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Jamie Cullum Talkasia Transcript
JC: Jamie Cullum LH: Hello and welcome to Talk Asia. I'm Lorraine Hahn. My Guest today is Jazz singer Jamie Cullum. Cullum was born in Essex to a Myanmese mother and English father. He taught himself guitar and piano and heavily influenced by his elder brother -- he fell in love with Jazz when he was in his early teens. While still a student, Cullum gained experience by performing at local clubs as a singer and pianist... and soon developed an explosive performance style that would have critics calling him "Sinatra with sneakers". Though primarily a Jazz musician, his latest album, "Catching Tales", has him drawing ideas and themes from different musical genres. He's embarking on a world tour this year and joins us today here in Hong Kong. Jamie Cullum, welcome to Talk Asia. It's good to see you. JC: Thank you very much. LH: I remember Diana Krall telling me that, you know, what it was... at least for her, what jazz was all about was, you know, this sort of (snaps fingers in swing rhythm). You know? What was it for you? JC: It was, you know, it was absolutely nothing like that for me! It was a complete different experience. I know what she means. I did love the rhythm but really I fell in love with jazz through the iconography of it really, because I was listening to hip hop music and a lot of sample music and within the music I was listening to, they were using a lot of samples from old jazz records -- hip hop groups like A Tribe Called Quest and the Far Side and stuff. They were dropping in samples from Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock. LH: Oh so that was sort of your first exposure then to Jazz. JC: Absolutely, I mean I was you know, baggy jeans and baseball caps and...I think there's an extreme misconception about even the way people say Jazz. They just go "Jazz", you know, they don't say "Jazz". They have to say it in a certain way. There's a hugely vibrant young, youthful, trendy, jazz scene and I picked up on it the same way I picked up on the dance music scene and the rock music scene. I was a music nerd, so I picked up on a lot of different scenes and jazz was just one of them. LH: Right. Now, I read that you actually self taught yourself in terms of the piano and the guitar. Is that correct? JC: Yes. LH: I mean, what sort of training did you have to put yourself through? (laughs). JC: For me, it was again, it was a completely different experience to how I think most kids are exposed to music because you know, I had the kind of very rudimentary lessons when I was young and I wasn't, I didn't enjoy it, I wasn't into it. So once I moved away from that, I just played music for my own pleasure. And whenever I sat down to work out a tune or work out some chords, it was purely for my own amusement. It was like playing a computer game. It was like something I stuck at because I loved it, you know? LH: What, you took a book? You took some lessons? JC: I just listened to record and worked it out by ear, and got friends to help me and you know, my brother was into it too. It was a very much a social thing and you know, at the time, I was like kind of playing little kiddy rock bands and just playing guitar at parties and stuff... it was part my social existence really. Didn't feel like this big academic exercise. LH: Right. Now playing from these sort of kiddy bands as you said, to going... playing worldwide, in huge arenas. That must feel really different. JC: It does, in a lot of ways it feels very different and then, you know, as soon as you're behind the piano and you got the microphone in front of you, there's a real sense that you are at the center your universe. And whether you're playing big arenas or you're playing small clubs, it has that same, that kind of feeling. LH: Jamie, how important were those early days in terms of shaping, well not only your approach but let's say... your music? JC: I think these years are just as pivotal now to me really. I'm learning and changing my ideas about music so much everyday. I think, you know, my early years were eccentric cause I did so much listening. And I still do so much listening and I think I'm changing and shaping myself as a musician and performer as much now as I was then. You can tell that by the three albums I've made already, I think. LH: Right. How so from let's say, when you started out? JC: Yeah, I think...I think the fact that now I have an audience, it does make you think a little bit differently. And I think you have to make sure you don't let that the overriding factor be "what's my audience going to think of this?" You know, back in the day when I was just making music, I'd be like "does it sound good?" (snaps fingers) If it does I'm going to do it, you know? Now there's that part of you saying, "well what are my audience going to make of this if I use an electric beat here or if I do this or I use an electric guitar instead of the piano or..." But I do try to keep a kind of innocence...you know, if I think it feels good and sounds good then, you