After capturing many hearts across the internet with his majorly successful song – ‘Wasn’t Expecting That’. British singer-songwriter, Jamie Lawson recently released a brand new EP and was announced to support the wonderful Gavin James at his Dublin headline show.
I caught up with Jamie before the show to find out how it all came about, and what we can expect next from this extraordinary talent.
Hey Jamie! You’re about to support Gavin James this evening in The Academy- are you excited for that?
Yeah! It’s nice to be back in Dublin- I haven’t been here in a while. [Yeah, it holds a lot for you- if I’m right you moved over here for a while?] About five or six years ago now, yeah. I was living in London, and I was pretty much just crashing around, not doing much. I had come over to Dublin and done a few support slots for people like The Frames and Mundy, and they went well so I thought I’d move over and see how I get on. So I did, but I ended up working in Tower Records, and that was my life.
Nice. How did you career in music come about? I’m not talking working in Tower Records now- the performance side of things! Did you have a musical background or was it something you just stumbled into?
There’s not really a lot of music in the family. I started playing guitar quite young, and started writing songs in my teenage years and for whatever reason I just kept doing that, and nothing else so the idea of a job never really occurred to me. I obviously made enough money somehow to get by, but I’ve never been rich in any way. I just made enough to live off and that seems to be enough. I kind of just did it, it was just always there. It wasn’t a career choice, just something I enjoyed. Nothing else appealed to me more, so I didn’t do anything else. There’s very little point in doing something you don’t enjoy for the sake of a few more quid.
Absolutely. Obviously, we have to talk about your song ‘Wasn’t Expecting That’ which got an unbelievable response across the internet. How did that make you feel?
Of course! It’s great. I still get people sending me messages about how it affected them and what it means to them, and there was people getting married and wanted it as a wedding song and were like “is there a way we could change the last two lines?” and I’m just like “well not really, I can’t do much about that! But thanks very much anyway, I’m touched”, and it is very touching. I remember when it first broke and I’d be playing it at gigs and you’d find mothers and daughters at the gig together and fathers and daughters , and it was quite weird, that never really happened before, and normally at gigs you go to, you don’t see many families, so that was quite touching because it obviously meant that song had brought them together and they were able to share that.
Well yeah, the song itself is obviously one storyline from beginning to end. Is that something your lyrics take to a lot, or was that a once off?
I think that song is quite unique in the fact that it does tell the story from start to finish of how a relationship begins and ends. So in that way is was quite unique because it’s over many years, whereas usually my songs before that had been about moments in relationships and maybe just a day or so, and about how you feel at a certain point. But I think that song opened up a whole new spectrum for me, and since then songs have become different.
You recently released your new EP- ‘Between Each Breath’- at the end of April; talk me through that EP- what sort of process did you take when writing the songs and putting it together?
Well, the songs had all been written for a while. I have enough material for about two or three albums. And I recently signed a new record deal with a label called Operator Records, and their plan, after seeing me a number of times live, was to really strip everything back and do it very acoustic. So that’s what we’ve done with this record, just stripped everything back and there’s very little other instrumentation on the EP. It was all done live- the vocals and the guitar- so there was no chopping and changing, and then there’s just little bits of instrumentation on top of that. Hopefully it’s a better representation of what I do. This EP will lead to another EP, which I’m working on now, and then it’ll be the album after that.
Deadly-you’ve a lot planned. What would be your biggest goal for the next year?
It would be nice to be constantly busy. It’s a nice feeling when you’re a singer, to be playing gigs and meeting people, and recording. So that’s always the aim really, just to gig as much as possible and reach different places new places.
Well best of luck with the show tonight, and thanks for taking the time to chat.
Thanks very much, cheers!
Keep up to date with Jamie on Facebook & Twitter
You can get Jamie’s new EP- ‘Between Each Breath’ HERE.
Check out one of the tracks from this new EP- ‘The Quiet Man’ below: