Inglorious released their self-titled debut album via Frontiers Records in February. The band is fronted by Nathan James, who previously performed with Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and also includes guitarists Andreas Eriksson and Wil Taylor, bass-player Colin Parkinson and drummer Phil Beaver. After it was announced that they’d be supporting The Dead Daisies in Belfast on 21st July, I arranged to record an interview with Nathan. Unfortunately, circumstances meant we didn’t get speaking until the evening of the gig in The Limelight, but Nathan was good enough to chat with me for about 20 minutes after soundcheck. The interview and 4 tracks from the album were included on the Friday NI Rocks Show that was broadcast on 29th July 2016. That Show is available now via the NI Rocks MixCloud page - https://www.mixcloud.com/NIRocks/interview-with-nathan-james-from-inglorious-friday-ni-rocks-show-29th-july-2016/
The interview has been transcribed and posted below.
Check out the band’s website for tour dates, news, social media links etc - http://www.inglorious.com/
NI ROCKS – Hi Nathan, thanks for taking some time to talk to Rock Radio NI. I wanted to talk to you first of all about Inglorious and the debut album which was released earlier this year by Frontiers Records. The band formed in 2014. How long did it take to find the right people for Inglorious?
NATHAN – To find the right people took probably the most time actually. It was the hardest thing about making a band. I was quite picky about the players I wanted. I’ve been lucky enough to play with some of the best in the world. Finding people in my home country who were my age and shared the same interests and same loves was pretty tough. I auditioned nationwide and then kind of worldwide. We put feelers out and I found 3 of the guys and then it took a little while to find a guitarist that I was really set on. We had to go to Sweden and I’m very glad that we did as he’s fantastic.
NI ROCKS - I read that you wanted the album recorded old style, with all the musicians in the room, no auto tune, overdubs etc? What was the reason for that, where was the album recorded and who did you work with?
NATHAN – The album was recorded in Leighton Buzzard near Milton Keynes – about five minutes away from the Marshall Factory actually. It was recorded that way because all my favourite music growing up was recorded that way. It was live and sounded real. In this day and age I believe it is important to show people that there is young people out there who can play and can sing. There’s a distinct lack of it and there are lots of people who are faking. There is so much fakery, especially in the rock world at the moment and I just don’t think it’s necessary. We don’t need it, so we don’t use it. Even classical music is recorded with everyone in the same room and you can feel it. It may not be perfect and there might be a few off notes, but that whole 3 or 4 minutes will never be the same again. It will never be played again exactly like it was on that one take and that’s what I wanted to capture; that series of interesting moments.
NI ROCKS - How was the connection with Frontiers made?
NATHAN – Through our A&R guy Derek Shulman. Derek signed Bon Jovi years ago and signed Nickleback and Dream Theatre. He discovered me along with my manager a couple of years back. Then when we were looking for a label, he said he’d been working with Frontiers and he thought they’d be a good label for me. They flew over to see us at a showcase in London and signed us the next day. They were blown away. Yeah, it was brilliant.
NI ROCKS – They’re a great label. Waiting for the album reviews to come in must be a strange mix of emotions. They’ve all been fairly positive as far as I’ve seen. I’m not sure if any stand out in your mind, but is it difficult sometimes focusing on the many positives rather than a few negatives?
NATHAN – Yeah, because there are some that you really want to be good. ‘Classic Rock’ gave us 7 out of 10 which I think was bullshit. I think our album is not a 7 out of 10; I know it’s an 8 or 9 out of 10. So that really pissed me off, because they’re a British magazine and you’d think that when a classic rock band from the UK comes along, delivering a great album in a great way and delivering great live shows, that they’d be supportive but they weren’t. That really did piss me off. It was a bit of a low blow. But you get over it. We’ve had 10’s from loads of people. I think ‘Powerplay’ gave us a 10. The majority were a 9 or 10. I never really care what anyone thinks. As long as the fans like it and enjoy it; which they are. I think this year we’re one of the biggest selling bands on the Frontiers label and for a new band that’s awesome. ‘Planet Rock’ A-listed four of our singles, which I didn’t think would happen. I thought we’d maybe have two singles, but every time one would come off the A-list they’d be looking for another one. So we’d get them it and they’d take it straight away.
NI ROCKS – We’re going to play a track from the album at this point. Do you want to pick a track and tell us a little about it?
