From the outside, Noah James’ career appears to be moving remarkably quickly. Two years ago, the Louisiana singer-songwriter was playing covers in his bedroom. Now he is crossing the Atlantic, selling out shows thousands of miles from home and discovering that audiences who have never been anywhere near Baton Rouge already know the words to his songs.
James, though, sees the pace rather differently.
“It might look fast from the outside, but from the inside, it’s slowly but surely,” he tells CountryMusic.co.uk at The Long Road. “Everything with my career has been slowly but surely. But when you look back at it, it does feel fast sometimes.”
There is certainly plenty to look back on. His Coming Home Again EP arrived in March, the same month he achieved a particularly meaningful milestone by headlining the Texas Club in his hometown of Baton Rouge. European dates followed, and by the time he reached the UK and Ireland this summer, he was being told one show after another had sold out.
“When I found out that we sold out just one show, I was pretty shocked,” he says. “Then my manager kept texting me, like, ‘We sold out this one, we sold out this one.’ And then he was like, ‘The whole tour sold out.’ And I was like, ‘Wow.’”
For an artist still close enough to remember singing covers at home, the transformation is difficult to comprehend. Yet James’ conversation repeatedly returns not to the scale of what is happening, but to the importance of remaining grounded while it happens.
A song born in an airport
The day before his appearance at The Long Road, James released Colorado Sun, a song he had already been introducing to audiences on the road. Its origins are considerably less conventional than its polished final form might suggest.
James was alone at Denver International Airport with his guitar when inspiration arrived.
“Usually people don’t have guitars. They don’t just pull them out of anywhere and start playing them,” he laughs. “But that’s my job and that’s what I love to do.”
He took out the guitar and began strumming, eventually finding the chords that would become Colorado Sun. Melodies followed, then lyrics.
“I started just freestyling lyrics and it just came along,” he recalls. The writing session ended for the most practical of reasons: his flight was leaving. James packed away the guitar, flew home and finished the song there.
For him, it is also evidence of how his songwriting is changing. “I feel like my writing has grown over time, so I feel like it’s one of my more mature songs.”
That idea of growth sits at the heart of Coming Home Again, too. Five months after its release, James talks about maturity not simply as becoming a better songwriter, but as becoming more secure in who he is.
“Part of maturing is also trying to stay grounded,” he says. “Keeping myself grounded is also part of how I’ve grown over time. I think the older I get, sometimes the more rooted in my roots I get.”
“Part of maturing is also trying to stay grounded.”
From the crowd to the Texas Club stage
Few experiences have brought that growth into sharper focus than returning to the Texas Club.
James had been going there as a fan since turning 18, watching favourite artists perform and seeing the posters commemorating generations of musicians who had passed through the Baton Rouge venue. In March, he found himself standing on the other side of that relationship.
“Being up on stage is a whole different feeling than being in the crowd,” he says. “There’s something about being on stage and feeling the presence and the love from the fans in the crowd that just hits totally different.”
Then something happened that he had spent years doing for other artists: people began singing his own lyrics back to him.
“I got emotional for that because I’ve always dreamed of that. I’ve been singing words back to my favourite artists for the longest time, so for that to happen to me, it’s the biggest blessing.”
The familiarity of the venue arguably made the hometown show more intimidating than travelling to Europe. The Texas Club’s walls are part of the reason.
“They have posters of every single artist that’s ever played there, and it’s literally every single legend you can possibly think of,” he says. “To stand on the stage where they all stood is the biggest honour.”
Hearing the songs come back across the Atlantic
That experience has now repeated itself much further from Louisiana. James has played cities including Stockholm, Berlin and London, and the enthusiasm he has encountered overseas still catches him by surprise.
“The love and the passion that everyone has here over the pond is absolutely crazy,” he says. “It’s mind-blowing to me.”
At times, he admits, it can be overwhelming. Mostly, though, there is disbelief that something written on one side of the Atlantic can find its way into somebody else’s life on the other.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.”
That makes one of the questions raised by Talk To Johnny, from Coming Home Again, particularly pertinent. The song imagines James seeking advice from Johnny Cash, so what would he ask Cash now that his own career has gathered momentum?
James thinks for a moment.
“How to slow it down, maybe,” he says. “Sometimes I get distracted and don’t slow everything down and really take in the moment and what’s actually happening.”
Then comes a rather more practical request for advice: “Maybe how to get some sleep.”
“Sometimes I don’t slow everything down and really take in the moment and what’s actually happening.”
Bigger, but not at any cost
James is also learning what kind of performer he wants to become. The Bonfire Sessions, recorded with The Sticks, revisited five of his songs in a more intimate setting, and he readily admits that he prefers those versions.
“There’s a warmth to it,” he says. “I feel like the emotion is bigger.”
That preference feels revealing for an artist whose audiences are themselves getting bigger. James certainly has ambitions to progress, but he does not regard larger venues as the only measure of success.
Asked what he hopes might have changed by the time he returns to the UK, a debut album is high on the list. Bigger rooms would be welcome too, although he is quick to defend the importance of the smaller ones.
“The small venues, in my opinion, matter more,” he says. “I feel like the smaller venues develop you more, and they set you up for the bigger venues.”
THE NEXT CHAPTER
James hopes his first full-length album might be among the milestones ahead. He also wants to keep touring, meeting the people listening to his music and gradually stepping into larger venues. What he does not want is for reaching those milestones to make them feel routine.
“The first moment is so special, but I feel like every other moment after that, even if it’s the same exact thing, should also be just as special,” he says.
For all the talk of growth, sold-out shows and bigger rooms, perhaps that is the more interesting ambition. Noah James clearly wants his career to keep moving forward; he just wants to make sure he notices it happening.
Because from the outside it may look fast. From where he is standing, it is still slowly but surely.