Singer-songwriter Matt James, who was formerly the drummer with ‘90s Brit indie-rockers Gene, is back with a brand-new single, The Reprieve, which sees him showcasing a much heavier sound.
Produced by Stephen Street (The Smiths, Morrissey, The Cranberries, Blur, The Rails) at his London studio, The Bunker, it’s a full-on, powerful, moody and rousing rock track, with some crunching, ‘foot on monitor’ electric guitar and Sympathy For The Devil-style ‘wooh-wooh’ backing vocals.
Quite frankly, James sounds like he’s taking no prisoners and that he’s going to come round your house and kick your front door in!
“On my first album [Breaking The Fall – 2022] I was experimenting with a lot of different sounds and now I’ve moved forward,” he tells Say It With Garage Flowers.
“I’ve done some quite plaintive songs – I had a very tough 2023 and 2024, after the death of my sister – so I wanted to do something that was a bit more hard-hitting. I was just desperate to rock out really!”
He adds: “For my live shows, I don’t have a band – I play with John Hornig [on pedal steel] – but, when it comes to the kind of records I want to put out, I dream of having a band one day. Going in the studio is my opportunity to rock out a bit.”
As well as featuring Hornig of Hastings-based Americana troupe, The Longshore Drifters, on pedal steel, The Reprieve also has two of James’s ex-Gene bandmates on it: Steve Mason (lead guitar) and Kev Miles (bass).
‘I wanted to do something that was a bit more hard-hitting. I was just desperate to rock out really!’
“It’s always really special to see them – they’ve been brilliant at supporting me,” says James. “I’ve got some plans to work with some other people as well. I’m hoping to work with Danny and Julian Wilson from Grand Drive – it’s been planned for a year, but hasn’t happened, although Julian has recorded some piano for a song.
“It’s in the pipeline and hopefully we’ll get it over the line this year. It’s one of many things I want to do. It’s good calling in musician friends – everyone has been very generous. Mick Talbot is on the next single, which is a right barnstormer! It has a Stonesy vibe, like Let’s Spend The Night Together. You can look forward to that one.”
Q&A
How did The Reprieve come about? Is it one of the newer songs you’ve written?
Matt James: It’s a newer song, but I had a version of it that sounded a bit like Ian Dury and the Blockheads – it was a funk-type thing. Just before I recorded it, I had a percussion loop, and I did an indie-blues-rock version of it. It’s somewhere in-between indie-rock and Americana, I suppose, which is a good place – I kind of like that. I probably won’t be accepted by either scene! (laughs).
I fell into Americana by accident – I was at an Alan Tyler gig in Hastings, and that’s where I met John Hornig. He told me that he was a pedal steel player, and he could play banjo – that’s his first instrument. I told him that I’d like to use pedal steel in a slightly different way, as textures and atmosphere, rather than traditional, [cowboy] hat-wearing country, and he loved the idea of that.
You’d explored country music when you were in Gene – a song like Why I Was Born has country influences…
Matt James: It does – that was Steve who came up with that. I loved R.E.M, and Steve and I used to love Big Star. There was also a lot of classic rock and bluesy influences in Gene, so I don’t think my influences have changed… The Clash were my favourite band at school – I was a bit of a punk snob, as you should be – but in my twenties I listened to everything.
What inspired the lyrics to The Reprieve?
Matt James: It’s about my own musical journey – doing it in my own time – and it’s slightly about knocking on doors… I knocked on a few that were shut! (laughs).
Everything I’ve done in my life seems to take far longer than anyone else – it takes me time to get good at something. I joined bands when I was 15, and I went to college in London when I was 18, for the sole reason of joining a band. I didn’t get anywhere until I was 26, and when I got my first proper job as a musician, I was 29. It took a hell of a long time from when I was a 15-year-old boy joining a band to telling my parents I was earning money for the first time.
Steve and Martin [Rossiter – Gene vocalist] were 21, but me and Kev were a bit older. It’s been the same with my solo stuff – I’m quite long in the tooth, but I’m determined to improve, and I think I’m doing that.
‘Musicians like myself have to have another job – you have to be selling out big venues to be doing it full-time. That’s just the way of the world’
There’s a whole culture of music journalists – not including yourself – who will delete without reading… That’s quite depressing, but the leveller for musicians like me is that you can use Spotify and reach a vast audience without having to use the industry at all – all the people that are charging for PR and radio… You can cut through that, and that was never possible before, but it’s depressing that you don’t get paid [from streaming]. Musicians like myself have to have another job – you have to be selling out big venues to be doing it full-time. That’s just the way of the world.
Any plans to make a second solo album?
Matt James: I’ve got four tracks recorded – it’s difficult for me to do it as much as I’d like to – and I have enough songs for an album. I’ve got to tick things off bit by bit – that’s the lot of the musician.
Did you have any songs left over from recording your debut record?
Matt James: I ended up with about five or six. A lot of those I’ve put into the mix and I’ve chopped and changed them… It’s good to have a lot of material to draw on – in any spare moment I’ve got, I’m down in my garden office/studio and playing the guitar, writing or demoing. I can’t spare whole days on it, but if I have a spare 10 minutes, I’ll pick up a guitar.
‘I need to do music. I’m depressed if I don’t’
I do music for two reasons – one is the pure freedom of expression, which sounds cheesy, but it’s not – I mean that wholeheartedly. I need to do it – I’m depressed if I don’t. Secondly, it’s because by using all the experience I’ve had, I hope that I might one day write a song that might completely change my world. That’s the goal – to write a song that could genuinely crossover and is seen as a bit of a classic. It’s not easy to do that, but, God, I’m going to give it a go.
The Reprieve is out now on streaming services. Matt James is playing The Jenny Lind in Hastings, East Sussex, on Friday January 31: doors 5pm. Details here.
You can listen to our Matt James playlist on Spotify below.
Say It With Garage Flowers 