NATHAN – The first song that I ever wrote actually – “Unaware” – track 11. We co-wrote it with the guy who mixed our album, John Mitchell. Me and Colin wrote it and it’s the first ever lyrics that I wrote for a song ever.
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NI ROCKS – You probably came to a lot of people’s notice with appearances on “The Voice” and “Superstar”. When I was doing a bit of research for this interview I read another interview you’d done with Paradise Rock in late 2012 / early 2013. At one point you say that one of the biggest challenges you’ve faced is “trying to get the rock world to give a fuck about me, when I’ve been on reality TV”. Why do think that is and is it still an issue?
NATHAN – Kind of. I think that is actually Classic Rock’s problem. But, and there’s no way of saying this without sounding like a prick, I’ve worked consistently as a singer for ten years. I’ve earned more money in the past three years after being on reality TV than I have done before. So you can all sit in your offices behind a computer and say what you like, but I get paid lots of money to sing rock n roll music. (Laughs). So I don’t really care, you know what I mean!! And that’s because I was on TV. It wouldn’t have happened otherwise and it gives you a fan-base. At the end of the day, if you’re talented, it shows your talent to people. If you’re not talented you will fall down on your face. I suppose I got lucky that in those shows I really got to showcase my voice. That’s why I went on those shows. I didn’t want to win! Why the hell would I want to win – this is what I’ve wanted to do my whole life.
NI ROCKS - Did your involvement in the reality shows have any part in getting you the Trans-Siberian Orchestra gigs?
NATHAN – That’s how they discovered me – ‘The Voice’ audition. They messaged me on Facebook having seen that audition and said we’re a band from America and we’d like to see you audition. Bearing in mind that at that time I was getting 20 messages a day from bands all over the world going “we really want you to audition for our band. We saw your audition”. I thought this looks interesting – they want to fly me out. I had no idea who TSO were and had no idea how big they were. The next thing I knew, they’d flown me out, put me up in a nice hotel for five days. I sang for about 20 minutes and then I was in the band. I signed a contract and they got my visa. I spent three years touring America, playing to 20,000 people a day.
NI ROCKS – TSO have obviously released a lot of albums. Were you on any of the albums?
NATHAN – I did some recording with them for an album that isn’t out yet and I’m not sure if I’m allowed to talk about it. What’s great about TSO is that even though I’m not on the records, because I’ve sang songs off the records on tour, and therefore the sales increase, I still got a credit and I’ve two multi-platinum records at home because of TSO. I’d sang a song called “Christmas Dreams” which was on one of their albums.
NI ROCKS – You’ve recorded some cover versions as a solo artist. Do Inglorious include any cover versions during their live shows?
NATHAN - We do. Tonight we’re doing “I Surrender” by Rainbow. We’ve been doing it for a while. I’m a big Rainbow fan and love Joe Lynn Turner’s voice so it seemed an obvious one for us to cover. It also gives us the opportunity to show you that the boys can sing – we all sing and everyone is a great singer. That’s why we do that and it goes down really well. It also really annoyed me that when Rainbow came over and did those shows that they didn’t play it. I thought that was just insane. (Laughs) I felt that we should just keep playing it so people get to hear it.
NI ROCKS – Do you ever include any other covers?
NATHAN – The other cover we were doing on The Winery Dogs tour was “Lay Down Stay Down” and we sometimes do “Fool For Your Lovin”. The reason we want to do our second album so quick is so that we can get away from them. We love doing them but we just don’t have enough material. So we’ll be trying to get that out as soon as possible so that we can have nearly two hours worth of material for gigs.
NI ROCKS – You were involved in the “Bohemian Rhapsody” stage shows. If you were given the opportunity to front one classic rock band for a year, which one would you want to get involved with and why?
NATHAN – Oh gosh! Which one? I want Adam Lambert’s job. I think the singer of Queen should be British. Just my opinion! I would like to sing for Deep Purple; that would be amazing, and Zeppelin! Saying that, I’ve just got back from seeing Guns n Roses in Toronto and I’d love to do that. I like a really great song and if you’re not a really great singer, I like a good showman, so people like Freddie who had both were my idols. I like to sing fun songs and all the Queen songs are very fun.
NI ROCKS – We’ll get back to the new album now and play another track. Do you want to pick one and tell us a little about it?
NATHAN – Yeah, “Holy Water” and we wrote it in about half an hour on the last day of writing. That was from top to bottom. We literally sat down and I just sang it and the boys started playing it, and we’d written the song in half an hour.
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NI ROCKS – Inglorious are playing The Limelight in Belfast tonight, supporting The Dead Daisies. This is your first time playing here. Any expectations? What have you heard about us?
NATHAN – I’ve heard that the scene here at the moment is really strong, which is awesome to hear. There’s lots of cool bands coming up from here I believe – Screaming Eagles, Trucker Diablo and Gasoline Outlaws. So you’ve got a great presence of rock n roll in the city which is great. It’s an honour to be opening for these guys. We did our first ever appearance with them at Planet Rock and just couldn’t believe how good they were. It’s phenomenal – the ultimate super group.
NI ROCKS - 2016 has been a very busy year for you and there’s still a lot coming up, including the Ramblin Man Fair later this weekend and a tour with Steel Panther in September and October. Any more plans you can tell us about? You’d mentioned a new album?
NATHAN – Yeah, straight after this run of shows we’re in rehearsals for four days and then we go into the studio to track album two at the beginning of August. Then we have a festival in Belgium with Steel Panther and Limp Bizkit and back into the studio for the rest of August. Then September and October we’re on tour with Steel Panther. November and December are looking quiet at the moment, but I think that’ll be nice. I think that’s what we need.
NI ROCKS – Some chill-out time.
NATHAN – Yeah, we’ve really worked hard this year. It doesn’t feel like work a lot of the time, but the travelling and stuff has been so intense. We’re not travelling in luxury. There’s nothing luxurious about how we’re doing this yet; we’re not making enough money. It’d be nice to get to a stage where you don’t have to think about how much sleep you’re going to get. At the moment, a lot of the time we are running on empty!
NI ROCKS – What has been the highlight of 2016 so far?
NATHAN – Download. I had no idea there would be that many people there. When we walked out on stage there was maybe 5,000 people and I thought this is good. By the end of our performance there was 10,000 to 15,000 people. It was unreal.
NI ROCKS - Would you say you’ve now got close to where you want to be with Inglorious and what more do you want to achieve - with the band or personally?
NATHAN – Nowhere near! We want to bring out a lot more good music. We’re not changing anything crazy for the second album. We’ve changed where we’re recording it but we’re not changing how we record it. We’ve got someone really awesome who has come forward to mix it, which I’m not going to reveal just yet. But he’s a very, very awesome producer / mixer. That’s very exciting. Next year I want a huge support – an arena stadium support. Something huge – AC/DC or Guns. Something massive.
NI ROCKS – A couple of quick questions to finish. First album you bought and the last?
NATHAN – First ever album that I bought was “Appetite for Destruction”. The first single that I bought – this is weird – was Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song” because I thought it was an awesome rock tune – loved that! The last album I bought was Jared James Nichols. Excellent guitar player. Hopefully one day I’ll get to do something with him as well.
NI ROCKS - First gig that you remember going to and the last that you weren’t part of? Well I guess Guns n Roses was your last?
NATHAN – Yeah, Guns n Roses in Toronto for my birthday. That was amazing. The first gig I went to? Gosh, it was probably something terrible. I don’t know if I want to tell you. It was something really terrible, I’m not able to tell you! (Laughs). It was really awful!
NI ROCKS – (Laughs) That’s ok! You can take it to the grave with you!
NATHAN – I will! (Laughs) No one needs to know!
NI ROCKS – Thanks very much for taking the time to talk to Rock Radio NI. We’ll finish with another track from the album. Which one and why?
NATHAN – Let’s finish with “Until I Die”. It has kinda become our anthem. I also shot and directed the video for this and it has over 200,000 views on YouTube now. It cost about £5, so I'm pretty proud of this one.
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Playlist for the Friday NI Rocks Show on 29th July
SCREAMING EAGLES – Save Me
INGLORIOUS – Breakaway
Interview with Nathan James from Inglorious Part 1 (5 min)
INGLORIOUS – Unaware
Interview with Nathan James Part 2 (6 min)
INGLORIOUS – Holy Water
Interview with Nathan James Part 3 (5 min)
INGLORIOUS – Until I Die
THE DEAD DAISIES – Song And A Prayer
GASOLINE OUTLAWS – Stand As One
DANTE FOX – Young Hearts
FEATHERSTONE – Scandinavian Rose
BLACK STONE CHERRY – The Rambler