Reporter : Tim and Saul from James. International zonecoasters supreme. Welcome
Saul : Hello
Reporter : How are you doing?
Saul : Thanks very well
Reporter : Excellent. Fresh from Portugal.
Tim : Jaded from Portugal
Reporter : Really?
Tim : We played a gig from like 2.30 in the morning to about 40,000 Portuguese who should have been in bed.
Reporter : Why so early?
Tim : They do that in Portugal. We once played a gig, and in Spain, we did a gig in Spain at 4 in the morning, we all went to bed and someone woke us up at 2 and we all got up and played the gig.
Reporter : I think your fan base expects you to push the envelope a bit when you perform live. They don’t expect you to play the Greatest Hits any more, you got that out of the way a couple of years ago. You’re free of that now, you can pretty much play new tunes and feel the freedom to expand on that a bit more.
Tim : Actually, I think what happened because of the success of the Greatest Hits, we got quite addicted to playing the popular songs and getting an adulation reception and it’s really hard then to play songs suddenly where people actually listen rather than just shout and scream all the way through it. And we had that history of really being quite experimental and I think we got rather addicted to…
Reporter : We’re a pop band, we’re playing the hits
Tim : And now it’s like we’re going to go back and we’re going to play some really weird songs now that you’ve never heard.
Reporter : And are they weird, the new tracks? Are they moving in a more experimental direction again, do you think?
Tim : We always think so. I think we’re not very objective though.
Reporter : How are the older tracks fitting in though, with the new stuff? There’s a few in the setlist tonight.
Tim : The older ones, they’re a bit craggy
Saul : A bit mopey
Tim : A bit envious of the youth of the new sprightly ones. Moaning at the bar, you know
Saul : They’re sitting at the bottom of the setlist holding everything up.
Reporter : There’s going to be the odd encore. Here we come
Saul : Aye, I think there might be. One or two, I suppose there has to be.
Reporter : Do you still get nervous before you go on stage?
Saul : No
Tim : Yes
Saul : You do?
Tim : Always. Really nervous. Yeah
Reporter : Is there any way you can lessen that before you go on stage? Do you have a little ritual?
Tim : Yeah, huge quantities of drugs and masturbation. I find that does the trick
Reporter : I was expecting new age meditation and a bit of chanting and stuff
Tim : Well I figure I’d try and change our image. I do various rituals, you know that.
Reporter : So what about the line up tonight?
Tim : Well, we’ve got Tony Blair on bass and we’ve got Ken Livingstone on guitar. We thought variation basically.
Reporter : You’ve got some string players on stage tonight, which I saw. Four very lovely looking young ladies, was that part of the prerequisite, they had to be pretty?
Tim : Yes, it’s to make us look older
Saul : Craggier, to make us look worse
Tim : Wonderful, it works a treat. The thing was we met them on Jools Holland, they did Bryan Ferry and they gave us their card so we got this idea for strings about four days ago in Portugal and somebody said “Who should we use?” and it was the only number we had.
Reporter : So, one last question, which track are you enjoying playing the most? Out in Portugal, what you were enjoying playing the most? What’s your favourite James tune?
Tim : Probably, the new ones are always great because they’re fresh but they’re also tinged with fear making up some of the words, but Someone’s Got It In For Me from Millionaires is probably my favourite at the moment.
Reporter : Saul?
Saul : Actually, one of the new ones Everyone’s A Junkie is cool. I’m really enjoying it
Reporter : In the soundcheck it sounded fantastic.
Saul : I’m really enjoying it
Reporter : Nice to see you guys. Always a pleasure. Thanks for dropping by and I look forward to tonight.
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