Interview: Gavin James talks new music, drive-in gigs & supporting Niall Horan, Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran
- by Andrew Braithwaite
- in Interviews
Gavin James is a talent which has emerged from Ireland and proved to be another success story. With over a billion online streams, sold-out arena gigs totalling 250,000 ticket sales, plus supporting Niall Horan, Sam Smith and Ed Sheeran - he’s got plenty to talk about.
With his latest song ‘Boxes’ just released, we caught up with Gavin James to ask him some questions.
Q) Your latest single ‘Boxes’ has already racked up millions of streams and by the looks of the Youtube comments it’s gone down a treat with your fans. What’s the song about?
A) Boxes, for me, is not letting anyone tell you " you can't do it ". It's following your dreams and not listening to all the people who tell you along the way that " you are not good enough " or " you never will ". Believe in yourself!
Q) The Coronavirus lock-down has taken over everybody's lives recently. How have you been passing your time?
A) I’m enjoying being home so far. As I do so much travel it’s great to be in one place. So I’m spending my time writing songs, I’m going to have about five albums worth by the end of this :) Also getting into cooking and lot’s of live streams performance to try and help some charities. I even started a weekly quiz, we had a thousand people on Zoom for it last week.
Q) You have supported some huge names including Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith. What was it like opening up for these guys?
A) I had so much fun on tour with them, such great guys to have me on tour with them! It was just me and my guitar playing to so many people, it was deadly! I had a great craic touring around the US with Niall Horan too.
Q) Which is your favorite gig or performance to date?
A) The favorite for me was my home town gig at 3Arena, 13 thousand people and the last gig due to Covid. It was also the end of my world tour from the second album, definitely my favorite so far!
Q) I've read that you have announced several summer ‘drive-in’ gigs, so how do you think these will pan out?
A) There’s not much we can do now, and we have musician and crews all out of work, So we are going to try the Drivin-In tour of Ireland. So far everyone is up for it and it's just good to get people back working, hopefully more artists will follow.
Q) Who are your main influences?
A) When I was younger, I was into Metallica and Slipknot and a lot of Led Zeppelin but my dad got me into Cat Stevens and Bob Dylan and all that great stuff from his time.
Q) How long have you been making and performing music?
A) I started playing the pubs when I was 17 and did that for about six years. I’m 27 now and it has been a long grind but great fun!
Q) You have already been involved with some impressive artists. Is there anyone in particular you would like to collaborate with in the future?
A) I would love to work with Chris Martin and Joe Bellion, his production is class!
Q) Have you got a message to share with your fans?
A) As I said before Boxes is a single that has the message….Believe in yourself, don’t listen to the haters!
Thanks Gavin - all the best for the future!
singer-songwriter pop acoustic
