A Conversation with James Blunt – HuffPost 1.18.11

Mike Ragogna: James, you have a brand new album.

James Blunt: Yeah, since the last one, I went on tour for two years, then I came back and hung out with my friends. After that, I locked myself in the studio for fourteen months and have stepped out with this finished album. It’s very nice to get out and talk to some normal people.

MR: You called this project Some Kind Of Trouble. What kind of trouble was this exactly?

JB: I don’t just mean something bad, I also mean something exciting. We always like to go get ourselves into some kind trouble.

MR: Were you writing in the studio while recording?

JB: That’s right. I would go into the studio and me and my producer, Steve Robson, would write through the day. If it wasn’t working in the morning, we would drop that until we had something really exciting and would develop it into something strong. That’s what we knew we could do best, make strong songs. The next day, we would call-in the musicians from my band and we would record a demo. From there, we would see where we go.

MR: In the song “Stay The Night,” there are some music and pop culture references like the shoutout to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.”

JB: Yeah, absolutely. Then there is the line from Bob Marley’s song “Is This Love.” If you see the credits, it says the song was written by myself, Ryan Tedder of One Republic, Steve Robson my producer, and by Bob Marley, which I thought was unexpected because I never thought I would write with Bob Marley. I thought he was dead. Hopefully, next time around, I will get to write a song with Jimi Hendrix.

MR: (laughs) What was your reaction to Weird Al’s version of your song “You’re Beautiful”?

JB: I’ve seen some fantastic parodies of the song along the way. I think, actually, Weird Al’s is my least favorite because it’s not the funniest one. One of my favorites is “My Cubicle” from the office worker, “It’s Bloody Cold” is another one. There are some very special parodies out there.

MR: While we’re on this song, it’s been featured in so many movies and TV shows.

JB: I suppose, in this day and age where radio stations do a great thing advertising an album by playing a single, at the same time, it does focus people on only one song. Musicians definitely don’t only put out one song, it’s the rest of the work that could be just as fulfilling and enriching. For me, to get all the songs from those two albums on movies and TV really sends the message that there is a whole body of work out there.

MR: In this day and age, you absolutely do have to rely on mediums beyond radio.

JB: Yeah, because some songs don’t just work on radio and the other songs could be the best songs that the world has ever heard, but they just don’t fit into a certain radio type. So, radio–great as it may be for getting music out there–is very limiting.

MR: Your last two albums seem to be bookends about action and reaction.

JB: I wrote a very innocent album as the first one, then the world changed for me as I became thrown into the public eye more. So, the second album was a reaction to that, it was kind of a dark album as well. You can tell by the title. It was really nice to write that and record that. Since then, it’s also been very nice to close the door on that and move on. With the third album, I’ve managed to find the innocence again. To refine innocence is a very exciting thing. I have a collection of songs that I’ve always wanted to write, the type of music that I like to listen to. This album was a huge pleasure to make.

MR: You must have had a great time concocting the song “Dangerous.”

JB: Actually, that was the first song I wrote for this album. I walked into this guy’s studio–Steve Robson. I was supposed to just meet him for a beer, and I wasn’t quite sure at the time what I was doing musically. I was just sort of hanging out with my friends and stepping out of the music scene. Then, I walked in and picked up an electric guitar–which I hadn’t properly played in a long time–and we wrote this song together. I asked after if I could come in tomorrow and record this and we did and it sounded great. So, I came in the next day and wrote another. The days turned into weeks which turned into months. It turned into a year in the studio together. I’m sure his wife was extremely jealous from the amount of time we spent together, but the results came spontaneously.

MR: You also reference The Police’s “Wrapped Around Your Finger” in “Dangerous.”

JB: Yeah, it wasn’t supposed be a reference to that, but I guess that’s how music permeates through your mind. On the song “Dangerous,” it feels like a teenager picking up a new instrument and writing something with all of that naive excitement.

MR: This batch of songs are coming from a very different perspective then the songs of the first two albums, right?