know, hopefully the audience that love me for what I do, will go with it as well. LH: Right. Your roots are in Jazz but you do draw from a lot of different genres. What do the purists have to say about that? JC: I don't make music for purists! I'm a huge fan and listener to what you call "pure" Jazz and pure Indy rock and pure house music and pure hip hop. But you know, I'm here and I think my basic talent lies in being able to draw on a lot of different things and not be any one thing. Because I have respect for the good side of Britney Spears and the good side of John Coltrane, you know? And I think if you can in some way bring the immediacy of pop together with the deep kind of connection you can have with jazz and swing, then I think that might be what my true path might be. LH: Describe the process that goes through your mind... when you're actually writing music and when you're composing. JC: The process for me happens all the time and it's all I can do sometimes to stop thinking about music! I mean, I was... we were just talking before the interview about that. I've just come back from holiday, and I actually specifically chose not to listen to music for a few days because as soon as I listen to something, I'll have an idea... or I'll have to go and work on my computer at some music or I'll have to pick up the guitar. And sometimes it's good to have a bit of a break. Sometimes I call it a sickness because it's... I just can't stop it. So I'm always thinking about music, I'm always thinking about songs, and I'm always getting new ideas. And then once you have the idea, the process changes completely, you know, you have the inspiration section, then you really have to work on it, you really have to sit down and chisel away like a builder or someone who's building house or something. It's actually quite structured after that. But the first section of it is quite mad and free, and... and hallucinatory! And you know, crazy! (LH: laughs) But then after that it's literally like sitting down and going, "right now I've got to shape this" and that's the part where the experience helps and where the discipline helps. LH: So are you a lyrics kind of guy or are you a music kind of guy? JC: From song to song it changes. I think for example, with uh... one of the main songs off this new album "Catching Tales" called "Get Your Way," that was really a melody first. And then a song like "Photograph" off the new album was a lyric song so... from song to song it changes! LH: Do you have a favorite one you're attached to here? JC: It changes every night. (LH: laughs) You know, I think, that's the point because we don't have a set list or a specific way of playing things every night. Every night the songs change, and so do the enjoyment levels and the way they sound. LH: Do you have any favorite bands that you actually listen to on a regular basis? JC: Only about ten thousand! (laughs) You know, it's really hard for me to say. I mean, from day to day it changes and I'm a big downloader of music -- legal downloader of music and... LH: Thank you for pointing that... (laughs) JC: Well you know, sometimes if there's something I can't get hold of legally, I'll get hold of it illegally. But I'm a music fan and I'll support bands that I love by buying tickets, by buying albums, by whatever... but you know, I just downloaded a new album from this fellow called Ed Harcourt just this morning. I downloaded an Arcade Fire EP, I downloaded an album by a Portuguese singer called Juana Molina... (LH: That's quite a bit!) I spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on music every month. You know, it's my obsession! LH: Yeah. And your life right? LH: Jamie, we're going to take a very, very short break. When we come back we'll talk more with Jamie Cullum about his early years and some family influences. Stay with us. BLOCK B: LH: Welcome back to Talk Asia. My guest is jazz singer and musician, Jamie Cullum. Jamie, is your family musical? JC: They are! They are very musical. I mean, it's not like the Osmonds you know, sitting around singing harmonies and stuff all the time, but my mother's always sung in choir and she used to sing in bands when she was younger to kind of make extra cash. Uh, not a trained musician again. And my dad plays three quart guitar. When he's had a couple of beers, he'll start playing Beatle songs, the easy ones! But you know, it's my brother who's really the musician, the one who became very accomplished at a very young age and he was the one who inspired me. LH: How did he do that? How did he inspire you? JC: Just by leading by example, just by playing and practicing for the sake of it. You know, he didn't sit around like a lot of kids do, I think, dreaming about being a rock star. He just sat around playing the guitar because he loved it. And that purity of just playing music because it was great fun...was something that rubbed off on me. And also, as much as we both like what I call "high brow music," he taught me never to be snobbish about music. You know, I think a lot of times you can say, "Oh that's a Mariah Carey song