James Blunt: Criticism, Confidence & What Success Took From Me

0:02I had this complete naive confidence that I will be a professional musician, that when I recorded that first album Back to Ben, everyone's going to buy it. Ed Sheeran still has the belief that his next album will hit as big as the last. I know my next album won't be as big as my first because my naive confidence that I had, I don't have anymore. And so I won't quite get it there.

0:30Jake Humphrey: When James Blunt recorded his album, Back to Bedlam, he was absolutely certain it was going to work. Not hopeful, certain. It burnt his bridges with every record label in Britain. It'd been playing to 20 people on the 20th floor of a Ramada hotel. And yet, he still knew, absolutely knew, that the whole world was soon going to hear it. 20 million albums later he sat down with Jake and I and told us that that certainty has gone and that losing it has changed what he's capable of but that's okay James takes us inside the orchestrated press campaign that turned him into the country's punchline the night he was held back in his dressing room at Jules Holland so that Damon Olbarn didn't have to stand next to him the hug from Keith Flint from The Prodigy which he never forgot The song he wrote for his father because he'd never quite found a way to say it out loud And the night in Carrie Fisher's bathroom that produced Goodbye My Lover in a single take I promise you this is a rich conversation about where belief actually comes from And then what happens to it when you succeed It starts with the confidence that he had before he actually knew anything I'd like you to welcome to High Performance, James Blunt

1:56Welcome to High Performance. It's very nice to see you. It's been a while. I know. I think the last time we were together, we were racing cars around Goodwood. Yeah. And now here we are in these very comfy chairs. Took me 10 years to get back to you, to find you again. Yeah, you haven't texted or called. But I have tweeted. In fact, I tweeted today you were coming on the show. Right. Sorry, I was busy. I was on another. Yeah. Do you know why, though? I did it as an experiment to see what kind of messages I got back. And what do you think I got? Well, I don't know. what did my mother say? I got really positive messages.

2:27Really like love James what a legend tell him he's a hero. Sweet. It really was my mother. She has many burner accounts. It was mainly your family. I'm too shy to admit that was me. Yeah, do you know what? It's been a journey for me because once upon a time I didn't have that kind of warmth of reaction. So I suppose you stick around long enough and people just start treating you like you're part of the furniture and people are nice to me and it's a nice place to be.

2:53Jake Humphrey: Well, can we look at some of those previous tweets that you've been sent? Because I'd be interested in, if you can remember your comebacks on them when people... On the whole, I can. Okay, so... Because I promised I wrote them and the PR team did not write them because no PR team would be quite so disgusting. Well, give us your comeback for this one then, James. James Blunt just has an annoying face and a highly irritating voice. And no mortgage. Brilliant. Next one. No one really likes James Blunt, right? Yeah, I bought those 20 million albums myself. Yes. And the final one. Oh my fucking God, James Blunt is on the TV downstairs.

3:34Jake Humphrey: Can this day get any worse? Coming upstairs now. Thing is though, they're funny and they're great. But I think this is a really interesting insight into the human mind because when you were getting the negative criticism, you're the same person doing the same thing. but somehow those responses, those replies absolutely changed the narrative of how people talk and think about James Blunder, didn't they? Yeah, you're absolutely right. I write some pretty earnest songs and sing them in a very squeaky voice and so I think, and also doing interviews and if I'm asked about those, you know, if you ask me about music I'll be quite relatively serious about it, relatively serious about it and I suppose through that medium of doing interviews I suppose where the way journalists want to portray me is just very serious and whenever I did do a joke, they just, on the newspapers, they wouldn't add the ha-ha.

4:21So I guess where you've got this serious guy, ubiquitous over the airwaves, and so, yeah, and so people would expect to be serious and then with the invention of Twitter, people realised that I'm not, I'm just an idiot.

4:33Jake Humphrey: Well, you say that, but there's a really beautiful tweet that you put out there that I think marked a bit of a turning point for you was when Keith Flint from The Prodigy passed away and I printed it out here where you wrote, at the Q Awards years ago when Noel Gallagher was saying he was leaving Ibiza because I'd moved there and Damon Albarn refused to be in the same picture as me and Paul Weller was saying he'd rather eat his own shit than work with me. Keith Link came over and gave me a hug and said how thrilled he was for my success. And then the last line was, Keith, I only met you once, but I shed a tear at the news of your death in our business.

5:07Jake Humphrey: There are no prizes for being kind, but if there was, that Grammy would be yours. Yeah, and I find it quite, yeah, it's a memory for me. It's a really genuinely quite moving memory. Because I was going, I had this dream to be a musician. And I, you know, harbored that dream for so many years. And then that dream became true. And I was just, you know, living the best life. But very quickly, I was getting some negativity from the media. And we heard that it was coming our way even. My manager got a call saying the media, you know, they've had these guys. There are specific people who won't be mentioned, Gordon Smart, and a handful of others who set about saying these negative things and really going for it.

5:49It was an orchestrated attack. And then some people joined in, some musicians. And I think it's very easy for us as musicians or people in the public eye to kind of fall for the trap when we're trying to flog our own music, when someone says, oh, and which album don't you like, which musician don't you like? We just fall for that. And it's too easy for us to start saying, I don't like this person or I don't like that person. And we say whoever's the easiest whipping boy or girl at the time. And I happen to be that person. And so I don't know why Paul Weller said he didn't, you know, rather eat his own shit than work with me.

6:20Maybe I had never asked to work with him. So maybe he just really wanted to eat his own shit. And Noel Gallagher saying he can't live in Ibiza because I live down the road. Well, what a sad human being he is because it's a big enough island. You know, you don't have to, I'm not asking you to come and see me. And weirdly, house prices went through the roof the moment he left, actually. And I don't know whether the house prices went up because he had left or because I'd arrived, but, you know, there's got to be some connection. And the Damon Albans story was bizarre. You know, there I was on Jules Holland, and at the end of the Jules Holland show, they take a picture of all the musicians, and Damon Albans refused to be in that photo because I was on the episode with him.

7:00And so they... And he said that in front of you? No, his management went and spoke to the producers of the show, and he's a big deal. So they went along with that, which is bizarre too, because they should have told him just not to be such a prick. And so I was then held back in my dressing room, you know, all these different dressing rooms that all the musicians had given, and I was held back in mine while all the musicians were lined up around Jules Holland for the photo with Damon, and then he was led out to his car and off he went home. And I was brought out for the second photo. And only one of those makes the kind of the wall of Hall of Fame that they post all those pictures up.

7:36But it was very petty stuff. And so here you are, you know, I'm a grown man at that stage. have had a proper job in the army. And here I am suddenly in this kind of the music industry. And it seems so childish. All of this seems so childish. These guys, you know, this is like really, yeah, it's like being back at school. And there I am at the Q Awards. And I'm up for one of the awards. And I guess the Gorillaz were up for the same award. I was lucky enough to get it. So maybe Demons. But there, Keith Flint of The Prodigy, What a kind of, you know, what a rock star. What a punk rock star. A guy you'd think would be the most unfriendly.