JB: Absolutely. Where as the first two were more (from) a troubadour–one man with a guitar. Instead, this has gone back to the electric. I learned on the electric when I was fourteen. I kind of stopped with that because to carry around an amplifier as well as a guitar was a hassle. I wrote songs on an acoustic. Now that I’ve got the opportunity, I’ve got a load of instruments, so this album has been written as the front man of a band instead of as a troubadour.

MR: What’s the story of the song “Superstar?”

JB: I guess the title is misleading because people think it has to do with my experience in the music business. Instead, it’s the way a lot of people will look at the world today. If we asked children twenty years ago what they wanted to be, they would say a doctor, or fireman, or race car driver. Now if you ask, they just want to be famous. You turn on the TV and you see images that tell you success is measured by fame. If you open magazines, they tell you what clothes you should wear or what music you should listen to. The song is the story of a teenager who is saying he doesn’t want to be force-fed who I should be, this notion of freedom is not freedom at all. I want to be myself.

MR: Another special song is “These Are The Words.”

JB: That was one of the last songs I wrote for the album. There was a great little discovery before we finished recording. I started off with an old ’70s drum machine, which is the same one they used on Sly & The Family Stone. It was a really retro, bass-driven sample.

MR: Let’s catch everyone up as far as your history. You were a British soldier.

JB: Yeah, I was, for six years.

MR: And you were stationed in Kosovo.

JB: That’s right, I served there in operations during the war in 1999.

MR: What was the experience like for you?

JB: It was a pretty terrible place. It was a place where the Serb army was being employed to murder the Kosovo Albanians and two groups of people just fell apart and just started murdering each other, so we were sent out to stop that. Obviously, the bigger force was the Serb army, and we had to take action against them. It was very sad. I’ve been back there since. I played a concert for the Serbs, Albanians, and some British soldiers. War is devastating, and it leaves its scars for generations.

MR: You’re also a philanthropist, a patron of Help For Heroes.

JB: That’s right. It kind of made sense to connect to the heroes that help our soldiers. We have limited funds within the British army to look out for those guys. So, for me, it’s been a pleasure to get involved with Help For Heroes. Also, with Doctors Without Borders, because they look after the people that are really hurt by war and that’s the civilians. I saw them at work in Kosovo. They were volunteers who gave medical care and attention to the civilians in those man-made and natural disasters. I think they are incredible people for doing so.

MR: You were screening the trailer for An Inconvenient Truth at your concerts. Do you still do that?

JB: Yeah, we did. The world tour finished 18 months ago, so we haven’t done it since then. But I think having toured the world and seeing many places, I’ve just been blown away by how we’ve really scarred our home. I’m as guilty as the next person if not more so. I travel a lot. The damage we do to our planet is huge. I try to talk about it a little, and I try to improve the way we do things. It’s our home and we need to look after it.

MR: Do you see any progress or signs that we are starting to look that way?

JB: I think it is on people’s minds a little more. I think people are a little more open to discuss these things. I think the recession took people’s eye off the ball. If you’re saving yourself money, you’re probably helping the planet too. You’re shutting off your air-conditioning or you switch off the lights. You’re not using as much energy and saving yourself money.

MR: Or you switch to solar power.

JB: Yeah, it’s a very simple thing to do. You actually earn yourself money by putting money into the grid.

MR: Why isn’t everybody doing this.

JB: It depends a lot on where exactly you live. Many of us have roofs and roofs can be put to good use.

MR: Do you have advice for new artists?

JB: I think that everyone finds their own path in their own way. Mine wouldn’t necessarily be the only way. If you have good songs and a real desire to make music, the next thing to do, instead of approach record companies, is to get yourself a really good manager because then it allows you to focus on your profession of being a musician. Then they can focus on the darker art of the record label and the music industry.

MR: Are there areas new artists should be focusing on over other areas?

JB: I think the only important thing is that you have to be yourself and express yourself as honestly and openly as you can. When you do that, it’s fulfilling for yourself. I hear people say, “I’m trying to find my sound,” or “…find out who I am,” but you are who you are. To get up and play to write songs honest to yourself will be the thing that other people connect to.

Transcribed by Theo Shier