James Bay struggled to “keep [his] cool” when recording with Brandon Flowers.
The 34-year-old singer teamed up with the Killers frontman on his recent single ‘Easy Distraction’ and he admitted it was an “unbelievable honour” to get into the recording studio with one of his idols.
He told The Sun newspaper: “All the time I was trying to stay focused and keep my cool and not think, ‘I’m making a song with Brandon Flowers’.”
The collaboration came about after Brandon had praised James’ breakthrough single ‘Hold Back the River’ and then a mutual friend got in touch with the British star to say he’d been hanging out with the ‘Mr. Brightside’ hitmaker and he was keen for them to write together.
James recalled: “I said to my friend Rob, ‘Sign me up as I’d love to have a go.’ So, he sort of connected the dots, and I was able to go out to Utah which is where Brandon lives and he has a rented ski lodge that The Killers turned into a studio, which is really exciting.”
The ‘Wild Love’ singer is “proud” that the song came from one of his own ideas.
He said: “When I first played the track, some people would say, ‘I can hear a bit of Killers in it’ meaning they hear Brandon’s writing input.
“It had this double height hallway where they put drums in that sort of Led Zeppelin way — it’s wonderful. It was very informal and we’d go for breakfast in the morning and Brandon would drive us there.
“When I first played the track, some people would say, ‘I can hear a bit of Killers in it’ meaning they hear Brandon’s writing input.
“But as much as I wanted it to sound ‘Killersy’, because I’m a fan, I’m proud to say that the germ of the idea that started that song is the verse and melody that I took in. That was my homework. I took it in, and I said, ‘What do you think of this?’
“And Brandon had a listen and went, ‘Oh, yeah, let’s give that a go. Let’s see if we can put some lyrics to it.’ And he jumps up on a microphone and gets his phone out and jotted down all his lyric ideas. It was very prolific and unbelievable.”
As well as Brandon, James’ new album, ‘Changes All The Time’, features Noah Kahan, The Lumineers and Holly Humberstone and he would like to collaborate with Nothing But Thieves one day.
He enthused: “They’re a fantastic band and Conor Mason is a f****** amazing singer. I listen to them a lot, especially an acoustic version of ‘Tomorrow Is Closed’, which is gorgeous.”