00:05Hi, I'm Rhiann Daly from NME. I'm backstage at Reading with Jamie T. How are you, Jamie?
00:10I'm good, thank you. You just opened the main stage. You're back at Reading, first time in a few years.
00:16How has it been back?
00:18Lovely. I mean, I don't know how many times we've played Reading now. It's lovely to be back, yeah.
00:23And to open it was really... I mean, we called them just like two days ago or something
00:27and asked to be on and they were so nice. They put us, let us play a little set at
00:31the beginning.
00:31So that was really sweet. So really welcome. I felt really welcome. It was really nice.
00:36Yeah. You were saying in your Instagram video that you had FOMO.
00:39Is it something that rolls around, you know, like I wish I was there?
00:42Well, everyone, you know, like, and it's my fault because I'm a bit like, I'm not very good with deadlines.
00:47But I did tell everyone I worked with it. I said, I think the album is going to be finished
00:52in January.
00:53And everyone went, oh, okay, okay. And no one believed me. It was finished in January.
00:57So we didn't really book any festivals for this year because no one thought it was going to be finished.
01:03So I got terrible FOMO when I was at home thinking that all my friends were going to be playing
01:08festivals.
01:09So it was nice to be able to kind of get on stage and, you know, it was such a
01:14big crowd turned out.
01:15It was just so touching for me. So it's great. Yeah. You played Scala last week, which was your first
01:19gig in a couple of years.
01:21A very sweaty night. Lots of people singing along to all the words.
01:25How is it being back like on stage generally? Brilliant.
01:28I mean, I got off stage and immediately got cold. So that was, it happens to me a lot after
01:33I don't play for a while.
01:34Cause you kind of like, that show is so sweaty. Wow. It was brilliant. I had so much fun.
01:40And we haven't, we haven't played there in 20 years since we last played there.
01:45So it was really nice to be back and just a nice way to think about where you've been in
01:52the interim period, you know?
01:53Yeah. It was really nice. What were the kind of reflections you were having then?
01:56Well, it was just fond reflections really of, you know, like I'm in a good headspace with it all in
02:01a sense.
02:02And it was nice looking back now. And, you know, when we played Scala last time, I remember we just
02:07had a little projector behind us that didn't even fit the stage.
02:10It was tiny. And we were just putting photos up of the tour that we had taken on tour. It
02:15was just so ramshackle.
02:17So very fond memories. Yeah. It was nice to be back there.
02:19Yeah. On the new album, you referenced being the soundtrack to people's uni days.
02:23And at that show, everyone was like screaming every word to songs like Sheila and Six and So and all
02:27the early songs.
02:27What does it mean to you to have people still responding in that kind of very passionate way to those
02:32early songs?
02:33Well, I think, I mean, for me, now I think about it, there's, there's a response.
02:38I feel like responsibility to that stuff because it means so much to some people.
02:44I feel the responsibility of that in a sense. And I'm really, it's really, I'm really happy to play them
02:50because it's so rare to have anything.
02:52Everything that hits, you know, like that. So I will keep playing them for people as long as they want
02:57to hear them.
02:58But obviously, like my place, you know, I moved on quite a long time ago from that.
03:02Yeah.
03:02It's not really where I am now, but I'm so, so glad that I did something that means so much
03:07to people.
03:08It's, I'm very proud of that.
03:09Yeah. Where You Are Now is a new album coming out in October, Ghosts 100 Days of Morning.
03:14Yeah.
03:14You were saying that you have kind of gone through old voice memos from across your career to kind of
03:19put that together.
03:20Yeah.
03:20How did kind of looking back help you move forward with those voice memos?
03:24Well, I think it helped me to process things really, I think. I hadn't done a lot of that in
03:29my career.
03:30It's been so fast moving and I've just always been on the go. So it was, and I don't think
03:36I'd ever really had a minute to think about it.
03:39So it was really important. And it was, it's, it's, I've come out the other side of that with a
03:44much fonder, I look back more fondly now on it all than I maybe did a few years ago.
03:49Yeah.
03:49So it was a really helpful experience for me. I mean, it is all a mindset, isn't it, with things.
03:53And if you get yourself caught up in a mindset of looking at the hard times, because they were hard
03:58times for me during that period, those, you know, ups and downs anyway.
04:02But I'm really happy to be where I am. And that, I think that that's because I did that record
04:08and because I've managed to look back through all those things and, and put it to bed, really.
04:12Yeah. You know, what was in the voice memos, which is like old ideas of lyrics and melody.
04:16Yeah. Yeah. Like little sketches and stuff. And like, there were some ideas that kept coming back around seemingly every
04:24few years and stuff.
04:25So I kind of made an effort to kind of look at those and try and get those nails so
04:29that I could kind of put things to bed a bit.
04:31Yeah.
04:33They were all vague enough for me to be able to kind of carry on and put a spin on
04:37it that I wanted to put a spin on.
04:39So it helped me to kind of change my, my point of view of things. And that was really helpful,
04:45you know?
04:45Yeah. You wrote on Instagram that after the Finsbury Park gig a few years ago, you kind of felt like
04:50something was over.
04:51Yeah.
04:51Did you mean that you were kind of considering that you were done with music at that point?
04:54Or what were you feeling at that point?
04:56I never know with things like that. And I'm not that dramatic really to be like, ah, but I definitely
05:02wanted to, I've definitely felt something had turned in my mind.
05:06And I was just, I think I was burnt out a bit by that point as well.
05:10Yeah. I think something in my mind was telling me something's not right.
05:13And I just needed, I couldn't work out what that was. And I think I hadn't really processed anything.
05:18So I think I've had to learn and I still am in the process of learning as an adult now,
05:24how I'm going to carry on and proceed to do this as a job if I want to do it.
05:29Because I think in hindsight, it was taking too much of a toll on me, whether that be, you know,
05:36burnout or mental health and things like that.
05:38And I feel like I still am working on a way of doing it where I feel safer in this
05:45experience.
05:46Yeah.
05:46So I'd love to keep going with it. But I'm still trying to work out how I'm going to do
05:51that really.
05:52Yeah. How are you feeling now?
05:53I feel great at the moment. I'm really happy to be back around and I'm really proud of the new
05:59record and excited to play it to people.
06:02And so, yeah, really good. You know, I'm just kind of trying to keep more, a bit more of an
06:08eye on myself and try and be a bit more present.
06:11Yeah. You know.
06:12Yeah. Is there one song on the album that you're most excited for people to hear or kind of keen
06:15to see how they respond to it?
06:19I really like Tallahassee. I like Chelsea Girls is another song I really like.
06:24I mean, I see the album as a piece of work, so in its entirety, really.
06:28So I'm just excited to have it as a body of work.
06:32Yeah. Well, I've had it. It's really good. So congratulations.
06:36Oh, thank you.
06:36Good luck with it. And thank you so much for talking to us today.
06:38Thank you for having me. Thank you.
