Leaping for joy
JAMES BAY LOVES BEING BACK ON TOUR AND LOVES BEING HOME WITH HIS BABY
Aweek after English singer songwriter James Bay dropped his new single Give Me the Reason, his name was flooding social media.
There were plenty of posts congratulating him on his epic rock anthem, yet the majority were linked to Harry Styles.
Critics and fans pointed to similarities between the fresh Styles’ track As It Was, released in April, and Pink Lemonade, the 2018 single from Bay.
In an era when a single tweet drawing comparisons between two songs can spark legal action, nice guy singer songwriter Bay took the high road of being graciously flattered.
“The first time I heard (As It Was), I really liked it. Then a few mates started texting me asking if I’d been on social media and had a look at all the Harry Styles fans saying, ‘All right, Harry, I see you’ve been listening to a bit of James Bay’s second album, have you?’” a grinning Bay says.
“It made me laugh. It’s all very flattering and I think he’s great and there may be similarities between his song and (Pink Lemonade) but there are similarities between my song and 100 other songs before it.”
It’s impossible not to hear the influence of Bay’s musical heroes in the songs of his third record Leap.
There’s his take on the stadiumsized rock anthems of his heroes like the Rolling Stones, The Band, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band and U2, and their progeny The Killers and Kings Of Leon.
He may be a solo singersongwriter, erroneously labelled folk when he’s always tilted more towards a bigger rock sound, but Bay just loves guitar bands.
“As a solo artist, I am trying to come with that kind of energy in my own way, with that kind of anthemic experience. Hence why (new songs) like Give Me the Reason, Everybody Needs Someone and Endless Summer Nights get written,” he says.
But Bay cites Nick Cave when trying to describe the genesis of Leap. Bay was struggling as he began the album’s songwriting sessions in Nashville in 2019. The artist, who burst on to the global charts in 2014 with Let It Go and Hold Back the River, was battling anxiety, insecurity, impostor syndrome.
And then he wrote One Life, a song inspired by his wife Lucy; the pair have been partners since they were 16 and welcomed their baby girl Ada in October last year.
“A friend told me Nick Cave had this quote about when we’re sad, we write towards happiness, and when we’re happy, we write towards sadness, and it’s absolutely bang on the money,” Bay says.
“You try to hide the stark truth and say ‘No, no, I’m OK’. And through that struggle, dealing with anxiety and insecurity, I surprised myself, especially once I’d written One Life, and that was when I started to write towards happiness.”
Bay acknowledges he will face his mental health challenges again because songwriters and performers are on a relentless rollercoaster ride of the highest highs and lowest lows.
He declares therapy to be a “beautiful, brilliant mechanism”, particularly when combined with the catharsis of turning life’s anguish into song.
And for now, with a new record about to launch and the joys and terrors of new parenthood, life is good even as he wrestles with the family versus touring dilemma.
“Ada’s nine months old now … she’s just so great … and I have to tell you all the cliches are true,” he says.
“When I go away now, it’s bittersweet.
“I have this beautiful baby, this wonderful life at home with this gorgeous family and I get to go on tour and do the thing that I adore doing.
“We got back on a tour bus in April and May for the first time in however many years with a band and it was glorious.
“It’s such a mix of emotions when you have a great night, hop off stage into the bus for a postmatch drink and then wake up in the morning ready to do it all again, and then I look at a picture of my baby and think ‘I do want to go home’.
“It’s ridiculous but ultimately, I do feel very fortunate.”
Like most of his peers, Bay spent months imagining what the return to live would look like and, more importantly, how it would feel.
“I remember texting with Maggie Rogers during the pandemic and saying the first time when everybody gets back to this, it’s going to be remarkable. It’s going to be euphoric. And it’s just going to be tears, the best tears ever, but a room full of thousands and thousands of tears,” he says.
“My first show back I was solo – they didn’t want too many people on stage – and it was in a forest; it was the most Robin Hood thing ever.
“It was magical, it was summertime and dappled light was coming through the trees and it was intensely emotional, the tears were many, which I had to try to hold back because I was trying to sing songs.”
We got back on a tour bus in April and May for the first time in however many years with a band and it was glorious