8:15And he just came up, grabbed me, put his arms around me and said, you know, good for you, mate. I'm so thrilled for your success. And I, you know, I really, it was a hug that meant a lot to me at the time. He was an amazing, gentle, kind human being. I'm sure that now when you can reflect on all this stuff, you almost feel even stronger because you went there and you dealt with it. and not only did you deal with it internally, but externally, you know, you've had the last laugh on many occasions, as we see if we follow you on social media. But I do think that not to talk about actually how it felt does a total disservice to people that might be going through the same thing, but also to try and educate those people that think that bullying is just having a laugh, or we're just having a joke, or I'm going with the crowd.

8:57You know, someone who changed schools for being bullied, this stuff makes my skin crawl, absolutely makes my skin crawl. So would you mind sharing for us in the audience how it really felt, like that moment you're in that dressing room on your own, what you're really thinking and how you now feel about it I think I felt embarrassed and marginally ashamed that I was picked out and chosen not to be with my peers I remember with my wife, now wife when I was on a Graham Norton show and we were watching the feedback online, watch the show and watch the feedback. And the negativity online was so big.

9:35And I'm trying to chat this girl up. And then think I better not show her this negativity. Alcohol saw her through it. And she clouded her judgment. But I think also the way I've got over it is to put things in perspective. And as I say, I call that kind of behavior very childish. you know at school it's a different thing they're children and so you can kind of children don't know any better to be in an adult industry and then to be that way and you think wow how immature but also whilst I might have dealt with what I've had a lot of negativity the positivity way outweighed it you know incredibly so if I'm playing I'm on a world tour you know two and a half years on my first I haven't stopped touring in fact and I've been playing to 8 ,000 to 20 ,000 people every night in arenas and and you look out at these queues of people and you can look at your phone and you can find some negative stuff and as I say, Gordon Smart stuff in the sun.

10:31You can find it if you want to. But if you look out the window and see them queuing, you should kind of say, hey, these people have given their time, they bought tickets, they put much more effort in. They bought tickets and they've travelled and they're queuing up and if it's in Britain, they're queuing in the rain. So I think the negativity is far outweighed by the positivity and I feel grateful for them.

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11:30Jake Humphrey: See, but that's an interesting point, James, because there's plenty of research on this that says the brain is wired to go to the negative. Absolutely. So you can get 100 positive comments, but it's the one comment that is disparaging that sticks with you. So how have you learned to override that? Well, I suppose what I've learned to do is laugh at myself for doing so. And that's why with responding to a negative tweet, That's why my response is often laughing at me as much as it is to the other person because I'm crazy for going on there and looking for it. It is a madness. And that's why I think something like social media, which is anti-social, our lives would be much better to put it down than speak to normal people because face-to-face, we're probably kinder.

12:10Noel Gallagher's never said anything unkind to my face. He just always does it to your back when he's trying to flog music. This is why I think it's an important conversation to have on a show like High Performance because it's about understanding human beings better. And I think the legacy that this leaves hopefully can educate people. I mean, there's a great line you used to the education secretary who was using ridiculing language when you said, when you're trying to help someone up, you usually send a ladder, not a bow and arrow. Yeah, if you want to help people get to the top of the tree, yeah, give them a ladder, not a bow and arrow because he was implying that to help people, you know, to get people up to the top of the tree, we should be shooting the people who are really at the top.

12:48and yeah and I think absolutely right in that way and I suppose the other thing the other mechanism I've felt which is important which is that you know my friends and my family the people who count the people who I don't know out there in the world who are saying things I've never met them necessarily or don't know them especially well particularly on social media you're never going to meet these people why would you take their opinion seriously it's your friends and family who will look after you and support you and take the mickey out of you in the way that you deserve How has it changed you?

13:17Are you more empathetic or did you not need to be any more empathetic than you already were? Well, I've always had a, it did come as a surprise. You know, we're talking a lot about negativity. And again, we should talk about the positives because it's, yeah, because they outweigh, as I say, the negativity. It came as a surprise when it first happened. It took away the fun. But I'd come from the army where we take the mickey out of each other all the time. And so again, I learned to sort of, I learned to look at it after a while. I learned to look at it as, you know, well, we always take the mickey out of people.

13:47love. So I'll just treat it as people, you know, taking the mickey out of me because it comes out of affection. And that becomes easier over time. And then what I've learned to do is if you read something and you want to respond, don't do it with emotion. Just sit back. You'll always respond better the next day. When you've taken the sting out of something, you'll always... So I've learned to just settle down and treat it like I'm talking to my mate. So then I've learned to have fun with it and laugh laugh laugh at myself you know look think about who's really doing this as i say i've got 10 000 people queuing up to a gig who's doing this negatives they're probably a 50 year old man still living with their parents upstairs probably with their trousers around their ankles um writing these negative things while they're there on their own and i'm the one and i'm responding to them we're both nuts so i need to laugh at them and laugh totally at myself for not not thinking how lucky i am to be doing what i do so let's talk then about what you believe high performance to be because among this sea of criticism and negativity and it was obviously horrible there was also the incredible success we will talk in detail as well about you know your upbringing and your time spent in the british military a real myriad of experiences and understanding human nature so when i said to you what is high performance where do you kind of find an answer to that?

15:03Well, I think fundamentally, you have to train. You have to do the practice. And it's about, you know, the 10 ,000 hours of experience in whatever your job is. And, you know, I've sung a ton from a little child, you know, and people can go online and say, oh, you know, James Blunt, he can't sing. I can sing. And my sound man will say, yeah, you don't hit a, you know, I don't have a duff note because I've put that time and practice in. And we practice as a band hours and hours and hours in my band till my you know till my fingers are absolutely calloused up we put the time in um and the effort fundamentally and then and then hopefully with that experience comes confidence as well i can step on to a stage in front of thousands of people and be totally totally relaxed because i know what i'm going to do i put the time in before and it's going to be

15:53Jake Humphrey: absolutely fine now but would you tell us about the early experiences before you've accumulated the hours of the practice because you've still got to get out there to perform before you can acquire that experience what was that like for you yeah for me um it was an amazing experience i was coming out of the army to go into music so my final two years i was based in london i was the queen ceremonial bodyguard in london so the guys we see outside back in palace but i was riding on a horse with a helmet and an armor and a sword and you know helmet with a plume and i'm riding around beside Her Majesty on those large parades or on a daily basis going to Horse Guards, it's called, beside Downing Street.

16:33And then in the evening, I was off to North London in these tiny bars and clubs and playing tiny gigs in front of, you know, 50 people one day or five of my mates on the others if they're the only ones who've turned up. And all of that is worth the hard graft because, again, it gives you a certain resilience as well. The people who've been on x factor for instance they have to make their mistakes in front of the nation and um and i'm not saying anything derogatory against them i've been an x factor judge in australia and i feel great terror for what they are going through because you know for the for the benefit of the of the judges i was paid well um and uh and the producers who make you know who get their ratings and get their jobs these people with dreams were making their mistakes in front of a nation whereas I was in tiny, tiny bars and clubs, playing to very few people, making my mistakes then.

