JW – Jo Whiley
TB – Tim Booth
JW: Special guest today is Tim Booth from James, hello.
TB: Hello
JW: It’s been far too long you’ve been absent from this show. We’ve missed you.
TB: Well I came minus my brain, I left that in New York. We’ll have an interesting interview, but you’ll have to excuse my dumbness.
JW: So a serial experience?
TB: Yes.
JW: You’re doing Glastonbury, tomorrow night. Is this story, this myth true that you were due to play when the game was going on, and you said no I don’t think so.
TB: Yeah, it was definitely, certainly I think, in the last 15 minutes of the England game (laughs). We said, you’re joking, and THEN, (still laughing) they lied to us and promised that there were no screens at Glastonbury, and that people would be glued to us, and it’s a lie, there’s huge screens there for the football. So I think, but no we’re about 15 minutes after the game finishes we’re going to have 2 set lists, one very up and positive, and one completely, grief stricken, mourning.
JW: Oh God, which one do you reckon you’ll going be playing?
TB: (laughing) Hopefully, the up one! Please God!!
JW: Yeah. Have you been to any of the matches? Did you manage to blag any tickets?
TB: No! I watched the games in America, I’ve just been to America. Um, cos’ my fiance lives there. And, er, it was amazing watching it on American TV with American commentary, very different to England.
JW: Really. You say you’ve been over to New York to see your fiance. Do you get to see each other very much?
TB: She’s moving back here in September. So we are rectifying that. We’ve had about a year and a half of plane.
JW: It must be very difficult?
TB: It’s very weird, having that amount of water between us.
JW: Is there going to be a wedding?
TB: There will be a wedding. I don’t know when, and there’ll be one in America and one in this country.
JW: Ah, to please all friend and relatives.
TB: And because we’re schizophrenic.
JW: Yeah, of course. There is that. Have you enjoyed the whole Best Of James, that album coming out, the attention you got from that?
TB: YEEESSS!! I did enjoy it. We were really, flattered to be received so well. Um, it was like really touching. We didn’t expect number 1, and we didn’t expect the fans at the concerts to be so celebratory. Those gigs were amazing!
JW: Did it suprise you how many hits you’d had when it came to putting the album together?
TB: Yeah. I mean we were told about a year ago, and it was like, you’re joking?!
JW: Yeah. You said that you are an Aquarian, and you like to try different things. You just don’t do music, you studied drama at University, and you’ve just finished on stage at the moment. Can you tell us about the play you’ve just done?
TB: I’ve just finished a play in Bolton called Saved, by Edward Bond. Which was a play in this country that changed the censorship laws in the 60’s. There’s one scene in it, that’s particularly harrowing, that people objected to.
JW: What’s that?
TB: Well it’s a murder of a baby. Er, that takes place in detail, in so far as, it really shows you why people get to a point of doing something so atrocious. And that, obviously, is a totally disturbing thing. On the opening night of the play, 30 people walked out, in that scene. But we got great reviews, and after a couple of weeks audiences came from afar to see the play, and then it was going down thantastically, it was an amazing experience.
JW: Will you be doing more acting then?
TB: Yes.
JW: Is this the beginning?
TB: Definitely. I loved it.
JW: So are you actually talking about certain things? Do you know what you’re next project is going to be?
TB: I’m getting a lot of offers. We got great reviews in the Guardian, and in different papers. So I’m getting good offers.
JW: How exciting! Must be brilliant!
TB: It is brilliant. I’m made up actually. I couldn’t believe how well it went.
JW: Ok, we’ll play the single. This has been out before, I’m not going mad am I?
TB: It has been out before. You’re not going mad. This is one of my favourite songs I’ve ever written. I wanted to write the most romantic love song I could. With a lot of vulnerability in it, so when people fall in love, they all go, I love you, and really, often what they want, is the other person to say, I love YOU. So I made the chorus, please fall in love with me, so it’s straight forward vulnerable.
(‘Fall In Love With Me’ is played)
JW: Have you got a pet?
TB: Have I got a PET?! No not at the moment.
JW: Have you ever had a pet?
TB: Oh! Basset Hounds! Basset Hounds are special, they are untrainable. You take them to a dog trainer, and they say, we train every dog except the Basset Hound. Fred Basset is the perfect psychology. I mean this thing used to steal food from everyone, it used to eat frozen raspberries from the deep freeze, and butter, packs of butter, anything that fell on the floor.
JW: What was it’s name?
TB: Samantha. I think I loved it for it’s rebellious outlook.
JW: What would the band say was your worst habit?
TB: My worst habit? The band would say, tenacity, that I just don’t give up on things, to the point you know where it’s hard to win an argument, if I’m really set on something.
JW: You’re in a newsagents, you’ve got 3 Pound 50p, what would you buy?
TB: 3 Pound 50. It used to be a magazine called Ethics, that came out for about 4 months, and then folded. It was the first magazine I’ve subscribed to! And they were so ethical, that they sent me my cheque back!! Which I was really impressed with. But that’s gone, Vanity Fair’s gone crap in the last few years. Scientific America I’m quite into at the moment, with Quonton Physics theories, which I find fascinating.
JW: So not a packet of fags, and Walker’s Crisps?
TB: OH! I’m saying completely the wrong rock ‘n’ roll stuff aren’t I!! I’d say, the Daily Mail, The Independent and a bottle of water.
JW: Who’s you’re favourite character in Star Wars?
TB: In Star Wars? I’m a Star Trek fan. And Captain Picard is my hero.
JW: Have you met him?
TB: No I haven’t. I saw him do a one man show in America. That’s how much of a fan I am. And one of the first things I said to my acting agent, was I want to be on Star Trek. Get me on Star Trek. In my dreams!
JW: What would you like to have on your epitaph?
TB: Huh!! (laughing) ‘He did his best!’ Or, ‘I’m not coming back!’
JW: And your most drunken moment?
TB: 16 throwing up in a friends back garden.
JW: That long ago?
TB: I’ve had a few other drunken moments, but I haven’t been drunk for a long time.
JW: The light don’t come on in your kitchen, what do you do?
TB: Curse. Call an electrician, (laughs) no, I’d change the BULB!!(Laughing)
JW: And if you could hear just one last tune, as you’re on the Titanic, and it’s going down, what would you hear?
TB: That’s cruel! ‘Please Fall In Love With Me’. I’m sorry, at the moment that would be the genuine answer.
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