James Blunt spoke to Kathy Burke’s podcast Where There's A Will, There's A Wake is available on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
KANYE WEST ONCE ASKED TO WORK WITH JAMES BLUNT
Kathy: There's some similarity there [between you and Tom Cruise].
James: Have you been drinking?
Kathy: No, you do. I can see Tom Cruise.
James: My mother would love that, but it's not quite true. I have met him. He's a very nice man. He sent me flowers once.
Kathy: Did he?
James: Yeah. Just before the Grammys. And Kanye West called me the same day to ask if we could work together.
Kathy: See? I mean, look at the... This is like a different attitude from the American music family to the British... which is basically f**k off you Blunt, we don't want you.
But the Americans are all embracing.
DAMON ALBARN REFUSED TO HAVE HIS PICTURE TAKEN WITH JAMES BLUNT AT A PRESS APPEARENCE
Kathy: I read, obviously in your marvellous book, I was a bit f**king shocked, and I have to say a little bit annoyed, about things like when you did Later with Jools Holland, and they do this sort of group photo of all the bands at the end. And was it Damon Albarn who refused to be in the photograph or didn't want you in the photograph?
James: Yeah, I don't know exactly. He's a lovely chap, I'm sure, but he didn't want me [to be in] the photo of the episode. And everyone gets the photo and that photo is put up on the wall of the studio, of Jules Holland's studio.
And for some reason he didn't want me in the photo, so I was kept in my dressing room while they took that photo. And then he left and then they got me out for a second photo, but my photo's not necessarily on the wall.
JAMES BLUNT ON HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH CARRIE FISHER
Kathy: It is fascinating that you ended up living with Carrie Fisher.
James: Absolutely bizarre. And the invitation to live with her came on the first meeting.
Kathy: Yeah.
James: Where literally I was in a restaurant in Notting Hill and she was there, this lunch I'd been invited to by family friends of hers. And she asked me, ‘hey, what do you do?’ I said, I’'ve just left the army and I'm going to Los Angeles. I've got a record deal’. And she said, ‘okay, where are you going to live?’
I said, ‘I haven't organized anywhere yet’. She said, you're going to live with me’. And that was the first three statements she made to me.
Kathy: She wasn't just bull shi**ing you.
James: And then since 2002 till her death in 2016 that's where I lived whenever I was writing and recording out in Los Angeles.
And it had a huge impact on me as a human. My closest friend, dearest friend. She knows where all, she knows all my darkest secrets. My first album is called Back to Bedlam because of the madhouse that was her house. You just get up and drive away from her place, drive to the studio and back each night.
Kathy: Wow, and what a great loss because she was like a Twitter queen.
James: Totally, I mean, such a strong character. And for anyone else who's gone through the struggles of being bipolar, for addiction, she at least spoke about it very openly.
She wasn't as necessarily as strong as people thought she was. The very fact that she's going through those struggles that she's had to live through, but the fact she spoke about it so openly was what really helped other people.
Kathy: Oh my goodness. I think, yeah, I think she was one of the first famous people, um, that I recall hearing talking so openly about mental health
CARRIE FISHER HAD CHRISTMAS TREES IN HER HOUSE 365 DAYS A YEAR ACCORDING TO JAMES BLUNT
Kathy: It's got all this extra stuff for Halloween, you see. We don't usually have this added screaming and...
James: It's very in keeping.
Kathy: It is. You should do it the whole time. I mean, we do have this spooky setup the whole time. But we've got this marvellous pumpkin. It's amazing... they've etched in your face.
James: You know that I lived with Carrie Fisher and she would have in her house, in Los Angeles, she'd have a Christmas tree set up 365 days a year.
JAMES BLUNT ON HAVING A NIGHTCLUB AT THE BOTTOM OF HIS GARDEN WITH VODKA PROVIDED BY P.DIDDY
James: I've got a nightclub at the end of my garden.
Kathy: Oh, have you?
James: Yeah, so it's a great location, and I've got a mannequin who works on the door.
Kathy: Yeah.
James: Called Svetlana.
Kathy: Oh, I read about the mannequin in your book.
James: Yeah. And so she can control the crowd of both of them and there's drinks there because I've got booze there. It's a sponsored nightclub. A vodka firm sent me 500 bottles of vodka and P. Diddy, he heard about the club. So he sent me 400 bottles of vodka.
[…]
Kathy: I just want to go back to this P. Diddy sending you 400 bottles of vodka.
James: Yeah, Ciroc.
Kathy: I mean, that's, that's a very charming gift.
James: It was lovely. So that year I was then gifted 900 bottles of vodka. And so I'd get a ton of people through my house and through the club. They'd all just turn up, even when I hadn't invited them. I'd wake up and people would be going through my house saying we're going to the nightclub.
‘Who are you’? And I'd say, ‘it's my house’. And through that first year we drank 50 bottles of vodka, which is a lot of vodka. But it still means we had 9 years worth left at the end. Which is pretty good.
JAMES BLUNT ON RECEIVING NME’S WORST ALBUM AWARD IN 2006
Kathy: So, what publication would you like your obituary to be in?
James: The NME.
[…]
Because the only other time they've mentioned me in the NME was in 2006 when they awarded me the award for worst album of the year.
Which I have to say, I did the sweetest thing with them this year. They did an interview with me - they do an interview with me each album cycle. And I always say, ‘you're miserable guys, because you give these awards out, and you've given me the worst album, and yet, you've never given me the actual award’.
