“It’s coming home to myself”: James Bay on Achieving True Musical Freedom With His Fourth Album ‘Changes All the Time’

Singer/songwriter James Bay explains why his fourth album ‘Changes All the Time’ is his first taste of “true musical freedom,” how he came home to himself with these new songs, and shares his biggest takeaways from ten years as a professional recording artist in a candid, intimate interview with Atwood Magazine.

‘Changes All the Time’ – James Bay

I wanted amps to be buzzing and hissing, guitars to be crackling and plugged in, and I wanted to be tripping over instruments throughout the room. And all of that happened!

James Bay can’t help but crack a smile as he talks about making his fourth album.

And why shouldn’t he? After a decade in the music industry, he finally made a record the way he’d always dreamed of doing it: Surrounded by friends, instruments, and amplifiers, capturing the electricity in the room in real time. Never mind that they just so happened to be at one of London’s legendary recording studios, and never mind that these songs happen to be some of the strongest of his career; for Bay, it’s the memories of being in that physical and metaphorical creative space that will forever burn the brightest. It’s those moments of human connection, of creation, and of what he calls “true musical freedom,” that make it all worthwhile.

We used to jump the fence,
now we both think twice
We used to make up games,
now we just make nice
Lately, I just can’t tell you
what I would give
Just to see you

I know that I’ve been distant
and damn near dust
I know a place exists
that was made for us
I’m standing in the hallway nervous,
Just to see you

Pull up at my place, knock on my door
I’ll say, “I’m sorry,” you’ll say, “What for?”
For letting this happen, for letting you go
You’re all that I had
And now it’s starting to show

– “Easy Distraction,” James Bay

Released October 4^th, 2024 via Mercury Records, Changes All the Time is a captivating reintroduction to James Bay the guitarist, James Bay the singer, James Bay the songwriter, and James Bay the person. It’s the artist at his most authentic and unfiltered, coming home to himself by doing what he wants to do and making the music he wants to make, more or less without an audience in mind. Recording together with producer Gabe Simon (Noah Kahan, Koe Wetzel, Maren Morris) and longtime members of his touring band, Bay reached higher than he ever had before, pushing beyond boundaries “that had existed for me and by me” and letting his own inner light shine.

“One of the huge parts of me as a musician and as a human being is being a guitar player,” Bay tells Atwood Magazine. “I felt more at home and excited and comfortable at the same time with my fifth limb on this record than I ever have before. I never needed or wanted it to be a record of 20 minute long shredding guitar solos; I’ll do that stuff in my spare time and have a blast, and I might even bring that kind of energy to the stage sometimes! But while I don’t need an album to be full of massive riffs and guitar solos, there are absolutely riffs and guitar solos on this album; that’s a huge part of who I am as a musician and an artist, deep down and more at the surface than ever before.”

Roaring with raw passion, Changes All the Time is an undeniable triumph of the heart and soul.

Arriving two long years after his acclaimed third LP LEAP (which Atwood Magazine praised as “Bay’s purest, most powerful, and fully realized album yet”), the singer/songwriter’s fourth record masterfully combines his charming, vulnerable lyricism with an irresistible, radiant kinetic energy. It’s an uplifting, inspiring, and spirited collection of songs that hit hard and leave a lasting mark as Bay explores the world of his mid-30s, reflecting on life as a new father, as a husband whose job often takes him away from his family for weeks at a time, and as a human just trying to navigate the seemingly endless chaos and turmoil of the 2020s.

“It’s a terrifying truth,” Bay says of the album’s title. “But if changes are always going to happen, whether I like it or not, whether I can control them or not, then I need to work out a way to deal with that. And one of the great medicines and the great therapy for me is writing songs. So in a way I’m not writing on this record about anything that’s particularly new; I’m different to who I was certainly on my first record. I’m 34 and I’m a dad, and I’m grappling with them in a whole new way in that respect. And so to call it Changes All the Time, so as to remind myself constantly that that is a truth I cannot argue with, is in its way a therapy that I always need.”

