The BIG Über Rock Interview: Brian James

Written by Martin Chamarette
Friday, 20 April 2018 04:20

With a vinyl re-release of his eponymous, debut solo album due on this day week, (Friday 27 April), I caught up with Brian James in Brighton to discuss past, present and future projects. As a founding member of The Damned and The Lords Of The New Church, two of my favourite bands, there was a lot to talk about…

So, first of all, how did the vinyl rerelease and repackage of ‘Brian James’ come about?

Carson at Easy Action records got access to it, and suggested it was due a rerelease, with a couple of extra tracks that were recorded around the same time. His guy, Patrick remastered it, and they repackaged the art work. I’ve been playing songs like ‘The Twist’ and ‘Slow It Down’ as part of my set for God knows how long, they’re songs that really stand up for me, and people still like them. We’ve just done a video to go with ‘Slow It Down’, which was done by a couple of the guys from the band Table Scraps, who’ve played with us, and will be with us at The Lexington on 28 June.

I’ve been playing with the drummer from that album, Malcolm Mortimer, we go back many years, he’s been laying down tracks for a new album I’m doing, and so it’s come full circle, really. It fills a gap while I’m working on new stuff.

Were you involved in the repackaging of the vinyl?

Oh, yeah. The photographer, Ian Dickson, who did the original shoot, lives down the road here now. He used to share a flat with the bassist on the album, Alan Lee Shaw, and he also took the shots outside Stiff Records offices, the old promo stuff, so it’s nice that we’re all involved.

I hear that you’re writing your autobiography. How’s that going?

About eight years ago, my wife was doing a thesis at university, studying Chinese decorative art, and some people there were studying punk rock; the roots of it. And I thought, ‘that’s weird, I wonder what sources of reference they’ve got?’. There was the John Savage book, and not much else at that time. So, I felt I had to do something about this, because otherwise it’ll be all McClaren oriented, you know, ‘the great Svengali’ thing, which he wasn’t really. It was all these different people coming together, which made the scene. At that point, I had time, so I’ll sit in the garden and scribble away, starting at the beginning of The Damned and the start of that scene.

I told my manager, and he said ‘You can’t stop there, what about what happened before The Damned?’. About my previous band, Bastard, playing in Belgium and France, and then post-Damned, playing with Iggy Pop, forming The Lords, playing with Wayne Kramer. I’m writing about The Lords at the moment, and, as you’d imagine, everyone has their own take on it, so it’s not easy. It’s called ‘The Bleeding Book’, ‘cause people ask me how it’s going, and I’d say, ‘Oh, the bleedin’ book!’. So, that’s the name. I’m sticking to the music; there’s no sex and drugs as such, although, if it’s relevant to the reality of the music. And about the equipment we used, so hopefully it’ll be of interest to musicians as well.

Right; that leads neatly into my nerdy question. Has your guitar set up changed much over the years, since you started your solo career?

It’s stayed the same since The Lords. Before that, in The Damned, it was a Gibson SG Standard, but since then, I’ve used Telecasters with various amps. I really missed the sustain of a Marshall, so I went back to using an 800, with a little vibrato, you’re well away.

I don’t use pedals. When I was a kid, I saw The Pink Floyd and The Gods, who featured a young Mick Taylor. He was terrible at the time; just copying Clapton. During the break, my mate said ‘I can get you that fuzzbox pedal over there for a pint’. So, when The Gods were on, he nicked it. I tried it at a practice, and it was awful. So , I took it apart, and it said ‘Made by Roger Mayer’, who made pedals for Barrett, Beck and, eventually, mainly for Hendrix. So, in a way, I wish I’d kept it, as a memento.

As for the Telecaster, well, a Gibson always sounds like a Gibson, and a Strat, however you set it up, you eventually start playing Hendrix stuff, but, for me, a Telecaster is an anonymous guitar, which relies on what amp you use. I’ve managed to get a sound which is fairly unique to me, I think. My main Telecaster has a Fender body and a Squier neck, ‘cause I smashed the neck on tour with The Lords, and my guitar roadie could only find a Squier neck. I found that I had an extra three frets or so to play with, it’s thinner, so it’s been on there ever since.

In recent years, The Damned are finally getting a proper evaluation and respect. ‘Damned, Damned, Damned’ is now cited as a classic album, and it seems like ‘Music For Pleasure’ is finally being reevaluated. While it must have been written and recorded in a rush, how do you feel about it now?

It really was rushed. I had one song, ‘You Take My Money’, which we’d been playing live, then Jake, our manager said “Take a couple of months off and write a new album”. I like songs to come out naturally, organically. So, I bought an acoustic guitar, off Dave Edmunds, actually. So I could get out of London and write. But, by no means did I have an album’s worth of material. So, I asked the other guys, ‘cause I knew Rat had a couple of ideas. He and Captain wrote ‘Idiot Box’, which I think is one of the best tracks. I had the riff for ‘Your Eyes’ and gave it to Dave to try to come up with the lyrics, but, it wasn’t really right. He wasn’t writing at that time, though he went on to write great things.

I talked about trying to get Syd Barrett to produce it, as Peter Barnes, Floyd’s publisher, was around, but it was obvious that Syd couldn’t do it, but he said that Nick Mason was available. He wanted to talk about Ferraris. It was an experiment, I didn’t want to repeat the same album. I was disillusioned by the ‘punk’ movement; everyone dressed the same. Lol Coxhill’s sax playing was a highlight; we got him to do five or so takes, just to listen to him play. So, I can listen to it now.

‘Brian James’ is re-released on vinyl on 27 April via Easy Action. You can get your copy HERE.

Brian James plays The Lexington, London on 28 June. Support comes from Table Scraps.

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