The Punk Archive: Are you excited to be playing?
Jamie: Yeaaahhh, though I'm more excited to watch the other bands to be honest, I couldn't give a fuck about my own band! I wanna see The Hell, and I wanna see Feed The Rhino, and Baby Godzilla…But yeah, I'm excited to be here, shall we say that? I don't really like playing music, but I'm excited to be here, and to meet you guys, that's the exciting thing for me, so yeah!
The Punk Archive: Got to say, you're easily the most dapper person I've seen so far today…
Jamie: Well, don't speak too soon, there's some outfits here! Thanks very much, but if I was you, I'd hedge my bets, because there are some people walking around that have got an edge I reckon!
The Punk Archive: But is that uniqueness, or is that dapper-ness, that's the question…
Jamie: Yeah, I don't know, how do you quantify dapposity?!
The Punk Archive: Tell us a bit about the solo career. Obviously there's a real mix of styles in there. You've got the more folky, acoustic stuff, combined with the heavier, more screamo stuff…
Jamie: Well, just because of the way I usually write music, and when I was in my old band, we'd do the heavy bit and the soft bit in the same song, and obviously the records would go woooaahh… wait, it's an audio interview, you can't see that… so… (describing movement) "makes sign of mountain". So, some people have said that's good, and all my favourite albums were the really varied albums. People would say, though, whether we'd thought about doing albums more like one vibe. Some of my friends, and Baddies, for example, brought out the one record which was half an hour of power, all bosh-bash, and I thought there was some merit in that. So I thought that maybe I could split the two halves, have two discs that were a narrower vibe as it were, not necessarily such a rollercoaster. I still like writing heavy and writing soft, so the only choice was to separate them and do a disc of each.
The Punk Archive: It's almost a bit purer, almost distilled into each disc…
Jamie: That’s what I tried for. In the end it still came out a bit mountain–rangey, but that was the idea.
The Punk Archive: So how's it been going down with your fans? You've got some big live shows booked in…
Jamie: Yeah, we're doing three more shows. We did a tour in December, a week's tour, which is about as much as I can manage these days, I'm 31 for Christ's sake… And then we've got three more shows in April. I'm really excited about that because we're going to have a horn section…you'll know all about that, because you [The Punk Archive] cover ska!
The Punk Archive: We know all about horn sections!
Jamie: In fact, the horn section is from a band called Jesse James, do you remember Jesse James? The trumpet and saxophone from Jesse James are playing with me, which is nice. It's gone down really well. The record's gone down really great with fans of my previous work, and also I think I've met or even heard of a few people who have come to it new, which is even more exciting…not that I don't value the support of (I don't like the word fans), but my enthusiasts…
The Punk Archive: So you've just released a double video for It's Hard To Be A Gentleman / All The Things You Hate About Me, I Hate Them Too…
Jamie: I thought it would be better, because of the dual nature of the record, to release double A-sides.
The Punk Archive: And that's gone down well, too?
Jamie: Yeah, it has. To see them both together, juxtaposed, creates an impact and gets people talking. You want people to go “oh, what's this?” and you want them to be interested, so I think that was the best way to do it. If I'd have released them songs on their own, I'm sure people would have said “oh that's a good song”, but it perhaps wouldn't have stuck in their mind so much.
The Punk Archive: You're good friends with Frank Turner. Is there going to be any collaboration in the future?
Jamie: Well, in terms of collaboration, we probably won't do a movie together… but we're always singing songs together, he came down to a show I was doing and we sang a little song together! I dunno, Frank and I will always hang out and sing songs together. Whether that happens in an official capacity is another matter. I'll certainly see Frank and sing a song with him, there just might not be anyone else there!
The Punk Archive: So what about the rest of the year? You've got the three shows…
Jamie: After that, more festivals! I've sort of been encouraged, shall we say, by my agent and my record label, to do more of these festivals. I don't know if I've mentioned, but I find playing live quite stressful, so the performance is always a little bit tense for me. But I've got some good festivals on the roster. I was particularly pleased…well, I'm pleased to do Takedown, because they're the first people that asked, which is nice, and they've got loads of really good bands, and then 2000 Trees…that's nice, because I know the fellas that run that, they're really sweet guys. Then I think there's a few more on the horizon. To be honest, if I'm going to do a festival, there's got to be a reason other than it's just a festival, you know? There are hundreds of festivals. If you were a gigging band, you could do tens, if not hundreds of festivals before the autumn comes round. For me, though, there's got to be some kind of personal connection…. Or a fucking huge amount of cash! One or the other! So that's what I'm going to be doing until August, really.
The Punk Archive: You mentioned you're a bit of a nervous performer. Talk us through that a bit more?
Jamie: I think it's good to stay nervous. By the time you walk on stage and it ain't no thing, you've lost something, really. That knife edge where you don't know what's going to happen, are you going to make it to the end of the song, or are you going to explode, that sort of makes it worth doing! And it's funny, because I dread it when I'm going to do it, then when I'm onstage, I feel great, honestly. Then immediately afterwards, I never want to do it again! It's a funny cycle, the only time I actually enjoy it is for that brief moment, and it goes by so fast! So if you see me smiling and having a good time on stage, I'm not pretending, I am actually enjoying that moment, but the lead-up is agonising! Playing the kind of music that I do (and a lot of these other bands here are much better at it), I'm not a particularly gifted musician. I try and write this technical stuff and it's kinda punching above my weight, both in terms of playing the instrument, but also singing. Again, I think this is a good thing, you should punch above your weight, but it does mean you have that risk of intense failure!
The Punk Archive: But it's always worth the risk, I'm sure!
Jamie: Well, that's the idea!
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