James Blunt: Online Abuse, Trauma & Life in the Spotlight (E298)

0:00Watch it early on the High Performance App. Available now, Roman Kemp, the broadcaster, opens up a powerful conversation on success and mental health. Luck is your own creation, isn't it? Luck, 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. I think I felt embarrassed and marginally ashamed that I was picked out and chosen not to be with my peers. I feel very, very lucky to be able to say those words to him while he was still alive, because often we leave things too late, I think. I captured him on camera, and I'll always have him on camera in that way, you know, which is a gift.

0:51That was the voice of musician James Blunt, who joins us on today's High Performance. Welcome. I'm Jake Humphrey. I've been a broadcaster for over 20 years, and I love these long-form conversations in a world where so much is about being quick or about capturing people's attention in an instance. This show allows us and therefore allows our guest and you to go deep and really understand people. And I think you're about to understand James better than ever before. And I'm Damien Hughes. I've spent my life immersed in the world of trying to understand and implement high-performance cultures. I've been lucky enough to work with professional sports teams all over the world, including the Canberra Raiders, the Scotland Mugby Union team and the England National Football Team, as well as with leading business people to help them understand how they can create cultures that get the best out of themselves and others.

1:41So James joins us as he celebrates 20 years since his first album, Back to Bedlam, which is actually being re-released, so you can get your hands on it now. Obviously, it was phenomenally successful, but that actually brought him so much pain, so many challenges, so many difficult moments. And you know what, Damien? We know that James is witty and funny and actually we start the conversation talking about some of his humour, but I think people can expect to hear an emotion from James Blunt that they are not expecting to hear from him, if that makes sense. Yeah, exactly. I think he's a man that sort of deflected a lot of these barbs by using humour and trying to laugh at himself and be self-deprecating.

2:22But I think this is an interview that gets beyond that mask and starts to explore a little bit about what drives him, what his impetus is to put himself out there in the arena and what keeps him fresh to be able to go and perform songs that we're all familiar with, with that real vitality of the first time he ever wrote them. I'd love to remind you that as well as listening to these shows here where you get your podcasts, you can also watch them on our YouTube channel. And I think on this episode particularly, you will see the emotion in James' eyes as he talks about his dad, as he talks about his wife, as he talks about some of the difficult times that he had to endure.

2:57But this is someone who has seen and experienced so many highs and lows, and the lessons he's taken from those are still very much bubbling just under the surface. And I'm really pleased to say we managed to break beneath the surface with James and bring you a conversation that I think will carry true value for you and your life, as we welcome James Blunt to High Performance.

3:22Welcome 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 ten 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 really 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 Well, can we look at some of those previous tweets that you've been sent?

4:23Because I'd be interested in you, 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. Can this day get any worse? Coming upstairs now.

5:04Thing 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.

5:47So 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. 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 a beef 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.

6:24Keith 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. 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, 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.

6:58And we heard that it was coming our way even. You know, 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. It 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.

7:31And 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'd rather eat his own shit than work with me. I'd 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'd left or because i'd arrived but but you know there's got to be some connection and the damon alban 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 alban refused to be in that photo because i was on the episode with him and so they and he said that in front of you no his management went and spoke to the producers of the show and 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 um and so i was then held back in my dressing room um you know all these different dressing rooms all the musicians are 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.

9:02But it was very petty stuff. And so here you are, you know, I'm a grown man at that stage. I've 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 and he just came up, grabbed me, put his arms around me and said, you know, good for you, mate.

9:46I'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.

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11:38I'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 you 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 is embarrassing is really how it is shameful and so it's weird watching these things back and we just did a documentary and there are moments in there that you don't feel very proud.

12:48I 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 and 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. She is now wife. 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. At school, it's a different thing. They're children. And so children don't know any better. To be in an adult industry and then to be that way, you think, wow, how immature.

13:29But 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, I said 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 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. You can find it if you want to. But if you look out the window and see them queuing, you should kind of say, hang on, these people have given their time.

14:02They've bought tickets. They put much more effort in. They've bought tickets, and they've traveled, 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. 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.

14:32And 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. Noel 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.

15:05And 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. and 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 are 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?

16:00Are 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've 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.

16:30love. 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?

17:46Well, 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 fingers are absolutely calloused up. We put the time in and the effort fundamentally. And then hopefully with that experience comes confidence as well.

18:29I 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 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 a helmet with a plume and I'm riding around beside Her Majesty on those large parades or on a daily basis going to a horse guard, it's called, beside Downing Street.

19:18And 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 um the people have been on x factor for instance they have to make their mistakes in front of the nation and um and and i'm not saying anything derogatory against 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, and I've made many mistakes in those performances, but you know, you learn what works and what doesn't, and my stage presence, my stage craft has been really grafted, and, you know, this next year, I'm playing in the O2 in London or Manchester Arena, and I'm going to stand up in front of, you know, 15 ,000 people, and I know what I'm going to do, and I'm going to be very at ease with it, and I'm going to have great, great fun, and that will be infectious to an audience because I've just put in the time and I know what works.

20:36You 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. their experience counts for a lot. Can you give us an insight as to what those mistakes were?

21:06What were the common mistakes that lots of performers make in those early years? Well, there's some really obvious things. 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.

21:41They'll enjoy it more. 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. You'll find that on YouTube, right? Yeah, exactly.

22:17You sort of remove your shell, everything 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, musicians in my kind of line of music are often, you know, mocked and saying, oh, you're sort of sensitive and over-emotional. But music should be, shouldn't it? It should have emotion in it. 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.

22:51And so we take them down and then we take them up and that's what makes the concert really, it gives it, yeah, its journey. Can we speak about emotions then? Because I think this is a really interesting almost dichotomy that I see in your story that on the documentary that you mentioned earlier, you speak about your experience of going to boarding school and I think you tell the cameraman, I fucking hated it, and yet 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.

23:29Yeah, I think I was sent to boarding school aged seven. That removes any emotion from you pretty early on. It's beaten out of you by Headmaster with a cane. Honestly? Well, you know, a couple of times. And so my mum 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 I find the word even feelings quite tricky because it's sort of you know it starts to go in an embarrassing thing it'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 Monster.

24:16I 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 on the podcast. That is so, it's hard for me to compute. Isn't it? And I suppose that's, 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, you know, 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.

24:53And 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. How did that feel? Well, I was relieved that I felt he had, you know, understood the song. There was a warmth. Is it almost enough for you to know that he heard it?

25:25Yeah, 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's... 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? I feel very, very lucky to be able to say those words to him while he was still alive. Because often we leave things too late, I think.

26:02And 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 a 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. 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.

26:56Yeah, and so it's frustrating 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. I was going to ask you about that. Some pros. And prep school is from 7 till 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 we're lucky. And you've got kids your age to mess around with.

27:32and, 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 I was at these all boys' schools. You know, 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.

28:02which 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 they'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 a ton of other people who've been at the very top of our nation and you're told, you can be this too.

28:40And just knowing that, giving any child that confidence that you can be in anything is a massive, massive benefit. And I started saying from 14, you know, I'm going to be a professional musician. And I had this complete naive confidence. And 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. I look at myself and compare it at the time, and mine was a complete naivety, a naive confidence that I will be a professional musician, that when I recorded that first album, Back to Bed, everyone's going to buy it.

29:19I 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. know when i got to los angeles and thousands of people are looking for a record deal and there are just everyone wants to be famous and everyone wants to achieve and everyone's got the same goal as you um had i realized how yeah how kind of mad the the ambition was it would have um stifled it 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 learn to write and to be able to express those emotions through music.

30:01How 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-cockwise direction and 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 learnt the piano when I was about seven and that was miserable. Learning Mozart's Sonata in F sharp minor is not a song you want to play to your mates.

30:33So 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. Having musical ideas immediately go to your own thoughts, your own ideas and your own expression.

31:17And 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 or 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? I 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.

31:50But 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. But this idea of not wanting to conform and to follow the park then, And 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 of a B.

