Yard Act’s James Smith Talks Finding ‘Balance’ & Capturing Life’s Complexities on ‘Where’s My Utopia?’
Yard Act’s frontman and lyricist James Smith is Zooming in from the back of an automobile. The car is not moving, but Yard Act surely is. The night before, the band played Milan, Italy, and is about to head to Zurich, Switzerland, on the European leg of a tour that has taken the quartet — Smith, Ryan Needham, Sam Shipstone and Jay Russell — to Barcelona, Spain; and Lyon, France; among other cities. On May 30, they land in the States, where they’ll play the first segment of a 20-date North American jaunt. (They return in October for the second.)
It’s an ambitious itinerary for a band that didn’t start playing live until after the pandemic, but Yard Act have accomplished a lot quickly “with no intention to,” Smith says dryly.
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The band released its first album, The Overload, in early 2022, which was nominated for the United Kingdom’s prestigious Mercury Prize later that year and caught the ear of Elton John, who they convinced to record an alternate version of their single “100% Endurance” with them.
Yard Act was initially labeled as post-punk, but as their second album Where’s My Utopia? shows, they are much more original and harder to categorize because of the musical breadth of their songs and Smith’s lyrics, which convey a fascinating combination of wit, self-awareness, empathy and guilt. There are times when Yard Act sounds like Guy Ritchie produced a musical mindfulness channel on the Calm app. In reality, Gorillaz drummer and producer Remi Kabaka Jr. worked with the band.
The band’s sound comes full flower on Where Is My Utopia? — an uplifting and sometimes frenetic mix of trip-hop, dub, bass-and-drum indie rock, electronica, strings and sax punctuated by Smith’s mellifluous speak-singing and other times, his Jarvis Cocker-esque crooning.
Where’s My Utopia? is an album in the truest sense, too. It’s a largely autobiographical record in which Smith examines the highs and lows of a married father of a three year-old grappling with having a ball on tour while far away from his family. As their irresistible single, “We Make Hits” makes clear, Yard Act recognizes that its success could disappear in a minute, and therefore are in it to win it. They may identify as anti-capitalists, but they are happy to collect the spoils of stardom.
Smith describes the album as “a sort of sonic sort of word painting. I think the fact that the music is a lot more manic and switches a lot underneath the lyrics is probably more reflective of the emotional state that I was in when I was writing and how that reflects the lyrics,” he says. The fact that it jumps between the severity of climate change, to personal asides, to gripes with minor and unimportant things like fridge magnets, to the breakdown of global society, to my love for my son to my failures as a father — all of those things are kind of woven together because that’s how people operate and that’s how the brain works.
You’ve said in lyrics that you are anti-capitalist. For all the capitalists out there, what does that mean for the band?
I don’t know what it takes to get there, but there’s got to be a better way than global capitalism. It’s clearly not working for everyone. It’s not communism, although. I think there’s a form of socialism that would work. It’s more of a reactionary term against where the world is headed. [Capitalism] is destroying the planet. Nothing is regulated. There’s so much imbalance between the rich and the poor, and that gap has grown wider. There’s a really good quote. I can’t remember who said it, but it’s, ‘Everyone starts on square one but not everybody gets to play the game on the easy mode.’ I’m aware of the irony that comes with having to make money and wanting to make money because having no money is quite stressful when you have a family to provide for and the cost of bills keeps going up.
One of the things that is so striking about Yard Act and Where Is My Utopia? is the way you weave empathy, self-awareness and wit into your songs. Where does that come from?
I’ve always found humor as a good gateway into exploring deeper emotions and the empathy — I never intentionally try and write empathetically. That’s just come in subconsciously. I like to think I feel a deep connection with the world and want it to be a better place. I know that from my own struggles. Everybody has theirs, and you should try and be respectful and understanding of that. But at the same time, I’ve quite a lot of disdain for myself as well. I don’t want to paint myself as a kind and caring person. I’m always suspect of people that think they’re good people. I don’t trust them.
