The second in my series of interviews with phenomenal Canadian country artists (check out my last interview with Jess Moskaluke here) - David James, fresh off of his hit single Don't Mind If I Do, joined me via Zoom for a great chat about the cultural capital of Canada, what an average day is like for a country star, the moment he knew he'd made it, and why he decided to make my favourite song of his a duet.
Ciara’s Country (CC): I am delighted to be joined by Canadian singer-songwriter David James. David, one of your songs made my list of my favourite songs of the year earlier this year, so I am so thrilled to finally meet you!
David James (DJ): Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here with you today.
CC: Can you tell me where in the world are you today?
DJ: I’m in Winnipeg. I was born and raised in Winnipeg, right in the middle of Canada, so if you throw a dart right in the centre of Canada, that's where I'm at! I’m actually in the process of moving right now, so things have been a little chaotic the last couple of days, but it's always exciting to move. Moving the boxes and all the heavy lifting and stuff sucks, but setting up the new place feels really nice - you decide where the furniture goes and stuff like that.
CC: I don't think I've ever had somebody so enthusiastic about moving! Was this move a career move, or just because you wanted a change of scenery?
DJ: Just a little bit of a change. I really do love being in Winnipeg, close to family and all my friends. I definitely value all my close relationships. Usually for career stuff - for songwriting or recording - I'm often down in Nashville or over in Vancouver, where my producer lives, so I'm always bouncing around. At the end of the day, you're only a two or three hour flight away from everywhere on this side of the pond, so it's always nice to stay close to family as often as you can.
CC: A little bit further for us in Europe to get to any of those exciting places! How does life in Winnipeg differ from life in Nashville?
DJ: Canada and the United States are a little bit similar, but we've definitely got some differences. There are certain cultural things and politically, Canadians are a little bit different from Americans, but what draws me to both, and what really drew me to Nashville after having grown up in Winnipeg, was the sense of a community. Once you're involved and you're meeting people, it just feels very welcoming and engaging.
I really love the arts and the culture in Nashville too, which is also really prevalent in Winnipeg. It's a foodie’s dream, all these amazing restaurants and amazing places to go see live music. They both really value the arts a lot, and so for me being an artist, it's always really nice to be around people like that. That's the coolest thing about Nashville or Winnipeg - any night of the week, you can walk into a bar, and you can be listening to this band full of some of the world's top musicians, just playing music. That's always pretty special too.
CC: You certainly sold Winnipeg to me, I think I might add that to my bucket list destinations!
DJ: I will warn you, you can't go in the wintertime! It gets down to minus 50 Celsius, it’s very cold. Winnipeg is the coldest major city in the world - we have a lot going for us, but you can't come in the wintertime, you have to go in the summertime.
CC: That is definitely important to know – minus 50 degrees and I don’t mix well! I guess it's a pretty different week for you this week in terms of moving and all, but maybe you can give me an idea of what an average day, if such a thing exists, is for a country music artist like yourself?
DJ: I think COVID has changed a lot of that. In 2019, for example, I was on the road touring or recording for about 280 days out of the year so it was quite a lot. To go from that to being at home every single day, day in day out, was a bit of a change for me. During the past year and a half, it's been a lot of songwriting with other writers but on Zoom or FaceTime as opposed to in Nashville and doing it in the studio or in the same room. That's been a little different for me, but I like it. I've just been working on songwriting and trying to write for other artists too. I will say it's been really nice that most artists and songwriters are able to have a little bit of a studio at home, so you can still be working on things, so for me that was really good, just being able to like work on some ideas.
On a given day, I'm usually just writing, recording or working on somebody else's record. I just can't wait to get back to touring because there's nothing like being on stage. You get addicted to it, it's almost like a rush! You're filled with adrenaline and you have such a connection with the audience. When you're on stage and you're playing your music, you're pouring your heart out on stage, dripping with sweat, and having a great time. Everybody is sharing this experience together. I think it’s just such a cool, incredible experience that you can't find really anywhere other than a live concert. You don't realise how addicted you are to that until you can't do it for a couple years! Now everybody's getting vaccinated and things are starting to open up, so it'll be really nice to be able to get back to that.
CC: That's something that I absolutely can't wait for either! Going to festivals and concerts runs through my veins, so I can only imagine what it's like to be the person actually performing at those.
