Morrison will swing through Indy and we wanted to get the lowdown on his career

I could have sworn I heard that song before. I mean, before I ever heard James Morrison. The quasi-familiar strains and strums of “You Give Me Something” propelled the British singer/songwriter onto the charts and airwaves on a global scale, giving the soulful vocal delivery a larger platform than he ever expected.

Therein lies the charm of James Morrison. His pop sensibilities seem so familiar, his melodies instantly memorable. With eight singles from only two albums, Morrison is a radio artist in a deconstructed world, yet he’s okay with that. And I guess that’s easy to say, given the success he’s had in spite of the death of the mega-hit. With his upcoming American tour, Morrison will swing through Indianapolis and we wanted to get the lowdown on his career, his tour and this new single with Nelly Furtado.

What’s it like doing your own headlining tour?
James Morrison: It’s great. It’s a bigger show. I think it surprised a lot of people so far, since I think they expect things to be acoustic based. But it’s a lot more. It rocks out a lot more than what people might expect I think.

How long is the show? Hour and a half?
JM: Yeah, sometimes it’s an hour and 40 minutes, if I’m into it and I can give it a bit more.

Do you reach to music outside of your own?
JM: At the moment, I’m just really enjoying playing these songs from the new album and then we also play some songs from the old album as well. But cover-wise, I just change it every now and again to keep it interesting. Doing a cover allows people to get where you’re coming from and it’s also something new for you.

How kind is America to your music?
JM: Well, that’s a good thing there in America. There’s always well up for it. They’re really quite boisterous compared to English crowds. It can be quite daunting at first, but once you get into it, it’s wicked. This is the first time I will bring this band to America and I’m looking forward to it.

Best place for you in the States?
JM: I like New York because it’s a bit gritty and then L.A. winds me up a bit. But I love the South. I liked playing Birmingham in Alabama and also Nashville. I love playing those places because they’re so oriented to music. The crowds are just there for the music. Some places like Dallas or something are just there for the person they’re there to see… it’s a novelty rather than the music.

I’m wondering about the songwriting process for you and specifically the role of vulnerability with so many co-writers that you work with?
JM: Well, I think that’s always been there for me – that vulnerability, I mean. Whether I’m starting an idea on my own or I’m taking it from somewhere else, especially with the second album, it’s always daunting to follow up. Especially since the first one was so successful, I didn’t know how I created an album that did that. I just wrote songs I felt good about and with people I liked working with. That’s what I did with this one, but it just took a little bit longer for this to naturally be the record I wanted it to be.

When you’re writing about songs that are personal to you, is it hard to get your co-writer into the same mindset you’re wanting the song to be able to go to?
JM: Well it would be if they were people I’d never worked with, which I did that the first time around. I did try out some new guys this time around, but ultimately, all the tunes that are really personal were done with people I’d written with before. There’s already a relationship there, so it was easier than it would have been had I been working with someone I didn’t know. They’re great guys, which is why I want to work with them. They get what I do. It’s not all about cuts and who gets what and who writes the chorus. It’s all about getting a great song that we can feel good about and that’s it. That’s why I think those relationships are worth carrying on with.

Is that a matter of trust or respecting what they do professionally or what?
JM: I think it’s all of that. I think you’ve got to trust the person and get on with them personally and have similarities with the person you’re working with or else it won’t work. You won’t have the same point of view or the same lyrical angle or whatever. But I’m lucky because the people I’ve worked with on both albums are people that I have a good relationship with. We love the same music as well, so that helps.

You’ve played so many stages on multiple continents and I’m wondering when things turn surreal for you…
JM: It’s still surreal man. [Laughs] It’s always surreal. There are times when I’ve been doing it for four years now, which isn’t forever as a recording artist, but you do get caught up with it and get on with it since you’ve been at it each day for the past month. There are times where you do go on with it and other times when you step back and think, ‘Wow, I just met Stevie Wonder and I’m playing a big gig tomorrow and then off to America next week.’ So that’s exciting. I never get used to it, but you can forget that it’s such an amazing experience.

You’ve released so many singles from the first and now new album compared to other artists and yet you’re definitely making your mark during the time of radio deconstruction of sorts. You feel like you’re a man out of your own time?
JM: I never set out to be that kind of artists – writing hits and such. I just want to write songs that work on radio. At the end of the day, you can’t really survive properly without a good following of people and having songs on the radio. There are a lot of times where I think if I could write an album and it wouldn’t matter whether it got played on radio or not, it probably would be a better album. But that’s career suicide. Without songs on the radio, it’s hard to get gigs. So yeah, you have to play into that a little bit, but I always try to write a song where the core of it is important and has meaning.

The collaboration with Nelly Furtado on the new single – what’s the story there?
JM: Well, basically I had the song for a while and the last day I worked on it, I was really sore vocally. One of the co-writers, she put a female part in there since I was sore. And it sounded great with this guy-girl part. So that’s how the duet came about. Nelly Furtado is just one of those artists who I think is versatile enough to just sing a song and not put too much style musically on it, but more from her as a person. That’s how it happened. I met her in the studio and recorded it and it’s as simple as that.

I wanted to go back a bit to “You Give Me Something.” The tune has such a familiar quality to it like you feel you’ve known that song your entire life…
JM: [Laughs] When I came up with the initial idea for it, it did feel that it was something that had been around for a while. I do try to write songs that feel like that. The songs I’ve never heard and then you hear it for the first time and you feel you already know it, those are the songs that will probably stick around for a while. It weirded me out really, because it was the first time when I thought I could write a single. I thought it could be an anthem really, but it was so surprising when it resonated with so many people. But I love songs like that – that sound classic and reminds you of so many different things but you can’t pinpoint what it is. I love that in music.

So you were surprised by being propelled forward at such a rate?
JM: Yeah. You dream of making an album and doing this and I’d been doing gigs since I was a young lad, but to release an album and have it go to #1… it. was mental. [Laughs] I never expected that to happen.

So then when you go into a new album, what sort of vision do you go into it with?
JM: Well, that’s the thing that was difficult about writing the second one. I didn’t want to write about the road and I also didn’t want to write about how fame had changed me, because it really hadn’t. I just wanted to write about things that were important and it ended up being an album to remind myself of what is important. Songs like “Precious Love”… I was thinking back to being a kid and all of that stuff came from me thinking about what I should be writing about.

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