A Conversation with Jamie Cullum – HuffPost 10.6.14

Mike Ragogna: Jamie, your new album Interlude features covers of Randy Newman and Richard Carpenter songs, a dark film noir approach on a couple of tracks, some lo-fi dirty boogie, and, of course, straight ahead jazz. How did this all come together?

Jamie Cullum: I’ve lived my short life as a record geek. I take quite a heavy interest in music. Lots of people are interested in music, but I’m the kind of guy who’d be digging through boxfuls of old records in secondhand stores and record fares and things like that. I present a radio show once a week on the BBC, so I kind of have quite a collection, quite an interest. If there’s one thing I know I can do, it’s bring things together and hopefully communicate my passion for it. That was the impetus to make this album.

MR: You have the number one jazz show in Europe and an appreciation for all of music’s various styles. It must have been a challenge to whittle a list of potentially thousands of songs to a max of fifteen tracks on Interlude‘s expanded edition?

JC: The producer and I sent ideas back and forth, songs that we wanted to do, songs that not only hadn’t been done too much, but also ones where we felt we could take the audience and the listener on a journey through this music. It was stuff that perhaps maybe was ignored, a particular period of standards–less from the fifties, more from the forties and thirties and nineties and seventies, kind of ignoring certain periods. I think also the working relationship that I got going with the producer and the band that I used on this record–who I met through my radio show–we did this fully knowing we would do it again, so things that didn’t make the cut will make the cut on the second volume as it were.

MR: Interlude 2?

JC: Indeed.

MR: So Ben Landin was the guy you worked with on Interlude. What did he bring into the mix that you normally wouldn’t have?

JC: He is an interesting producer, the way he works. He manages to get results without impressing himself upon the situation in an aggressive way. He’s got a very, very subtle way of producing that manages to get a great result. He’s very good at getting you to keep the performance and keep the spontaneity of things without going in and polishing up all the edges. But one of the main things he has is this amazing working relationship with a particular studio called Fish Factory where we recorded and with the musicians that he uses under this banner “Nostalgia 77.” When you walk into the studio, pretty much an hour, later you’re recording, and you’re doing it in a large room where you’re not using headphones, you’re not cordoned off by walls and glass panes and big bunches of fabric. You’re actually recording in a room, almost like you would be on stage, all looking at each other and recording in a way that feels very real and very organic. You’re very much inspired to keep these first and second takes. This whole album is made up of things that were done first or second time.

MR: In a way, it’s a bit of a testament to your live show. It seems like you brought that talent into the studio to be able to do one- and two-takes on the recordings.

JC: Yes, it’s two things: It’s an increased confidence in allowing yourself to just be more comfortable with things that aren’t perfect and making that part of the story, and also, I guess I have a greater ability than I did ten years ago, full stop really. I’m a better musician than I was ten years ago. I’m still nowhere near where I want to be, but I’m better than I was.

MR: [laughs] That’s interesting coming from someone who literally set pianos on fire as you were becoming popular.

JC: Yeah. Another great thing about making this particular record is that I was very much surrounded–and I say this with no false sense of modesty–by what I consider to be far superior musicians. It’s great to walk into a situation that makes you really raise your game.

MR: So you’re the number one-selling jazz artist in Europe as well as having a number one radio show there. When you look at the relatively short span of time in which you’ve done all this, it’s clear you’re looking past your own music. For example, you’re the one who introduced Gregory Porter to the world–last year’s jazz Grammy-winner–on your show.

JC: Yes, I feel very proud of that, actually. Gregory got his very first plays on my radio show. He’s someone I definitely had been shouting about for a while. The radio show has almost, by accident, become something that’s very much a part of my life, and something that I take very seriously. I give it my full attention once a week. It’s become this thing that people at home enjoy. I love doing it. It’s a lot of work but it’s really increased my enjoyment of the music that I make and I get a great chance to shout about great artists that maybe have not traditionally gotten the platform they deserve. As I said, it’s just a wonderful thing. I’m not really referring to Gregory in that sense, but I’m talking about some young British jazz artists who tend to get played on things. They are more jazz shows that go out on other radio stations very late at night or don’t have the chance to have the kind of audience I do being on at seven o’clock on what’s essentially a very big pop radio station. They get to infiltrate people’s dinner times with some really out there music. It’s really fun.

MR: Jamie, you’ve also been a guest musician on other artist’s records spanning across many genres. Plus there’s a great span of music that you’ve incorporated into your own repertoire, perhaps because of all of these things?

JC: Well, you know, when I was growing up and becoming a musician, my hope was… If you set yourself a goal of becoming a good musician, of course, you’ll be in all these things. If you think about what Herbie Hancock has done in his career, he’s guested on everything. He just showed up on the new Flying Lotus record. If you set yourself the goal of being a good musician, then absolutely, you should be able to spread yourself around all these different genres and enjoy all these different aspects.