Memorable moments abound on Bay’s most unapologetic, uncompromising, and untethered record yet – starting with the album’s opener “Up All Night,” a catchy, cathartic singalong featuring his folk rock friends The Lumineers and Noah Kahan. “Let’s talk about dreams, let’s talk about life, let’s talk about all the things that keep us up all night,” Bay and co. sing in the track’s jangling chorus, instantly creating a space for shared connection and self-expression. That revelry runs right into the achingly intimate love song “Everburn” and the emotionally charged optimistic power-ballad “Hope,” a song that fills the air with light, love, and possibility.

The rip-roaring, larger-than-life anthem “Easy Distraction” is one of Changes All the Time‘s brightest and boldest moments, and also one of its coolest stories: Bay wrote the song in Utah with his own childhood heroes, The Killers’ Brandon Flowers and Ronnie Vannucci Jr. (there’s even an unreleased demo version with Flowers’ vocals on the bridge).

The album’s other notable co-write brings it to a close in a breathtaking blaze of glory; a collaboration with Holly Humberstone, the soul-stirring “Dogfight” aches from the inside out as Bay wrestles with anxiety, ultimately coming out on top, declaring, “I’m not losing me… It’s gonna be alright.”

This time
I’m not waiting for another red light
I’m not gonna be someone I don’t like
Like I’m used to being
Hell, it’s been rough
It’s been a dogfight
There’s someone in the mirror
that I don’t recognise
He’s kinda familiar, but he’s lost
And this time
I’m not losing me
Oh, I’m not losing me

– “Dogfight,” James Bay

Atwood Magazine recently caught up with James Bay for a candid, in-depth conversation about making his fourth studio album.

Dive into the beautiful depths of Changes All the Time in our interview below as Bay discusses his first taste of “true musical freedom,” how he came home to himself with these songs, and his biggest takeaways from ten years as a professional recording artist.

“It’s not supposed to be easy, is what I’ve taken away,” Bay shares. “No matter how long you do this for, I don’t think it’s supposed to get easier. I think it’s supposed to stay hard, because that’s nourishing.”

“What do I want people to take away from it? I always say I want people to be moved. I want them to feel things, and I hope it will help them find courage. I think I go to music for that, for therapy and courage.”

Changes All the Time is out now on Mercury Records!

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:: stream/purchase Changes All the Time here ::

:: connect with James Bay here ::

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Stream: “Up All Night” – James Bay

A CONVERSATION WITH JAMES BAY

James Bay: Well, it was a unique version of ambition on this occasion. We’d gone through the absolute rollercoaster that was making and releasing the third record. And after that had happened, I got to do a lot of touring. Our daughter, Ada, was born effectively in the pandemic, which is a wild ride in itself. So as the world stopped spinning quite so fast, my life took a better shape again, like everybody else’s lives started to do as they came through the pandemic. And with that in mind, I did a bunch of writing, of course, and I thought, “I’m really going to have the kind of say I want to have in how this record is made.”

Because on my first record, I didn’t know anything about how to do it, and I fell into those circumstances with ambition to make my first record, but also just hoping anybody would want to work with me. The second record was a very fun and very different experience. I think everyone’s second record is in some part a massive reaction to their first record, how they made it, and how it went down and everything. My third record, of course, that whole journey was turned on its head.

So on Changes All the Time, I’d met a guy called Gabe Simon, who has become a bit of a brother and a really good friend and a great collaborator. I met him in 2021 on Zoom. We did some collaborating like that. In 2022, he came to the UK, and he kept coming back, and we would write and we would record and demo and hang and all this stuff, and we developed a beautiful relationship. By the top of 2023, he called me and said, “I would love to just live somewhere for a few weeks and make a record.” He didn’t know anything about whether I had any plans for my fourth record, but he was putting his hand up; he was throwing his hat in the ring, and that investment is just gold dust. You can’t buy that, when somebody wants to invest so much. So between me knowing literally, I mean this very literally, guitar-in-hand, how I wanted to make a record more than ever before, and having Gabe at my side, I was very excited to make Changes All the Time without knowing exactly how it was going to go down and what it was gonna become – in broad terms, basic terms, and even particular terms.