32:32Well, yeah. Yeah, I mean, 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? That you're given orders. But the army is also about, 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 together. We're all experts in our field. And I really enjoyed that aspect of the army.

33:13Each person within my troop of soldiers that come from all walks of life, all corners of the UK, all professionals in their specific job within the troop, and all of us working to help achieve a certain goal, and there's real magic in that. 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 work as a team to achieve a goal.

33:50But 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. We should be able to say to our commanders, that's illegal. That's wrong. 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.

34:32And 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. So a weapons amnesty. And so I was at 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.

35:10and 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. So 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.

35:46And, 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'll 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 let'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 in the as an officer with my soldiers we took a vote because it's not it's not a democratic place normally but we you know 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 my 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.

36:46And 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.

37:21And 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, your, yeah, your judgment. Can we talk about imposter syndrome? It's something that comes up quite often on this podcast, but I'm really intrigued by this 23 year old pitched into this world where he's having to make not just decisions but life and death decisions he's having to lead other people and people are looking to him for that leadership so what in that period did you learn about how you as an individual make decisions well i think um at that time it was a real belief in doing either the right thing or the wrong thing yeah in that we i feel fortunate in many ways i was in the right war um kosovo was us getting in the middle of two peoples who were killing each other.

38:23And to get in the middle is absolutely the right thing. Nowadays, people don't seem to stop things. When they see someone being robbed, they don't seem to get involved anymore, do they? They seem to just get out their cameras and film it for social media. And the right thing would be to get in the middle and say, hey, you know, for humanity's sake, let's not do that. And just the right thing to be doing it. And so, you know, Afghanistan, Iraq, those have been harder things to justify and to know whether they were the right places to be as a soldier. But on a macro, at your level, you're still having to decide whether to go left or right at a crossroads, not knowing whether right or left is going to kill you and the men that you're with.

38:59But you, okay, well at that level, yeah, you've got to make some hard decisions. I take advice from my soldiers, and given their advice, you know, nine times out of ten, you take their advice. Some of them have been in 15 years to my two years. My corporal of horse, who's like a sergeant at that stage, if he advises you to go left nine times out of ten you should say alright I'll go left but that one time out of ten that I'm going to go right instead because you've listened to all of them and taken their advice balance time the one time I say actually I think I'm going this way they know that you take them seriously and that you respect them and they'll say okay come on then let's do it and they'll believe in you and they'll follow you even if it's wrong they'll get you out of it should it go wrong Was it a thing for you imposter syndrome at that point?

39:46Not at that stage no I felt very comfortable as I say, you know, I'm supported by a very trustworthy team and I respect them hugely. It's a weird thing in the army as an officer, you're called sir by guys who've been in longer than you. But, you know, to hold that respect, you really need to look at them and appreciate that it's them who are getting you through these things, advising you through these things. And so to respect them in that way, it means that you're supported fully. And so I felt very comfortable with where I was because of that, because of them. 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?

40:30Yeah, well, it's about having a good team and therefore equipping yourself with, you know, 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. So it sounds to me like when you're describing that from a military point of view, that again, watching the documentary, 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? Absolutely, it's the same game.

41:07Just 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 ten I'll say he's probably right but the one time out of ten 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 it but he'll say come on then let's try it your way James.

41:50But 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.

42:25You 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, you know, that I can possibly afford. And so, yeah, 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.

43:03Please just walk in. Why does that matter so much? Because his name's Jerry, and I love him. Jerry. and he's you know he's a sweetheart and he 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 we'll 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 you know 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.

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45:46What does that do for you as a band? Well, 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. You know, 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?

46:29There 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, Rhea Ferdinand, John Terry, and me, and I was last out of those guys.

46:56And yeah, that's a pretty amazing thing to read. How did that make you feel?

47:03Well, 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.

47:43And then shame because, you know, these emails are being read by my mother while I'm away on tour. And it's again, just kind of shame that you've got yourself in this ugly situation. We spoke to Paul Gascoigne, 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, 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.

48:20I did lie about my age on my Wikipedia page, took off five years. but being older gave me at least a little, you know, a little bit of worldly experience, I suppose, to a level. And I have a very close family who at least can just look after me in that way. I think those things genuinely help. 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. Well, you know what, 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, hates you, but we love you.

48:56Do 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 in many different ways. And it did bring back a lot of memories for me, But I feel the fundamental thing is I was guided and advised well. You know, 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.

49:37My 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 armour that you didn't know was being built necessarily, but was probably pretty useful when finally the world knew you.

50:08Yeah, 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. 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.

50:38You 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, 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.

51:16And 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 have experienced myself. And 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.

51:51So we're having this conversation 20 years after Back to Bedlam was released, right? 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 got a manager he happened to be Elton John's junior manager 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 because you only get one shot with a record label and if they've seen you and then things aren't all in place then they pass and they're not going to come back a second time and so for this kind of podcast of high performance it's about keeping your powder dry until you really are fully equipped going in and fighting the good fight with everyone you need around you.

52:42And I went in too early with record labels and I didn't have my manager and I didn't have the songs. I got that manager eventually. I got the right manager. He's still my manager today. How was the rejection early on for you? Well, I was, you know, there are a lot of record labels and you think I'll find another one. And, you know, it's a learning experience. So many wrong turns, so many dead ends, but that just wasn't the path. And again, I had 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 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 and uh and 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.

53:40But 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 want to, 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. And I went, hell yeah, come on, let's do it. Custard Records, I signed to. She's, as I say, from Four Non Blondes. Wrote that song, Hey Yeah, What's Going On?

54:10It's her 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. I just bumped into her. 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.

54:45Her 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. and she put me up 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 I lived with her and her mum Carrie's mum was Debbie Reynolds from Singing in the Rain so in this just kind of crazy house and I'm going down Mulholland Drive every day to work with a producer who I'd found that was really weird how I'd found him too I'd heard this music by a guy called Elliot Smith.

55:30It was just so beautiful. And I called my manager and said, I'd love to work with the 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, Badly 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 in the next day. So do you believe in fate or luck? Well, I think, you know, luck is your own creation, isn't it?

56:09Luck, 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 an 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? You know, I, yeah, I was very, very lucky to have a few things, a few doors were open for me in that way.

56:48And 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. And then Living With Carrie and her house is a kind of madhouse, and she has a madness in her own head.

57:21She'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 is 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. 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.

57:55Yeah. Is that true? It's true. I really wrote it in a book and I 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'd been told that hash brownies might be a way of doing this. I hadn't experimented 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 saying this as a, I'm bragging and making up this story as a embellishment of a story to try and be popular with you two.

58:53Yeah, we're in a bar and I'm just telling you 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.

59:36And 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 hospital. And then so we did the piano bit and then I did the vocal too. we get quick to the microphone I'll do the vocal to keep him calm any music just to calm him down and 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 song's about the girl you know who and she's out there somewhere and I suddenly realise 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 and 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.

1:01:08He didn't get any more out of me. And you can hear his 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. And 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.

1:01:44But 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. she 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 you know I wrote as I say half my album on the piano that Paul Simon with a kind of you know 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, five milligrams of Prozac.

1:02:35And 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, they put her ashes in it, and that's what she's buried in. And there's only one other pill, 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. Well, 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, I know, the things that will trigger your mind and make you think creatively.

1:03:17And 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 um to to not be afraid of your fragility and your failings and your frailty too she people talk about carrie fisher as this incredibly strong woman and she was um she is an inspiration for many people who have struggled with with being um manic depressive or bipolar uh with drug addiction she spoke spoke openly about that and many people see that as a great strength on her part but she also was very very fragile and delicate and 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 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 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.

1:04:32Have you learned to process that? Well, I think anyone has 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, 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, you know, she was under pressure to look a particular way. And as a result, and she's supposed to be on a lot of medication for being bipolar. She was starting to shift and change with that medication but abuse other drugs too.

1:05:11And ultimately, that's what killed her. But 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, could I have contributed to this or should I have gotten 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.

1:05:58Sometimes 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. Yeah. We're talking about the 20th anniversary of your album. and 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?

1:06:42yeah 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 a 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 the stage oh is that right yeah um because because it's our song.

1:07:34She knows. She comes and has a little dance and those things, it just means something and it just gives you a little spark for that moment. Which 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.

1:08:05And 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? Like when you just say these things, it sort of gets me like... Sweet, well, that's my job. 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?

1:08:46Yeah, 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. It'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 while 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.

1:09:31I have kids and suddenly, you know, I don't matter anymore. My kids are everything. We as parents lose sleep over 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 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 now I write about this incredible person who's in my life um as a woman who 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 the song I have now is you know all the search and all the questions in life, it's you.

1:10:27So 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? 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 when you ask me, my reply now is, I know my next album won't be as big as my first.

1:11:17And 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 is something that I haven't managed to do. I'll get out there and I'll write some songs and I know I can touch hearts, but yeah, Ed Sheeran's got a little bit of confidence. And so if you're talking about high performance, what is it that maintains that confidence? And when you've lost that confidence, how do you regain it? When did you lose it then?

1:12:02Well, 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?

1:12:39Well, I'd love to think that. Yeah. And definitely, I definitely wouldn't want the visibility. I'm in a really lovely place at the moment. You know, I walk down the street and people say, all 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. So, yeah, maybe I'm at ease with that. But, you know, another number one. I wouldn't be, you know, 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.

1:13:07Have you got a favourite of the names? The British probably could come up with Blanty McBluntface, obviously. I would prefer Jimmy Spliff. Very good. Jimmy Spliff. Are you ready for some quick-fire 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 up to 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.

1:13:45And 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 in the 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. And if you spoke to the others, you could sort of understand their reasoning. But the fact that they couldn't understand each other and couldn't understand the notion of compassion is where things broke down. What advice would you give to a teenage James?

1:14:20Don't take the blue pill. What's your biggest strength? What's your greatest weakness? My greatest strength? You know, I think I say yes. My greatest strength is the word yes. I'm up for almost everything and anything. I'll try anyone once. And your greatest weakness? And my greatest weakness, I'll try anything once. That's a weakness too. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received and why? My dad has given me a few. And I think I probably quoted him already about being everywhere rather than being in the right place at the right time, being everywhere all the time. he told me yeah to keep my options open to try give everything a try yeah to give everything a go in life 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 that person and what would you want to tell them?

1:15:35I mean I find that really hard to say in many ways I have a very close family and 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 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 a high performance life? my one golden rule for living a high performance life well i think it goes back to um you know that it's just two it's two things i have to say just two things it's hard work it's the hard work and it's the team around you

1:16:22damien jake i wasn't expecting that conversation actually to be as emotional as it was like there was three or four times that you saw um 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 yeah I think I think he deflects it with humor but then once you get beyond the humor and and you stick with it I think he's a man that is a highly emotionally literate and highly emotionally intelligent as well these lyrics in his words when you read them capture somebody incredible in that 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 yet doing exactly the same characteristics the non-negotiable behaviors with his band that i've seen them stay loyal to him for 20 years as well and 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 to finish the episode is a reminder that he does feel lucky he's remembered how lucky he feels i think it informs his behavior 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 of the stuff that the national media did.

1:18:19It is an interesting observation but you know like any of us we're not the same person we were 20 years ago I think there's an old Muhammad Ali quote that said if 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'd 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.

1:18:54absolutely I loved it thanks mate thank you mate

1:19:00and that's it thank you so much for joining us for this conversation with James we really appreciate you giving your time if you're wondering whether there's anything that you can do for us there is just please hit follow please hit subscribe it means we can grow the channel we can attract even more incredible people to have even more conversations like this with us you can watch on YouTube as well as listen here where you get your podcasts you can download the High Performance app to hear episodes before anyone else. And that is truly the best place to absorb high performance with so many other amazing features on the High Performance app.

1:19:31Thanks for joining us. And until next time, take care.

1:20:22is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at capella.edu.