JAMES BAY RELEASES NEWEST ALBUM “LEAP”
BY AMY SCHWARTZ
“It’s about the reach; it’s about the leap; it’s about going for it,” explains James Bay on the process of making his newest album, “Leap.” James Bay made himself a household name in 2015 with his debut album “Chaos and the Calm,” landing him three Grammy nominations that year and a place on the Billboard charts. Since then he has continued to be a prominent name in the music scene with his second album “Electric Light” and EP “Oh My Messy Mind.”
“Leap” is James Bay’s third studio album, which was released on July 8th of this year. This one draws it back to basics reminiscent of his debut album from nuanced acoustic guitar to blues roots. “There is something about what you recognize in ‘Leap’ and in ‘Chaos and the Calm’ that is quite effortlessly me and what I do,” he says, explaining his return to this familiar sound after the release of his electrifying pop-rock sophomore release. “Electric Light'' was about pushing boundaries sonically, “lets push, lets change, lets evolve, lets see what I haven’t tapped into yet. And I feel like it was a duty of mine to show that I wasn’t just one thing.”
Having achieved his goal of showing audiences his sonic diversity with his first two albums, “Leap” was about accomplishing something different. “Sonically I took my foot off the gas of evolution and I decided to let myself be more drawn to what felt effortless,” explains James. During the writing process he struggled with mental health, which made it important to him that these tracks could serve as anthems of hope to his audience during hard times. “The message that I want to sort of impart is something I’ve been trying to tell myself everyday. It’s that for whatever happens, whether a day sucks or it really, really sucks– cause sometimes they do– there’s tomorrow,” says James. “We live like this,” he says, looking at his cell phone; “Sometimes that’s too heavy; sometimes that’s too much. So I’m trying to keep my chin up and I think if people find ways to do the same thing then I’m really glad.”
Throughout the process of making “Leap,” transparency through his lyricism was of utmost importance. “The lyrics in these songs [were] a big boundary I pushed. The lyrics in these songs [were] what I really, really wanted to be heard, so I had to get noises away and put the vocals up front and center more than I ever had before,” he says. In the past his songs held abstract meaning, but these twelve tracks mark the moment he faced his fear of being vulnerable and direct with his words.
“Leap” is an emotive album tinged with hope and raw honesty, but most importantly, it’s evidence that beautiful things can come from facing your fears. Sometimes, “you have to leap and not worry if there’s a net there to catch you.”