We booked RAK studio in St. John’s Wood in London. It’s right around the corner, and with all respect secondary, but very important and historic to the great Abbey Road. But Abbey Road, it’s too expensive for The Rolling Stones at this point; with all respect, it’s an unbelievable house of history and so wonderful, but just a different place to go to, to make a record. RAK is this beautiful, historic, brilliant old-school building. We went into Big Studio One, and I brought my touring band in for the first time ever, which was a lot of fun to do, because I already know those people outside of the studio, and I’ve always enjoyed working with musicians that I haven’t toured with. But on this occasion, it was finally time. So it was fun to bring the guys in, and we really hunkered down for nearly four weeks. Gabe got incense burning and fairy lights flickering and fresh flowers coming in and out for us to really embrace a vibe that we had shared as a two for recording music, whatever it sounded like.

I wanted amps to be buzzing and hissing, guitars to be crackling and plugged in, and I wanted to be tripping over instruments throughout the room. And all of that happened! It was really, really wonderful… Call me old school, call me traditionalist, or whatever. It was a real proper making-a-record scenario. And it takes so much out of you. And it did to me, it took a lot to give myself to the process, because it’s never a small deal for me. But I loved it. I loved it even when it was so hard, and sometimes it was so hard, emotionally, lyrically, all that stuff, but I really loved it.

James Bay: Yeah, more or less. Sometimes no, because it just was better to not do that. But most of the time we at least started that way pretty much every time. So that intention was a big part of the backbone of the record, and actually doing it is a big part of the record. Many of the songs are tracked live. The extreme of that is “Speed Limit,” which I had an appointment to get to after lunchtime on this Wednesday or whatever it was. So getting in that morning, Gabe and I agreed that we wanted to tackle “Speed Limit.” Okay, well, let’s get a scratch version down. We’ll choose a tempo, not knowing how fast or slow we want it to be. I’ll sit down with a guitar plugged in and a microphone. And Gabe, you sit on a drum kit and we’ll just feel our way through what we want this song to do. And it’ll be a scratch vocal, scratch guitar, scratch drums, and we’ll add the other bits, but we’ll just, and it was one of many beautiful, like epitomes of mine and Gabe’s working together. So we pressed record and a version went down and I left for the purposes. And I’m terrible with this, but for the purposes of capturing content, which is the constant need… I left my phone running videoing with both Gabe and I in shot.

Gabe’s through the glass, so you can’t really hear him playing but you can hear me singing and playing guitar. And we got one version, one scratch version. I left for my appointment and I came back afterwards thinking, we’ll do 10 takes, maybe we’ll do 20 and we’ll find our way into this. And he was adamant, he was absolutely adamant, and I couldn’t deny him this because it did feel great that we had the take. And therefore when we talk about tracking live and all of that stuff, that wasn’t the full band on that occasion. But “Speed Limit” has only ever existed as one take. And I have it videoed on my phone as well. And it’s also lovely proof when we tell people that Gabe wanted a light drum sound, that he used chopsticks from a Chinese takeout that we’d had. We have even got a visual of Gabe doing that. But yeah, that was a really, really, really live experience.

But then “Dogfight,” we really played it as a band and I can vaguely remember once the song had finished, Gabe going like, counting the band three, four, now just play quietly on those chords. And there’s this super spooky and beautiful little 16 bar run of extra music at the very, very end of the record, at the very, very end of “Dogfight.” And I’ll remember sitting in my little corner booth with my guitar on, and he was kinda like, “James, don’t play like just the band.” And they played it round and I could have cried it was just so eerie. And like everything I wanted to feel… The electricity in the air is like, for the first time in my career is like every wonderful story I’ve ever read about bands in the ’60s and the ’70s and the ’80s. Really just being in the studio together and doing it like that together, it’s very human and thus becomes this superhuman experience.