I hear you. When you are writing are you ever influenced by world events, like what’s happening in Gaza and the Ukraine? In the music video for “The Trench Coat Museum,” there seems to be a reference to Columbine, but —
Yeah. I try not to list specific events because I think it time stamps the music. There’s a line on “Tall Poppies” off the first album: “We cry while children are dying across the sea, and there is nothing we can do about it / Whilst we benefit from the bombs dropped which we had no part in building.” I think that applies to the fact that rich nations prosper from arms deals, like what’s happening now between the U.K. and Israel. And it’s happened countless times throughout history, but we’re caught up in the grand plans of world leaders and warmongers and the trickledown effect of wealth is, the brutality of that. When you look at our past and how we got rich — it’s the same with any wealthy First World country — it’s kind of terrifying, and you have to feel a level of unease about that. For as long as these [current] conflicts have been going on, there’s been no respite from it, and I have started to tune out a bit. I don’t know if it’s a good thing, but it’s certainly a good thing for my mental health at this moment in time not to engage. But I am aware of what’s going on, and yeah, it seeps into the lyrics.
One of the messages I take from your music is, we’re all doomed, so let’s make the best of what we have while we’ve still got it.
It’s a double-edged sword. You can’t live your life in despair. It’s constantly about trying to find that balance. That’s what the music tries to do.
How does humor figure into that cascade of thoughts?
Even when you’re going through a terrible time you still laugh. There’s a comedian in the UK called Bridget Christie. She’s really great, and in one of her stand-ups she said she was talking to some Afghan women about landmines in farmers’ fields, and they made a joke about sending the men first. She said that hearing these women deadpan that joke given the circumstances they were living under was one of the funniest and heartwarming things she’d ever heard. It all comes back to humor for me. I love the gamble of a joke. It’s how I’ve processed my life. I was raised making jokes about — when something dire had happened there would always be a joke not far away. It was not necessarily guileless humor but macabre. That was just the way my family operated, and it’s helped me in life.
Was that why you had standup comics open for you on a previous tour?
Definitely. Comedians seem to like us quite a lot. We’re probably friends with more comedians than we are musicians, and we just wanted to try stuff. I have a great admiration for the art form and the structure. A comedy audience is different from a music audience. It’s a lot more hostile, and you have to be a lot more adaptive and probably more intelligent to be a comedian than you do a musician. When we asked Elton John if he’d come and play piano for us and he said yeah, we learned that if you don’t ask you don’t get, and if you do ask weird shit happens. So, asking the comedians to come and record some lines and getting David Thewlis to do some Macbeth [for the “When the Laughter Stops” music video] was stuff we weren’t scared to try ,and it all worked out.
For those in the States who aren’t aware that Elton John recorded a new version of “100% Endurance” with you, how did that happen?
He mentioned our name in the press as one of his favorite new bands. We were obviously very flattered, and then we quite knowingly did a cover of “Tiny Dancer” for Apple Music to maybe catch his attention. When that came out, his husband David played it to him, and within a week of it being out, my manager rang me and said, “I’ve passed your number onto Elton John. I thought you wouldn’t mind. He’s going to ring in the next hour.” And he rang me. We had a good chat, and then he stayed in touch. Whenever there were milestones, when the album came out, when the Mercury nomination happened, he always rang me to just send his love and support and ask if I was doing okay and if I was coping. It was around that time that we had the idea to do it. I just asked him on the phone one day and he said yeah. I was like, right. Well, come to [drummer] Jay [Russell’s] attic in Leeds, and we’ll lay down the piano. Obviously, there are some rules to recording with Elton John. There has to be fresh cut flowers on the piano and some expensive candles lit, and it has to be a very posh studio. He doesn’t work in the shitholes we usually do. But once those things were agreed and decided yeah, we went down spent the day with him. That’s the first time we met him as well. I’d only spoken to him on the phone until that point. It was a massive moment for us, and he’s still in touch. He’s brilliant.
