“There were times when I was wondering whether I was really going to do it again,” Treays says. “I’ve been doing it since I was really young and I’d been on the road a long time. I’d never had a moment to stop and think, ‘Wait a minute, do I really want to fucking do this?’”
It might’ve taken a while, but in July this year, the outcome of Treays’ career re-evaluation became clear with the announcement of his third record, Carry On the Grudge.
Treays’ tunes are rooted in punk-rock attitude and possess a street-hardened edge, but the extent of Jamie T’s immediate success prevented him from ever qualifying as an ‘underground artist’. Aside from the financial security, swiftly gaining notoriety in the music industry isn’t always an ideal scenario.
“[When you’re young] you just don’t know what anything is and no one really explains anything to you,” says Treays, “because it’s assumed that you know what’s going on. Before you know it, you’re in a situation where it’s like ‘I don’t want to fucking do this. This is bullshit.’
“After having been away for quite a while I think I have a better head on my shoulders… You’ve got to say no a lot in this game.”
Carry On the Grudge isn’t a radical departure from its two predecessors, which suggests Treays’ past frustrations haven’t been at the cost of his creative freedom. It’s a more melancholy and the hip-hop influence is more subdued this time around, but Treays’ cunning lyrical flare – and that unmistakable South London accent – remains the main attraction.
“At one point the album was sounding completely alien to the past two records I’d done,” he recalls. “All [my] albums are to me is a progression… So I like to think this album has some tracks on it that tie it all into what I’d been doing before.”
Still, with since Kings & Queens, it seems inevitable that Treays songwriting perspective would’ve shifted. However, while it took some time before he felt comfortable pushing forward as a recording artist, Carry On the Grudge transpired through a period of sporadic songwriting.
“There are songs on the album that were written and recorded just after I finished Kings & Queens and there are songs that were written three weeks before I finished the album,” Treays says.
It’s fair to assume Treays feels somewhat ambivalent about diving back into the circus. It’s unlikely he’ll manage to avoid the music industry’s less encouraging facets, but he’s now confident this is what he wants to be doing.
“Since I was a kid I’ve been writing songs and if you take that away from me and I can get a bit lost. I’m back in a place now where I write songs all the time.
“It took me a while to get the ball rolling, but by the end of it I was writing three of four songs a day. I just took some time to work out how I wanted to do it and whether I wanted to do it forever or not. And I’ve decided I’d really like to do it for years to come.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