DJ: Yeah, as an artist it's amazing to get to play for new fans and people who maybe haven't heard some of your songs before, but especially when you get the chance to connect with people who your songs have resonated with, and your songs have made up part of the soundtrack to their lives in some way or another. I have these moments that I go back to - my very first crush, my first kiss, my first car, maybe a summer trip with my friends, and there are these songs that will take you back to those times – they were part of the soundtrack of my life at that point.
If you can create those songs that tie people with those points in their life, those memories, and are creating a lasting impact; the song can provide a vehicle to transport them back in their mind to those kind of memories. I just think that's really cool and really powerful. For me, that's really cool - being on stage and performing and seeing people sing my songs - and they're really excited to hear them and they want to sing it back.
CC: Incredible! I'm sure this next question is probably like asking you to choose your favourite child, but is there a song that you perform or have written that really resonates with you?
DJ: That's a great question. I obviously love all my songs for one reason or another - I try to create music that people can bring into their lives for whatever's going on, so I think there's room for happy songs, sad songs, breakup songs, makeup songs and everything in between. There's songs for parties, songs for dancing to, and so I love to write and record a variety of songs. I will say the coolest song moment for me was when I released my very first song to Canadian country radio in 2014. I had just signed a record deal, but I hadn't toured and I hadn't been to radio stations.
However, a lady reached out to me on Twitter - she was from the other side of the country, and she said, ‘I have no idea who you are, but I heard this song on the radio - I play it all day, and my fiancé and I are going to use it as our wedding song, it just fits us and where we're at.’ As a brand new artist, having just released a song, I still hadn't really fathomed that people were listening to my music. That was the coolest - going back to what we were talking about, your songs being part of the soundtrack to somebody's life or creating memories, these people wanted my song to tie them to the happiest day of their lives. It clearly identified what kind of artist I wanted to be, and the songs I wanted to sing, write and record.
CC: What song was it that the woman loved?
DJ: It’s called What We Weren't Looking For. It's a much older song, a bit of a slower song. Maybe it's not the most fun to play live at a festival or something, but for me, it will always hold a special place in my heart for that.
CC: I love that story! It’s so true that there are songs that really resonate with people, and I think that happened for me with one of your songs too. I mentioned at the beginning of this show that I played one of your songs on my show as one of my favourites for the month. Out of the hundreds and hundreds of songs I listen to every month, I pick maybe fifteen that I think everyone needs to hear, and one of them was your duet with Genevieve Fisher Then There’s You. It really struck a chord with me when I first heard it, so I can understand how that woman felt when she thought ‘I need this song to be my wedding song’.
DJ: That's so kind of you to say, thank you!
CC: I know Then There’s You was originally recorded as a solo track - what was it that made you say ‘this song needs to be a duet’?
DJ: That's a great question. It was totally unexpected - we had gone into the studio, recorded the entire EP. The song was written as a solo, it never even entered our minds doing a duet, but in the studio we kept working on the song and tweaking things. I don't want to say we weren't satisfied with it, but we always felt it could reach this other level, this next gear, and it wasn't really happening. As an artist and a producer working together on it, you learn that sometimes you can ‘over-second guess’ yourself, and so in our heads we thought ‘maybe it is really good and we're just overthinking it’. But that feeling stuck with me, so after we released the song with the EP, out to the world, I was really proud of it, but I still thought it was missing something. I went to my manager who said, ‘why not try and record it as a duet that we can release to radio?’ I said ‘I've never really done a duet before, but I'm open to try it’.
I'll never forget, I was driving in my truck and my producer calls me and he said ‘pull over, I just emailed you Genevieve’s very first pass on the song’. This was not even professionally done, this was in her home just to see if her voice would be a good fit, to see how it sounded. I pulled over, he sent me it, and in my head, I was like, ‘oh, this is exactly what we're missing’. Genevieve has such a powerful, unique voice, she's got this incredible range and texture that I just love and now when I hear the solo song without her in it, I'm floored by how different she made it - enhanced it and made it so much better. That's the fun with the creative process and with recording - you want to stay true to the song and trust your instinct, and for me it was thinking ‘I really think there's something more we can do here’, and then when we finally got it, it was pretty cool.
CC: It's so amazing to hear the stories behind songs like that, thank you for sharing!
But wait, that's not it! David and I had even more to talk about, so stay tuned to my Twitter
@CiarasCountry to be the first to know when Part 2 is posted, where we chat about recording songs written by Hardy, Tyler Hubbard, and Restless Road; why there's more to songwriting than you might think; which Shania Twain song he most relates to; and so much more! Hope you can join me then (or every Friday 5-8pm UK on www.ukcountryradio.com) - thanks so much for reading!
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