Darrin James has been making music for a long, long time — since he was 13, in fact. The Kentucky-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter has been performing with and without his band since 1994 and his last album, Thrones of Gold, received its share of praise from critics and bloggers. Now, James prepares for the release of his third album, Lovely Ugly Truth.
In the album, with its wonderfully oxymoronic title, James infuses his homage to the greats of blues with a fresh, contemporary attitude. The album is both soulful and exuberant and though his songs often express an attitude disenchanted with love and relationships, his songs are never misanthropic. James has created a work that is steeped in optimism and tenderness, yet it is still exciting and relevant.
James’ brand of musical storytelling channels the tradition of blues as the “American folk tale.” Blues is a rarity in the mainstream of alternative music and much like the Japanese folk tales and dark maritime yarns of baroque-pop darlings The Decemberists, many of James’ songs tell stories with no relation to his own life or experiences, such as blues ballads straight from the life of a 1930s hustler. Although this has proven to be a successful strategy for other alternative bands, James mixes his fiction with his nonfiction a bit too heavily. His description of the pressure of his day job creates a jarring contrast for the listener. Unfortunately, this lack of consistency in James’ storytelling prevents his album from existing as a whole artistic work.
Nevertheless, this album is a wonderful throwback to the old greats of blues as the album brims with musical talent from start to finish.
Can Darrin James succeed in bringing the good old blues to a modern audience? James sat down with North by Northwestern to discuss his genre, his work and his new album.
So, I read that this album took you two years to make. I know you can’t rush art, but what happened in those two years? What went into this album?
Well, I have a day job too, so this was sort of an ongoing project that we would do. A session on a weekend and do basics with the band, and then I would do overdubs and editing on my own time in my own studio. So it was almost like a few EPs in the way we produced it.
So this was a labor of love for you?
Yes. The last one took three years, so I guess I shaved a year off this time.
Deli Magazine compared you to Joe Henry, John Prine, Elvis Costello. No one mentioned Miles Davis; I’d definitely mention him. What do you think? Who are your influences?
That was pretty close. John Prine is the great songwriter. Elvis Costello is very eclectic, Joe Henry is as well. I come from a musician background, and then I started writing songs and singing much later. So my music is stylistically all over the place. Whatever I feel a song needs, I just do it. Some are very bluesy, some are jazzier, some are country. Some are folk.
How were you first exposed to the blues and soul that’s influenced your music so much?
I grew up in Michigan and there are a lot of radio stations around Detroit and I always liked the older blues music. The older classic rock kind of lead me into the blues. And I was lucky I had an older brother who took me to concerts when I was very young, and a lot of people who were always feeding my craving for more music.
So you grew up with this music your whole life?
Yeah, I started playing blues guitar when I was 13. I was never really interested in, when I was 13, I guess it was [called] the grunge era — alternative rock. I was never into that stuff. I was into Jimi Hendrix and Muddy Waters.
Lovely Ugly Truth. What does that title mean for you?
The song itself is sort of a breakup song, but I guess it could be a larger picture of the struggle of getting out in the world. And the title is what you’re always showing as a writer. Trying to find the truth. Sometimes it’s ugly and tragic, and sometimes it’s beautiful and sometimes it’s both.
You’ve collaborated with some interesting musicians on this album. Kelly Pratt, for example, was playing in a style much different from what he plays in Beirut or Arcade Fire. How did you meet these guys? And how’d you get them interested in playing this style much different from their norm?
Well, Stewart Fogey is someone I went to college with in Ann Arbor. He was the leader of the horn section, and I’ve known him for a long time. I wanted to get him on this record, and his horn section is from the Antibalas Afrobeat Orchestra, and TV on the Radio was sort of a side project for them. Stewart is a real product of that as a performer and an arranger, and he’s a real horn guru. The core band is four guys, and there’s a lot of session players and different arrangements that give those songs different flavors.
There’ve been a lot of these artists lately — some people would call them “alternative” artists — M. Ward, Zach Condon, Conor Oberst, a few others who have brought back folk. And they play at these big festivals like Coachella and Lollapalooza. Do you want to bring back the blues the way these guys brought back folk?
That’s interesting. I do think blues is underrepresented today in the contemporary music scene. Even the rootsy kind of music leans heavily toward folk, and country even has alt-country, but there’s no alt-blues out there. I really came from the blues, and even when I’m playing a folk song, I’m approaching it from the blues. The way we play live — you mentioned Miles Davis, and my core band has a lot of jazz education, so live we definitely throw a lot more improvisation it.
This is about the hardest question I can ask you. With this album, what do you think you’ve made here?
Well, the album flows together, but I’d say it’s really a collection of songs and stories, and it’s supposed to be listened to as one piece but I think if the listeners give this a lot of worlds in these stories, it almost has a cinematic quality. So that’s what I tried to achieve. Just a narrative that goes together, but every song stands on its own.
James’ new album, Lovely Ugly Truth, hit stores October 6.