Why Jake Bugg went solo on his new album
Songwriter goes solo for third album
Before the release of his third album last month, Jake Bugg said it was ‘make or break’. It might be the case that every album is effectively made in the lastchance saloon, but it seemed a strange evaluation by an artist who had only turned 22 and had followed his big-selling, self-titled debut album with Shangri La, which put him in the UK top five once again and achieved Gold status.
However, before making his latest album, titled On My One, the Nottingham musician dissolved his successful songwriting partnership with sometime Snow Patrol member Iain Archer. Also, rather than asking the legendary Rick Rubin to produce his new album, as he had done Shangri La, Bugg elected to do it himself, having not done so before. It would either look an inspired move or an act of career sabotage.
‘I wanted to write it on my one,’ he says, as per the Nottingham colloquialism, ‘but in the beginning I had no intention of producing it myself.
‘I found myself in the studio and I was recording while I was writing. I felt I had the time to experiment with things that I hadn’t done before. Usually when you start working with a producer he has a vision of what he wants the album to sound like.’
However, Bugg indicates that in no sense did he stop writing with Bangor man Archer out of a feeling of trying to escape creative shackles.
‘I always felt that I expressed myself fully,’ he confirms.
‘The great thing about working with Iain is that he made me write more honestly about aspects of my life. I wouldn’t have written a song like Two Fingers but he drew it out of me.
‘It was a challenge making this album and it was a risk, but to me music should be about pushing boundaries. I hope that I will be brave enough to do something completely different again on the next album.’
When his hit singles Lightning Bolt and the aforementioned Two Fingers thrust the then 18-yearold into the spotlight in 2012, he was hailed as a bright, raw talent, some even labelling him ‘the new Bob Dylan’. Bugg rightly considers the Dylan comparisons ridiculous, mainly because he wasn’t particularly influenced by the legendary songwriter.
‘No-one works in response to other people’s descriptions, especially one like that,’ he says.
‘People might have liked to use that label but to be honest I’m not the biggest Bob Dylan fan in the world. I have a couple of his albums. There is much more music from other artists that I enjoy, I must say.’
As a reviewer I felt On My One was an improvement on the insipid Shangri La, but other scribes haven’t been kind about his latest efforts. He was pilloried particularly for what is actually a brave attempt at some English midlands hip hop on Ain’t No Rhyme.
‘That is a song that people have jumped upon and are taking a bit too seriously,’ he says. ‘I was just messing around and the lyrics just came out that way. They may sound serious but I’m having fun. I’m surprised how many of you (journalists) have taken it seriously – it’s quite funny really. I take my music seriously but it doesn’t mean you can’t have fun and mess around too.’
Bugg, who never seemed to me at ease with the interview process over the years, becomes even more reticent from this point. I compliment him on Gimme The Love, a dance-influenced track, which I tell him is a real ‘rollercoaster of a song’ that I couldn’t have imagined him including on his first two albums. He simply says: ‘I would agree with that.’
Nonetheless, he ends with an affirmation of his own talents.
‘There had been a little bit of a gap since my second album after the first two albums came out in quick succession. Now people are waiting, expecting,’ he says.
‘In this day and age if you make a bad album, often you don’t get an opportunity to make another one. This might sound corny but I still believe in what I am doing musically. I have to hope that what I write is what people want to hear.’
Now that is make or break.
Jake Bugg’s On My One is out now on Mercury Records. He plays Dublin’s Olympia Theatre on November 5.
‘I hope I’ll be brave enough to do something different again on the next album’