Interview: James

Over 40 years and 18 albums into their career, Madchester and Britpop-era titans James show no signs of stopping any time soon, continuing to innovate and explore new territory whilst also gaining perspective on the past. Ahead of next month's huge UK arena tour, Liz Clarke sat down (no pun intended) via Zoom with the band's energetic and friendly bassist Jim Glennie to discuss their live show, and the perspectives gained through the release of their colossal best-of, Nothing But Love.

Of course, with a band of James, a good rule of thumb is to expect the unexpected: the band are well known for changing the setlist and instruments on whims and trying something new altogether. But is there anything in particular that fans can expect from this tour?

We’re playing around a little more with the production, I’m honestly not sure as to how much I can say about it though, it’s meant to be a surprise and you’ll have to wait and see. Doing these arena tours in the past few years have encouraged us to play around with that side of things more as we really didn’t used to. Unlike when you’re playing at a club or in a concert hall, you’ve got to be able to project to the back of the room and have everybody feel it, so we’ve made the setup a lot grander than what we used to do to maximise it being felt by everybody. In true James style, we don’t really know what the fuck we’re doing, but I think people will like it.

On the subject of your live performance, like I said, you’re well known for having a lot of freedom and fluidity when it comes to what you play and how you play it. Was this a conscious decision or something that developed over time?

I’m not quite sure. I think it’s mostly about the fact that, since the early days, we’ve had a weird, unspoken and unwritten set of rules which govern how we operate. Right from the early days, this allowed us to take more risks: it also keeps it interesting for the people who have to be at James concerts every night, us! But we kind of like the fear and the danger that comes with this, in a way that most bands probably wouldn’t, and we’ve always recognised that if something goes wrong and doesn’t quite land, it’s so easy to laugh it off and not take it seriously, it’s a gig for fuck’s sake! But also, I think fans like that if you go to two nights on the tour, they’ll be completely different. The other day, Vernon Kay on Radio 2 compared the process to a DJ set which I think is a good analogy: if you’re playing a DJ set, you don’t just play the same songs every night, you respond to what people want and try to keep the people who are listening, and yourself, entertained, and I think that’s what it all comes down to.

I can imagine this willingness to experiment and challenge yourselves has been part of your longevity as a band. What else would you say has been the core to keeping a band going and innovating for over 40 years, pretty consistently?

We all still like each other and know that we can’t let arguments get in the way! This is such a great job, and I can’t believe bands will let squabbles and arguments get in the way of being able to keep doing it. When you’re in a touring band, you have to see each other all the time and even when you disagree, you have to be able to look after each other and listen. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had catastrophic, horrible moments where we’ve said and done horrible things, but quickly recognised the damage and that we needed to reconcile if this was going to keep going in the way that it should.

Honestly, as a band we don’t look over our shoulders very much and always try to look to the future, but having an excuse to look back [during the compilation process] was really special. Originally, our label handed us the idea of a singles collection, which was like, OK, easy, everybody knows what a single is. But as we started playing around with the idea, we realised that we have so much good material that wasn’t singles, so decided to go down a different route. Parts of it were an absolute nightmare to be honest with you!

Similarly though, with this longevity, I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of changes in the world and in the music industry. Would you say that many of them have affected you as a band or how you operate?

I think that improvements in technology have definitely contributed to the changes in how we record. Before, recording involved packing up your bags to go and live in the middle of nowhere for a few weeks whilst falling out constantly, and what you came out with was what you had, but now at least four of us have home studios that are close in quality and function to what you’d find there, and it means we can always be working on new things. Album number 19 is coming into existence in bits and pieces because of this, it’s created a much more fluid process where you can come in and out of working on things.

However, I think more so than anything I can see how the world we live in now is impacting younger bands. We grew up alongside quite a clear and obvious model for success, and it was easy to have confidence that something was worthwhile. If people came to the gigs, you know, you knew that people liked your music and that it was good. You needed to play a lot, maybe get a slot on John Peel, and then you’d arguably made it, so to speak. It’s easy to blame record labels, and maybe they do carry some of the blame, particularly as they don’t seem interested until a band has x amount of Instagram followers, when surely if an artist is good enough it’s a record label’s job to do that side of things. But equally it feels like people in general are lazy! Also, particularly since the pandemic, the decline in independent venues has been shocking. Bands really need spaces where they can mess about and nobody’s watching, because that’s how people actually learn their craft and feel like they can experiment, and try out new things without the entire world watching them.

Last year, a major retrospective of James’ output was released in the form of Nothing but Love. This is quite a broad question and I’m handing it over to you to answer however you’d like, but did you feel that you discovered anything new from that whole process?

The whole thing was a voyage of discovery for me and Tim (Booth, singer) really, and we uncovered so much, the good and the bad. I think beyond anything else, it reminded me of how good a guitarist (the band’s original guitarist) Paul Gilbertson really was. His drive, enthusiasm, and passion of course never left the band’s sight, I mean he basically forced me to be in the band in the first place, but on a purely practical level there are so many fantastic riffs on those early James records that had kind of not been at the forefront of my mind as much. Honestly, as a band we don’t look over our shoulders very much and always try to look to the future, but having an excuse to look back was really special. Originally, our label handed us the idea of a singles collection, which was like, OK, easy, everybody knows what a single is. But as we started playing around with the idea, we realised that we have so much good material that wasn’t singles, so decided to go down a different route. Parts of it were an absolute nightmare to be honest with you! There was so much to cover and choose from that we eventually settled on a one-song-on, one-song-off system. It’s our version of our own history on our own terms, and has broadly unlocked a lot of memories and we’ve unearthed a lot of new-old ones that we might try out live… [The Mic is] Nottingham-based isn't it?

Yes it is, as am I more consistently. Funnily enough, my dad told me that he saw you in 2001 at The Embankment, supporting Bryan Adams!

We've definitely played in Nottingham a few more times than that. We supported The Smiths on the Meat is Murder tour there, and we also headlined at a venue called The Old Vic, which I can't imagine is still going. (I tentatively suggested that it might be still going in some form or other, checked, and it isn't: I was confusing it with a London theatre of the same name). When we did our An Evening with James tour, using an orchestra and full choir, we also played at the Royal Concert Hall, which was special, and we have played there a few more times too. I'm really looking forward to this next tour, I think people are going to like it.

James play the Nottingham Motorpoint Arena on Tuesday, April 14th 2026 with support from Doves. Tickets are available via Ticketek. 

Liz Clarke

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Edited by Liz Clarke

Photographs 1 & 2 by Ehud Lazin, provided for use courtesy of Cheek PR

Tour poster provided for use courtesy of Cheek PR