25 February 2015
Newsdesk
Yesterday Free Radio spoke to James Bay about what it was like winning the Critic's Choice award, bumping into Sam Smith, George Ezra and Taylor Swift who, it turns out, is a big fan of his.
On bumping into Sam Smith and hoping to see him at the BRITs James Bay said “There’s been a few stops along the way, even this far I’ve run into Mr Sam Smith – who is – I’m a big fan. He’s the previous winner [of Critic’s Choice award] so it would be nice to nod and say cheers for sort of passing the baton – he’s a bit of a role model in that sense. It’s funny, I met him a couple of years ago – it was my first ever London gig, it was his first ever London gig and it was George Ezra’s first ever London gig and we were all on the bill. First proper London – we just just had three songs each and I met him then
and he played a great show and I said “wow, that was incredible” and he said nice set and everything. Then I saw him again three or four months ago in Mexico, at a festival. It was cool to say hi then, like he was really excited and this was before he’d even been to the Grammys. It will be nice to see him and say hi and ask him how he’s feeling after all this craziness.”
On meeting Taylor Swift James Bay commented “Crazy moment – it was actually at the beginning of the Hozier tour. She had come to see him to say hi – they’re mates and she’s a fan of his music. He’s been all over the radio out there, he’s done incredibly well over in the States, so she’s obviously heard of him and she came through backstage looking for him – he was still actually on stage, so she was a little early and as she was passing through, she stopped as we were – we were sort of stood in the corridor – there was no dressing room for us because it was a pretty small venue…quite rightly…so we were stood there in the corridor and she came by and she stopped and turned and said “excuse me, are you James Bay?” and I was like “yep!” and she just went into one about how she’s got a little playlist that she listens to the whole time on planes that’s got my music on it and she was talking about lyrics. She was dissecting verses of my songs saying she liked when this line did this and that line did that and so it’s kinda cool that she’s clearly a music lover – a true music lover and really listens. I actually turned up to do a gig in LA recently – kind of a secret thing - for some industry folks and she came along to that, she came to watch.”
