JAMES’S MESSAGE TO HIS FANS

JAMES Bay doesn’t care if he puts fans off with the different sound of his new album.

Electric Light adds R&B and funk to the acoustic ballads of his debut Chaos And The Calm.

And James told me: “Fans might hear this record and go,‘That’s further away from him than I wanted’ but this is music I had to make.

“People have said, ‘Where’s the guitar?’ and there are a lot of synths.

“The most fun and exciting part of this process has been marrying what people expect of me with sounds I didn’t have in my locker before.”

James hopes to pick up some guitar tips from Keith Richards when he supports The Rolling Stones on tour.

The Hold Back The River singer laughed: “Getting guitar advice from Keith Richards would be the absolute dream. My dad played their music all the time at home and they’re a total inspiration to me.”

Away from the music, a lot of the attention on James has been on his lustrous hair, which he kept hidden under his trademark hat in the past.

James said: “So long as people are talking about the music as much as my image, I don’t mind.

“I’m sure there’ll be something else about how I look that people will focus on for my third album too, but that’s impossible to predict.”

Electric Light is co-produced by Paul Epworth, who made hits for Adele and Florence And The Machine.

And Paul made James realise his own limits in the studio, saying: “You think, ‘How can he hear that?’”