Jamie Lawson has gone from unknown to star in quite a short space of time. The internet is a wonderful place don’t you know. With a deal now with Universal music following the popularity of his youtube video for ‘Wasn’t Expecting That’ which forced an early release of the single going #1 in iTunes download chart and #3 in the full charts.
Our interviewer Kevin Donnellan caught up with Jamie just before the albums release. Check out what they talked about below
So the new, or repackaged, album is out on Friday, tell me a bit about the recording process?
It’s a long story, the album is basically a re-release of the ‘Pull of the Moon’, which was released in the UK last year. We’ve basically repackaged it. Put three new songs on it and renamed it to come out here. The first recordings we did for the album would have been February 2008. We had a weekend where we recorded about 14 songs and then for whatever reason in the process between being signed and publishing deals and record deals it wasn’t another year til I got to finish the album over another five days. So we recorded the album in less than ten days but over a year and a half. And then we’ve done three new songs which we’ve recorded over a weekend in February this year.
Having to record songs over short periods, did you have them down pat from playing live or were they developed in studio?
Bit of both, playing live and home demoing. I’d get my ideas together and bring them as fully formed to the studio as I could, knowing that I didn’t have a lot of time. It was almost re-recording if you know what I mean, it was ‘lets get this done right’. Which is how it has to be in the studio, you’ve no time to play, just get it right.
And there’s been a strong connection with Ireland throughout this…
I’ve been here for a long time, I lived here in 2005, I was over at the end of last year doing a tour playing to very few people, similar places that I’ve just been to and sold out so it’s just been mad. A nice turnaround.
Any reason why you originally came over to Ireland?
Yes, you [the Irish] like songwriters. So it made sense. It was a good place, especially at that time. The songwriting scene, your singer songwriters were really strong, the likes of Declan O’Rourke doing really well, Paddy Casey, The Frames, Damian Rice. It just seemed a good place to come if you like the sort of songs that I write. Easy decision really.
What is it about Dublin, or Ireland, that lends itself to that kind of strong scene?
Your storytelling culture, you do have a folk tradition, in a sense, where things are passed down. Maybe because the country is small that happens more so than the UK.
What are plans for touring over the summer?
Well the biggest date so far is Vicar Street in May which is amazing and we’re doing some of the festivals, Vantastival and a couple more I think. And hopefully we’ll do a bigger tour in the Autumn.
Are there any particular artists you’d see as influences?
Mark Eitzel, who’s in a band called American Music Club. [more recently] I really liked the new Iron and Wine album, really enjoyed the James Vincent McMorrow record, the new Elbow album, going to go see them this week too [Their O2 date]
You’re on twitter and have an blog on the site how important is it for musicians to have an online presence?
I think it’s vital that you have some sort of online presence. That immediate connection you can have with people who like your music is very gratifying that you can actually put something up on YouTube and it can go around the world within two months is pretty mad…and I’m tweeting as often as I can [laughs] you get to thank fans [on twitter] for coming which you don’t always get a chance to and if people say hello I try to say hello back, although I don’t always.
Future Recordings?
I’d hope it would be a more cohesive effort next time, but essentially the songs are already written for the next record so we don’t have to worry about that so much. It’s just a case of thinking who we could use to do it and where we could do it, that kind of thing. Which is a nice position to be in, I haven’t been in this position before that we can ask people who’ve worked on records I might have liked to come in.
So you have a wish list of collaborators?
There’s a few people that would be brilliant like Rick Rubin or Ethan Jones but that’s the big guys but I’m not there yet…
Jamie Lawson releases ‘I Wasn’t Expecting That’ today and plays Vicar Street on May 5th.