Hot Press meets Jake Bugg

“Gig. Drink. Same thing over again”. A year in the life of an atypical Nottingham teen. Backstage in Dublin’s Olympia, Jake Bugg is talking matter-of-factly during one of those ‘in between’ moments. It’s no secret that he’d rather be pouring his heart out over a six-string than doing promo work pre-show.

“When you leave after this interview, I’ll probably pick up that guitar and start playing something,” he notes, flicking his fringe in the direction of an instrument propped up in the corner. “A free moment to myself is me picking up a guitar. Because that’s what I love to do. That’s when I feel relaxed and calm.”
Perhaps the major difference in Jake Bugg a year after his eponymous debut propelled him to overnight stardom is how at ease he seems. Nursing a cold – “I was off yesterday... but my brain’s like ‘no, it’s not time to have a day off’” – he is nevertheless in high spirits. It’s more laugh lines than furrowed brows this afternoon.
Here we were thinking he dreads the thought of a journalist knocking on his dressing-room door.
“I know that people write that I’m a bit of a grumpy twat,” he grins at one point. “Truth is, sometimes you’re going to wake up and you’re not going to be in the brightest mood. You’ve been drinking the night before or whatever.”
As he is wont to do throughout our time together, he’ll add a congenial caveat after he makes a bit of a ‘statement’:
“I can’t complain because it’s my own fault for bringing out an album. I can’t be moaning at the label, they’re trying to help me.”
Lounging on a couch, it initially feels like the interviewee is the one doing most of the analysis. Half an hour in, after joking about the dangers of the Mexican sun “(I was only there for about two days and I came back with the fucking brownest arms and the whitest shoulders you’ve ever seen. It was ridiculous!”), giggling about touring clichés he’s encountered (“though it’s not as rock ‘n’ roll as everyone thinks...”) and speaking wide-eyed about his summer in Rick Rubin’s Shangri La studio, he offers an assessment.
“Y’know, you don’t seem like an idiot and you’re someone who, from what I can see, enjoys listening to their music. And that’s nice to see. It’s very refreshing for an artist.”
He’s become used to “irrelevant conversations” on his travels around the globe. Such as?
“When was yer fuuurst kiss?’!” he drawls like some comedy yokel. “That’s usually Americans.”
It is telling, and undoubtedly irksome to the young songwriter, that it’s a song that hasn’t made the final track listing for his second album making all the headlines. ‘Pretty Lady’ deals with the brief period where he was stepping out with model-of-the-moment Cara Delevingne. When it didn’t make the cut for musical reasons, tabloids pre-supposed it was because the subject matter was a little raw for Bugg. He sets the record straight.
“People say ‘this girl inspired this song’. Truth is, what inspired it was everybody else writing stories about it. So I thought, ‘why are all these people saying these things and getting their story? I’m a writer. I want my story!’ People really want that story more than anything and I’m never going to speak about anybody else. I don’t mind speaking about my life when it involves just me, but when it involves someone else that’s when it crosses a line.”
To the music then. Shangri La, the rapid follow-up to last year’s inaugural effort, is named after the studio in which it was recorded. Having gigged like a demon since breaking through, recording in the California sunshine was just the ticket.
“It’s just a very inspiring place, with the sunshine and chill people. You walk down and you’re on Zumo Beach, and you see the sun going down. It’s mad, man, it’s crazy. It’s all the things you see on TV. You’re sat there thinking, ‘I could get used to this, man. This is great.’”
It helped he was working with the bearded Buddha of production, Rick Rubin. Bugg was unfamiliar with most of his famous work (he also didn’t recognise “session drummer” Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers). But clearly some of Rubin’s famed tranquility rubbed off. Is he as zen-like as you imagine?
“Yeah man, but very hands-on as well when it comes to the music. Very chilled and that works well for me. Especially when you’ve got all your new music, it’s always going so fast. Whereas, I just wanted to take my time. It’s something very important for me, my record. It’s the reason that I do this.”
He was eager for it to arrive hot-on-the-heels of his first. A brave move – his record company would have quite happily milked Jake Bugg for another couple of years.
“Apparently the labels round the world were laughing, thinking we were joking,” he says in his languid East Midlands accent. “Going to the UK label: ‘it won’t come out this year’. And it is. And they hate it because it means they’ve gotta move their arse again. But it’s good for ‘em, they should keep on their toes! I wanted it done before I turned 20 as well, to have two albums before I was 20. They say the second album’s the hardest so to get it done... I still have that apprehensive feeling because I don’t know how it’s going to be received.”
Early reviews have noted how the deliberately vintage and distinctly British tone of the first has been stripped away, with Rubin turning in a record of polished alt. rock that is perfect for the US market. Is he ready for people to say it’s his ‘American album’?