17:25And I've made many mistakes in those performances. I've just put in the time and I know what works. You know, I live in Ibiza and I've stolen some stuff from Carl Cox. I know what he does when he's doing, you know, with a bunch of people. And I've watched Elton perform and I've nicked a couple of things from him. And so you just, the time... You do that, do you? You watch others? Yeah, absolutely. And you just go, okay, that works and that doesn't, I'll have that. or I've made this mistake once and I corrected the right way one day and I'll use that and I made a mistake the other day so I won't do that.

17:56You know, experience counts for a lot.

17:58Jake Humphrey: Can you give us an insight as to what those mistakes were? Like what were the common mistakes that lots of performers make in those early years? Well, there's some really obvious things. You know, there are phrases, aren't there? Never complain, never explain. If I have an issue on stage, you won't know it. I won't tell anyone. If you're struggling with a bit of sound, my audience won't know. I won't tell them. If I've made a fluff up in a song, my band will remind me, sure, after the show, but they'll carry me through during that moment. You know, we push on. We don't stop. The show goes on because the audience won't know and they'll feel an inflection, but it'll make it live.

18:36They'll enjoy it more.

18:37Jake Humphrey: That reminds us, we were lucky enough to interview Gary Barlow, who spoke about his 10 ,000 hours came playing the keyboard for performers. So he was getting to watch an audience from behind a performer to understand how you take people on a journey, how you bring them with you. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I have a great, you know, that's going on a journey. I really believe in as a performance. You know, I stand on a stage and I sort of, in a terrible way, remove my clothing. It's not that impressive, but worth a look. Yeah. We'll find that on YouTube, right? Yeah, exactly. You sort of remove your shell.

19:14everything that you, you know, I, yeah, all your inhibitions, and you just take people on an emotional journey. And to have, it's a funny thing, doing as a musician, as a singer songwriter, there are musicians in my kind of line of music are often, you know, mocked and saying, oh, you're so sensitive and over emotional, but music should be, shouldn't it? It should have emotion in it. And, and so yeah, to remove your inhibitions, to stand there and be judged, takes a certain courage. And to take people on an emotional journey is what I do, because I have, you know as you know some pretty miserable songs and so we take them down and then we take them up and and that's what makes the concert really it gives it yeah it's um its journey can we speak

19:54Jake Humphrey: about emotions then because you've experienced things in war where you've seen some pretty horrific acts from other human beings to another and you talk about how you learn to express emotions through song rather than necessarily being able to talk about it freely yeah yeah i me think you know i was sent to boarding school age seven um that removes any emotion from you pretty early on you know it's beaten out of you by headmaster with a cane uh and honestly uh well you know not far off a couple of times and so my mom would definitely describe me as emotionally stunted you know i'm very close to my parents but we have never discussed how we feel about anything that i find the word even feelings quite tricky um because it's sort of you know it starts to go in an embarrassing thing.

20:42It's, yeah. So, so... It's amazing how awkward you get talking about emotion when, like, if I think of, if I was to say what the song that's moved me the most in the past few years, the song about your dad, about Munster. Yeah. I mean, if I played that in the car the other day and I was with someone else and both of us are crying, right? Yeah. Yet the man who writes it and sings it and can go to that place doesn't even want to use the word feeling. Yeah. On the podcast. that is so it's hard for me to compute isn't it and I suppose as you were saying that's how I've just found my emotional outlet if you can ask me things about how I feel particularly I feel I'm slightly embarrassed to talk about it and rather just say something silly but in a song I can do it I can really feel that I can sum it up and I can sum up how I want to what are the things I want to say to my father that I've never said and so when I'd written that song and recorded that song I then said to my father you know I call him daddy hey daddy because posh people call their parents daddy and I say hey daddy I've written a song and I think you should hear it and I took him upstairs put some headphones on he tapped his foot out of time and then he put his hand on my knee and said you know jolly good well done and that was that that's all we did and how did that feel?

21:58well I was relieved that I felt his you know understood the song there was a warmth is it almost enough for you to know that he heard it? yeah absolutely and I knew he I knew it meant something to him, absolutely. And, you know, it's a tough listen. I say, you know, I'm not your son, you're not my father. We're just two grown men saying goodbye. No need to forgive, no need to forget. I know your mistakes and you know mine. And, you know, it gets me even hearing that bit. It's like... It's very direct, definitely. But I think he, you know, he got it. And how do you feel thinking about those lyrics?

22:33I feel very, very lucky to be able to say those words to him while he was still live, because often we leave things too late, I think. And then for me, I had the magic that the record label would give me the money to make a video and that I could get him in it. And, you know, it was very funny recording because he was, while we were there, camera going, song playing, me crying, camera crews, all crying, so many people, and he was just going, you know, I'm still alive. What on earth are you all blubbing about? But I captured him on camera and I'll always have him on camera in that way, you know, which is a gift.

23:15Jake Humphrey: Are you familiar with a concept that psychologists talk about? They call it boarding school syndrome, where they talk about the ABCD of it, where many young people that go away to boarding school at a young age, at a later stage, identify that there's feelings of abandonment, betrayal, captivity or disassociation from emotions that they will have experienced. Yeah, and so it's a strange thing because I don't see it as necessarily too bad a thing. Of course it strips you of emotion and I found my own outlet for that. Other than that small thing, is that a problem? And it does come with some pros.

23:52I was going to ask you about those. Some pros and I... Prep school is from 7 to 14. I quite enjoyed that to a degree because you know what, you're young, you're chucked in with a whole load of other kids there are some amazing facilities you know football pitches and rugby pitches and a ton of different sports and things like that and you know we're lucky and you've got kids your age to mess around with and you know who wants to be with your parents that's kind of good then you get to 14 to 18 and I didn't really enjoy that so much but that's the age these are all boys schools it would have been nice to see a few girls at that stage it would have been kind of nice and I was in a year that wasn't particularly pleasant and so at that stage I really didn't enjoy it but there are pros to that you know you become very independent very early on I always joke about yeah you know my parents dropped me off at school when I was seven and they didn't call me again until I got famous which isn't true and they're very close but I sort of you know what I mean is I'm a very independent person I travel a lot I'm very comfortable you know moving around and yeah and you know what I suppose it's greatest benefit it's those kind of institutions the lesson they tell you from the beginning is you can be whatever you want to be.

25:04They'll say, you know, these people were at this school before. I've just gone back to my old school. And they're going on the boards. There's Churchill. And there's Robert Peel who invented the police force and was a prime minister. And, you know, a ton of other people who've been at the kind of the very top of our nation. And you're told you can be this too. And just knowing that, that giving any child that confidence you can be in anything is a massive, massive benefit. it. And I started saying from 14, you know, I'm going to be a professional musician. And I had this complete naive confidence.

25:35And talk about the other people I know in the industry, Ed Sheeran is a very, very confident human being. And quite rightly so, because he's a very talented musician. He has an insane confidence. And me, I look at myself and compare it at the time. And mine was of complete naivety, naive confidence that I will be a professional musician, that when I recorded that first album Back to Bed and everyone's going to buy it. You know, I really knew that everyone, this will be heard. And if I'd known what I know now, it would have really taken the wind out of my sails potentially. You know, when I got to Los Angeles and thousands of people are looking for a record deal and everyone wants to be famous and everyone wants to achieve and everyone's got the same goal as you.

26:19had I realised how, yeah, how kind of mad the ambition was, it would have stifled it.

