WITH his new album out on the streets, James Blundell is heading North, preparing to showcase one of his most intensely personal records to date.
‘Portrait of a Man’, which was released in January, is the epitome of a James Blundell record, an album that is about penning illustrative lyrics, complementing them with strong raw instrumentation, and finishing them off with James’ recognisable vocals.
For years the singer songwriter, who harks just outside the country music realm, but inherently defies genre description, has always focused on writing quality songs, ignoring the outward influences of the commercial music industry.
And this ethos has served him well, after all, James Blundell is now a household name, and has a swag of albums and awards under his belt, all successes and notoriety derived from shunning popular processes of quick fame and fortune.
Its not that he has a dislike of the commercial music industry and its charting successes, but more he adheres to one complex style of songwriting that heralds from his first introduction to music – and it’s a theory he continues to subscribe to today.
“I was a regional Queensland child and, as I am fond of saying, we basically had the choice between ABC and static,” he says.
“ABC was very non-categorised, there was no genre definition, so you would have The Seekers next door to Joni Mitchell played alongside Bob Dylan.
“All of them were very good writers and it set a precedent in my mind that the song is what matters most of all, and whether or not it becomes a hit is up to (a) whether it gets a public hearing and (b) whether people subscribe to the point you are making.”
And James Blundell is certainly no stranger to making a ‘point’ in his songs.
He says this new album is no different, and features some ‘strident sensational’ comments.
Yet while some songwriters never manage to find a happy medium between their audiences and their ‘vocal’ songs, James does it with ease.
It is something about the inherent honesty in his songwriting, the way he takes his blank canvas and paints a story that is true to life and experiences.
He also puts his heart into his music, something which is a rare commodity in the current music industry.
The title track for his new album ‘Portrait of a Man’ is a prime example of his ability to weave a story from real experience and emotion, drawing the audience in and making them share his feelings.
“The title track is specifically about my father,” he says.
“If you can maintain a relationship with your father, because they really are your best mentor – with the exception of dysfunctional families – they have your best interests at heart.
“There are all sorts of stages you go through evolving as a writer – strident and angry when you are younger – a little more circumspect and understanding (when older) – and then the beautiful stage of going through the part where you understand.”
“That is a lot of the positioning of the statements made on this album.”
The album also features some interesting co-writes and collaborations.
On the track ‘Moving On’, Weddings Parties Anything frontman Mick Thomas joins James to perform on the song they penned together.
The song, of course, is another strong representation of James’ views of the world.
He says it is about the ‘state of the cultural psyche, harking back to the last time things were this grim’.
“And then there are (songs) some basically blues breakers on there (the album) that are just for the fun of it,” James says.
“A song called ‘Nothing’s Going to Get Me Down’ is designed that when people really have had enough, to go ‘you know what’ give it the finger.
“When things are grim you get one of two choices – you either start weeping or you start partying.”
While there are some tongue-in-cheek moments, ‘Portrait of a Man’ also deals with some harsh, stark realities of life.
The track ‘Five to Five’ portrays this aptly, and was inspired by an anecdote shared with James by a local Aboriginal in Central New South Wales
“It is a harsh sentiment,” James says of the song.
“The guy has been a heroin addict, and been convicted of armed robbery, and spent his life in jail.
“But it was such a great illustration of a guy who managed – by his own personal effort – to turn his life around.
“It is good to get to a stage where you are prepared to use strong colours to make a statement of intent.”
It’s not surprising to find James is always mentally sifting through ideas for songs, gathering inspiration from his everyday life and the people he meets.
He admits he’s been accused of ‘not really being there’ in the past as inspiration distracts him.
“At some stage of the game, the shutters come down, and I write in perpetuity because there is always something going on in the recesses of mind,” he says.
“As I say flippantly, I’m good on the big picture but tying my shoelaces often causes a lot of grief.
“I am trying to structure my life to allow more time away from performing and travelling to actually sit down and craft the songs as they come, because that way you do a get at chance to assess and fine tune.
“But since the age of seven, I have pretty much written stanza in my head and they get shelved for a period of time until you can sit down and develop them into fully blown songs.”
There was a while there during his career that James dropped out of the spotlight, and appeared to stop writing songs entirely.
He says his seclusion from the music industry was a direct result of the way he was at odds with the popular music of the day, something he now sees as changing, and evolving back into the quality material of the past.
“I speak on the terms of the last 12 months really, it is changing,” he says of the music scene in Australia.
“I have noticed a dramatic shift in the expectation of audiences, really I think it is an outcome of being served too much for too long, they are far more inclined to listen to a singer songwriter now than they probably have been in the last decade and a half.
“I still to the day get asked why I dropped out in 1995 and 1996, and had years away from the scene, and mainly (it was) because I felt trying to write songs of substance was completely immaterial.
“I am really glad to have been through that self-imposed exile – like any extreme, it’s a pendulum – you live through the extreme of inanity and then you come back to an adherence to logic, which really helps from a writer’s point of view.”
James Blundell performs at Riverways Arts Centre in Kirwin (Townsville) on Thursday, April 2, Silkwood Hotel at Silkwood on Friday, April 3, and Brothers Leagues Club in Cairns on Saturday, April 4.
His new album ‘Portrait of a Man’ is out now through Compass Bros Records.
Email a friend