About Me

Here is an interview that was conducted online about myself if you want to know more:

So, Here I have Warren James here to talk about himself and his upcoming album, how would you say you began to enjoy music?

So, I grew up in a small town between Mansfield and Nottingham, called Kirkby-in-Ashfield. Very close to HMV, where now, I’ve bought over 50 vinyls and closing in on about a hundred CDs. I’ve had a passion for music since I was very young, where my parents would allow me to choose the music we would listen to in the car. One of my earliest memories of music was making my mum laugh by parodying ‘Tragedy’ by the Bee Gees on the way to a family holiday in Skegness. 

How Would you describe your own head when it comes to music?

I’d say I am an unorganised fountain of music to be honest, with different ideas flying around everywhere. I have an EP out and an album in the works too.

Give us a bit about your musical background, if you don’t mind Warren:

As I said before, I’ve been interested in the music industry for a very long time now, and I began to take even more of an interest in 2015 when I joined secondary school and did my first music lesson. I’ll never forget watching my teacher play the Scooby Doo theme whilst not facing the piano and thinking to myself: “I wanna be able to do that”. I got my grades from secondary school and moved on to bigger and better things. I began studying at Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies in September 2020, right when the Coronavirus pandemic was grabbing everyone by the pigtails and swinging them around. I remember my first day at Confetti, I was late because I forgot to grab my face mask. It was during my time studying at Confetti where I truly developed my passion for music, however due to the restrictions in place at the time, I was never able to see any shows. I released my first EP through Confetti, that was cool, I’ll talk more about that later, though. 

Which artists would you say Influence you the most?

So, everyone who is close to me knows that I am a Massive Elton John fan. The first Elton John song I heard was Crocodile Rock, and it wasn’t even him singing it - it was Bob the Builder. I remember loving dinosaurs and when I was eight or nine, I made a slideshow for show and tell in which the background music was Crocodile Rock. There’s just something so catchy about the La-La-La’s and I don’t know what it is. When I did my piano grades, we were allowed to choose our own song to learn for the coursework. I, being horrible to myself, chose Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. I still have the 26 pages of handwritten chords, melody lines and bits like that and, I’m sure you’re curious, I can still play it to this day. Flipping the table a bit here with a controversial one as a rock singer, I am very inspired by Ed Sheeran more recently. I watched his documentaries, and read his Biography and cannot believe that he started out very similar to me. It’s a comfort really, and the first song I learned on guitar all the way through was ‘Castle on the Hill’.

What is your musical style in your own words?

Stylistically, I dress like I write music. I have no sense of style, but I know when something sounds alright and when something sounds a bit rubbish. I do a lot of classic rock stuff with the destriers, but on my own, I like synths and stuff like that. I also like a lot of singer/songwriter stuff, just me and a guitar. There’s not really much else to say about that.

What would you say your best musical accomplishment(s) are?

So, like I said earlier, I have an EP on all major streaming platforms titled Change Me. It’s shockingly bad. But the reason I’m saying it is one of my top three accomplishments is it’s my first ever publicly released work. There were so many setbacks but in the end it got finished and that’s what I was happy about. Now, my greatest achievement so far - Embers. I started writing for Embers in 2021, whilst still at college. I’d sit on the bus (because I was an hour away from Nottingham) with a notepad if my phone had no charge and write lyrical Ideas down. The first track on Embers is one people have heard before, titled “Completely Brand New” - that song is my little baby. I am more proud of this song than I am of any other to be honest. I started writing that song for college and it was originally going to be an acoustic ballad, where it was me and a guitar. Then, I met a guy called Owen Jones, who played guitar for a band called Kings of Mercia. I then formed an alliance with him that went through many names, The OWED, Moonlit Martyrs and the Destriers. We got stuck on the Destriers and liked it. He has helped me with this album a great deal by the way. Owen let my borrow one of his guitars to record this song with and in the end he ended up recording it for me. By my luck, when I came into college the next day, I found out that neither of us had saved the track. Typical me. I called Owen up, partially because he was always late anyways and he told me he had Covid. So I swore at the ceiling because the release date deadline was in two weeks. So I used to MIDI keyboard and logic to create an arrangement for that song but it was rubbish. That’s what ended up on Change Me. A lot of people have told me they love the song Completely Brand New, one of whom is a dear friend, Sam Mycroft. He told me that the song would be so much better if it was more upbeat and faster. So I explained the situation to him. It’s his fault that I decided to re-record it when I had more time. But I’m happy with it now. Lets move on before I tell about the lyrics.

You keep bringing up this Embers album, can you tell us more or is it top secret?

I’ll happily tell you more about Embers, it’s my debut album, it’s got 11 songs, and it’s my happy place. What more do you want to know - you get three questions.

What inspired you to create your debut album?

So, like I said, music is my happy place and I’ve had a pretty rough time recently. So I thought - make an album. Tell people.

What are the themes of Embers?

Embers has quite a few songs about death on it to be fair. I suppose it’s love songs and grieving songs.

Do any other artists feature on this album?

Yes. Owen.

Tell us about your latest two singles.

So I write my music pretty unconventionally. I write lyrics then I write music on top of said lyrics. The two singles from Embers are Smile Dolphin and It’s Dark Outside. The lyrics for Smile Dolphin were not written by me. My brother Connor Poole wrote those, and I promised him I’d use some of his lyrics on a track. I actually wrote the music to that song in a pub where I do gigs. It was funny because it was when the football was on so we sectioned ourselves to a quiet corner. When I finished playing the song, someone must’ve scored a goal because there was a cry of YAYYY in the bar.

It’s Dark Outside, however is probably the most raw and emotional track I have ever written. In February 2023, I lost my grandad. He wasn’t well and as I’ve said before, music is my happy place, so after I went home to my parents, I went to check up on Connor. It was at his flat where I picked up his guitar and played a few chords, that’s where the guitar part came from. I didn’t want to write any lyrics anymore; I didn’t want to write anymore music, because my grandad couldn’t hear it. The next day, I went into work and one of my colleagues gave me some advice. She said “If you can find the words, don’t write them down.” That is where the main line in the chorus came from. It took three takes to record the song because of how depressed I was becoming. One vocal take, I just completely broke down, and nearly scrapped the entire song. I wanted that song to be one that anyone could relate to, and scream in the shower if they’re missing someone they love. 

Do you ever perform live?

Yeah, I do one or two live shows. I only do them at one pub at the moment though, the Staff of Life in Sutton. It’s thanks to Sam Mycroft that I do. I was just finishing work, and I was absolutely drained. I wanted to go home, have a bath and get in bed. I was on the bus scrolling through Facebook and seen a post from the Staff of Life come up on my feed. I saw the name Sam Mycroft come up and I already knew Sam from when we worked together. My partner said that we should go and see him, but me being drained, I thought - ‘He will be there again’. Anyway we got in the taxi to go see him. And he got me on stage singing with him. It all started from there. My next show is on the 10th June at the Staff of Life starting at 9PM.

Have you got anything you want to tell people?

I honestly only have one thing to say:

Be yourself. No-one should be able to tell you who to be. There was a tutor that tried to tell me that I was sh*t at the piano, so I reported him. The world hasn’t got room for people like that. Love yourself for who you are, not who you want to be.