James guitarist Saul Davies shares memories of Glasgow venues and musicians, including the Barrowland Ballroom, King Tut's, Walt Disco, The Blue Nile and Simple Minds.
James are among the top acts set to play Ayr’s Pavilion Festival - as it returns for its third year.
Taking place over the May Bank Holiday weekend (Friday, 2 - Sunday, 4 May 2025), this year’s event marks a new milestone, expanding into a three-day extravaganza with the debut of Ayr Beach Live on Friday, headlined by legendary Britpop icons James alongside a host of celebrated 00s and new alt-rock acts.
The festival, which is curated and co-founded by hometown DJ Ewan McVicar, will expand to a three-day event for 2025. He’ll appear on the bill alongside Ben Hemsley, Swedish superstar DJ Seinfeld, DJ and presenter Annie Mac - who first chapioned McVicar back in 2021 when he released chart-topping hit Tell Me Something Good.
James are among the top acts set to play Ayr’s Pavilion Festival - as it returns for its third year.
Taking place over the May Bank Holiday weekend (Friday, 2 - Sunday, 4 May 2025), this year’s event marks a new milestone, expanding into a three-day extravaganza with the debut of Ayr Beach Live on Friday, headlined by legendary Britpop icons James alongside a host of celebrated 00s and new alt-rock acts.
The festival, which is curated and co-founded by hometown DJ Ewan McVicar, will expand to a three-day event for 2025. He’ll appear on the bill alongside Ben Hemsley, Swedish superstar DJ Seinfeld, DJ and presenter Annie Mac - who first chapioned McVicar back in 2021 when he released chart-topping hit Tell Me Something Good.
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MusicTranscript
00:00It's Friday afternoon and we're here at the AC by Marriott in Glasgow city centre.
00:05I'm joined by Saul Davies of James. James are going to be at Ayr at the start of May
00:12for a festival appearance. They're no strangers to this city. I wanted to start
00:16Saul by asking you, you've had a long relationship with Glasgow as a city,
00:21when you think about Glasgow venues and Glasgow bands, what comes to mind?
00:28Well, where do you start? I mean, do you know what I mean? Well, I mean, our fortunes as a band are,
00:38I mean, Barrowlands probably is, you know, it's been really central, like it is
00:44for so many bands, but it's been kind of key to us as we've grown from kind of
00:51obscurity to, you know, building a fan base and stuff. So, you know, late 80s and
00:58into the 90s, whenever something happened, it always seemed to happen at
01:02the Barrowlands, you know what I mean? One way or another. Yeah. We never really let
01:06ourselves down, I don't think. Because it feels, so many bands,
01:10everybody says the same thing, right? Because the venue pushes you to do stuff
01:16that, you know. The crowd expects, you know. Yeah, you know you're somewhere different,
01:23you know you're somewhere special. Yeah. There are other venues around the
01:26country like that, but Barrowlands is kind of the pinnacle of that, I would say.
01:30Yeah. What I like about Barrowlands, it's like the band and the crowd kind of merge, you
01:35know, there's a real connection. No, completely. And, but, you know, Glasgow.
01:42Tuts, King Tuts is an amazing venue, you know.
01:48You know, Glasgow, without Glasgow in Britain, obviously without Glasgow in
01:57Scotland, the Scottish music scene would not have been anywhere near what it has
02:03become and still is, I think. But the same goes for Glasgow's effect on the
02:08whole of the UK, really. You know, it's like a beacon, isn't it? You've got
02:11Liverpool and Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield, these are, London maybe, I
02:16suppose. I'm talking about guitar music, really, as well, you know.
02:19Yeah, and I'm old enough to remember when, at the back of newspapers and
02:24magazines, there used to be adverts for all the gigs that were coming up. And in
02:28that period, in the kind of late 1990s, James were up here a lot and a lot of
02:32Liverpool bands were up here, a lot of Manchester bands. There was a great
02:36connection between those three cities in terms of places that take their music
02:39seriously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, long may it continue. Yeah. Despite, you know,
02:46the threats that there are to venues and, you know, it's pretty poor, really.
02:52But it's encouraging that kids still want to pick up a guitar and get
02:55involved, right? Or do anything, or press buttons, or, you know what I mean?
02:58Yeah. You know, it's football, rock and roll and sex will always have appeal.
03:05Indeed. James, you've got an extraordinary kind of background.