James Bay: It’s a romanticized description, and it should be, because there is something romantic, very romantic about it, which is why I went after it. But what I really love about it is how difficult it can get. We were in London – tight, little busy London city. I would be drawn to doing that kind of thing, of bringing a group of musicians and a producer out into the countryside or the woods or whatever. It’s a different version, in a way, of what I’ve just done. I’ve done the city version of it and really enjoyed it because of the friction and the electricity between – the magnetism between people in this certain space. I really enjoyed doing it a lot, and would absolutely plan to do it again. It’s the busiest and most hectic, but sometimes you need constant interruption or interaction to get the best, because too much time to think once you have the tools with you and the songs ready, too much time to think, too much space, too much calm, it can be unhelpful.

Gabe and I, by the way, one of the things I pride myself on, and I pride our relationship on, is our ability to agree, but disagree. If you can disagree with somebody and work with them still, then you’ve really got something. And that’s one of the things I adore about my relationship with Gabe is our ability to say, “Nah, I’m not sure,” and to push each other and challenge. I think that’s good stuff.

James Bay: Yeah. With that in mind, of course writing with Brandon Flowers, writing with Holly Humberstone, like these types of experiences, it’s a privilege to be able to interact with them in that capacity as a fan and as a disciple and as a student. Definitely a student of Brandon, but absolutely a student of Holly. It doesn’t matter that she’s however much younger and newer to all of this than I am, she’s profound in her own way. I say that as a fan and as a contemporary, and therefore there’s so much for me to learn. And that’s why I don’t wanna get around these types of writers as well as the brilliant writers that I work with more often. I mean look, there’s those experiences which we can talk much more about, but like also making this record. So making this record was such a fluid and live and in the moment experience that Gabe was able to push me to a place where I found the courage to… And I say this with the caveat that being in a studio was so expensive and like terrifying.

And that’s why people pick their songs and make sure they’ve decided on them and get them recorded in the time that they’ve paid for in the studio. But Gabe said, “Well, if we wanna write, if we feel a thing and we wanna write about it, can we just try? It only takes maybe half an hour to three hours out of our day.” And that birthed “Up All Night” and that birthed “Talk” and it birthed “Some People.” These are three songs that didn’t exist before we went to the studio. And we probably had seven or eight more songs that didn’t get finished while we were in the studio, and we still got 11 songs recorded. So that’s credit to my relationship with Gabe again and writing and recording with him. But the pinch myself experience of writing with Brandon Flowers is still intensely like with me. And because he, of course, is a hero. And in his own right, a legend, he might not be as old as the absolutes, the legendary Springsteen’s and the legendary McCartney’s and Joni Mitchell’s and Carole King’s of this world. But doesn’t matter. He has earned that status as far as his songwriting is concerned.

So to share that space with him and bring an idea that he thought was good enough for us to flesh out and then go on to complete and that become easy distraction it’s really, really, really wonderful. And then Holly was a really wonderful, we started in such a, it felt in a different way, a neutral beginning it was the first time, even though we have a lot of mutual friends and like colleagues and stuff we’d first met when we got together to write. And we just wanted from a greater distance to explore it and try it for quite a long time mutually. So it was nice when it finally happened. And I do still plan to do, I hope to do more with her, but I’m such a fan of hers, and it was so cool how Holly Humberstone, the artists came through in my writing with her, me being a fan of hers. And then you’ve got we wrote, so “Up All Night” like I say, me and Gabe wrote that with our lovely engineer Mark. Mark brought and engineered our record, also lent himself to playing quite a lot of piano ’cause he’s very good at doing that. And he finished a take on a song, I can’t remember which song. And he got up from the piano and as musicians do on their instruments he kind of and this is not a piano, but he kind of finished his take, kicked his stool back, noodled some sort of thing.

And I went, “Mark, what’s that? That was cool.” And he said, “What?” I said, “The thing you just did.” And I picked up the guitar that was near me. I said, it still sounded and so he carried on with it. And three hours later, we’d written “Up All Night” thanks to Mark. So and then, sorry. I was gonna say, and that was Mark’s first professional writing credit. And I was gonna say, bringing Noah and the Lumineers onto that was a great idea of Gabe’s and it was all about everybody. We share communities as artists, the Lumineers, Noah, and me. And like Gabe recognizes the importance of promoting that and saying we share a fan base in some capacities. Noah used to open for me on tour. He invited me back out this year to open for him. I’ve spent two summers, 2022 and 2023 opening for The Lumineers. And I spent every night joining them on stage across what was probably 50, 60 shows in total, maybe more, over those years. So to call those guys and say, “We’ve written a pretty fun uptempo song, sounds a bit like a party. Do you wanna get involved?” And they both were just ready to go, which was really, really nice.

James Bay: Yeah, and with that vulnerability she’s so good at – there’s a British brutality. Hell, it resonates for me. I love and hate to say that, but it’s the truth. Let’s choose, like The Smiths or Morrisseys, or one of those bands, it’s so brutal in its lyrics, The Cure, bands like that, boy does it resonate, and I’m very drawn to that. Holly really helped me exercise some feelings and emotional struggles and obstacles that I needed to, and for all the things I was trying to say, I know I would’ve led that songwriting to a pretty heavy degree, but the concept of it feeling like a dogfight, I quite vividly remember that coming from Holly and her doing that, “Yeah it’s been rough. It’s been a dogfight.” But around that, all the lyrics around that part of the chorus, I remember them really dripping, falling out of me in a “wow, I really feel this and I need to express this” kind of way.

But then interestingly as well, for what it’s worth, this is where it’s been such a fluid experience. There’s a section at the end of “Dogfight” – “it’s gonna be all right,” that bit, that goes ‘round and ‘round. I’d had that for about maybe a year or more. It was something that I wrote at home on my own, and I shopped it around, trying to attach it to something… I’d written most of a song out of that part, and I ditched the rest of the song, ‘cause I never thought that was quite good enough. So I shopped that part ‘round to different co-writes, and it never worked very well.

So we had “Dogfight” – and by the way, the “Dogfight” that you’ve heard is the second attempt. We had a first, that was way up-tempo. It was really cool and good, but not ‘wow’ – it didn’t move me enough. So we ditched that and then we recorded “Dogfight” as you hear it on this record. And then as the song finished doing that, “This time I’m used to being,” and all of that stuff, “I’m not losing me,” it was very, very natural, very effortless and a really serendipitous moment when I looked at Gabe and I said, “Oh, I’ve got this bit.” I felt straight back – “it’s gonna be all right.” This kind of prayer, and hymn and all that, that’s a slightly gospel influence. To bring Brandon back into it very quickly, I credit him inspiring me since I was 15 to write sections like that, because he wrote the “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier” section of “All These Things That I’ve Done.” I love that section. That section of that song is one of the biggest influences on me, and on all my songwriting.

James Bay: Good question. We went into the session. So, Brandon, we have a mutual friend, and Brandon said to that mutual friend of ours, “All these young songwriters why don’t they wanna write with me? I wanna get involved.” And I heard this story from my mutual friend, and I said, “Yo, sign me up. Literally, where do I sign?”

So he got it together for us, and I went to see Brandon and Ronnie. They made a studio out of a ski lodge in Park City in Utah where they were living at the time. It was so much snow. But I got out there and I went prepared as prepared as I could. There was no intention as far as like who we were writing for. It was let’s see ’cause we’d not met before. But, I’d heard that Brandon was a bit of a fan of “Hold Back the River.” And he told me when we got together, he said in 2015, that was the song of the year for us. We just loved hearing “Hold Back the River” everywhere we went. And I was pinching myself as he was talking and, but I went with this song, oh, I went with this idea… I think that’s what I went with, that melody.

And he liked it. I presented it. You try and go with something it’s like arriving to, as a house guest and like you bring flowers, you bring something. And that’s generally what you do in a writing session, because otherwise I was of course willing to to start from scratch and stuff. And we tried that a few times and it was always back the day to watching be completely prolific. And I’d love to do it again, by the way ’cause I’ve had that taste and we’ve broken the ice. But I went with that idea and we fleshed it out and it went on to become “Easy Distraction.” But in the first moments of actually writing it, once we put lyrics to that.

