Jim Kroft goes Solo

This article first appeared on the excellent BangBangBerlin.com website.

BANGBANGBERLIN.COM can exlusively tell you all that Jamie, previously of beloved Berlin band Myriad Creatures fame, has GONE SOLO! He shall also now be known as Jim Kroft. Tres Rock’nRoll, we know. Of course it’s sad when a band part ways, but we cant help feeling excited for Jim as his solo album was released just last week and after a listen, we have to say i’ts bloody fantastic. Titled ‘Between The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea’, it showcases what a truly talented songwriter and singer he is. Jim has been busy gigging around between Berlin+London and we can’t wait to catch him live ourselves. Enjoy the interview!!

Jim, you have left your band Myriad Creatures and are going solo – tell me about this dramatic decision!
It was the hardest decision I have ever had to make. I´ve built up the band with the guys since we moved over to Berlin at the turn of 2007, and we´ve been down many an addled trench together – gigging from Romania to Aberdeen, releasing our first record last year, and getting known in Europe.

The band is in a fantastic position in that it has some great people supporting it on the business side, as well as such a wonderful grassroots fanbase – which is very rare nowadays – and tough to build up. There is also a great album which we have been concentrating on since last September, and one I have a lot of belief in still now that I have left. However, you have to look into your musical heart and try to stay true to it. I am a singer and a writer of songs, that´s the basis of my life. I decided that I want to follow that without any compromise whatsoever, and that no longer entailed being in a band. That didn´t mean that I didn´t love the music we were making together (far from it) it just means that at some point you recognize mortality cuts things short in life, and that your time to try and follow your purpose is limited.

I commend you for staying so true to what you believe in! It’s a tough one I know, we alll here at BBB have a lot of love for both Myriad Creatures and your good self. So anyhow, onwards! Tell me about the debut album! How did it come about and what sound were you going for?
The album was a complete rush of blood. The Creatures album was finished and ready to be mixed but unfortunately producer Gordon Raphael got a great job he had to do, so the mix was delayed. There was a lot of energy, but nowhere to put it. Anyway I have great musician friends in London where I am pretty well connected, so I got in touch with Matt Ingram who runs Urchin Studios in East London (which is owned by Gordon).

There was the smallest window for recording before I had to get back for the Creatures mix. So we had two rehearsals then went into the studio for 9 days straight! On top of all that, on day 9 the string quartet came in and played the arrangements Ben Barritt had written during the session – he didn´t sleep more than 4 hours each night, some times camping in the studio while hallucinating quavers…One of the best days in music in my life was just hearing these wonderful arrangements played flawlessly. The playing was breathtaking. The whole album was recorded for just over a grand – proper D.I.Y independent record making – outside the record industry, just a bunch of absolute dudes playing and working their guts out for each other. It was very humbling to experience such dedication and expertise for so little dosh. It was a labour of love, and I am in debt to the Gods….and Urchin Studios!

Who exactly were the people you worked with on the album?
I carved the musicians into two sets – one set had 5 rhythm tracks for the first day, the second, had the other 5 tracks. I figured that with so little time to practice it would be better for everyone to have less to concentrate on. Matt Ingram co-produced the album with me and played drums on some of the tracks, and Dan Cox engineered. They are the Urchin team. They are knocking out records for the best price and the best quality as any one in London. They recently had Fyfe Dangerfield (Guillemots singer) and Adam Ficek (Babyshambles) in to do records. I think of Urchin as like a smaller and less known version of Steve Albini´s (Nirvana´s In Utero Producer) Studio Electrical Audio in the States. He has worked on some of the biggest album around but refuses to take points (where producers usually get paid on album sales).

I love the orchestral sound, slightly Beatles-esque in places – who else were influences? And whats your favourite Beatles album/era?
I love all types of music, but i wouldn´t say that many of the left field influences found their way into this record. Ultimately I am a first time solo artist, and part of the priority is to get yourself in a position to record the next. But there is definitely an older school quality. I was trying to write a modern adaption of a Johnny Cash song with Guess That´s What the Gods Say – with the stomping rhythms, acoustics and the way his songs flow so great. On the other hand, on Falling Apart the string section on the chorus is trying to incorporate an Enrico Morricone type figure on the strings. Low budget East London cinema adaption! You have to try! Tales of the Dark Arts has a Beatles feel in the harmony. Its my favorite on the album and opens it. There is so much to learn from the songwriters who wrote for Sinatra, and people like Carole King. As a solo artist I guess I am a bit lost at sea in the Berlin environment which is so progressive. But the songs are an engagement and reaction to modernity, and I think that these questions transcend style….

I love the themes you address in it, about the excitement and loneliness of moving abroad (to Berlin) and your social commentary on the strange times we live in is especially well-observed – would you say overall your outlook is positive or more worried/despairing?
Good questions Bang Bang Berlin!! My overall outlook is of acceptence, engagement and positivity. Growing up you have a tendency to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. It is natural. Life is tough, and the more you realize how fucked up things are the harder it can be to find a foothold. However if you keep searching, keep looking, keep asking the questions and trying to remain as open as possible, you do find that foothold.

If there is one thing this album charters it is this question – how does one grow up sane in a bonkers world?
Tales of the Dark Arts starts with a question I stole from Marx:`everything is pregnant with its contrary today (that´s the good bit which is obviously the Marx bit ha ha!) its a head fuck at the best of times – unless there´s something that I missed then humanity´s in a twist´. It sets out the problem, the condition, the challenge. When everything is so complicated, so twisted, so back to front, how do we remain sane?

My experience was that I had to go the point of virtual insanity to get to a perspective, a foothold. Life – the things I lived through – which are all just normal human things – the death of a parent, divorce, drugs, trying to resist the man, too much freedom, what the hell do you do with this freedom, losing relationships whether parental or in love, to pursue
what you love – nearly drove me to the edge. And it nearly drives everyone to the edge at some stage, whether they choose to admit it or not. So how do you cope, how do you survive? With honesty, with taking things step by step, communication, whether professional or just reaching out. Basic human stuff. But modernity is a vast sceptre, as is life, and you have to deal with it one way or the other. But ultimately I remain positive – the chaos must be faced – and with a smile!

Re The Great Doomsday Song – are we all doomed?
I went to Dorset to meet James Lovelock with my brother to ask him this question. (Lovelock is the father of the Green Movement and wrote Gaia Theory). This was years ago before Climate Change had reached the front covers of newspapers and had become a political issue. It was interesting. His perspective was that we are further down the line than anyone has quite fathomed, and there is simply not much that we can do about it. His advice – politically – is for governments to start taking measures now to deal with the fall out. Personally I don´t/can´t agree with that. However, humans are so over populated and have eradicated so many species, that I don´t think it matters either way -nature will find a way to balance humanity – and it will not be pretty.

I love Tales of the Dark Arts – do you believe in magic? or religion? or spirituality?

I try to believe a bit of everything! There was an old coin dug up in a Celtic grave. On the one side it had a Christian Cross, on the other the dagger of the local Pagan religion. The dude was hedging his bets – that´s what I call wisdom! And yes, I believe in magic, I believe that extraordinary things happens – especially in adversity. Religion? For me something just cannot come out of nothing. And when I have gone far out and tried to actually conceive of that, then it has only tipped me over the edge. Come on – you can´t make an equation and put that stuff in a text book. All the great scientists say that the further you go into the question of matter, the more paradoxical and strange the results become. Sub atomic materials start behaving irregularly and you reveal them selves as not waveforms or particles but something in between. I can´t conceive that stuff – I only know that it makes sense to me that it doesn´t make sense. I find it comforting. It’s better to be a fool-fraud like me and just enjoy the big questions in the pub – now that is a place where you can find some proper illumination!

You wrote the whole album yourself – tell me about your writing process. how does it work for you?

It comes out of life. Even if I am very busy i try and pick out an idea, or vamp on some chords. If you don´t sit down it won´t come. It takes tremendous discipline though, and you have to obey it and live your life around it. It tends to have a habit of fucking things up foryou ha ha. What I mean is that if you are serious about writing and serious about putting it first and giving yourself to it, then it takes sacrifices. If you sacrifice, you suffer and this often means losing some of the good stuff in life – whether seeing loved ones as much as you like, or walking in the park or whatever. I think it is a pretty old and boring idea that you have to suffer for your art. I don´t believe that. I just believe that writing something good and true means walking the road less travelled. Don´t expect it not to hurt because the truth is it does.

How do you feel when you look at the album as a whole and what youve made/accomplished?
I feel like I want to make more. That I want to better it. I feel good to have begun.

Berlin has obviously been very influential on you – do you see this relationship with the city continuing? How has it developed form the point you arrived ot where you find yourself now?
Absolutely. Berlin has been kind to me personally, as a musician, and as a writer. It is the best city on earth, and hell I blame it for too many hangovers, too many good times. It has been a hell of a ride here, and I feel privileged to be here at the is time in its history.

What kind of second album do you think you would make, if you could?

It will harmonically challenge. I want to push my songwriting. I am writing
songs that are much more non-linear now. That progress in different ways
and through different keys. It will be completely out of time and sell nothing. But it will be special, I really believe that. And it will engage and build on the themes and ideas that are there in the first album. I am thinking of naming it after Marshall Berman´s book – All That Is Solid Melts Into Air….

What are your plans re this album – touring/promotion?
I´m playing record release shows this month in Berlin and London, Fete de la Music, WABE in September, and hope to get the opportunity to do a support tour for a bigger band if the opportunity arises. I hope to see you Berliners at Cafe Zapata on the 7th of May for the record release – it is also a night to celebrate the Tacheles, who the forces that be are trying to shut down…..they will not succeed!!

Thank you so much Jim and best of luck!
Thank you too dear LizCat!

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Categories: Berlin, Interviews

Contributing writer: Liz McGrath for Bang Bang Berlin