MR: You bring up Herbie Hancock, I interviewed him the other day and we spent most of the interview talking about the source of creativity. So where does your own muse come from? Do you sit at a piano and make yourself create or does it come out of nowhere?

JC: It does do a bit of that. I believe in the kind of blue-collar aspect of it. I think you need to show up to work and think things will come out of that. They may not come out one day, they may not come out the next day, but they will show up. And if it’s not showing up, I go for a walk in the woods with my hip flask. Or I take a snifter of whiskey and I put a great record on in my studio and go and read a passage from a book that I love. Surround yourself with great art and hopefully you will make something in between it. But you’ve got to show up. When I’m writing, I go into my studio and I close the door and I’ll start the day and put on something I love or that I’ve never heard, I’ll put on a couple of new releases that day or I drink a really good cup of coffee and I make sure that I’ve got fresh air in my lungs. Eventually you sit down, you pull out the fishing line, and you hope something will come.

photo credit: McVirn Etienne

MR: To me, especially after all the projects you tackle in addition to your show, it seems you have a very strong work ethic. When you look at your early recordings and perhaps the video of the live concert, it really seems like you’ve always been on a mission.

JC: It’s funny, I talked about this with my wife because my work ethic kind of annoys her sometimes, but I don’t really see it that way. I think when you get on a roll, you just go with it. I’m quite good at not looking in the past, I’m quite good at not looking too far into the future. I just kind of turn up one day and say, “All right, what am I going to do?” My life is complete chaos in every other way. When it comes to work, I tend to be able to get things done and I don’t overthink things too much. Maybe I just get on with the job at hand and then move on. I don’t think about the consequences too much. I’m not too overly worried about what people are going to think about it, I just do something I think is good and then move on to the next thing, really. That is my main strength. I don’t think I put more hours in than other people, I’m not working through the night, I get to work and I get one with something and then I move on, really.

MR: So the creativity drives the drive.

JC: Absolutely. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had plenty of times where I’ve felt like things have just not gone well. Interlude is a good example of the process: Me and Ben booked three days in the studio before we had any idea what we were going to do. We had this date in the future and we thought, “We’d better get ourselves together.” That’s sometimes a good way to work.

MR: When you look at Jamie Cullum starting out, just a jazz fireball who was adding elements that were, at the time, pretty brash, what do you think about that guy?

JC: Yeah, he doesn’t feel that different! I still feel like that guy. I still feel like the interloper in some ways. Those stage performances certainly haven’t gotten any less brash. I have a few grey hairs, my eyes are a little greyer underneath. I’m married now so my blinders are on. I’m very happily married. I have this gorgeous family, so that aspect is different. I try and get a bit more sleep these days, but I don’t look back at that person and not know who he his. I think that’s quite nice. Having said that, I’ve never listened to any of my other records. Occasionally, I’ll hear them in a restaurant or something, but I’ve never sat down and put on any of my old records. Like I said, I’m not nostalgic, but I’m also not very good at looking too far into the future.

MR: So there’s no savoring process with your work?

JC: No. There’s just so much going on in my head during the moment that I can’t really worry myself with that stuff too much.

MR: Jamie, what advice do you have for new artists?

JC: I think it’s good to just do without thinking too much of the consequences. So much of the really good stuff happens with that. Obviously, now you can broadcast everything you do straight away, technically, you can start getting feedback straight away and you can get so caught up in what other people think about what you’re doing it’s quite hard to develop and make mistakes and get on with it. You really should be getting on with it. You can put stuff out there, that’s great, but you really need to do it without thinking, because you need to develop. And it’s great to imitate your heroes as well. Imitate your favorite people as much as you want and through imitation, you will become the person you want to be eventually. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. If you want to sound like Prince, listen to a ton of his records and make a few things that sound like Prince. Keep doing that and eventually your true person will come out of that.

MR: Is that the process you used?

JC: Yeah, I think so. When I started out in one of my bands I was trying to be Ben Folds, in another one I was trying the Harry Connick, Jr. thing. In another band, I was playing guitar, trying to be Jeff Buckley, then I was a DJ on the weekends thinking I was a member of The Beastie Boys. Eventually cut to twenty years later and maybe I operate somewhere between all those things. Or I try to, anyway.

MR: For somebody with as broad of a taste in music as you have, how do you ever become satisfied with your recordings?

JC: You don’t. That’s the great thing about it. You’re always searching for that satisfaction because it always eludes you. That’s why you keep going, why you keep trying to get better and keep searching. That’s actually the beauty of it. It’s an old and much-hackneyed thing to say, but the destination is an illusion. The journey is the whole point.

MR: So what’s on the horizon, Jamie?

JC: I’m always writing but I feel like I’ve got a good bunch of original songs for another album that’s more cross-genre. After I’ve finished with this album tour, I’ll probably go back to my studio and start putting a few of these things down. That’ll be next.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne