The last 2 years have been turbulent for the music industry, and especially so for emerging artists like Jamie Webster who released his debut album in the summer of 2020 and has only just got the opportunity to play it live a year later.
Jamie refused to let lockdown halt his plans to conquer the UK; his phenomenal debut record We Get By scored a UK Official Albums Chart Top Ten and his following has continued to grow. In August Jamie kicked off his highly anticipated 15 date tour, starting out in Newquay and ending with 3 huge homecoming dates in Liverpool. Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve probably seen the videos of Jamie’s chaotic gigs circulating on social media showing hundreds of fans chanting ‘Fuck the Tories’. The reception and atmosphere at the shows seems to have been on a whole other level.
Jamie was kind enough to take some time out of his busy schedule for a catch up so keep reading to hear about his experiences returning to live music and everything you need to know about the new album!
Where are you calling from today?
I’m in Manchester today! We’re on the home straight now so we have Manchester, then three shows in Liverpool on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It’s been an unbelievable first UK tour to be honest. Every show has been absolute chaos; they’ve been sell-outs so it’s been unbelievable and there hasn’t been anyone holding back in any way.
How have you found the return to live performance?
I’ve put my trust in science and everyone in the venue has to provide some sort of proof. For me it’s just business as usual, going up there and enjoying myself and having the fans enjoy themselves. I’m still meeting fans before and after gigs and I’m still going into the crowd for certain songs, so for me it’s just been a welcome return to live performance.
There’s been no sort of obstacles aside from the Dublin gig getting pulled because of Ireland announcing new restrictions, that is the only thing that has halted the tour. It’s been smooth sailing and the gigs have just blown me away. I’d never been to many of these cities before so playing night after night with all these people singing my songs back to me, getting involved in what I’m about and shouting ‘fuck the Tories’ here there and everywhere has been great!
How has the live reception been in Scotland and other cities across the UK?
To be honest Glasgow blew my mind. I couldn’t pick a favourite, but I think out of all of them Glasgow was the most chaotic in terms of the crowd, it was just unbelievable. I’ve never seen a crowd that up for it in the early stages of a gig it was just amazing. They didn’t drop off; they just got bigger and wilder as the night went on, it was my first time playing in Glasgow and it was a welcomed visit, I loved every second of it. ‘Weekend In Paradise’ was one of the most standout moments of the tour just because of the crowd, everyone was swimming, that is the only way I can describe it. Glasgow has always felt quite similar to Liverpool, so I knew I wanted to start my tour there because it’s sort of a home away from home in terms of the way the city is and the way the people are.
After that show we were all on a high for the next gig which didn’t disappoint. It’s been a surreal experience that’s flown by, but it’s been hard work at the same time. The playing is the easy part for me, and I love every second but it’s the maintaining your voice and your health, the late nights, and early mornings and all that sort of stuff that’s the challenging part for me. Thankfully, I’ve got through it so far and I feel in good shape today, my voice feels good, and I haven’t had an off night with the vocals which was a concern of mine.
What’s been the best part about the tour so far?
I suppose it’s that same moment of walking onstage and seeing the faces in the crowd every night. One of the best ones in terms of surprises was London, people say the further south you go, when you get to London, the crowds can be flat. But hearing the cockney accents singing ‘fuck the Tories’; that was such a nice feeling because we were in the capital, a stone’s throw away from where the Tories are, making noise in their backyard was just a nice feeling that in didn’t think would be as prominent as it was on the night. That night a lot of the new album releases went down like a house on fire in London, more so than anywhere else.
In January you’re set to release your second album and after having an early listen I can confirm fans are going to be blown away! Was the writing and recording process any different this time around?
This time around was a little bit different; I think the first album a lot of the time particularly with the singles I had acoustic versions of the songs and I’d go in with the producer Richard and we’d build on it with his opinions, and a lot of the time I’d go with them because I was so inexperienced. I learned an awful lot from Rich and he’d tell you likewise, they were my songs and there were no changes to the arrangements and stuff but the way that it went it was directed towards radio play, I was happy to trust the producer and just learn how the studio works basically because before my debut album I had no experience with any studio. This time around I suppose I wrote the songs in the same way, a bit old school, I’d sit there with an acoustic guitar and there were a few I built on garage band and logic myself on my laptop at home, but by and large I just tend to sit there with my guitar and write.
I get some chords together and some melodies and try them out; that process has never changed, but in the studio this time I demoed them with my band. I’d record the song and play it for them, telling them my ideas around it and they’d do their thing, or we’d sit together and work out which one are best. I only demoed the ones that were worthy of the album, so when we knew which 12 would be on the album I went to the label with them, I expressed that I didn’t want to do a residential and I didn’t want to be in the city studio one day and then three weeks later go in for another day, I just wanted to take time and focus on it so we decided to go to Rockfield studios. It’s an iconic studio where Oasis recorded their second album, Paolo Nutini has recorded there, that’s where I wanted to go.
You worked with Dave Eringa this time around at the legendary Rockfield Studios in Wales, how was that experience?
This producer I worked with has been big with the Manic Street Preachers throughout their career, he’s worked with Tom Jones, The Who, he’s a top producer. He didn’t change any arrangements in the songs or anything because he felt my song writing didn’t need it, it just needed some fresh air. I was so confident in myself and the band that I’ve got with me that the process was we just sat there and played in a room together for 3 weeks and knocked out the album. We put my vocals on top of it, and we got a string quartet in for ‘North end Kid’ and ‘Davey Kane’; it just became a much more enjoyable way, for me, of doing the album.
I got an unbelievable outcome at the end of the day because I had an unbelievable engineer and an unbelievable producer. He was so dedicated he came down for a few days to Liverpool to watch us play, he just sat with us whilst we rehearsed these songs. We were going to do a 10-track album, but he gave us some points to think about before Rockfield so when we got there it just went full circle really. I think it just speaks for itself being on a farm in South Wales with nothing but a studio to occupy yourself with, it shows in the album and how big it sounds compared to the first album.
Did you find any new people or places you gathered inspiration from this time around?
Lockdown was obviously a time for everyone to find things that they haven’t found before because they had the time to; I started listening to a lot more West Coast type of stuff, a lot more psychedelic music, I delved into more of Pink Floyd’s back albums, a lot of Arctic Monkeys like ‘Tranquillity Base Hotel and Casino’, the Talking Heads were a massive driving force over lockdown for me which is why I’ve done that recent cover with Brooke Combe. I listened to a lot of George Harrison and The Beatles back catalogues, I suppose I was in a certain headspace, and I just felt like writing songs that are a bit eerie and dreamy, relatable stories. In the demo studio I almost wanted it to be like 505 on acid- a bit scary and a bit ghostly. Once you get in a studio with someone like Dave Enigra, he just knows, and he nailed it. It was quite fun to just experiment with that in the studio and just sort of make noises with your mouth in tone but not really saying anything, reaching up to a shout. It was fun and it’s not a way that I’d worked before, it was nice to have a producer who trusts you and we just clicked.
That’s not to take away from the first two producers, they are both unbelievable and they get number 1’s like every year, I learned so much from them and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to work with them; but when I got in the room with Dave we just clicked. We really understand each other, and we’ve got the right level of trust in each other to take on ideas and bounce off each other. It was just an unbelievable couple of weeks and we’re friends for life now. He was at my gig in London and it was lovely, I’ve been down and stayed with him and his Mrs and his son.
I feel very luck to have been able to A- record an album in lockdown and B- do it with Dave Enigra. I think when you listen to it as a full body of work it makes a lot more sense. My song writing has evolved, my playing has evolved and the direction is evolving, too. I’m still true to everything that I always have been in what I’m writing about.
‘Moments’ is a lyrical journey as you explore themes from love to the British justice system. Do you ever struggle with writing lyrics or does it just come to you naturally?
To be honest, you’ve probably done interviews with people who say they write a song every day or every week or whatever, they’re always writing, but I’m going to tell you that I’m not. I spend a lot of time looking at things and thinking about things before I put pen to paper. I build up notes of things that cross my mind, so I’m not always sat with the guitar with a piece of paper writing songs but I’m always thinking about things to record and things that mean a lot to me and mean a lot to other people.
Delving into those things in my mind all the time I’m constantly pacing around the house and constantly fidgeting, and I never rest. So, in my head I’ve always been building songs and lyrics. I speak them into my phone every now and then or write them into my notes or on one of the millions of scrap pages that I’ve got locked away in my house. Then, when it come to writing I get some melodies on my guitar, and everything builds and comes to those lyrics. I’ve already got in my head like what each song is going to be about and once I find the first line in my page of notes then I just work and spend like a month solid writing. There will be a lot of bad songs in there but there will be some good songs as well and I just get them all out in that month.
To be honest lyrically I don’t ever really struggle, as you probably know I don’t shut up! So, I’ve never struggled with that, and I probably never will. Maybe it’ll come to a point where I have to think about things a bit more so that it doesn’t become too repetitive but there are so many stories and things to talk about and so many things that happen all the time in life that I shouldn’t struggle to find new things to write about.
One track I really like is ‘What’s Wrong?’, what’s the story behind that one?
‘What’s Wrong?’ is a diss track, its about people that you see, we all know people who one day they’re a DJ then all of a sudden they’re running a venue then the next thing they’re clued up on vaccines, and then they’re vegan and they’re doing fruit shakes and it seems they’re not in it because they want to be in it, they’re in it because they think they can get a short burst of cash or fame. Once they get into the nitty gritty of it, they realise that it requires a bit of hard work, and they jump out of it and into something else. Its not about anyone in particular, it’s just about people. It’s a quirk of life that we all know people who do that and live by it, and the song is just highlighting that fact.
If there are any of those people listening to the song hopefully it helps them find who they are. It’s a song for people to relate to and laugh about and think ‘maybe I’ve been doing it wrong’. At the end of the day, I’m not trying to change how people think I’m just writing how I see it, that’s how a lot of people are when I look on my Instagram feed and even D list celebrities. When they’re in it it’s the best thing in the world and when they’re out it’s the worst and the new thing they’re doing is the greatest. Just a diss track to people who I think live a very silly life.
The closing track ‘What More’ features some dirty guitar and raw emotionally charged lyrics which make it one my favourites off the album, is this a hint of your music taking a new direction?
I just got the blues bit going and I thought it was cool. In this album there’s a bit of everything; its got a bit of Mersey beat about it, ‘What More’ is a blues song, ‘There’s Something There’ has got a bit of ‘Northern Soul’ to it, ‘Love Affair’ is a bit of americana psychedelic sort of heavy rock, you’ve got ‘Davey Kane’ which is sort of a spaghetti western vibe, you’ve got ‘Knock at my Door’ which is a homage to Fleetwood Mac and 70’s west coast. These are all things I’ve been listening to throughout that period of writing and I just wanted to pay homage to it all. With ‘What More’ it was just the bluesy kind of riffs; I’d been listening to Muddy Waters and a lot of that sort of background and that gritty vibe.
I remember I was trying to work out how to play blues guitar then I found that riff and thought ‘this sounds cool’ and just went with it. I just wanted to have a song that didn’t have a chorus because a lot of my songs are structured the same way, not too much but I just wanted to do something a bit different where its just verses of stories of what we’ve all been through over the past 18 months. I don’t need to tell you too much about the lyrics because they’re pretty self-explanatory, but its just an angry vent of frustration towards everything that’s going on and I just thought it fitted really well. I thought ‘this is the one that’s going to be the big anti-establishment track’; because I couldn’t do another album without another ‘Somethings Gotta Give’ so to speak, but I wanted it to have a little bit of edge to it and for it to blow your head off as soon as the band come in.
I wanted to keep it toe tapping rather than being slow and melodic, and for people to feel good while they’re singing along to it and to make them feel like they can take on the government once they’ve listened to it. That’s what I wanted it to do.