or whatever..." he really helped me understand ... to look at the inherent goodness in the lot of different styles. You know, even just throw-away pop music, how clever the construction is and how the hooks work. And so he's taught me, and continues to teach me a great deal. LH: Really. Do you actually work together? JC: Well, we work together a great deal. We live next door to each other -- we bought flats next door to each other in London and we share studio space. And he played all the electric bass on this new album and co-wrote a couple of the songs with me and comes out and tour occasional and plays and... we're best friends. LH: Right. He sounds pretty technical so did he have sort of formal backing, formal training? JC: He had a little bit more of the piano lessons then I did. But you know really... and then he did a music degree but it was like kind of a technical music degree in terms of like learning how to operate studios and... like music business kind of stuff. So really, his talent...I mean he plays drums, guitar, bass, uh piano, he sings, you know, he's just a talent. LH: Talking about your family now... your paternal grandmother was a singer in Berlin? JC: Yes. Well my father's mother grew up in what was called East Prussia at the time, in part of Germany. And she was Jewish so when, you know, when the Nazi's... when the Nazi party came, she had to escape. She escaped down to Berlin and to make some extra bucks she would sing with a friend of hers at a night club in Berlin before she escaped to Jerusalem where my dad was born. So... LH: Any influences there from her? At all? JC: You know, the influence from her side is more from the globe trotting and from the interesting films and books. LH: Right. You took a year off school to concentrate on music right? Why was that necessary? JC: I finished college and I was fed up with teachers for a bit. I just wanted to uh play piano and get into trouble and join bands. And I'd just learnt to drive and I'd just bought myself a car and I just wanted to, you know, live the life, live the life of beat poet for a bit! So I went to Paris and joined a bunch of bad bands and... (LH: And had a great time, haha) bought a drum machine (LH: laughs) and you know, got into a hell of a lot of trouble, and a lot of debt. And then I went back to uni a year later. LH: I know, you came back. Why? What was the allure? I mean you studied English right? JC: I studied English and Film. I just wasn't ready to grow up. You know, university I think for me at the time...I know it's a very different experience for a lot of people but, for me, I quite enjoyed studying and the social aspect of it. I was 18, 19, I didn't want to think about having to earn a living and get a job. So I thought well, you know, (LH: go back to school) get a grant and go back to school and you know drink cheap beer! LH: Did you have in mind a different sort of career at the time? JC: I didn't know what I wanted to do at the time. I mean I was playing music all the time but I still didn't think I had any kind of necessarily specific talent to make music for a living. You know I was really into... I was watching Wong Kar Wai films, you know, and thinking about maybe becoming a screen writer or a cinematographer, or I don't know, something like that. LH: So when you released your first album, how confident were you that it'd sell? JC: Well you see, I took a very different path to most people because my first album, I made it myself and only produced 500 copies of it. So I only had to sell about 30 copies to make my money back. So that's what I did and in the end I sold all 500 and I was like, "Hey, you know, this is a good deal, this one!" LH: Right. Now from the "Jamie Cullum Trio" to "Catching Tales", what's the difference? JC: I'm a much, much better musician now, which is all I really set myself the task of, from album to album. You know, there's this huge pressure after making Twenty Something. There was big pressure to repeat the success and you know, I kind of knew it'd be extremely hard to do that because you know, Twenty Something was a... it took a kind of momentum of its own regardless of the music in some ways. So when I made "Catching Tales", I just said to myself, "Well, I want to make a better album, better songs, better singing, better piano playing, better arrangements... and you know, as far as I'm concerned I achieved that and the fact that it's then being embraced by the audience again is... I'm very lucky! LH: Jamie, is it true that you're working on a dance album? JC: (laughs) I've got... I've got five other albums knocking around at the moment of varying genres because there's so many ways of releasing music these days. I'll probably throw them out one day. My brother and I have done four or five tracks of really good kick ass dance records. I've got some very funny acoustic guitar songs, I've got some children's songs. Uh, I've got all sorts so... (shrugs and laughs) LH: Wow. (JC: Yeah.) Wow. LH: Jamie, we're going to take another very, very short break. When we come back, what's next for Jamie