“I’m sure people are ready to think that but when you listen to a song like ‘What Doesn’t Kill You’ (dealing with a late night mugging)... well it’s not very American, is it? I have a lot of American influences anyway. I think in Britain, and in Ireland as well, there’s a lot of great bands. But in America, they’ve got a lot of great singer-songwriters.”
Don McLean was an early influence. When quizzed about what he’s listening to today, he bigs up Mickey Newbury, the late Texan who penned classics like ‘Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)’.
Lyrically, Shangri La amounts to one last look at his formative years, drawing a line under them.
“You’ve said it how I would say it,” he nods. “I thought I wouldn’t speak about where I’m from and that again. But I thought it was quite interesting when I went back. I didn’t go looking for it, I just kinda stumbled upon it. I went back (to Nottingham) the other day there for a photo shoot and some guy was flashing his camera, taking pictures. And then people are just stopping dead on the street with their cars – ‘what’s he doing? What’s that over there?’ And it’s like, why are you looking at me? I’m alright, I know the place and I know most of the people from there. But if I was someone carrying a camera, I wouldn’t fancy walking around there. Fuck that!”
Any glowering looks in photos aren’t an affectation, then.
“I don’t mind doing it a bit for fashion shoots, because it’s funny trying on stupid clothes and it’s a completely different thing, listening to tunes and having a laugh. It’s not my job to be a model, I’m a musician. So if someone tells me to do something I just go, ‘No, I’m not doing that.’”
Right now, Bugg admits he’s in limbo. Waiting for Shangri La’s release whilst hitting awards ceremonies celebrating his debut.
“It is weird. Like, when we did the Mercury Awards, having to go play ‘Lightning Bolt’. I was like, ‘Er, I want to play a new song! I’ve got a new album coming out!’ I want to be promoting that, it’s gonna be on TV!’ People have heard ‘Lightning Bolt’, they don’t want to hear it for the millionth time, it’s boring.”
Has he forgiven James Blake for winning the Mercury Prize?
“James Blake? Nah man, I was so happy I didn’t win that.”
Poisoned chalice?
“Well there is that. But the other reason for it was that I was quite pissed! I wasn’t up for getting up and doing a speech! I was nervous of that. And she went: ‘and the winner is JAAYY...’ So when they called him out it was a relief. Whoever won it, I was happy for ‘em. And this is probably going to cause a lot of controversy – me saying this now – but I don’t know who the judges were, who those critics are. Music is so subjective and it’s all about opinions. For them to say James Blake should win doesn’t mean that he should’ve won. That’s the way it works. After his name was announced, there was a dumb silence. If you know what I’m saying...”
Has he heard Blake’s album?
“No. I wasn’t too impressed by his performance. But that’s nothing to go by. I understand, it’s very clever and all of that. As clever as it might be, it doesn’t do anything for me. I mean, some people are obsessed by that. It just doesn’t do anything for me. There’s loads of music out there that I do not like but it’s made a lot of people happy... So that’s great. I appreciate anyone that plays music, whether I like it or not.”
Bugg’s apathy for modern sounds extends to most everyone, bar his mate Michael Kiwanuka.
“I have a lot of friends whose music I dislike quite a lot!
Can he level with them or does he just steer clear of the topic?
“It’s kind of an unspoken thing. It’s funny when you get an artist who’s like, ‘Oh, I really like your album’ and you’re, ‘Oh cheers mate...’”
The perfect place for a ‘so... did you see the football?’ sidestep.
“Haha, yeah: ‘what team do you support?!’ I’m just really, really... I’m frustrated. Because I’m very cynical when it comes to music. I’m very picky about what I want to listen to and it’s really annoying because I just really want to find a contemporary artist whose album I can sit down and listen to all the way through without being worried about the next track that’s coming.”
Though he enjoyed seeing Ronnie Wood again at the recent Q Awards, he generally avoids ‘muso talk’ like the plague.
“I’m not going to stick around networking. Or ‘working the room’, y’know? You see that a lot. It’s quite tacky to be honest.”
“Technically” homeless at the moment, he has an eye on finding a permanent abode. Where does he fancy?
“I’d like a very nice house in Malibu but I have to sell loads of the second album to do that!”
Move in with Rick?
“Yeah, I’ll just pop round with my guitar,” he smiles. “Just be like ‘will we work on this third record?’ Maybe a flat in Paris. I like Paris. Like London, it’s a beautiful city. And I don’t know anyone there. I’m somebody that has to keep myself to myself. It’s two hours on the train, the same time it takes from Nottingham (to London).”
Does he speak French?
“Je parle un peu Français!”
As it is, Bugg will end the year in Nottingham.
“I usually go to my grandma’s every Christmas for dinner. Nice pork sausages wrapped in bacon and that.”
What does he want for Christmas?
“That’s a very difficult question. My dad asked me that the other day and I went, ‘I dunno, it’s supposed to be a surprise! I still think Santa’s real, Dad!’
He must be a hard person to buy for these days. And yet, not as tough a customer as you’d think.

Shangri-La is out now