Winding back the clock, Nashville-based singer-songwriter James Bruner feels less like any ‘classic rock revivalist’ than an authentic kindred spirit, channelling the same timeless confidence and charisma that shaped his heroes all those decades ago. From his skater boy past to a future with unlimited potential, we discuss the rise so far of a 21st century rock star in the making...
Without skateboarding there would be no James Bruner. Not in the sense that we know him today, at least. Sporting a killer leather jacket and megawatt smile as we sit down in his fashionably spartan study close to the heart of Nashville, the rising singer-songwriter is unrecognisable as the wide-eyed kid who came of age roaming the far-less-glamorous streets of Springfield, Illinois. There are no scuffed elbows on show here, no indications he’d rather be busting sick tricks with delinquent pals. Press ‘play’ on any of the bangers with which he’s found himself on the cusp of stardom, however, and you’ll feel every second of a renegade youth packed with freewheeling spirit and effortless cool.
“For the longest time, my friends and I just listened to whatever music was popular,” James dials back the years with a wry smile. “I’d be buying LMFAO songs for 99 cents on my iPod Touch. It was the summer of sixth grade – I would’ve been 10 or 11 – that a buddy and I got into skateboarding. We’d skated on toy boards when we were younger, but that was when we really honed in on taking our cruiser boards around the neighbourhoods. There was no cooler feeling. From there, I began to research skate culture and where it came from. I discovered that it all started in the Santa Monica area of Los Angeles, also known as ‘Dogtown’. I watched the movies Dogtown and Z-Boys and Lords Of Dogtown and began to fall in love with how it wasn’t like some kind of circus skill, but more of a punk rock statement. And I discovered the music: these kids were listening to rock‘n’roll like Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix and Black Sabbath as they were surfing asphalt. Suddenly, I’d put in my headphones as I was skating and it wasn’t Sexy And I Know It I was blasting; it was Black Dog and Iron Man, The Allman Brothers and Rod Stewart. That’s how ‘skate attitude’ took hold.”
Musical talent blossomed alongside a love of the board. For a chunk of his later teenage years, James cut his teeth as frontman for local covers band Unchained, testing his voice and six-string skills with expansive rock classics like Master Of Puppets. Leaving home to take up studies at The University Of Kansas, though, he was beginning to test himself as a songwriter in his own right, and to realise that he had a singular vision worth exploring outside the confines of a fully collaborative band. So when in the autumn of 2020, aged 19, he began to understand that he wasn’t loving his time at college, he felt a gravitational pull southeast towards Music City itself.
“I just dropped out and moved to Nashville,” he shrugs. “There’s a preconception that it’s a place dominated by country music – I have a great appreciation for country, Nashville is undeniably that genre’s birthplace – but the more time you spend there, the more you see all the different scenes: alt.rock, hip-hop, anything under the sun. It truly is Music City. And I was certain of the artists that I already loved. I decided there was a direction I could go in where I could carry the torch lit by legends like Sabbath, Zeppelin, even singer-songwriters like Jeff Buckley. I don’t see many people writing songs like that nowadays. So I thought that I could maybe get away with a thing or two…”
Pressed on what exactly it is that’s missing from the language of modern rock, James defers to Metallica frontman James Hetfield on the making of Master Of Puppets, and how perhaps the greatest album in the history of metal was fuelled not by swaggering bravado or outlandish theatricality but by the visceral thrill of fear. It’s not about masked maniacs or things that go bump in the night. It’s about facing the unknown and a willingness to step outside the box or away from the pack. At school and college, his tastes never fit with those of the in-crowd. Even in the wider music industry his rejection of stylistic fads in favour of old ways and that singular vision has forced James to stand apart. But when the big moments come, he’s learned to face them head-on.
“Playing with Barns Courtney and YONAKA at Irvine Plaza in New York City was the craziest day of my life,” he peels off an impressive example. “It was a place that I’d only ever seen on TV and in film. I climbed out of the van at two in the morning, saw rats running along the sidewalk and grabbed a slice of pizza, all the while knowing that I was there to play a show a few hours later. I’m still not sure that day was real.” Pitching up at the London Roundhouse wasn’t any less surreal. “My favourite band is The Rolling Stones,” he nods. “They played there. Hendrix played there. Then I did, too. A few hours earlier, I was walking across Abbey Road, thinking ‘Am I alive right now?!’”
No moment has proven the affirmative power of music more than last October’s final night of European tour, also with James’ modern idol Barns Courtney, as well as Britrock rabble The Struts.
“I’d gunned it the whole tour and my voice was feeling tired by the final show,” he remembers, warmly. “I went out onstage, just me and my guitar to start the show, and this whole crowd who didn’t know me started clapping along to my song When I’m Down. I started tearing up. Here was a crowd of people thousands of miles from home, at a show with two of my favourite artists, keeping time to a song that I’d written about my first heartbreak. It was an incredible feeling.”
Incredible even more so when you bear in mind that James still has only a handful of officially-released songs to his name. From the jangly Alibi to doomy trademark Wait For You (like a collision between Candlemass and Queens Of The Stone Age) he has a remarkable ear for organic, broad-shouldered songcraft. There are similarities to larger-than-life contemporaries like Måneskin and Palaye Royale, but his work is more grounded in narrative – be it real or imagined. The aforementioned When I’m Down chronicles first love and loss, for example, while latest single Eye In The Sky bundles the callous self-interest of the modern day into his own version of tech noir.
“That song started out with me sitting at my Telecaster at the desk I’m at right now,” he explains. “The tone was crunchy, but not cranked. I wanted to make a song with the chords ringing out like Keith Richards. Then I realised if I tightened them up it would sound like Slash, with Guns N’ Roses’ aggression. From there, I started to see this character living for what they can get. A dark character with blonde hair wearing sunglasses even at night like someone from The Matrix, fixated only on self-interest. ‘She’s the devil in disguise, blonde hair, got no sense of pride…’ Simple.”
Shapeshifting between narrative styles is in James’ self-interest, pivotal to his dual needs for internal exploration and external escape. Teasing that his upcoming second EP – recorded at Curb Studios right on Nashville’s Music Row – will be “darker and more rockin’” than what’s come before, he still admits that there’s beauty in the variety at play. Because at the end of the day, he’s always embraced adventure and discovered more deep-buried treasure than hopeless dead ends.
“I’m a big guy for style,” he expands. “Even in my stage outfits – or if I decide to go out to play with no shirt on at all. I’m big on exploring those things: doing something I’m not comfortable with one day followed by something I’m very comfortable with the next. Style is subjective. It’s about what I like, what I want to do, and understanding that there are no limitations on being inspired.”
Hearing his name called come stage-time has become a signal for the rising star: a reminder that there are no limitations on his potential and no fate but which he makes. The late, great David Bowie is another of James’ role models and, ultimately, personas like Ziggy Stardust and The Thin White Duke are demonstrative of how he wants to stake his claim and pick up the great rock star mantle: maintaining the idiosyncrasies and vulnerabilities while encasing them in a bigger, bolder version of himself, capable of owning every opportunity no matter how massive the stage.
“It’s about that feeling that I’m no longer just James Bruner the person,” he smiles as we take our leave. “I’m James Bruner the performer. The contrast is crucial. I remember feeling that transformation when I stepped up for one of my first ever solo shows: the sense that I was working on a whole different level. It’s like the rush of taking a risk. It’s like skateboarding: you’re racing down this hill and the speed keeps picking up and you think you’re gonna crash. But if you make it, you’re the king of the world...”
Eye In The Sky is out now via Maroon Records. James Bruner will tour the UK in support of Those Damn Crows in March – get your tickets now.
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