26:27Jake Humphrey: Before we jump into that LA period of your life when things did start to take off and this dream you had started to manifest itself, I'd like to just go back to when you learned to write and to be able to express those emotions through music. How did that come about and how did it make you feel? I had learnt the violin at a very early age because my mum made me learn the violin. It was really just, she made me play, well, it was with a teacher, Hot Cross Buns with some other children. You've read about this. We played Hot Cross Buns around a circular table going in an anti-clockwise direction.

26:59And I think we were probably involved in some kind of satanic ritual. But it was the 70s and that was all good then. And then I learned the piano when I was about seven and that was miserable. Learning Mozart's Sonata and F-sharp minor is not a song you want to play to your mates. So I didn't enjoy that very much. But then at school, age 14, there was this guy playing the electric guitar and that was exciting and he was playing songs that I knew from the radio and immediately I picked that up he showed me the same three chords that I still know and love and with that immediately I was playing an instrument that I loved and playing other songs that I heard from the radio I started having my own little musical ideas and that was just suddenly a realisation that with those ideas comes words that I would like to say that I wouldn't normally say with my friends.

27:50Having musical ideas immediately go to, yeah, your own thoughts, your own ideas and your own expression. And I suppose also that's the age, isn't it, of 14 onwards, where you start to realise yourself as an individual. You're not your parent's child anymore, mothered or fathered by them. You're suddenly becoming an individual with your own thoughts. and so perhaps the timing of that is when I started writing songs and expressing myself. What are the lyrics, if any, that you remember from that period that you were able to kind of express how you felt through the music even if you weren't able to say it?

28:25I wrote a song called Wise Men. It's on my first album. I won't be able to tell you the lyrics off by heart. But really, that was one of my first songs and it was really written about the, yeah, I suppose the pressure to conform or to be like other people or the stresses of being judged by others. That's kind of, looking back at the lyrics, they kind of make no sense to me, but I know the feeling is about wanting to, yeah, not being judged by others and doing your own thing.

28:56Jake Humphrey: Well, this idea of not wanting to conform and to follow the park then, I'm interested in what was your decision making to then go into the military, which is all about conformity and sticking together. Yeah, and I don't mean conform in the way I have a B, well, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, following the crowd, I wouldn't want to conform with that, but conform with what is right. I'm a believer in doing the right thing. And so the army, sure, there's the notion that we are doing something and we're working together as a team, which is different necessarily. You follow rules and I suppose instructions, don't you?

29:38That you're given orders. but the army is also about there's a we have a free will to do that we're given missions and how you achieve that mission is up to you and so we work as teams uh together we're all experts in our field and and i really enjoyed that aspect of the army each person within my troop of soldiers uh that come from all walks of the life all corners of the uk um all professionals in their specific uh job within the troop and i and all of us working to help achieve a certain goal and there's real magic in that.

30:09Jake Humphrey: But there's a story in your book that you recount where you defied orders when you were in Bosnia. Yeah. Which again, is that interesting dichotomy of following the path, doing what you consider to be the right thing, but being willing to walk away and do what you consider to be right. Yeah, well, to follow orders is to try and all, you know, work as a team to achieve a goal. But then we still have the moral obligation to do the right thing. And that's why I suppose some soldiers have been tried further down the line. They're saying, oh, I was just following orders. Well, depending on which army you are in, I don't know if that's a good enough defense.

30:46We should be able to say to our commanders, that's illegal. That's wrong.

30:49Jake Humphrey: So what do you tell us about that incident for our viewers? Yeah. And so my was in Kosovo in 1999, and it was a weapons amnesty. We were taking weapons. We do a really sensible thing. If people are killing each other, rather than taking sides necessarily. We just try and bring peace by standing in the middle, stopping each other, them all killing each other. And then at that stage, let's take the weapons away. The American army believe in this, even if they'll still leave weapons in their own country, they believe in somewhere like the Balkans. Let's get the weapons out. If they can't shoot each other, they'll hit each other and these people will live.

31:26So a weapons amnesty. And so I was in an area of responsibility and I was trying to remove weapons from people and I was authorized to be quite forceful. And so I would get groups of people together and say, I'm removing your weapons from you. And if you do this, I will be your security. But if you don't, then I will effectively be your enemy. And this obviously means a lot to the people. These people, they're civilians who've got weapons in their houses for their own protection. This is a Serb area as well. And they're really worried now that the Serb army has been pushed out. They're really worried that the Albanians who the Serb army had been killing, the Albanians would come in and seek revenge and retribution to these Serb villagers.

32:12So they need their weapons for protection. But I was saying, you don't. We're here. And I was really authorized to say, and we won't leave you. We will stick by you. And you give us your weapons. And I give you my word. I will be here for the long term and protect you. And, you know, we have grown men in tears working out whether they believe you or not, whether they can trust this young, you know, 23 years old or something. And I meant it. I would be there. And we took all their weapons. They lined up and they gave us all their weapons, all their security. We gave them. And the next day my boss called up and said, right, we've got the weapons.

32:47Let's go. We're going somewhere else. And I turned to my soldiers and I said, I gave them my word. I gave them my word. and my soldiers said, you absolutely did. What can we do? And I said, well, okay. For the first time in my life as an officer with my soldiers, we took a vote because it's not a democratic place normally, but we took a vote. I said, what I'm going to do is I think half of us go up, including me, because I'm the one on the radio to our boss, we'll go up to the border where we've been sent on this new mission, but we're going to leave half of us here to carry out this job of securing and making safe this village where they no longer have their weapons because of us.

33:25And my soldiers said, we're in. Absolutely, we're in. So we split up and for two weeks we did these two separate jobs, which we didn't have enough manpower for either job. We had no sleep in that time. We were absolutely broken in that period, but we felt we were doing the right thing. A few miles away in some area, another area of responsibility where the same thing had happened, where the weapons had been removed, nothing to do with me, but an entire village was murdered. and my boss called me and said, this has happened in another area. You need to get back to that village where you, those villages where you'd taken their weapons.

34:00And I said, you know what? Screw you. We've been there for two weeks because you gave me, you know, I gave them my word and you gave me your word that I could say this. And we've been there this two weeks. And yeah, and so, you know, so I think in the army, particularly in small armies like the British army, you still can know what's right and wrong and you can still use your, yeah. judgment.

34:24Jake Humphrey: So what would you say are the top three lessons you learned from leading a group of people in such difficult, dangerous circumstances that you feel our viewers could take away and apply on their own? Yeah, well, it's about having a good team and therefore equipping yourself with good support. It's respect for that team. And then having been well informed, then it's having the conviction to make a decision and going in that direction with that conviction. You've got the same band members from 20 years ago when you first did Back to Bedlam, still working with you today. How many of those lessons are applied from the military into your own band unit?

35:05Absolutely, it's the same game. Just my tank has grown a little. It's now a tour bus. And yeah, I mean, I have had the same crew for 20 years, really. I have almost the same band. I just lost two of them because they married girls from Australia. But otherwise, it's the same band, the same crew. And so we have a great sense of loyalty to each other. And yeah, and I see them in the same way. You know, they're experts in their field. My guitar, he plays guitar better than me. I better ask his opinion and his advice. And then, you know, and if the bass player says he's got to follow the drummer all the time, well, nine times out of 10, I'll say he's probably right.

