Name:
James Roden (singer/guitarist).
Define your genre in five words or less:
Rock with loads of hooks.
When’s the gig and with who?
We are playing with our good friends The Bowers. I love their sound, their songs, their attitude – they love it. We are playing mid spot to them, with Heavy Beach (who I hear great things about) on first. The gig is on Saturday November 10 at The Old Bar. We are launching our new album I Just Got To Believe.
What makes you happiest about what you’re doing?
The fact I have not stopped playing in bands since I was 14-years-old first playing songs like Orgasm Addict by The Buzzcocks or I Go Ape by The Primates in The Morticians (should have kept the name), then originals in The John Reed Club and now originals in The City Lights and still get excited by the next song I’m working on makes me happy.
What part of making music excites you the most?
A great gig. There is nothing that beats a great gig where all those songs you have written and practiced are unleashed. People have turned up and they are happy to be there. The band can hear itself on stage. It’s hot, sweaty and uncomfortable. It is very rare which is why I think bands keep chasing it. Also bringing a new song to rehearsal is an incredible feeling when the full band kicks in. Recording can be great fun too. Beer helps.
What part of making music discourages you?
It’s expensive to rehearse, tour and record. It’s time consuming and tiring and there is often indifference to the hard work, but we just can’t stop. The title of our new album is I Just Got To Believe. The song is a rant about the rise of the angry idiot (climate change deniers, religious nuts, anti-vaccinators, shock jocks, trolls, musical fascists) who are very loud and insist on having their opinions respected and heard despite having no factual basis for their opinion. It also fitted as an appropriate title for the album as really, ultimately, bands themselves have to have incredible self-belief. Bands often have no one in their corner but themselves. Never underestimate the power of a kind word to a band, artist, author, whatever, who is trying to create and are usually their own worst critics. Without people you’re nothing.
