She emerged onto the scene a few years ago when she was based in Newcastle, and has since released multiple successful singles, and relocated to London. Soulful pop artist Becca James is getting ready for the release of her three track EP ‘Trust The Season’ and it is an absolutely stunning piece of alt pop driven by an astonishing vocal range.
We briefly spoke to Becca to uncover the inspiration behind ‘Trust The Season’. “‘Trust the Season’ is a collection of songs from my early journey in creating music. I went through many mental, emotional and physical roadblocks to having a music career through chronic illness and difficulties in my personal life.”
These three songs, ‘One’, ‘Beauty’, and ‘Hold You Close’ were never meant to end up on an EP together, Becca explains: “They are intended to be a timeline of this creation process in the chaos and they reflect early experimentation in my sound.” Despite imposter syndrome and not feeling good enough, Becca decided to keep on going, to not give up, “I didn’t have the confidence to call myself a writer then, and there was so much grief and pressure in my personal life, but I held onto trying. Just having a go.”
In creating, producing and releasing a music video, she received some support from local accelerator Generator and James received live support from Tileyard Music as well as Sofar Sounds. “I’ve received support from incredible organisations and freelancers during my journey that has really helped me to keep going. During my years in Newcastle, Generator, TICE and Community Foundation helped me to find my voice and develop my skills.” It is both the big and well-funded organisations as well as the small independent professionals that have helped her to get where she is headed now. “I released my first single on an internship project, and subsequently met many wonderful freelancers such as photographer Nico Robson and PR and booking agent LLIVELY Music.”
When she moved to London, she got support from Tileyard, “which is honestly such a vibrant, uplifting place where I have made friends and music collaborators for life!” But a thing we all learned from the global lockdowns is how the internet connects us all and shows that geographical location is not the be all and end all of creating meaningful connections. “I came across Soulplusmind on Clubhouse. Based in LA, we have never met in person and yet I was able to topline on one of his fabulous instrumentals and land my first ever sync placement with him! I can’t tell you how grateful and excited I am to have had this chance opened up by Dennis and the team at Koze Music Publishing. The possibilities opened up for artists and writers by technology can be truly eye opening.”
But wherever she is based, she will always be connected to each and every one of us, through her music and through her lyrics. She mentions this on her single ‘One’, which mentions the connections between nature, people, and the cosmos, while on ‘Beauty’ she talks about celebrating beauty and finding joy in the mundane, and ‘Hold You Close’ being organically about divine support, “the nectar we all need to get through difficult times.” Becca James shows how important it is to stay connected, and to collaborate, “Music is truly collaborative and there is no way I could ever take total credit for the development of my project. I know I have missed off key players too, and if I have I’m so sorry, and I’m grateful for you. There’s nothing quite as magical as working with compassionate and brilliant creatives. I owe an awful lot to others who have held my hand on this journey. There’s so much to learn and so much more music to make and that’s why, despite the really hard parts, I love doing this!”
It is her love and passion for music and being creative that shines through on all of her songs and sounds, and which makes hers such a captivating one. The warm, smooth rhythm and sound of ‘Beauty’, as well as its spot on lyrics, have not left us ever since we first heard it! ‘Trust The Season’ is a work of art and will soon be followed by a sound that is more of the nowadays Becca James, and we are so very curious to hear it!
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