35:40But the one time out of 10 where I say, you know, sorry, but I just want to do it my way, he'll shrug and, you know, think I'm an idiot. But he'll say, come on then, let's try. your way, James.

35:49Jake Humphrey: But then can I explore that idea that you went through Sandhurst where the motto is you lead to serve or you serve to lead? Yeah, one of those two. Yeah, but then I'm interested that in that same mentality with a band member when it's still your name above the door at the end of the day when those 10 ,000 people you look out the window are queuing to see James Blunt. So how do you keep that humility to be able to listen to them without getting high on your own supply? Well, because, you know, they're really, really amazing musicians. They're musicians. They're the rock stars. I always say out loud, they're the rock stars that I always wanted to be.

36:25You know, the drummer plays the drums way better than me. He'd be laughing if I was even saying this. I don't play the drums. You know, he's employed to be the best drummer in the world that I can possibly afford. And so, yeah, he can advise me on that. He plays really, really well these are phenomenal musicians I've got really great crew members for that reason and therefore I can respect them and so we also do a very basic thing on my tour I have a dressing room we're all in the same dressing room together no one knocks on the door to come in you know there's one member of the crew who always knocks on the door and I always say please don't knock on the door please just walk in why does that matter so much?

37:05because his name's Jerry and I love him Jerry and he's you know he's a sweetheart but I don't want to knock. Just come on in. It's our dressing room, and they all come in at the end of the show, crew included, band included. We all have a drink. The lighting guy, Glenn, will take the mickey out of where I cocked up then and there and that thing, and we'll take the mickey out of him for when everyone was in darkness. And we live and breathe together as a little family. Yeah, I'm the lucky one who has my name on the ticket, but we live as a family and look after each other. And what does that do for you as a band?

37:42Well, it means that we're going to care for each other. And if I'm struggling with things, if I'm struggling, we talked about the negativity, and when I was going through harder times and there were some, you know, you get a tabloid newspaper writing some terrible things about you, well, then, you know, your bandmates will come and put their arm around you and say, you know, well, you know, at least she said you were good in the sack, mate. Even if the kiss and tell was painful to read. from the Sun newspaper. Yeah, lovely. So, yeah, we look after each other. Did I read a story that girls were being paid to sleep, like they were paying girls to try and sleep with famous men?

38:23There was an amazing moment a few years ago where the police sent all the internal emails from the News of the World to my parents. And in that process, we found that they had two girls on a payroll who were sent out to go and shag different celebrities. Shane Warne, Ria Ferdinand, John Terry and me and I was last out of those guys.

38:50And yeah, that's a pretty amazing thing to read. How did that make you feel? Well, bizarre. I mean, I think actually, again, some kind of shame in it because actually the story of those girls, you know, two of them, it's a pretty good story in many ways. Two girls, full down bed. and then what was weird is reading the internal emails Andy Coulson, the then editor of the News of the World was writing to the journalists back and forth to portray, how best to portray my orgasm was the internal dialogue in a national newspaper I think he'd sing her name Oh Emma, oh Emma, he'd sing it and you think, you know, you're the editor of a national newspaper and that's the level that you're sinking to and then shame because you know these emails are being read by my mother while i'm away on tour and again just kind of shame that you've got yourself in this ugly situation you know how much prep goes into every guest we bring on to this show well lately we've been doing a lot of that prep with claude it's deep research pulls proper analytics across dozens of sources with citations that we can actually trust not just skim over so last week actually connected two big things that we'd never spotted on our own and that ended up being one of i think the biggest moments in one of our most recent episodes and what i love about it as a host is that claude doesn't think for me it thinks with me claude is the ai for minds that don't stop at good enough it's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at claude.ai slash performance.

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42:51Jake Humphrey: We spoke to Paul Gascoyne, who attributed some of his own mental health challenges down to experiences like what you've described. Yeah, and he's had it tough. So I'm interested in how did you avoid getting into that spiral of despair, shame, negativity, lack of trust that allowed you to look at it from a perspective and laugh in a healthier way yeah um i got into the business a bit older than most people because i'd been in the army so i was 28 when i first got in i did i did lie about my age uh on my wikipedia page took off uh five years but being older gave me at least a little you know a little bit of well worldly experience i suppose to a level and i have a very close family who um who at least can just look after me in that way I think those things genuinely help.

43:38Jake Humphrey: So tell us, I mean, if you don't mind then, tell us a little bit about the advice, the support, the help that your family gave you that, again, people can understand. It's just simply to have, you know, your mum and your dad call you and say, hey, the world, it may look like the world hates you, but we love you. You know, that counts for a lot. And it's funny, I watched the Amy Winehouse biopic the other day and I felt so sad at the end of it because you saw someone who was very, very young when she started out with these dreams and again, similarly, pursued by paparazzi outside her house and the struggle that she had and she had it in many different ways.

44:19And it did bring back a lot of memories for me but I feel the fundamental thing is I was guided and advised well. I know she on tour didn't have the same setup of the dressing room where the band and the crew could come in. She had a security guard outside stopping people coming in. My lighting guy who worked with her didn't go in, wasn't allowed in and didn't speak to her during that time. And as I say, my family were very warm during that time. I can't say I knew anything about her family or compare it, but at least I know that in my case, my family were always there. I think in so many ways, when it finally happened for you, the fact that there was tough times at school, the fact that you'd been through the British Army, the fact that you'd been to boarding school, I think so many of these things were almost building a suit of armor that you didn't know was being built necessarily, but was probably pretty useful when finally the world knew you.

45:09Yeah, you're absolutely right. And I think, you know, as I say, I was 28 going through business. I've come from the army. I can put things in perspective. And I often did. You know, if I call a mate in the army and say, the news of the world said a nasty thing about me, and he'd go, oh, well, here I am in Afghanistan, and so-and-so's legs just been blown off today. Back in my box. You know, it kind of puts it back in perspective. idea. Let's talk then about the transition from the army to the music world. I saw one time you described yourself as an accidental pop star, but it doesn't feel accidental at all.

45:38You dreamed of it at 14. You were putting in the graft when you were still serving in the army. How is anything here accidental? This is hard work. Yeah, well, I think what people are saying, I'm perhaps an unnatural pop star. You know, not a pop star feels uncomfortable because I'm not a star. I'm a musician. I'm a touring musician. That's what I am. And there's nothing starry necessarily about me. but I suppose the music business is a shallow place and it deals in its marketing place really marketing a dream and an ambition and so a lot of it is about what's hip and cool and those two words are not associated with me in any way and for me that's why I don't feel necessarily very comfortable in the business I have a different job I'm not in the music business I'm a touring musician and I get out there and I tour the world and I graft really hard and I write songs that aren't about what's hip and what's cool I write about real things that I really feel, that I've experienced myself.

