one ’ s going to be able to sing that in the pub , so let ’ s simplify it and it ’ s , like , again , I wanted to challenge myself vocally and I ' ve really explored keeping the keys high , not being worried about trying to find place for other voices , it ’ s very much a solo voice record , this is .
Do you tend to do your vocals and piano at the same time when you record ? It depends really . It depends what we ’ re doing , you know . For instance , This Is My Time , that ’ s the first track in years where the orchestra followed me , no click and I think you can feel it , I think you can feel it when you listen to it , you can feel those pauses , I love that and I really wanted to make a point of doing that on this record .
So , you got all these people recorded prior to lockdown then ? Can you believe it , I mean , honest to God , I even had the album name , in September 19 , ‘ Music Played By Humans ’ and little did I know how poignant actually that was going to be , in a time where we ’ re being told to stay away from each other , we couldn ’ t get enough people into these studios . At one point , we had 60 in a room , you know , there ' s been times where we ' ve had groups of 20 , which seems ridiculous now , I mean , that seems like a big group of people now .
There ' s nothing that replaces musicians playing off one another , it ’ s something that we can ' t do in computers , I don ’ t believe we ’ ll ever be able to do it , is that when the wave of the orchestra flows together , I ' m waving my hands around , by the way , when I ' m saying this , it ’ s like a flock of birds , you know , when one turns they all turn , it ’ s just the most beautiful thing . I have a music team here and I always make a point of taking the newest people and not , letting them hear the orchestra through the speakers and standing them in the room while they ' re playing and it often brings them to tears because that ’ s what humans can do when they play instruments as a team .
You can really hear that musical interplay on Incredible , can ' t you , which , it sounds to us like it could be in , like , a Gene Kelly musical or something . You pack a lot of words into that one . Yeah , it ’ s , with any of these records , I think people would probably look at me , I ' ve made a lot of albums and think , you know , it must be lovely to just sit there , no pressure . It ’ s not like that at all . When I get a single like Incredible early , it ’ s a huge relief to me , because , well , two things , I think , well , if I don ’ t get anything better than that , that ’ s a really good song and it could possibly lead the campaign , that could and the other one is , when you play it to the label , they leave you alone then to go and make music and enjoy yourself . There ' s nothing worse , I can ' t remember the last time it happened but I had it a lot in the nineties , where you haven ’ t got the single early and it ’ s just so stressful and you feel like you ' re constantly chasing butterflies and not being yourself and trying too hard .
I had a period in the late nineties when I was signed to Clive Davis in America and nothing I could ever write was good enough for him and it slowly , slowly chipped away at my confidence and as all of us know , you know , when artists lose confidence , it ’ s the hardest thing to reclaim , so when Incredible came , which was sort of September , October 19 , I was , like , oh , thank God for that , ' cause it felt bright , it felt like Christmas , ' cause I knew when the album was going to be released and funny , again , you know , little did I know , you know , I believe , at this point in the year , we all need cheering up a bit , we need to turn the news off and feel positive . I wrote that at a very positive time , I ’ d just come off tour , I ' d just had a family holiday in the summer , I felt really good about life and wrote Incredible , because at certain points , not all points , but certain points of the year , you feel good about your life and where you are and others you don ’ t and I was at the point where I just felt wholeheartedly positive about what I was doing . I was about to embark on a new album , it just felt good and it felt like I needed to write that song .
Yeah , the brass really wails on that one as well , doesn ’ t it ? And that ’ s a new thing actually . There ' s a guy that I had on tour with me called Tom Richards and I took him the song and I said , ‘ can we put a brass thing over this ’ and he was , like , ‘ oh , my God , this ’. As someone who plays a sax and he actually plays in Jamie Cullum ’ s band , I just said to him , ‘ listen , there ' s no boundaries , go to town , just go for it ’ and so he did . I think I gave him two songs and we booked into Angel in Islington and these guys just played their arses off for an hour , it was a joy to watch .
So , are you kind of giving them free rein with the arrangements of that or are you doing that at the piano or …? I give Tom really free rein . One of the worst bits about me is I ' m a real interferer , [ laughter ], and I think it ’ s dangerous , ' cause if you ' re only ever hearing things your way , how do you really ever move forward , so I ' ve really made a point , these last couple of albums I ' ve made , of letting people do what they do best and sometimes I change it back and you know , get a bit of what I wanted in there , but more often than not , especially the people I work with , I work with really good people , so when they ' re being given free rein to go and be as good as they can be , they usually are and they usually shock you and impress you and that , to me , is what , you know , collaboration and creativity is all about , is giving the people around you the stage to stand on to go and kill it , you know , that ’ s it and he did , he knocked it out the park on everything he did .
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