Cullum? Stay with us. BLOCK C: LH: Hello again. My guest is Jazz musician, Jamie Cullum. Jamie, you're here in Hong Kong as part of this Asian tour... is Jazz well received here? JC: I think that the culture of traditional Jazz as far as I can tell, is really healthy. There's a lot of great jazz groups coming out of Asia. I know of even more in Japan particularly, actually...bands like Soil and Pimp for example. There's some really, some really great music coming out of Japan. You know, with regards to what I'm doing, I'm still finding out, you know, I'll have to tell you at the end of the tour. But, I've actually got... this year I got the opportunity to tour the entire world and play to fairly reasonable audiences everywhere and that's, you know reasonably unique... it obviously kind of travels quite well with what I'm doing, so I'm extremely proud of that fact. LH: Do you miss home at all? JC: Yeah. I miss home everyday. But the opportunity is so great that you know, I'm 26, I haven't got any ties and I'm just enjoying it right now. LH: Yeah, why not? (JC: Yeah.) You're mom's from Myanmar, I mentioned that earlier, um, any plans to head off to that part of the world since you're pretty close. JC: Next year I hope to do a little more... I have to get a little time off and one of the things I want to do is visit Myanmar where mom was born. Just out of interest you know, I've done a lot of reading about it and I just think it's... you know, sometimes you got to discover where you come from right? LH: Do you feel any attachment to Asia at all? JC: I feel a very strong attachment ... there's a great deal of you know large parts of Asian culture that I'm extremely tied to. I think it's quite widely know that I'm extremely obsessed with, first of all, traditional kind of Japanese cinema like Ozu, and Mizuguchi and Kurosawa. And my favorite contemporary film maker is Wong Kar Wai. And now, do you pronounce it "why" or "wei"? (LH: Correct. Yeah.) Okay. That's pretty good. (LH: laughs) So I mean, his "In the Mood for Love," "Happy Together," um "Chungking Express"... these are my favorite films of all time. LH: Right. Aside from traveling and touring, what else do you like to do? JC: Well, this doesn't leave a lot of room for a lot of other stuff but I'm you know, a pop culture kind of fan, so I really like watching a lot of movies, I like computer games, I like going to the pub, I like drinking beer, I like... LH: So you still hang with your friends? JC: When I have the chance, you know, I try and... every three weeks or so I fly a loved one out to me, like a friend, or a brother, or a family member or something. But I'm pretty much like a normal mid twenty's kind of person. LH: So fame hasn't really changed you possibly, but you're lifestyle definitely? JC: It has. I think it's always a bit naïve to think it hasn't changed you in any way. I mean, I'm extremely lucky cause I manage to earn some money at something I really love doing. But I don't think it's changed my priorities at all. My priorities are exactly the same, which is just to pretty much look after the people I love and have a good time. LH: Right. You've performed for the Queen. JC: I have. LH: (JC: Yes.) That must have ... what was that like? JC: It was, it was great! It was a real honor! You know, I've also had the chance to perform for Elton John and Stevie Wonder which are my royalty you know? (LH: Right.) But it was a great honor to be a part of the whole thing and you know, I got to meet the Queen on a one-to-one kind of basis so I think that's probably like point one of the population in the world that's had the chance to do that, so... (LH: Correct. Yes.) it was a great honor! LH: Right. Jamie with your achievement so far, what is your ambition... now? JC: My ambition always was to just be a really good musician and that was before I was making records, before I had a record deal and that's not changed. You know, every time I sit down at the piano to play a new gig or make a new album, that's still the main priority, to just be really damn good at what I'm doing. Because that gives me the most pleasure to nail some great chord changes or to write a really good song or to sing a really great chorus of the song, to write a great chorus, to program a good drum beat, something like that. It's just these things, that's what I get kicks out of. LH: Right. It gets your blood going, doesn't it? JC: Yeah. That can be in front of 5000 people or I can be at home just me and the cat, you know? LH: It was written somewhere that you were going to take a year off or something and write some new music. JC: I think that's uh, means that I will take the year off from traveling... extensively. I'm sure I'll still do sound stuff, but I'll certainly make an album. LH: Jamie, good luck to you. (JC: Thank you so much.) Thank you very much, (JC: You got it.) really appreciate that. (JC: Thank you.) You've been watching Talk Asia and my guest has been Jazz singer and musician, Jamie Cullum. I'm Lorraine Hahn. Let's talk again, next week. 
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