Zitat des Tages von James Bay:
I'm still like an excited kid playing guitar in front of the bedroom mirror.
I spent two years playing open mic nights in Brighton, and I heard more and more people saying, 'You should give it a go in London.'
I hope to have a long career, and I don't want to be defined by things that aren't the music.
There should be an element of mystique between the fans and the artist. That bit between the stage and the audience. I think that's necessary.
I like drawing people in the airport or on the bus or in venues. I like catching people in the moment. It's a similar inspiration for me in terms of songwriting.
As a singer-songwriter, a solo artist with a guitar, I can only write so many weepie little bedroom songs.
I'm going to take each day and each thing and each gig as it comes at me.
My songwriting process, and maybe loads of other people's, is just this sort of smashing together of emotions and stuff to make some music. It's kind of simple and really complex at the same time and, as you can see, incredibly hard to explain.
How I set myself apart is by creating the sort of real and honest music, which is who I'm also trying to be.
My family quite innocently don't understand the ins and outs of it all, but they see things like the Burberry show and the Live Lounge, so they understand the gravity of those things, but they're proud - it's cool.
When I was 15, if anything, I thought I was going to be a Delta bluesman, which is so ridiculous.
Both Springsteen and Michael Jackson, who had these huge productions, could always scale them back down to just a song and a melody. All of that influences me. I also try to be a fictional writer, and sometimes I get close, but the things that resonate the most with me - and with everyone else - is what's real.
There was a guitar that my uncle owned and never learnt to play. He sold it to my dad, and when I heard 'Layla', that was the tune that really grabbed me. I said to my dad, 'Wait, there's a guitar, right?'
My songwriting process is painful. Songwriting is brilliant. It's a load of fun - when it works. It's really difficult as well.
When I'm writing, I need to amplify my thoughts and feelings on just a conversation that I might have had with somebody - somebody close to me. It's often the case that the people closest to me are the people on my mind the most.
Some of my songs are about the feeling you belong somewhere else. But there's also something grounding about coming from a small town.
I'm very close in age to my older brother, and we had a field at the end of the road where we could run around, climb trees, play football.
Up until the last minute, it was art and drawing for me. That was the first real and natural thing I thought I was good at and loved to do. But I developed a similar kind of love for music.
