Fiery Blunt takes no prisoners
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“Musicians are brave, they put themselves up for judgment which many people are not brave enough to do,” says James Blunt.
Source: Supplied
Your new single Bonfire Heart was written with Ryan Tedder. He’s a busy man…
He was on tour in Europe with One Republic. I wanted to write with him. So I climbed on their tour bus like a groupie, but I didn’t have to put out.
You crashed a wedding for the song’s video.
We didn’t use actors and in the final scene the wedding party saw us. I pulled out my acoustic guitar and played to the bride and groom in a car park. They went `You’re that guy who sings that song aren’t you?’ I played Bonfire Heart and they had their first dance in the car park to that song, that’s what is now my music video.
That song – You’re Beautiful – did you play that for them?
No. But I played it at Elton John and David Furnish’s wedding. It’s been played at a lot of weddings, which is very touching considering it says `I will never be with you’ at the end. Bonfire Heart is a better wedding song lyrically I think.
Blue on Blue from your album Moon Landing continues your habit of military analogies from your soldier past as metaphors in love songs..
Yes, it’s a military term meaning friendly fire, in a relationship we do the same, we hurt the ones we love the most. I wrote very personal songs for this record. For the third album (Some Kind of Trouble) I wrote for an audience. I was writing words I expected you would like or want to hear, these are words I needed to say. The third album was fun, this is about meaning and genuine depth.
What was recording it like?
I didn’t want to hide behind production. Sometimes the glass in the studio became a mirror, I would see my own reflection, you can’t lie when you look at yourself. You’re hearing very personal songs, sung directly to someone. More frightening occasionally is someone talking to themselves, and the madness that might entail.
You stayed with Carrie Fisher in LA again.
Yes. She was the album’s first critic. I’d play her songs.
What was her favourite?
She loves Miss America. In many ways she saw herself in the song.
It’s about Whitney Houston.
Yes, but it could have been written about Carrie Fisher, although she’s still alive. Her story is the same. As is Amy Winehouse’s, as are many people in the celebrity goldfish bowl world. Delicate people whose lives are watched. Who we feel we know, we follow their story, we’re intrigued by their troubles and darkness. The common factor through all the stories is us, we’re the ones that go online, that buy magazines that send another photographer to chase them and hound them outside their house. It is us who compound their difficulties, that’s what the song is about. It’s about Whitney’s voice and art and beauty and talent and how we enjoyed spectating on her downfall maybe a bit too much.
James Blunt’s song Miss America was inspired by the tragic life and death of Whitney Houston.
Source: News Limited
You like a good James Blunt joke, your Twitter handle Dirty Lil Blunt used to retweet people who’d slagged you off …
I’m just plain old James Blunt on Twitter now. I was sad to change it but inside I’ll always be Dirty Lil Blunt. I’m not a great publicity machine on Twitter. I do it out of pleasure, I go online to abuse myself.
What were some of your favourite insults about you that you found online?
Someone said ‘Can we take a moment to remember how s— James Blunt was’ and I replied ‘No need, I have a new album coming out in October’. The digital world gives us confidence to write what we like, but those people aren’t offensive if you have a joke with them. Make it human again.
Disarm a keyboard warrior?
Musicians are brave, they put themselves up for judgment which many people are not brave enough to do.
Then there was the time Bonfire Heart accidentally got sent to thousands of people in the UK through a fanbase mix up. Someone tweeted “If you receive an email with a link to the new James Blunt single, don’t click on it. It’s a link to the new James Blunt single!”
I retweeted it. It was hilarious.
Noel Gallagher said he’s left Ibiza because you live there.
In Ibiza people are chuffed it’s just gone more upmarket now he’s left. I hear they’re bulldozing his house as well.
You’ve also had the obligatory death rumour …
Yes, I tweeted that heaven looks remarkably like London.
And then the rumour you were quitting.
I read how I was retiring from music with my model girlfriend to live on my yacht in Ibiza while I was recording new songs, my girlfriend is a lawyer not a model and my yacht is just a blow-up dinghy.
Moon Landing (Warner) is out tomorrow
James Blunt plays the Plenary in Melbourne on June 8, Sydney’s State Theatre on May 30 and the Brisbane Convention Centre on June 2. Tickets on sale through Ticketmaster and Ticketek.