Which track off ‘Moments’ is your favourite and why?
At the moment I’d probably say my favourites are ‘North End Kid’ and ‘Davey Kane’… and ‘Knock at my Door’… I really can’t pick one! I suppose based off the live gigs then ‘North End Kid’ because it’s only been released for a short space of time and the crowds have been singing along to it with me. The vision that I had when I was writing the song is happening; when I write my songs I have the crowds in front of me and that is what I’m seeing.
I suppose that’s giving me the best feeling at the minute, but it’ll change once I start playing them on tour. I haven’t listened to the full album myself in a couple of months to be honest its due a little refresh. I’m just really proud of this one, I didn’t want to release an album with a couple of fillers on it, I just wanted 10 strong songs that can speak to people and make them listen to more songs rather than putting anything on it to fill out the album. I’d rather have a 35-minute hard-hitting listen that makes you want to go out and smash the days head in, that’s my theory on albums anyway.
As a whole body of work, it makes people want to listen to the full thing rather than picking apart the singles and I think I’ve done that. But its not down to me its down to the people at the end of the day, the reception at the gigs has been great so far, I couldn’t have expected it to be better. I’m thankful for all the people who’ve got involved with it so far!
Who are you currently listening to? Any exciting new artists we should check out?
I’ve been listening to Love and Arthur Lee, they’re from the 60’s and 70’s. There’s a band from Liverpool called Shack who are a big influence of mine, I’ve started delving into them. I’m not listening to that many new bands at the minute, but I suppose a band that caught my eye when I was in the o2 Ritz in Manchester a couple of months ago is Inhaler. I know their tour manager, so I went down to see them and met the lads and I’m a big fan now. The band that was supporting them isn’t the kind of thing I usually listen to, but they’re called Wet Leg, they’re doing bigger things than I am at the moment, and they’ve got that song ‘Chaise Longue’ which is so catchy. I watched them doing it live, I’d never heard it before and I thought it was really good.
I can’t go without giving my boys a shout, The Sway. They’re on my label and they’ve been out on tour with me a few times, they did Glasgow, Birmingham, London, and they’re doing their final show in The Olympia with me. I just love them to bits; they turn up as they are and love what they’re doing and its so refreshing to see five mates having a go the way they are. If you listen to some of the tunes on Spotify, they’re really good tunes, they’re making a bit of noise in Liverpool at the minute and a few years down the line I wouldn’t be surprised to see them doing what I’m doing now.
There is another band from Liverpool called Rain Maker and they’re just starting out; I don’t think they’ve got a song out yet but there’s a sweep of movement there in the city and they’ve just got something. I can see it. They’ve come to a few of my gigs, so I’ve met them, I actually met them at a Lathums gig where we got a photo and stuff then they came to my gig the following week and they’re just boss kids and good mates. They’re good players and the demos they showed me are really good. The Sway and Rain Maker are the ones to watch in Liverpool. There are a band that were called The Sonder and they’ve just changed to Casino; their last two releases ‘Rolling The Dice’ and ‘Music Is All I Need’ are great, more people need to know about this band. They are a cracking band and they’re supporting me on Thursday at the Olympia. Mason Owens who I’ve mentioned before is amazig, and there’s another young band called Bright Town, these prople are the best of the young bands who are coming through in the city and they work so hard they deserve more people to know who they are.
Lastly in true Dead Good style I’ve got to ask that burning, ever controversial question that were all wondering: what is Jamie Webster’s favourite fruit?
My very favourite I suppose is between watermelon and pineapple. Day to day I’ll have bananas and tangerines in my mixed berry shakes in the morning to try and get all my vitamins in especially when I’m on tour, but a nice juicy watermelon probably beats pineapple because in leaves your mouth a bit acidy. You can’t go wrong with watermelon for me.
Massive thank you to Jamie for chatting with us and don’t forget to check out ‘Moments’ when it’s released on January 28th because you do not want to miss this one.