46:33And most people in the world aren't really that bothered with what's cool, are they? Most people are dealing with real things too, real issues. And I think that's hopefully why I'm still very lucky to have an audience is because people, my audience at least, connect with the songs because they hear a little bit of themselves in what I'm singing about. Let's rewind then 20 years. You've left the army. how did you go from leaving the army to suddenly having an album that pretty much everyone in this room and everyone listening to this has somewhere in their collection back in the day when we still used to buy cds i um i got i got a manager he happened to be elton john's junior manager uh his day-to-day manager and i've been playing all these gigs around london and getting record labels down which is the wrong thing to do um because you only get one shot with a record label and if they've seen you and you have and then things aren't all in place then they they pass and they're not going to come back a second time um and so for this kind of podcast of high performance it's about you know keeping your powder dry until you really are fully equipped to going in and and you know fighting the good fight with everyone you need around you and i um i went in too early with record labels and i didn't have my manager and i didn't have the songs that i got that manager eventually i've got the right manager he's still my manager today how was the rejection early on for you uh well i was you know you know there are a lot of record labels and you think i'll find another one and you know it's all it's a learning experience so many wrong turns so many dead ends but they weren't that just wasn't the path and i again i would have this blind conviction that i'll get there in the end and and so my manager says okay he's now the guy who can at least help me with the industry and help me with the shark infested waters that the industry um have and and then he can let me focus on my job as a as right of writing songs and then i went out to the South by Southwest Music Festival, having burnt my bridges with every UK label.

48:27And it's, you know, and almost what I didn't realize at the time, this is probably the last ditch effort. I didn't know that. My manager really says, you know, it's kind of last shot. But I played on the 20th floor of a Ramada hotel to an audience of about 20 people on the fringes of this festival, which I was hoping to be in the thick of it, but I was right out there on the kind of edge of the town. And one woman walked up to me afterwards at the end, and she said, hey, my name's Linda Perry. I'll give you the money to make an album today, or tomorrow, if you sign on this piece of paper for the record deal today.

48:58And I went, hell yeah, come on, let's do it. Custard Records, I signed to. She's, as I say, from Fallen On Blondes. I wrote that song, Hey Yeah, What's Going On? It's a hit. And with that, the dream came true. Wow. What was it like then when fame came your way? Well, that was still a bit further down the way. We still had to go and make that album. But then some bizarre things started happening. to me. I found myself living with Carrie Fisher. That's a bizarre experience of I just bumped into How do you find yourself living with Carrie Fisher? I mean, that's... I had a girlfriend at the time whose family knew some interesting people and I found myself in Notting Hill in a restaurant on a Sunday lunch and the person sitting next to me was Carrie Fisher.

49:41Her first question to me was, what do you do? I said, I've just left the army and I'm a musician now and I've got a record deal. And I said, I'm moving to Los Angeles to record my first album, where are you going to live she said I don't know I said I haven't got a place and she said well you're going to live with me then then she put me up in her in her house in cabin number two beside that cabin number one was a guy called Charlie Wessler who just produced a film called Dumb and Dumber and there's something about Mary and and I lived with her and her mum Carrie's mum was Debbie Reynolds from Singing in the Rain so it's just kind of crazy house and and I'm going down Mulholland Drive every day to work with a producer who I'd found.

50:20That was really weird how I'd found him to, I'd heard this music by a guy called Elliot Smith. It was just so beautiful. And I called my manager and said, I'd love to work with a guy who recorded this music. And so he called that producer, a guy called Tom Rothrock, and he'd done, as I say, Beck, Elliot Smith, Baddard-Drawn Boy, The Foo Fighters, a whole host of incredible music. And the very day before that phone call my song You're Beautiful from the South by Southwest festival had literally come through his inbox and he'd been sent out by a random person listened to that and thought wow this is really exciting and we'd called him the next day So do you believe in fate or luck?

51:00Well I think you know luck is your own creation isn't it? Luck you have to you don't have to be in the right place at the right time you have to kind of be in all the places all the time for it to find you you create your own luck and then from there, you know, fate will be yours. And so, yeah, there I am. I mean, living in LA, we had Carrie Fisher's house, recording down the road in the amazing studio with Tom Rothrock and at that stage, well, there my naive confidence is really going, you know, I've got everything, this is going to work. Everyone's going to enjoy this, everyone's going to buy this and will hear this album because how can it not?

51:37You know, I, yeah, I was very, very lucky to have a few things, a few doors were open for me in that way. And it was called Back to Bedlam from the time spent in that house. Yes, well, I was searching for a title, and the song's really about the questions, your own personal inner questions you have as a young person stepping out into the world, not knowing who you're going to be, who you're going to meet, what you're going to do in life, what does life have and what does it hold for you. You have, you know, all the questions of what life is going to bring is what that album was about, very much the internal questions.

52:10And then Living with Carrie and her house is a kind of mad house and she has a madness in her own head. She's actually just really bright. But most people think she's kind of slightly mad because she's just, if you're that, if you just know that the conversation's going to go from A to F, you know, well, you might as well just skip straight from A to F rather than explaining the process. And most people would then get lost and think she was a bit crazy. But she was just thinking faster than others. And so her house was a bit of bedlam. And so the album seemed to, you know, back to bedlam, rang true.

52:41Jake Humphrey: And I read, and I don't know if it's a true anecdote, you can correct me if it's not, that when you recorded Goodbye My Lover in the bathroom, you were chipping on hash brownies at the time. Yeah. Is that true? It's true. I really wrote it in a book in the hope they would never have to discuss it in real life. Ah! Yeah, well, in recording sometimes, it's interesting to try and get deep in on a song. And I've been told that hash brownies might be a way of doing this. I'd had an experiment with this kind of thing before, obviously and so I thought well you know we're in California these things are easily come easily come by and so and so I bought a hash brownie and I was told by the nice person who sold it to me gave it to me let's take a quarter of this and you'll be away and I told Tom Rothenberg the producer we should do this and you're my producer so you should be in on this by the way all of this is an exaggeration a lie just in case I need to go on an American visa again for clarity I'm just I'm just saying this is, I'm bragging and making up this story as an embellishment of a story to try and be popular with you two.

53:48Thank you. Yeah, we're in a bar. And I'm just telling a story to make you like me. And so I said to my producer, you know, I'll do half and you do half. And he said, well, you do it and I'll see how you feel. And then maybe I'll make a decision from there. So I took it and 45 minutes later, I wanted to tear my own fucking skin off. I was in physical and mental agony. I wanted out on planet Earth, the world, my life. I was just tearing myself apart. And he walked in and said, how are you doing? And I said, it's quite mild. So he took this. We were then driven around to Carrie's house where there was a piano in the bathroom because we didn't have a piano in the studio.

54:30And he started screaming, screaming, take me to fucking hospital, man. Take me to fucking hospital. and I found if I played the piano, he would calm down. He would sit in a chair. He's got a cowboy hat and a long hair. He looks like an American Jesus, big cowboy boots on. And he would just calm down for a moment. The engineer pressing record on the computers and he'd calm down while I played. And then when I stopped, he'd go back in, take me to fucking hospital, man. Take me to the hospital. And then so we did the piano a bit and then I did the vocal too. We'd get quick to the microphone. I'll do the vocal to keep him calm, any music, just to calm him down.

