Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2009/January 2010 | Page 44

life

INTERVIEW
see,” he says, playing a simple rolling
melody which, by adding some slightly
sinister chords and internal rhythms,
develops in complexity and urgency. “It’s
just like walking,” he says in response
to my admiration. “I don’t think about
it, I’ve been doing it all my life. I can’t
sleep at night sometimes because I’ve got
something in my head. Or Sarah kicks me
in the bed and says I’m tapping my foot
without realising.” Then he adds: “I just
hope one day I’ll get recognised.”
He could, he says, go down the pop
song writing road: “But I want to push
myself to the limits. Film musicians are
so much better than the guys who write
pop songs – they have to be. All these
hit songs that have been written for
movies – James Bond themes, the Jaws
song – they’re unbelievable songs that
change your perception of the world. But
listen to a pop song for three and a half
minutes and you forget it.” Suddenly this
25-year-old has turned Grumpy Old Man.
“One day there’s going to be a button
that you press in the studio and out pops
a hit record.”
Not that he doesn’t appreciate certain
pop musicians: Gary Barlow’s writing
and that of James Morrison and Paulo
Lutini for example. But he not es too the
unsung musicians who play in orchestras,
a thought which triggers another of his
dreams: “What I hope one day is that
someone likes a couple of my tunes and
says ‘we’re going to go to Abbey Road
and do that again with an 80-piece

Photo: Jamie pictured in his studio

orchestra.’ “
I think they are some of the best songs

Island. He is in the process of directing

“I hope that happens. I think it will.

in the world. I’ve got a long way to go,

his own movie, a short to showcase his

Otherwise I’m going to turn 70 and I’m

but I think I’m on the path. The only

music, which he is planning to enter into

going to be the angriest man on earth.

thing about the Isle of Wight is it doesn’t

film festivals. “We’re going to try to get

Because I’ll have been working my arse

happen very often round here, does it?”

it shown at Cannes next year – and even

off all my life! But I’m only 25: I’ve got a

if it doesn’t get a screening I’ll go to

long way to go.”

Again, that brooding frustration
threatens to bob, ever so gently, above

parties and thrust my card into people’s

the surface of his calm. “I get bookings

hands.”

to do gigs on the mainland, but have to

Hearing of Jamie’s talent for film music,

add £100 to the fee to bring my van on

a couple of other film-makers have

the ferry. They say, ‘oh, er, we’ll get back

approached him to do their incidental

to you.’”

music. “I sit at the keyboard and watch

But Jamie has mapped his path off the
44

the scenes and, well, just play what I