Jake Bugg is back and better than ever with his ‘most experimental record yet’
Singer-songwriter 'far from your average 22-year-old' sheds poor boy roots and goes his own way to create On My One
MAKING album number three meant a lot of growing up for Jake Bugg.
The singer-songwriter, who emerged in 2012 as a surly looking 18-year-old, saw his self-titled debut album shoot straight to No1.
It went double platinum and earned him Brit, Mercury and Ivor Novello nominations.
Follow-up Shangri La arrived 13 months later and gave him another Top Three spot.
While Jake used co-writers on those albums, making On My One (another way of saying “On My Own” in his Nottingham tongue) was largely a solo affair.
Written alone, partly in the West London flat he moved to after his last record, it is also largely self-produced.
Jake says: “I had a great time working with (producer) Rick Rubin on Shangri La but I wanted to try something different.
“Producing a lot of the tracks on this album is a happy accident. I had no idea what I was doing but I just kept doing it and trying it out.
“I just plug things in and if it sounds good, I leave it like that. Trial and error is one of the ways I like to do it.”
With this unplanned approach, On My One is his most experimental record to date.
“I wanted something a little bit different,” he says.
“The old stuff had a lot of folk and country elements. While this record has some too, it also has soul. I loved Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk, which has a horn section. So that was an influence.
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“I wanted something that was traditional but had a modern element about it too.”
Jake’s reinvented sound is most evident on track Gimme The Love, a dance-fuelled anthem that is a bit Primal Scream and The Charlatans.
“That’s the track I’m going to get told off for,” he says, laughing.
“People feel they’ve been betrayed somehow. They’ll say, ‘Where is his guitar?’ But I always try to make every song different.
“I want every song to be different to the last and no two albums to be the same. That’s what keeps it exciting for me.”
Sitting outside a restaurant near his flat so he can have a smoke, Jake — dressed head to toe in black despite the sun — adds: “I guess I’m not your average 22-year-old, as I’ve been lucky enough to see different places and travel the world and meet new people.
“But I’ve always hung around with people older than me — even when I was younger, back on my estate with my mates. I think you learn from older people, as they tell you their mistakes.”
In the past Jake has been criticised for using co-writers such as Snow Patrol collaborator Iain Archer, former Longpigs singer Crispin Hunt and singer-songwriter Brendan Benson, also of Jack White’s band The Raconteurs.
After hearing he had used co-writers, Noel Gallagher — who Jake has toured with — said: “I was heartbroken in a way, f***ing heartbroken.”
While Jake worked alone for most of his third album, three of the tracks were produced by U2 and Snow Patrol producer Garret “Jacknife” Lee.
Jake says: “He was good. He challenged me, which is great because I didn’t use any writers to bounce ideas off this time.
“With Jacknife on Love, Hope & Misery he kept telling me I needed a better chorus.
“It can be hard to hear sometimes but I went away and wrote a better chorus and I am happy about that.
“I am happy that he challenged me because otherwise it wouldn’t be the song it is today.”
Jake also spent some time working with Beastie Boys’ Mike D in his break before this album.
He says: “Nothing came from working together, but musically it was very inspiring just to be with him. He’s cool and introduced me to different kinds of music and he’s great to be around.
“I wasn’t nervous at all. It’s meeting footballers that make me nervous, to be honest.”
The day I meet Jake is shortly before he sets off on a promotional tour in the US and he jokes about how his new album title will be mispronounced.
He says: “I’ve already done a few interviews and Americans seem to keep calling it On My Own.
“I don’t correct them as they won’t get it and I let them keep that title.
“But the song of the same name on the album is a bit autobiographical in a way, as I sing about a poor boy in Nottingham.
“That song was written from the perspective that if all this ended tomorrow, what feel-sorry-for-myself song would I sing? And that was it. All my dreams have come true and I’m no longer a poor boy.”
And so with his wealth and success, how is he treated when he goes back to his native Clifton Council Estate?
He admits: “I don’t go back very often. I like to see my friends and family but there is not much for me to do there.
“I’m sure there are people who see me when I’ve gone back and think I’ve got too big for my boots or something.
“Or they want me to have changed but I have a lot of people who won’t let me get too big for my boots.”
And with keeping his feet firmly on the ground, what does he thinks of his critics?
“I am not bothered”, he insists, nonchalantly sitting back in his chair. “People are always going to write horrible things.
“And if they don’t write them, they will say them behind your back. It’s human nature for people to talk behind people’s backs but it doesn’t bother me.
“It’s just one person’s opinion, at the end of the day. I think what a lot of them want is a reaction. So I won’t give it to them.”
But one downside Jake has found with success is he has no time to meet the right girl — a topic he touches on with the song The Love We’re Hoping For.
He says: “That song is about loneliness and I wrote it when I was in a hotel room in LA.
“I get to meet a lot of people but being on the road is lonely at times.
“The truth is because I am away so much, having a long-term relationship is something that is quite difficult at the moment.
“I’m committed to my music and I can’t be taking time out here and there. I’m focusing on my music, as this is everything I’ve ever wanted.”
— On My One is out now. Jake Bugg headlines Glastonbury’s John Peel Stage on Sunday at 10pm.
Track list
1. On My One
2. Gimme The Love
3. Love, Hope & Misery
4. The Love We’re Hoping For
5. Put Out The Fire
6. Never Wanna Dance
7. Bitter Salt
8. Ain’t No Rhyme
9. Livin’ Up Country
10. All That
11. Hold On You
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