55:06and I start singing this song. It's Goodbye, My Lover. And here I am. I've had this dream since I was 14. I've left the army to follow this dream. I'm now living in America. I'm living with Carrie Fisher. I'm in her bathroom and it's about the songs about the girl, you know, who, and she's out there somewhere. And I suddenly realize in this moment of clarity, I'm going to sing this song and I'm recording it and I'm going to get to the end and I'm going to die. And I get to the end of the song and I completely blacked out. I passed out. I smacked the floor unconscious. And then Tom stands up to us, people in a fucking hospital, man.

55:43And the engineer stood up and said, what the fuck is wrong with you people? And he left. And anyway, Carrie banged on the door, opened some soup, opened the door, carried in some soup rather, and fed us so we calmed down with Carrie feeding us. And actually, if you listen to the recording, that's one take on the vocal. We didn't get any more out of me. And you can hear there's kind of expiration at the end. And it's, you know, that's what made it onto the record. Tell us a bit about Carrie as well, because listening to the story, I know how much you loved her and the high regard you hold her in.

56:16And I kind of wonder whether any of this would have happened if you hadn't been in Bedlam at that time. The album came from that Bedlam, right? Yeah. I mean, I had written her songs, but did she have an influence on it? Absolutely. I mean, also just to be so fortunate to be coming back to this house, to be in my little room. to stay up on my own. But with such, you know, it's so hard to fully describe the house. It's an extension of her brain. She was such a creative human being. And with so many books that she had written, Postcards from the Edge, which is a movie as well, a ton of others. And her house, she had chandeliers in the trees in her garden.

56:57She had a Christmas tree set up 365 days a year. The piano, which played itself in her bathroom, you know, in the bathroom. another one which Paul Simon had given her when he was married to her which I wrote, as I say, half my album on the piano that Paul Simon had written on with a kind of fishbowl on it with a glass fishbowl with a glass fish in it which I've still got there was a Prozac pill about a foot long with Prozac, 5mg of Prozac and my album has got the same pill which I photographed changed it to five milligrams of James Blunt and that was on my discs of subsequent albums after my first as well and it's the pill ceramic pill that she's buried in they drilled a hole and they put her ashes in it and that's what she's buried in and there's only one other copy of that pill in the world and I've got it and so all these little trinkets and things an extension of her mind other things, you know, there's Life magazine just on the side, on the counter there, of her and her mum meeting Richard Nixon You know, so everywhere you look, there's just a kind of, the things that will trigger your mind and make you think creatively.

58:11And so to be there recording Back to Bedlam was just a, you know, and I did other albums there too. It's just an incredibly creative place to be. And what was the biggest thing that you learned from her? Well, I think openness and not to be afraid of how other people think of you, to be yourself, to not be afraid of your fragility and your failings and your frailty too. People talk about Carrie Fisher as this incredibly strong woman. And she was. She is an inspiration to many people who have struggled with being manic depressive or bipolar with drug addiction. She spoke openly about that. And many people see that as a great strength on her part.

58:55But she also was very, very fragile and delicate. And she wasn't afraid to show those moments. That's, you know, and I kind of, not in the same way that I admire her for, but in my lesser way, I have stood on a stage and exposed my fragility and my failings and my fears as a musician. And there's a courage that she did with that. And that's what I learned from her. And have you learned to be compassionate with yourself regarding the details of her death, with the fact you were with her just the day before she died? And I know that you carry some pain from that. Have you learned to process that?

59:29anyone who's lost someone to something, she didn't look after herself. She was under a lot of pressure because she was back in Star Wars. And so because of that pressure, she was starting to not care for her, but she was under pressure to lose weight specifically. And she had a great phrase that men are allowed to grow old and women are not. And she's right about that. And she was under pressure to look a particular way. And as a result, and she's supposed to spend a lot of medication for being bipolar. She was starting to shift and change with that medication but abuse other drugs too and ultimately that's what killed her.

1:00:06But being around her while she's doing that and being part of that with her while she's doing that, then of course you're going to feel some guilt. Thinking, well, could I have contributed to this or should I have got myself involved? And there are others, Charlie Wessler, who lived in cabin number one during that time, would confront her about that abuse and he was sort of ostracized at that time and that was the right thing for him to do and I can feel some guilt for not necessarily doing as much. Not confronting her as much perhaps. But also what's wrong about that is that people who are in that world of struggle, strife, depression, addiction, you know, you can't always help them.

1:00:51Sometimes they have to go down their own path and find their own way out of it And so, yeah, sometimes it's not your fault always.

1:00:59Jake Humphrey: I'm reminded of that anecdote that's often attributed to Don McLean where someone asked him what American Pie meant to him and he said it means I never have to work again. And I'm interested in when you go on stage and you're playing songs from 20 years ago, how do you keep it fresh so that vulnerability, that honesty, that emotional exposure that made it so powerful when it first came out there is still retained? yeah i guess a couple of things first and foremost the audience have paid good money to be there and i need to really make sure i put the effort in you know i think i really i'm grateful to the audience and so i'm going to put 100 in because that's what they deserve and then for an emotional song well i take myself back to where it came from and i'm back in that moment uh i sing as you know a song for Carrie and I and I and I live and breathe the moment that I wrote it I think about her at that time yeah it's to go back to that moment the spark and if it's getting a little tough then try and relate to something something you know new that's gone on but you know I have loads of songs for my wife and when she's there she'll be out in the audience somewhere but there's one or two songs that she will always come on the side of stage oh is that right yeah um because because it's because it's our song you know she knows she comes and has a little dance and we, you know, those things, it just means something and it just gives you a little spark for that moment.

1:02:25Which songs are they? Not telling you. How nice though is that for you just to, I think of all the things you've achieved, to look to the side of stage and see someone that has given you everything that she's given you. Yeah, absolutely. Well, the most obvious one that she does is a song called Postcards and it's a really, really sweet little song about writing on a postcard, I love you, and sending it to her, but not minding who reads it on its journey to reach her. And yeah, so it's a sweet little message. You've got a very strange ability to connect people with their emotions, don't you think?

1:02:58Like when you just say these things, it sort of gets me like... Sweet, well, that's my job.

1:03:04Jake Humphrey: You're very good at it. Can I ask about, because people associate you with You're Beautiful and this album from 20 years ago, but I also think it takes real courage to be able to keep writing and keep innovating, knowing that some of it will hit, but some of it will miss. Yeah. How do you go through that mental process of still innovating and still writing stuff, knowing that it won't necessarily be as big as those original songs? Yeah, well, you know, I've got a record deal, and so I'm signed, so I have to. And the record label called me up and said, James, it's time for another album. So, yeah, but also, I mean, you know, I love music.

1:03:42It's a joy. What a great job I have. And, you know, I'm alive, and while you're alive, you go through different experiences, and where those different experiences will give inspiration and some of it desperately, desperately strong that I will absolutely have to write about. We talked about the song Monsters. You know, my dad's not going to be with me for too long and that will, like all of us understand, that's going to be a big deal in our lives when our parents, first potentially father, probably mother, probably mother second, that's going to hit hard and those things for me are to come. I have kids and suddenly, you know, I don't matter anymore.