“We used to jump the fence now we both think twice,” all that stuff. I remember a couple hours into the first day we were listening back, and I’ve told this story a few times now, that melody, as he was listening to a scratchy demo of me singing it back through the speakers of the studio we were in. He looked across at Ronnie or one of the other guys in the room, and he went, “Wow, listen to that.” Watching Brandon Flowers speak is like watching a hero in a Western or something. He said, “Listen to that, sounds like the Beatles or something. It’s incredible.” And I thought, this is Brandon Flowers, referencing a thing I’ve come up with in my little brain, and feeling as though it sounds like the Beatles; not just The Strokes, no disrespect, but the Beatles. So that’s what it was like writing the song, and actually on the demo, I hope we can dig this up one day, Brandon sings the bridge on the demo. I hope we can dig it up and put it out one day. He sings the bridge on the demo, and it’s very Brandon Flowers and I’m a huge fan of that. So it was really cool.

James Bay: Great question – and I enjoyed saying it, considering even briefly that it might cause a reaction. In any relationship, there’s compromise. Compromise is vital. Compromise is a huge ingredient in collaboration. And I started making records in 2013 professionally, but obviously I’d been doing it for years before as a kid with my friends, making crappy demos and this and that, and collaborating. True musical freedom doesn’t mean doing something without the help of others or on my own. More importantly, it means just feeling limitless and completely adoring the process. And with the help of Gabe, this record was the first time that I really felt like I got a really true and substantial taste of what it’s like to go, “This is just who I am, whether anybody likes it or not.” And there’s supposed to be defiance in that.

Here’s an example. I like to play guitar solos and riffs. And I used to, as a kid, I would stay up doing that late into the night. When I started to get in front of an audience as a solo artist in any capacity, I had to understand, and I wanted to also enjoy the fact that people wanted to hear me sing lyrics, and they wanted to hear my voice – and they didn’t necessarily want to hear me solo for 25 minutes. They didn’t wanna hear me just play guitar solos for ages. So compromise is important there. If I want to maintain a career, this record has a lot of really wonderful, well-crafted guitar solos in it – more than I’ve ever put on a record before; hallelujah! Like, that’s some of the true musical freedom that I’ve reached on this record that I haven’t reached before. Despite having wonderful experiences making all this, all the records I’ve made previously. And I’m okay with how they sound and how I made them, and who I was in the process of making them. This time I wanted to reach higher, beyond those boundaries that had existed for me and by me in the past.

Gabe really helped me do that. We made a pretty good observation of the best guitar solos to use them still as the example in part of musical freedom. And the best guitar solos, you can sing them back. They’re hooky. And so we tried to do that more on this, and “Up All Night” is a fine example of that – it’s nice to incorporate a hooky element to them. But I think who I’ve presented myself as a musician and a songwriter and a singer, but as a musician on this record, that’s why I say I feel like I’ve reached a higher sense of musical freedom than I’ve ever known before.

James Bay: Yeah, and I like where I’ve got to on past records with creating the music I want to create, versus the music audiences want to hear. On my second record, I just made what I wanted to make, and I didn’t really think about what the audience wanted at all, and I was all about that. But I found a new, mature place with all of it, and I’m really proud of that.

I feel like I’ve reached a higher sense of musical freedom than I’ve ever known before.

James Bay: It’s the second one. Not that my debut record isn’t important and a representation of me, but it’s also only a small representation of the broad scope of who I really am. And one of the huge parts of me as a musician and as a human being is a guitar player. So I’ve moved away from and around the guitar. It’s never been gone in my music; it’s a central part, but I felt more at home and excited and comfortable at the same time with my fifth limb on this record than I ever have before. I never needed or wanted it to be a record of 20 minute long shredding guitar solos; I’ll do that stuff in my spare time and have a blast. And I might even bring that kind of energy to the stage in part sometimes, as you’ve seen. I’ll extend sections and I’ll play solos for a while and express myself in that way, because I love it, and I think it belongs in my live show, which I’m proud to say.

