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Artist Interviews
Q&A: Jamie Cullum
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 13 November 2009
You know Jamie Cullum, right? He’s that guy who plays the jazzed up pop (or is it popped up jazz?) that folks seem to like a lot.
Over the last decade he’s picked up awards left right and centre, sold a whole load of records and collaborated with the likes of Handsome Boy Modelling School, Japanese death-jazz band Soil & “Pimp” Sessions , Pharrell, Rufus Wainwright and, perhaps most impressively, Clint Eastwood. This week he releases his fifth solo album (his first for four years), ‘The Pursuit’, via Decca.
We caught up with Jamie to find out some more.
Q1 How did you start out making music?
I started out making music just as a young teenager trying to ape the rock and pop stars I loved – riffs from AC/DC and Nirvana, chords to Ben Harper songs, the solos of Eddie Van Halen – all on the guitar. Piano took over when I discovered Ben Folds and Harry Connick Jnr. My brother got his first four track tape machine and we started recording songs. From then on, my life was all about gigs and being in bands, to wildly varying degrees of success, on piano, guitar and drums.
Q2 What inspired your latest album?
Many things, obviously, but I set out to try and make a record that was truly rooted in both the past and the present – embracing a classic approach to songwriting and melody but also a more modern sound sonically – heavier drums, use of electronics amd studio techniques.
Q3 What process do you go through in creating a track?
The process I go through varies wildly – it can start with a melody that comes to me when I wake up, a rhythm drummed on the table or even just a title or a fragment of a lyric. I’ll bash out an idea from that seed on the piano or the guitar and then spend 24 hours straight in the studio behind the computer and various instruments working out the whole song and arrangement. This is the most fun part and the most frustrating.
Q4 Which artists influence your work?
They vary wildly, but right now – Ben Folds, Herbie Hancock, Nat King Cole, Charles Mingus, Peter Broderick, Madlib and Trentemøller.
Q5 What would you say to someone experiencing your music for the first time?
I wouldn’t say anything! Hopefully the music speaks for itself!
Q6 What are your ambitions for your latest album, and for the future?
In theory my ambitions for this album have already been fulfilled as my ambitions are basically musical – is it a better album than the one I made before? I probably really should take more interest in what happens to it after, but it is just not my way! I’m already thinking about the tour and, of course, the next album…
MORE>> www.jamiecullum.com
