw who went further than Iggy. Nick Cave was totally matched by Tracey Pew and Rowland S Howard. The Bad Seeds are a great band but the Birthday Party are still one of the best bands I’ve ever seen. I hope Nick Cave is taking time for himself after everything that’s happened recently. I hope he’s letting the love in. You can really feel people want to love him. I don’t think in the past he’s been able to let that in.
Are you still friends with Morrissey?
No. I saw him at a gig a while ago, he came by and went ‘Oh, you’re still alive’ and walked on. He got pissed off with me, I couldn’t work out why but it was one of two reasons. One that I’m not a vegetarian anymore, it could have been that, I’m not sure, or the other was it came out that he got very close to me in the 90s. I’m not sure. I think it was the vegetarian thing, he seems to ditch people when they turn (back) to meat. I knew a Morrissey that was from much more of an innocent time. He was an absolute sweetheart, as were all the Smiths. I’ve seen Johnny Marr a few times recently, he’s a beauty.
James have worked with Brian Eno many times. What were some of the more unusual techniques he used in the studio?
Brian loves to unsettle. When you get set in a pattern he loves to unsettle it. He can bring in a wind and string section and get them all to swap instruments. They’re classically trained, they can’t swap instruments but he loves to pull the rug out from under your feet. The reason why he made five albums with us, and we weren’t making him the kind of money other artists were, was that he loved working with us because we loved improvising. He’d walk around while we were improvising and would hold up sheets saying ‘Play more wobbly’ or ‘Change key’ or ‘Be erratic’. But he’d show it to one person, not the rest of us, just to destabilise our improvisation. It was just a joy to work with him. I’d love to work with him again, he’s the most intelligent man I’ve ever met. He’s very mischievous and playful, which is something people don’t get, he’s not an egghead, he’s naughty and fun
And he has a smell laboratory in his house?
Can you believe it? I think one of the concoctions was lavender and motorcycle types, he’d sent them away to laboratories to get made for him, this random mixture of scents. He’s got his finger in every single pie. What is he not exploring? He gave lectures on pornography in England. I rang him out to see if he wanted to come out for a meal when I was in London one time and he said ‘I can’t but would you like to come to a talk I’m doing to 200 scientists about the moon landing.’ And off I went. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren had been given their own miniature cameras, they filmed their adventure, they were showing this footage for the first time with Brian’s album Apollo as the soundtrack. The adventures of Brian Eno!
James, Tivoli Brisbane November 12, Metro Sydney November 13, 170 Russell Melbourne November 14, Metropolis Fremantle November 16. Tix mjrpresents.com
Originally published as Tim Booth of UK band James on why it has taken 34 years to tour Australia
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