Jamie T is back with a bang on his new LP
Fusing punk with rap and folk, Jamie T is back to his best on his new LP – just don’t call him ‘mature’...
When Jamie T was a teenager and still known in south London as Jamie Treays he began to explore how to marry the power of The Clash and The Jam with the energy of rap and hip-hop. A couple of years later, his 2007 debut, Panic Prevention, proved the marriage was a success. Songs such as Sheila and Calm Down Dearest were seen as reflecting a new generation’s hedonism, nihilism and other words not found on the side of a can of super-strength lager.
Jamie, prone to anxiety attacks since childhood, baulked at the pressures of newfound fame. Rather like his hero Paul Weller wrote in the old Jam song, Little Boy Soldiers: ‘These days I find that I can’t be bothered. These days I find that it’s all too much…’
After an equally successful follow-up, Kings & Queens, Jamie took five years off.
‘I felt I was constantly doing things on somebody else’s whim. I decided I needed to take a lot of time out to find how to do this job,’ he says. ‘I was an observer in those songs and to continue to do that became difficult.
‘Some of the tabloids assumed I was the central character at all times; getting drunk, taking drugs. I didn’t like that. Then others were bandying around all this “voice of a generation” s*** and I really hated that one. All I was ever doing was borrowing from the experiences of my friends.’
The five-year hiatus ended in 2014 with the excellent Carry On The Grudge and, though he doesn’t like the word, ‘mature’ is how you might best describe that record. It’s also the adjective that springs to mind when hearing his new album, Trick.
While he still raps on the album, he also sings a lot more, with the influence of Bob Dylan evident. Having just turned 30, does Trick signpost a mellowing?
‘I don’t think there was a “mellowing”. When I listen to Bob Dylan I tend to think he is aggressive, whether it is with The Band or on his own,’ he says. ‘I’ve always listened to a lot of folk music. You put out a 12-song album and people think they have you sussed. Then you do something different and people say: ‘What’s this? What are you doing?’ I’m just taking steps that are logical to me. I felt I just needed to find other things to write about.’
He tells me flatly that he doesn’t think rapping less and singing more often is a sign of a burgeoning maturity.
‘I don’t see the difference between singing a song and what you call a rap,’ he snaps. ‘I think The Roots make mature music and they rap. Do people think I’m mature because I’m rapping less? I’m not sure I want that to be the case. Maybe I will have to come up with some really mature raps and some silly songs to sing.’
You know he is being disingenuous. Tinfoil Boy could be about the appalling fallout when young people take heroin, and Power Over Men seems to be about the objectification of women and the falsities about females perpetrated by easily accessible pornography. However he is not inclined to say if that’s the case.
‘I don’t often talk about what songs are about. I like people to take them in whatever way makes sense to them,’ he says. ‘Richard Ashcroft from The Verve said years ago “the song is about what you want it to be about” and I’ve always thought that is a good attitude to have when people ask.
‘Sometimes I start with a definite idea of what I’m writing, but other ideas come to me and I want to put them in. Then the original idea becomes a bit skewed anyway.’
Jamie T is now four albums in to a career that has regained its momentum – Trick reached No.3 in the British charts last week. Having been knocked down by the industry machine, does he feel the need now to control everything about his music?
‘It’s a twisted wheel. You can’t really think about it in black and white terms,’ he says. ‘Being in control of your destiny is great but being a control freak is not.
‘Over the years I think I’ve won battles with record companies about what I have to do. Now they know how I work, what I will and won’t do. I respect and listen to the people I work with and take their advice but at the end of the day what I do and how I go about it always has to be up to me.’
Jamie T plays Dublin’s Olympia Theatre on September 27.
Trick is out on Virgin/EMI