But while I don’t need an album to be full of massive riffs and guitar solos, there are absolutely riffs and guitar solos on this album. That’s a huge part of who I am as a musician and an artist, deep down and more at the surface than ever before. So that’s the “coming home” thing. It’s coming home to myself, which I’m still on a huge journey with; I think lots of people are – we’re all a work in progress, but I’m into this.

James Bay: It’s a terrifying truth, and that emotionally is important in everybody’s life, I think. But it drives me to write if changes are always going to happen, whether I like it or not, whether I can control them or not, then I need to work out a way to deal with that. And one of the great medicines and the great therapy for me is writing songs. So in a way I’m not writing on this record about anything that’s particularly new. I’m different to who I was certainly on my first record. I’m 34 and I’m a dad, and I’m grappling with them in a whole new way in that respect. And so to call it Changes All the Time, so as to remind myself constantly that that is a truth I cannot argue with, is in its way a therapy that I always need. It’s very real. [laughs]

James Bay: That’s fine to me. Yeah, it’s probably supposed to.

James Bay: So many, so many. “Speed Limit” is a big one. And that is my wife Lucy singing harmonies on the choruses, which is long overdue, and it’s really wonderful to have that and have her there. Man, there’s so many… “Hopeless Heart.” Since the day I wrote it, I’ve dreamed about the sun setting and me playing that on stage at some festival in America, in my mind, because America do a festival very well, and I just love it. I don’t know. I love the energy of that song.

James Bay: Oh, wow, absolutely. “Some People” is one of my favorites. Even just the chorus, there’s a lot of great lyrics in the verses… “There’s some people, some people, some people they need to shout to some people, some people they need to sleep. Some people, some people, they’ve gotta wonder,” like that’s three very intimate, very different types of persons, but one person could be all three of those. And then that constant pursuit for connection at the end. “I was blind to you, but now I see.” I like the way that those words can be interpreted in a lot of different ways, but they all move towards connection. Human connection is important.

True musical freedom doesn’t mean doing something without the help of others or on my own. More importantly, it means just feeling limitless and completely adoring the process.

James Bay: Wow, great question. I feel I’ve grown. To answer the first part, I want to say I feel I’ve grown in so many ways, but I also know nothing. And I think it’s the reason why I say, it’s not supposed to be a cop out; I think it’s supposed to go that way. It’s a pop industry. How can you stay up to speed with how it moves and changes?

I think as I’m stating on this album, I’m not great with change, so I’m trying to accept that it just happens. So, there’s that on the one hand. On the other hand, my takeaways are things that I was told in the beginning that I still wrestle with and have wrestled with since, but I will now say them myself, which is, do what you want to do. Nobody is going to become some great big fan of you doing (A) what you think somebody else wants you to do, or (B) an impression of something that you’ve already heard. If you’re going to do an impression of something, even in any small part, own it so much that you are at the very least, a bad impression, because from that bad impression of something that you love artistically, you will stumble upon actual originality and uniqueness. And so don’t be afraid of that.

And don’t be afraid of who you are. We’re all out there on social media, trying to be a version of something we’ve seen or consumed. It’s only human to want to connect in that way. But don’t let that devalue you, who you are, and your originality. I preach these words not as a great practitioner of them; I preach those words not as somebody who’s perfect at carrying them out, but I recognize after 10 years that they’re very, very important, and they will continue to be however I handle them. That doesn’t go away.

James Bay: Man, you took the words out my mouth because 10 years, I’m proud that it feels on the one hand like a long time, but I’m really proud that I’ll start to feel like I’ve been doing this for a while if I get to 40 years.

James Bay: Me right now.

James Bay: It’s not supposed to be easy, is what I’ve taken away. No matter how long you do this for, and this has significance to the 10 years there. I don’t think it’s supposed to get easier. I think it’s supposed to stay hard, because that’s nourishing. And what do I want people to take away from it? I always say I want people to be moved. I want them to feel things and I want them to… I hope it will help them find courage. I hope it’ll help them find courage. I think I go to music for that, for therapy and courage.

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