Does your band work collaboratively?
It’s incredibly collaborative — the second album more so. The first one was mainly just me and Ryan. Jay wasn’t in the band at that point. I played drums on the first record which explains why it’s not as good as the second one. Sam played the guitar parts much further down the line kind of as an add on at the end. He wasn’t into the process as much. Then on the second album after two years of touring we were kind of all in each other’s pockets and we all worked together. It was incredibly fruitful and creative and there was no fear and there was complete trust in each other to just do what we want to do and to not hold back. Lyrically, I am it. Ryan does make suggestions. Usually, he wants to make something somewhat less poignant because he thinks it’s funny. The lyrics are mine, but the vision of the music is the whole band and I’ll always listen to their opinions. I’ve played in multiple bands over the last 15 years, and I know when you get something special not to squander it.
In a number of the songs on this album, you reflect that your success and that magic could go away in a second, so you’re not holding back.
That self-awareness is probably key to our writing style, and I think the music does that as well. If we’re going to do a guitar solo, we’re going to do a fucking guitar solo and it’s going to be ridiculous. That’s the fun of it.
Do you have any advice or coping mechanisms for an act that finds itself thrust into the spotlight very quickly as you were?
Surround yourself with people you trust and love. Check in with each other consistently. Be open to talking. Don’t go inside your own head, and you may use drink or drugs as a crutch to get through particular shows but don’t make that a habit in the long run. It will catch up with you. Remind yourself each day why you started making music and if this is what you wanted. If it is, you’ve got ask yourself if you’re happier. If you’re not, what do you need to change to make yourself happy? It’s an incredibly tough industry. It changes you as a person when you go into it. I think you have to become more than one person at the same time to deal with the stresses of it and no one on the outside will ever understand because it just looks like you’re having the time of your life. Most people would rather not be in an office or a factory. They’d rather be on a stage. I mean, thousands of people clapping and cheering and telling them they’re brilliant every moment of the day. But when you’re in it, that’s not how it works. Try and keep yourself grounded.
One of my favorite songs on the album is “The Undertow.” There’s a fascinating line in it, “What’s the guilt worth if you do nothing with it.” Can you elaborate on the meaning of that?
It’s applied to me personally and to society as a whole I suppose. On a personal level it’s to do with how I’ve felt for the last two years really — about the job I do and leaving my son behind. The fact is, I do it anyway, so what am I actually trying to achieve? I could work on an oil rig or be a businessman and I’d be away for similar amounts of time. But when it’s coupled with the fact that this job can be very enjoyable, and it’s quite a conflicting and confusing space to be in when it’s three in the morning, you’re out in a club having just played a show, and you realize that your family back home is just getting up to start the day. I still don’t know how you deal with that. But that line lingers in my head a lot.
There’s also the line, “What’s the guilt worth if you choose when to feel it?” Is that directed at you as well?
That was sort of a jibe at social media. I’m not on it anymore, and one of the reasons I left is because people on social media will engage in holier-than-thou saviorism, then post a picture of themselves on holiday. So, they’re celebrating themselves and then chastising everybody else for not being more upset about a situation because they are in that moment. It just becomes a competition to be more happy or more distraught about something and that’s not how reality works. That really grinds me.
You reference addiction in “Fizzy Fish” and then, I’m guessing this is metaphor, but in “An Illusion,” you talk about a shotgun shot. Are you being autobiographical here?
I’ll be very clear that I was alcohol dependent. I wouldn’t call myself an alcoholic out of respect to people who have had it, whereas addiction is a word that fit rhythmically. I’m not painting myself as an addict. In regard to the shotgun shot, that’s actually a callback to the line about sawing off my own foot in the first song on the album, “An Illusion.” I’ve shot myself in the foot by joining this band, basically.
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