The UK’s favourite new piano-player on life in the studio, with a couple of close friends from Roland…

There might have been a surfeit of guitar bands bothering the charts over the last few years, but at the same time another significant British talent has created a splash with the less obviously rock ’n ’roll black-and-white keys. Jamie Cullum’s way with a jazz standard, his remarkably energetic live shows and strong original material has won him no little acclaim.
But it seems not to have gone to his head. Speaking to Power On from the cosiness of his Shepherd’s Bush studio (where he’s working on a new album in collaboration with co-producer/brother Ben) Jamie waxes lyrical about music-making, sounds and trying new things. He never seeks to draw attention to himself – and he seems genuinely grateful for the accolades that his hard work and talent have received. In short, he comes across as a bit of a diamond.
Jamie also displays a pretty formidable understanding of the creative production process. A long way from being simply a jazz piano-playing pop puppet, he has a natural feel for how to blend acoustic and electronic elements and for melding disparate influences in his writing. And central to both are several Roland products of which Jamie is evidently a big fan…

You’re beavering away in the studio at the moment – what Roland gear is keeping you inspired as you come up with new songs?
“We’ve found the MC-808 really useful for generating new ideas. We haven’t used it on record yet, but we have used it for writing. It’s fantastic fortaking to the lounge, jamming stuff and seeing what ideas come out. It’s almost like an ‘object box’ where you dip your hand in and whatever you pull out gives you a jumping off point for some creative endeavour. It’s got tonsof great sounds and it’s incredibly easy and fast to use. I don’t think I’ve looked at the manual for it; you can just dive in and get it to work straight away.
The other thing I really like about the MC-808 is that it gets you away from the computer screen. I find myself writing differently when I’m not looking at a monitor – you get less caught up in the display and concentrate more on the way things sound and feel, which is what it’s all about.”

The SH-201 is another piece of gear that has you excited, we gather…
“Absolutely. I really love it. The SH-201 is a real players’ instrument. I’ve used it a lot in the last year, especially live, because it’s just so playable. It has its own character and again it’s full of great sounds, so it’s really inspiring. Ben and I formed a live house band with some other friends recently and we’ve been doing gigs where we jam over a live drummer playing 4/4, and the SH-201 has been perfect for that. And it’s light – so I can play it behind my head if I want to.”

You’re obviously known as a great piano player – do you approach a synth like the SH-201 very differently than a traditional piano?
“Very much so. There’s nothing worse than jazz players using synths because they’ve run out of ideas. You can’t approach a synth such as the SH-201 like a piano-player, you have to treat it as an instrument in its own right. When you do that, it really comes into its own because, like I say, it’s so player-friendly – it’s a synth, but it has a ‘real instrument’ feel to it. It’s fantastic.”

In common with many artists these days, you seem to be crossing over into the whole writing/production zone, where lines are blurred between disciplines. Have you always been into the production process as much as the performance side of your job?
“Yeah, I’ve been into the ‘home studio’ thing for ages, playing around with drum machines and recording withLogic and so on. And as time’s gone on I’ve amassed some nice gear and I just decided toteach myself how to use it properly, so that I can really make music the way I want to.
That’s the way everything’s going. It’s not the caseany more that you demo up the songs and then go into a bigstudio and record them ‘properly’. A lot of what I’mrecording at my place will end up on the album. And that’s great, because you can capture so many great ‘first-take’ moments in that situation.”

So what can we expect from the new album? And do you make a conscious decision to explore new avenues each time you come to make a record?
“This one is going to have lots of live energy, and may not be so smooth-sounding as some of the earlier albums. There’s going to be a mix of standards, covers and original songs on there, but it will definitely be a bit more earthy.
I consciously try not to repeat myself with each album, although I don’t always make a conscious decision as to how the songs are going to sound in advance. When I write, I guess I’m just naturally shaped by what I’ve beeninspired by recently.
When I was doing lots of solo piano bar gigsyearsago I always used to mix up jazz with stuff like Radiohead or Metallica; I always saw myself a bit like a mash-up DJ with a piano. That’s always what I’ve been like -into loads of different sorts of music. And when it comes to creating new music all those influences naturally findtheir way out somehow.”

What’s been on your listening list of late?
“At the moment it could be anything from Villa Lobos to Arcade Fire. And I’m not just drawn to songs; I love sounds and rhythms for their own sake too, so I can get as excited by some ambient electronic stuff as I can about the old standards.”

For someone with a strong ‘traditional’ talent like playing piano, you’re certainly someone who happily embraces sounds and feels from all over the place, whether it’s r’n’b, hip-hop or rock. And the more experimental side of Jamie Cullum has been explored with the help of the RC-2 Loop Station from time to time…

“It’s something I’ve used live to loop my voice, or beats and things and I really like it. Some people thought that my using the Loop Station was a bit weird. They’d go, ‘What’s this piano player performing old songs doing with that thing?’ Other artists have done similar things with looping I suppose, but it’s always been good fun, and there’s something nicely tactile about being able to stomp on a box like that and make music with it. It’s another tool to be creative with in making cool sounds, and you can’t argue with that.”