We catch up with the Novocastrian songsmith.

When listening to blues-flavoured folk artist James Thomson, comparisons to JJ Cale, Gene Clark, and Bobby Charles that have regularly hurled him throughout his career are hard to avoid. Though not in a derivative way, Thomson feels more like one of their contemporaries, as if he’s stumbled out of a time machine armed with his guitar, a collection of heartstrung tales, and a beer in hand.

He’s recently released ‘Desire’, the first taste from his third record Golden Exile, a ballad that features his softly-spoken, sagacious lyrical style, backed by a swaggering groove, responsive guitar motifs, and creamy lap steel lines. Recorded in Melbourne by Roger Bergodaz (The Lost Ragas, Tex Perkins), it encapsulates his ability to hit you right in the heart whilst taking you on a melodically lush journey.

It’s this style that has seen Thomson garner the attention of regional and national radio stations around the country, amassing a growing fanbase of loyal listeners, and a deal with Outlaw Records along the way. But what’s in store for us on Golden Exile? Check out our interview below to hear the answer straight from the horse’s mouth, and give Cold Moon a spin whilst you’re doing it:

It’s been four years since your sophomore record Cold Moon, what’s been happening since then?

I’ve been doing a lot of writing and have been on about three tours – including a trip to Malaysia to play a festival in the Borneo rain forest, which was incredible. I also took most of 2018 off from playing shows, to focus on writing and recording this new album. I went down to Melbourne to record it, which was a great decision.

Your band is called The Strange Pilgrims, what’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen one of the members do whilst pilgrimaging?

Oh man, that is tough…certainly the most surreal was when we accidentally gate-crashed a party at a Karaoke bar while in Malaysia. We entered this strange building, with doors coming off passageways, behind the doors were these sort of private karaoke rooms and we just sort of went to the one that sounded the most fun. There were no staff as such…so we figured this was all kosher.

So we entered this room to some quite strange looks, but really the people were lovely and very generous, despite the glaring language barrier. Before long one unnamed band member got up and sung a Boney M song…anyway the crowd loved him, asked for another song in fact…it was only later that we found out from some locals that it was actually a wedding party we had been at.

You’ve been a stalwart of the Newcastle folk/blues scene for some years now. How has it changed?

On one hand I don’t really feel any intrinsic connection to a scene or a movement – my goal is just to continue writing songs and making albums, and I kind of need to keep my own company when I’m in the process of doing that. On the other hand though, it’s nice to see that there are more and more people my age and younger getting interested in this kind of music.

I can’t really imagine that’s going to translate into any kind of mass commercial reaction for these styles of music (although no complaints if that does happen), which is fine because folk and blues have only ever really existed on the periphery of popular music – despite the fact traces of them are in almost all popular music styles.

Tell us what you are trying to get off your chest with ‘Desire’? What are some of the themes behind it?

I suppose the song is about being open to good things: love, happiness, being in tune with yourself in terms of knowing where you are at and what you need. It’s also a kind of protest against allowing dark things in your head or your heart to accumulate to the point where you can’t allow yourself to feel these ‘good’ things that are available to you.

There’s a transient feel to desire ‘Desire’, where were you when you wrote it?

I’d just come out of a quite strange and confronting place…I felt tested but I refused to let that negative spiral become my reality. I just tried to capture the happiness and anticipation of love and wanting to love someone, as well as the sometimes fleeting, sometimes simple happiness I found in various things at the time.

Who were you listening to when writing it?

When I was writing this record I was listening to Paul McCartney’s Ram a whole lot, a lot of Stones particularly Tattoo You, a lot of Ronnie Lane’s solo stuff, No Other by Gene Clark and John Phillip’s The Wolfking of LA.

Does ‘Golden Exile’ feel like a departure for you? How is it different to ‘Cold Moon’ and your self-titled LP?

I’d done my first two albums at the same studio, with the same engineer and virtually the same band. Making these albums were great experiences, because by pretty much the end of the first record the band, the engineer etc. were all good friends of mine and so comfortable and easy for me to work with.

But when it came time to record this new album it just felt right to try something different.
I had friends down in Melbourne, so I knew I could put a studio band together down there and I found a great studio/engineer, and we ended up cutting this whole record live in six days.

I always wanted to do a record like that. We overdubbed some harmonies and a little part here or there, but the vast majority of it was tracked live – the vocal takes are live, the drums, bass, guitars, the keys were all done together. When I think about it, my music tends to be very much about ‘feel’ rather than piecing together separate pieces to make a song, so doing most of the tracking live was a much more natural and fun way to make a record for me personally.

What do you think will surprise JT fans when they hear ‘Golden Exile’?

My music usually tends to be categorised as Americana, Folk, Roots etc and that’s probably a very fair assessment in a lot of ways. But I‘ve always been somewhat resistant to that, because a lot of the music I listen to and love doesn’t really fall neatly within those categories. Without having to force anything, this record feels like the first time I’ve let all my influences really come to the fore. I think for that reason it’s probably my favourite record I’ve made.

What else is coming up in 2019?

I’ll have a new single out in early September, a tour in October and then the record out by the end of the year. We’ve also just been announced for the Dashville Skyline festival, which will be on the October long weekend up in the Hunter Valley. We’ve done this festival before and it’s a ripping weekend and well worth a visit.