Music
02 Apr 12

Smooth Operator

A chart staple for half a decade, certified heartbreaker James Morrison has five million reasons to brag about his success, but as Hot Press finds out, you’re more likely to find him plotting a camping trip with his pals.

It’s Sunday, it’s raining out, and there’s an obscene number of sporting events on the telly, which, on the last weekend before payday, adds up to a distinctly lifeless afternoon in Dublin city.

As I move along the deserted quays, I estimate that, of the capital’s 1.5 million residents, at least 1.4 million must be on their sofas right now, possibly changing the channel with their big toe or trying to persuade a delivery boy to bring over a pint of milk with their pizza. Still, nobody in this town could be more relaxed than James Morrison.
Playing with his swivel chair, belting out an indecipherable tune and joking around with our photographer, he’s nothing like the earnest, retiring singer-songwriter I was expecting.
How was the show last night, James?
“Yeah, it was alright,” he booms, in a gritty Brummie drawl. “For the first night of the tour, it was pretty raucous.”
Great, and what about...
“I was shitting myself, to be honest.”
What’s that?
“Yeah, I was shitting myself,” he shrugs, “but it was good by the end.”
Hold on a second. Something about his response just doesn’t add up. Is he a sensitive songwriter with anxiety issues, or a chatty, piss-ripping bloke who just loves to make music?
“I get nervous before any gig,” he continues. “If you weren’t, what’s the point? You’re just getting a bit complacent, aren’t you? Even if I play in front of two people I get nervous. Every time I sing, I think I have to prove that I can do it.”
This is much closer to the Morrison I’ve read about in interviews, a self-effacing, level-headed pop star who doesn’t really fit in with the other boys on the red carpet. Even a recent Brit nomination doesn’t seem to have registered with the 27 year-old.
“It’s at the back of my mind to be honest. I’ve had one and it feels amazing to get an award or whatever, but it’s just kind of nonsense really, when it comes down to it. It doesn’t mean anything, does it?”
Morrison is nominated for ‘Best Male Solo Artist’, a title he scooped back in 2007, but looking at him now, perfectly at home in a pair of jeans and a grubby leather jacket, plonking sugars into a cup of tea, I can’t imagine him bumming a smoke off Cheryl Cole, doing shots with Cee-Lo Green, or whatever people get up to at the Brits.
“It’s just all a bit wanky,” he moans, “It can be really funny or just make you angry. I try to laugh at it because a lot of it is so fucking ridiculous that you’re like, ‘Really?’
“Like the whole backstage thing of how much space you get and who’s got the biggest dressing-room and what rider you’ve got and the whole thing of like, ‘You can’t say hello to that person’.
“I remember when I first went to the Brits, Paolo Nutini was there and there had been this whole thing with me, James Blunt and Paolo Nutini. (All three singer-songwriters emerged around the same time, so comparisons were rife). I just walked straight up to Paolo Nutini and I was like, ‘Alright, mate, I just wanted to say fair play, you’ve got a great voice… and fuck James Blunt, me and you are better than him!’”
Despite being one of the most unassuming singers on planet pop, Morrison has had his fair share of celebrity feuds. When a throwaway comment about X-Factor graduates JLS got taken out of context, he found himself on BBC Breakfast defending himself.
“I had to go on the news and apologise,” he grimaces, “all because I said they weren’t the best singers in the world. It started getting to the point where if they were coming into a room, someone would say ‘Get James out of here!’ It’s just like, ‘Fuck that!’ It’s like kids in school, ‘I’m not talking to you’, or whatever. We sorted it out and now there’s no issue, but yeah, a lot of the shit that goes on backstage is quite funny.”
Keeping your cool in the celebosphere is one thing, but Morrison has just about turned being down-to-earth into an extreme sport. Despite earning millions of pretty pennies from hit songs and sold-out tours, he’s spent the last few years living in a semi in Hove, driving a second-hand Golf GTI and shopping at Tesco. He finally gave in last year and bought a house more fitting of a globetrotting chart sensation.
“I try and carry myself in a normal way, you know,” he shrugs again. “I’m still an artist, I still daydream about shit that some people don’t, but I’m a normal bloke. I think you can feel intimidated by people who make you feel like you need to be demanding stuff so people know that you’re a big deal. But I actually get more of a kick out of not demanding anything, and I think in the end I probably come out on top because of that.
“A lot of people are like, ‘Have you not got any security with you?’ and I’m like, ‘Nah, mate, I just roll with my tour manager!’ Like Jessie J had loads of people, she had about eight people with her and they made it a right pain in the arse getting into the hotel ‘cos there was loads of paparazzi. I just walked in the back door!”
Speaking of the outrageous Ms. J, the feisty 23-year-old makes a guest appearance on Morrison’s third album The Awakening, on moody duet ‘Up’. We’re used to hearing her promulgating like a malfunctioning android, but this track shows a more, erm, human side to the singer. How’d he get her to chill out?
“It took me a while,” he grins. “She was like, ‘I’ll get this in about three takes’. I said to her, ‘I wanted you to sing on it ‘cos you’re Jessie J and you’re an amazing singer, but you can be a different version of yourself on this record, you don’t have to do all that crazy stuff’, and I let her get it out of her system. She did about eight amazing takes of stuff that I’ve never heard a singer do, but I was like, ‘We can’t use any of that, it’s too much.’
“She’s just so good and so passionate about it that she can’t help herself. She needs to get that fire out of her before she can settle down and let it simmer. But she loved it by the end of it and I really like the fact that you can’t tell it was her straight away.”
With The Awakening, Morrison take a deliberate step in the opposite direction, making a sound he describes as “halfway between soul and rock.”
“I’d kind of woken up to myself and life again,” he says of the title. “I was in this weird little bubble for about four or five years, from when I was cleaning vans to getting a deal and having my album out, all of that period of time I was still in this bubble. It was only after my second album that I really had a chance to step outside of that world, hang with my mates, go camping, just do normal shit and spend time with friends and family, have parties and get pissed and stoned, enjoy life basically. Then I had a kid, my little girl was born, I lost my dad, all really important things that change you as a person happened quite close together. I just wanted to write songs that were meaningful, I didn’t want to be perceived as this guy who’s like, (breaks into song) ‘Love me, baby’ or whatever bullshit, ‘cos that’s not what I am, but that’s what I was being perceived as. I was like, ‘Shit, I need to be less like a Lothario singer-songwriter and more just a good singer.”
I’ve heard him joke about his female-heavy fanbase before; does he still feel like a bit of a musical Don Juan?
“I don’t know,” he laughs. “I’m not that cool, I’m not that smooth. I have a hard enough time keeping my girlfriend, let alone a room full of girls! But now, I don’t see it as a negative thing. I was always a bit like, ‘I want the guys to like it!’ but actually it’s a really mixed group of people at my shows now, from young guys to older women to parents coming with their kids… and the guys don’t seem as embarrassed to be there as they did before!”