1:04:20My kids are everything. We as parents lose sleep over the way we, the things we said to our children or the things our children are struggling with. We lose sleep over in a way that we haven't necessarily lost sleep over many things, you know, for many years. Suddenly we're struggling with just, are our kids going to be okay in life? And that's huge inspiration. And also, you know, I used to write the questions of a young man with a dream. And now, you know, and now I write about this incredible person who's in my life as a woman who, you know, who's given me so much. So I can't write about, I'm not allowed to or not inspired to write a song about passing someone on a subway saying, hey, you're beautiful.

1:05:05The song I have now is, you know, all the search and all the questions in life, it's you. You know, so I, you know, the last song I wrote was saying all the love that I ever needed. I got it from you. You know, I have, yeah, there's a muse who, yeah, it's something bigger than the first album. And when you write, do you have an eye on the commercial success of it or is it literally just the process of writing because you love the music? I'd be lying if I said no, wouldn't I?

1:05:38Jake Humphrey: I'm interested as to what comes first and how you manage those demands. here's the thing is that ed sheeran still has the belief that his next album will hit as big as the last and if you are when you ask me my reply now is i know my next album won't be as big as my first and as a result of saying that it won't be because my naive confidence that i had i don't have anymore and so i won't quite get it there i won't sing it quite as well as i need to to make it be the biggest album of the decade so maintaining that naive confidence uh is something that i haven't managed to do i'll i'll get out there and i'll write some songs and i'll you know and uh and i know i can touch hearts but um but yeah ed sheeran's got a little bit of confidence and so what is it that maintains that confidence?

1:06:41And when you've lost that confidence, how do you regain it? When did you lose it then? Well, you know, I think when I had that backlash and it obviously did impact. I've learned how to get over it. And as I say, I'm on a world tour at the moment and I'm playing and I'm on a world tour next year as well and we've just sold out the O2. I should be afforded a certain degree of great confidence. there are thousands of people but that little naive confidence has gone yeah, I don't know is there almost, and this is a bit of cod psychology and someone with your background will laugh at me but is there almost an argument that you don't really want what you had before because of what it brought well I'd love to think that and definitely I wouldn't want the visibility I'm in a really lovely place at the moment you know I walk down the street people say, right James, how are you doing and you know, they'll get a picture but they'll be really warm with me but they won't go mad and I really do love the balance.

1:07:41So yeah, maybe I'm at ease with that but, you know, another number one. I wouldn't be averse to it. Well, let's see it. If you get it, you can come back on the show and obviously we'll introduce you with a different name. Have you got a favourite of the names? British probably could come up with Blanty McBluntface, obviously. I would prefer Jimmy Spliff. Very good. Jimmy Spliff. Are you ready for some quickfire questions? I am. Perfect. the first one the three non-negotiable behaviours that after all your years of incredible experiences you hold most dear punctuality and I aspire to be the most punctual man in rock and roll would ideally be my legacy we're after three good qualities are we yeah yeah so punctuality I think we've talked about this before which is respect for other people treat others as you would like to be treated really and I think that's important and I think another simple trait really is related is compassion for others to understand what it is that others are thinking and i suppose that goes back an example is in the army when i saw two sides murdering each other in acts of genocide if you spoke to one you could sort of understand where they came from um and if you spoke to the others you could sort of understand their reasoning but the fact that they couldn't understand each other um and i couldn't understand the notion of compassion is where things broke down what advice would you give to a teenage james um don't take the blue pill what's your biggest strength what's your greatest weakness my greatest strength uh you know i think i i say yes my greatest strength is the word yes i i'm up for i'm up for almost everything and anything i'll try i'll try anyone once um and your greatest weakness and my greatest weakness uh i'll try anything once that's that's a weakness too

1:09:33Jake Humphrey: what's the best piece of advice you've ever received and why um my dad has given me a few and i think i probably quoted him already about being you know everywhere rather than being gonna be in the right place at the right time being everywhere um all the time uh he told me yeah to keep my options open um to try give everything a try um yeah to give everything a go in life was this was probably it comes from him in many ways too many people don't say how they really feel until it's too late monsters is a great example of you doing that if there was one person in your world who maybe you haven't told them something you'd like to who is who is that person and what would you want to tell them I mean it's I find that really hard to say in many ways I have a very close family and um you know it's probably my mother actually I've written my father a song I probably need to tell my mother what an amazing human being she has been you know that's probably it's every every bit of success we talked about at the beginning from the musical lessons that I hated I probably need to say thank you and the final question James is what's your one golden rule for living in a high performance life?

1:10:49My one golden rule for living a high performance life. Well, I think it goes back to, you know, it's just two things. I have to say it's two things. It's hard work. It's the hard work. And it's the team around you.

1:11:07Damien. Jake. I wasn't expecting that conversation actually to be as emotional as it was. There was three or four times that you saw James tearing up and sort of stopping himself from crying. And I think I kind of had this image that he was emotional when songwriting, but not apart from that. Whereas actually I think we really tapped into someone who actually carries his emotions very close to the surface. And I think that's one of his superpowers, actually.

1:11:33Jake Humphrey: Yeah, I think he deflects it with humour, but then once you get beyond the humour and you stick with it, I think he's a man that is highly emotionally literate and highly emotionally intelligent as well. These lyrics in his words, when you read them, capture somebody incredible in that regard. I think the thing I took away from it was this idea that you can take attributes from one life and apply it to another. You know, when he spoke about his military experience of treating his troop with respect and courtesy and dignity and doing exactly the same characteristics, the non-negotiable behaviours with his band that have seen them stay loyal to him for 20 years as well.

1:12:14And at the very end, just before he left, we were still talking and he said, without luck, none of this would have happened. And I think that's a really important place to finish the episode is a reminder that he does feel lucky. He's remembered how lucky he feels. I think it informs his behaviour now. I think part of the reason why he still works so hard and tries so hard and keeps on going is that he feels lucky. but there is also this undercurrent there you know at the very end where he said he almost sounded jealous of Ed Sheeran's rock solid self-belief and I think whatever you say about James and however well he's responded to the criticism it's left a mark and a scar and I think he'd be the first to admit he probably will never be the same again in terms of the freedom that he had at that time in his life that's been robbed of him basically through the criticism and some

1:13:02Jake Humphrey: of the stuff that the national media did it is an interesting observation but you know like any of us we're not the same person we were 20 years ago you know i think there's an old muhammad ali quote that said if the you're the same person at 50 that you are at 20 you've wasted the last 30 years you've got to let those experiences shape and change you and influence you for the better and i think we listen to a man who although he's celebrating 20 years of his greatest album is a man that's also been shaped and influenced by those experiences for the better what is it they say each day you've got two choices repeat or evolve and he's clearly evolved over the years absolutely i loved it thanks mate thank you mate now two answers from that conversation stayed with me the first one was that golden rule he spoke about hard work and being really careful about the team that you surround yourself with James has lived it the same band the same crew 20 years on all of them in one dressing room with the door open because James doesn't want anyone feeling they have to knock another powerful answer was the example of that conversation in the battlefields when he was a soldier where he made a promise to those villagers that he would protect them and despite the hardship that him and his team went through his determination to never break that promise something really quite powerful about that.

1:14:25Anyway, thank you for listening.

1:14:27Jake Humphrey: I'd like you to remain humble, curious and empathetic, and I look forward to seeing you next time on High Performance.

1:14:54Thank you.