September 2001
It seems, at the moment, that no one can get enough of Starsailor. James, the lead vocalist, takes a few moments away from the studio to talk to Steve Lamacq about the beginnings of the band and their debut album, 'Love Is Here.'
It has been quite a year, hasn't it?
Yeah. Fairly insane.
Do you remember where you were this time last year?
I think that was the time we were getting some interest and playing
our first showcase gig. It's around then that we got signed.
So if we go back and plot the career how long had you been together
before it started going mental?
I'd been playing music with the bass player and the drummer for the
past four years.
How did you all meet? I had this image of Starsailor meeting in a
second-hand record shop by the letter 'B' for 'Buckley' and 'Beatles'...
Didn't quite happen like that... We formed when we were in college
and we were singing in Church. It was a Christmas concert and the other
three members of the band were playing in the pit. We were singing a Sting
song, so it was quite odd.
Which Sting song?
It was the wondrous 'Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot.'
So did you just want to sing at that point? You wanted to be in a
band but you'd do anything as long as you could sing?
I was starting to get into more credible music.
How old were you at that point?
Sixteen. The first modern music I got into was Oasis and the Charlatans.
I got in to watch Oasis at Blackpool when their album first came out. I
was at this confused period where I had this lovely voice that middle-aged
women thought was amazing but I really wanted to be Liam Gallagher.
Here's something from your website: 'He'd grown up feeling disconnected
from the more overtly male posturing of his school friends and immediate
social group. Really?...Did you feel ostracised or alienated?
Yeah, a little. I think it was my fault as well. I was trying to be
something I wasn't- self confident, walked it how I talked it, and I failed
so miserably that I had to have a re-think. It's at that point that the
Buckleys and the Neil Youngs of this world came into my life and made me
realise you can write plaintive and sensitive melodies and not have to
drink a bottle of Jack Daniels every day.
So at this stage already have you got an idea in your head of what
the band should sound like?
I remember getting really excited about the first songs we wrote a
year and a half ago, 'Alcoholic' and 'Lullaby,' and thinking I was on to
something here. I remember going down to London to demo it at a publishing
studio and I played it to the people at the job centre... The first person
to hear them was this bloke at Chormley job centre...
By this point, you mentioned Jeff Buckley, are there other things
you're listening to?
Nick Drake a lot, and Joaney Mitchell. Quite faceless people really,
people who aren't huge stars but still have a tremendous effect on people.
So it's the song not the singer. Is that weird to you now as you're
being talked about as the pop pin-up of the year?
It is quite strange. I think that's the new celebrity though; the Nice
Guy. Like Fran Healey and Chris Martin.
Nice guys? I've heard you lot talk behind the scenes... So where
in the story does Barry, or Barry 'keyboards' as we know him, come along?
We've known him for a long time but we couldn't persuade him to join
the band for a long while because he was working in a crematorium. I think
he'd started Tai Chi as well. I think he's the guy in the band that had
the least desire to be a rock star or anything.
When you actually came to make the record, were there any unforeseen
problems?
I think the first week we got down there we were really nervous and
it was quite unproductive. There's so much pressure. In another respect
it helped us because we knew we had to make an exceptional album because
people and the press had already decided that for us. Anything less than
perfect would be seen as a failure so we thought we'd better go some way
to proving the hype right. So in that way it helped us and gave us confidence
as well.
When you listen to the album, and the characters in the songs, there
are a lot of lost people...
I think it's where the title comes from. A realisation that there isn't
a perfect thing you're looking for. It's about enjoying your life. Love
is like two parallel lines that never meet. It isn't something that can
be manifest in a perfect person. I think love happens when you're going
across your path and the two of you collide instead of compromising who
you are to find somebody. It always happens by accident. A lot of the songs
are about me spending a long time trying to adapt my personality to find
the perfect person or perfect event... but when it's meant to happen it
happens.
It must have been quite strange this year garnering all this attention,
being in the papers, seeing your photo and having people want to know because
you are, ladies and gentlemen, James from Starsailor!
I find it quite strange. I think that's why people tend to criticise
celebrities for spending a lot of time with other bands and other famous
people and people who work in the industry. I think that's inevitable really.
I hang around people who work with me all the time and don't see me as
anything special, so I can sit down with them sometimes and talk about
normal things, like the weather or soup.
Bands from Lancashire, and there haven't been an endless string of
them, seem to have a sense of being more deeply rooted to their hometown
and what the place stands for... Your songs allude to people in their own
little soap operas.
It's about the disillusionment in the place where I live. The girls
in the town are really interested in marrying someone who has the riches
and the big house and being very comfortable. You've got to be stronger
than that and look for something in a person and not in their bank balance.