‘Everyone else who gets best album gets the actual award, you've never given me the award, you've never invited me to the award ceremony’, and this year, on my seventh studio album, they turn up with my 2006 award and said, ‘go on. We think you deserve it, and we've given it to you’.
JAMES BLUNT ON HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH BLUR AND OASIS
Kathy: Who will be your pallbearers?
James: Well, I think let's get old What's His Face from Blur in there. .
Kathy: Oh yeah, that's a great idea.
James: Damian, I know he'd want to.
Kathy: Yes.
James: And we can have Paul Weller. He's a huge fan of mine. I know he'd want to. Those Gallagher brothers, Noel and what's his name, they'd love to do that. I think they've signed up.
Kathy: That's wonderful. Because these guys were all at war with each other at one point, well certainly Blur and Oasis were at war.
James: Exactly, and they've all had nice supportive things to say about me and my music, so it'd be great to have them as part of the show.
Kathy: See, I think that's wonderful. Imagine their faces when they get the invite.
James: Yeah, I do actually bump into Noel a fair whack at different places. And I think he only says these things behind people's back. Because to your face, he's a coward.
Kathy: Yes! Oh yeah, because didn't he say once he was moving out of Ibiza because you moved in?
James: Yeah, he said he couldn't have me writing my shitty songs just down the road from him. And it was really weird, when he left, house prices just rocketed.
JAMES BLUNT ON HIS ACCIDENTAL DEATH WITH A LEMON IN HIS MOUTH AND A SCHOOL TIE AROUND HIS NECK
Kathy: So James, you've pegged it.
James: Oh God.
Kathy: How the f**k did that happen?
James: Well, it was an accident really. I had a lemon in my mouth.
Kathy: Oh yeah.
James: My trousers were on my ankles and I'd used an old school tie as a throttle and you know, I guess the main thing is you've always got to have a watcher, haven't you? An observer. And I'd fail to do that and the next thing you know, I'm gone.
Kathy: What a way to go though.
James: Yeah.
Kathy: I don't think we've had a death like that.
James: No? Well, it was fun.
Kathy: And what do you think the public's response to your death would be? Never mind the way it happened.
James: guess surprise, really.
Kathy: But do you think there'll be an outpouring of grief, like it was for Lady Di, or do you think there'll be a bit of jollity, like when old Thatcher pegged it?
James: I mean, I'm sure there'll be lots of people who'll be thrilled that it'll be the end of, of my, oral abuse on the radio waves of Great Britain and worldwide, but I'm hoping that my first album will start selling again. That's really the aim of the whole thing because I think the album, Back To Bedlam, I think it's the 19th biggest selling album in the history of the UK Really, and I'm really hoping if I wait and when I die, it could possibly nudge it up, you know, I could overtake the 17th.
That's traditionally what happens, isn't it? So, it's the only way I'm going to sell any more records.
JAMES BLUNT ON HAUNTING HIS PUB IN CHELSEA
Kathy: Do you want to haunt anyone?
James: Definitely. I have a pub in Chelsea and it's right by Brompton Cemetery.
Kathy: And also, it would make the booze quite popular. Because people love a haunted place.
James: Weirdly, I think it was probably like a train went past miles away, and some glass did drop off a shelf. And we just happened to capture it on the CCTV and my pub manager caught it as it fell. And you know, I was completely surprised by catching this, that it had come off the shelf in the first place.
And so, we posted it online on Instagram saying, our pub's haunted. And now we get all these Germans who come over and say, we hear you have a haunted pub. And they do come and look to check out our haunted pub. We have one other rather sweet story about the pub being haunted. Very sadly, my assistant manager died this year of cancer, which came very quickly.
I mean, he was the loveliest man on the planet. He was in charge of all the kind of computer stuff and all that, all the technology within a working pub is every date, just random dates. He'll put things that come up that haunt. So, the computer systems will go down some days, which is, he's done that. So, on the coronation, all our screens just flashed up with the various members of the royal family with c**ks drawn on their heads. On the coronation day, you know, and he'll just select different dates and, and he's just done that for the future for us. So, we'll always be reminded of him.
His wife works at the pub as well. So his memory lives on. But, as I say, we'll just be, some special day will come up and up pops something on our computer screens or something will go down and it's him haunting our pub. So, I'd like to be in our pub with him.
JAMES BLUNT ON MEETING ELIZABETH TAYLOR
Kathy: You had a brief moment of meeting Elizabeth Taylor, didn't you, James?
James: I did. Would you like me to tell her about this?
Kathy: I would love you to tell our listener all about that
James: I was at Carrie's house and she said, H’ey James, do you wanna go and meet Elizabeth Taylor?’ And I said, ‘f**k yes.’ So we got in the car, we drove from Beverly Hills to Bel Air.
The house wasn't that impressive, relatively small two story building. And I went in and passed the guards and into the sitting room and where the BAFTAs or Oscars or whatever she had were, and if I reached out, an alarm went off and a guy ran in, said, ‘step away from the awards, sir’.
And then, Carrie called me back to the stairs. She was at the bottom of the stairs. And I stood with her and she pointed up to the top of the stairs. And at the top was, Elizabeth Taylor. And she said, ‘Hey Liz, this is James. James, this is Liz’. And, Elizabeth Taylor looked down at me and said, ‘Hey James, I can't come down. I've got the s**ts’.
That's my meeting with Elizabeth Taylor.