03:11And when you asked me about bands, particular bands, I mean, like, I really
03:18like Walt Disco, right? Right, okay. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. Because it's a newer
03:24crop of artists. But there's bands, I was thinking the other day, I was, I was
03:28showing my daughter Blue Nile. She didn't know Blue Nile. Yeah. And I was
03:33like, what a shame. I never, I never saw them play, right? And I never get to see
03:36them play. And I was thinking, what a, what a shame, eh? Yeah. An extraordinary
03:41band. Yeah. Absolutely extraordinary. You know, you couldn't put them in, pigeonhole
03:48them at all, because you know what I mean? And just like, I mean, the music
03:52that comes, has come out of Glasgow is so unbelievably diverse. I suppose it's a
03:56reflection of the struggles that people have had in Glasgow, you know, generation
04:01after generation after generation. I thought the, the documentary on, it was
04:08BBC, wasn't it? About Simple Minds. Simple Minds, yeah. Was a brilliant and really
04:14much needed welcome, rather, let's say, reminder of what an amazing band they
04:21are as well. I was like, it's cool. It's actually changed my life a little bit. I
04:25kind of, I'd, I saw Simple Minds in 1986, when I went to university in Manchester. I
04:32was at the uni there. And I went to see them at Manchester Apollo. And I thought
04:37it was one of the most amazing, it was one of the things that made me want to
04:40be a musician. Yeah. I was a musician, right? I started playing violin when I
04:44was eight years old in Kippen, near, near Stirling. That's where I was living up in
04:48the hills. And somebody turned up in the, our class one day and said, who wants to
04:53miss a maths lesson? Every hand went up. Yeah. And they went, right, the catch is
04:59you have to learn to play violin. And everybody's hands came down apart from mine. And I went, I don't know really what that means. I'll have a shot, you know. And, well, by the age of 13, I was the leader of the Stirling Youth Symphony Orchestra, right? Which is pretty mental. You know, no, yeah. And, and so I was a musician in that sense, right? I was, it was just a hobby, right? And then
05:23in Manchester, at uni there, and I saw some amazing things. Like the early 80s was insane to be in Manchester, right? Cypress Tavern and, you know, all of that stuff. And, but I very specifically remember going to that gig and, on my own, and they played behind the gores. It was so fucking cool. I was like, these guys are gods. I wouldn't, yeah? And summertime, someone,
05:53somewhere in summertime, I think is one of the top, is in the top 10 of greatest songs ever written, in my opinion. I think it's, like, it's so deep. It captures so much about what it is to be alive, and the disappointment of being alive. But the ascent, but in the end, the ascendancy, you know what I mean? Like, it will work out, but like, it's a work of absolute genius, that song. And so anyway, that, and
06:23that whole record, New Gold Dream, I think is, is, that couldn't have come out of anywhere else either. You know, it couldn't have come out of anywhere but Glasgow, in fact. So it's a, what a soundtrack it is to this city as well. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
06:38I was thinking about James, because, you know, like, a frotter for you.
06:40Here's me talking about Simple Minds. And, you know, you're probably thinking, oh, come on, tell us all the new bands you really like from Glasgow. And, well, I'm talking about, yeah, but I'm talking about Simple Minds.
06:53They're still active. Jim will be very happy. They've got tickets to sell for the summer.
07:01Nobody come and see my band. Go and see.
07:03No, do go and see James. They're a great festival band. I've enjoyed the experience immensely over the years. And I'm just thinking that, you know, like 44 years worth of music to put into, like, a headline set. Obviously, there's certain hits that you have to, certain points of the set that people would expect. Do you guys enjoy maybe peppering in some things that people wouldn't expect, or like, breaking out some songs, wouldn't you?
07:28And I don't think, our fans as such, that's why they come. That's why they come to see us. And one of the reasons why we keep making records, we happen to be in a really rich vein of creative form with each other. And we make new music. We make music for ourselves, really. Genuinely, we do.
07:52And albums or music gets made and goes out into the world. We're fortunate over the years, ever since Jimmy formed this band in 1981, you know, he has had this guiding, we all have this guiding light, which is, you know, new things are good. Yeah, it's good. And because we've been doing it, really, all the time.
08:19We've developed an audience, an audience that's developed around us, that's what they want, that's what they come for. They come for new stuff. Of course, in a festival, we have to play those songs that people know, and we must do that, because we also want people to celebrate with us, you know. And they're celebrations, some of those songs are huge celebrations, and we know that, getting away with it, lay it, sit down, you know, that's what they sometimes, these are massive tunes for people, and so we understand why people book us for festivals.
08:49But it's also our obligation to ourselves to challenge people a little bit. Yeah, I mean, that's what we do. I think we'd be really in trouble if we stopped writing and we'd be really in trouble if we started playing the same set every night.
09:09Yeah, yeah.