JAMES BAY FOR ISSUE 17 - BOYS BY GIRLS
Photographer Rebecka Slatter
Fashion Nathan Henry
Writer Sophie Razvi
Groomer Joe Mills at Joe Mills Agency using Woolf Kings X, Lab Series, and Dior Beauty
Fashion Assistant Stoyan Chuchuranov
Photographer Assistant Marika Krapivnitski
In the Boys by Girls timeline, this conversation is the third chapter in the chronicle of James Bay. We met him in 2020, in 2022, and today. It’s a fitting moment. As the wave of his fourth album release, Changes All The Time, climbs to a crest, we find a man confidently striding forward, fulled by the conviction of all that has come before. There is an appetite for something new in James. If his last album Leap was about edging towards a new type of vulnerability, one that says “I know I can’t do this without you,” his latest offering is an unashamed embrace of everything he doesn't know and all that he hopes to achieve: in music and in life. We connect over our shared British sensibilities as James immediately offers up, guitar in hand, that the bathroom of his LA eco-hotel has filtered tap water (“That’s mental!”). It’s an openness and infectious humanity that eases us into topics like the ordeal of being seen, and how, admid changes all the time, one can hold onto their artistic integrity.
We obviously can't get enough of James Bay. We especially love him because each time we chat with him he literally plays the guitar and sings through some of his answers throughout the entire conversation. It's like a little mini-concert except we have to act casual when he does it.
James tells us that while he thinks he comes off particularly vulnerable in his music, he thinks he's quite a guarded person. He does, however, always bring vulnerability and candour to our conversations even if it's in the form of admitting that he's afraid of vulnerability. A bit of a vulnerability inception, no? Okay, we'll stop saying the word "vulnerable" but it is the first word that comes to mind when we think of James throughout the years.
His album is aptly titled, Changes All The Time, as most of our conversation revolves around changes in his becoming a father (lots of nappies as the main change) and maybe more importantly, the changes that come with his filtered tap water LA bathroom. Here is a sneak peek for you:
"I am surprised that we are constantly a work in progress, always. I slightly hate to confess, because it takes a bit of vulnerability, but I'm still a work in progress. I'm sure I always will be. I'm a little bit embarrassed to say it because I’m trying my fucking damnedest to feel all right on this roller coaster journey."
This print issue, we all learn to try not to feel shame in being a work in progress.
