Interview with James from Pastel

As Pastel packed their bags to head out on tour with The Twang, The Songbird sat down for a chat with James ahead of their Debut Album, ‘Souls In Motion’ from gaining inspiration from Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas to the unintentional magic of their signature sound, James reflected on their rapid rise—opening for Liam Gallagher at Knebworth, owning festival stages, and gearing up for a massive 2025.

Congratulations on your Debut Album ‘Souls In Motion, how’re you feeling about the release?

Really excited to be honest, it’s been a long time coming. We’ve done so much as a band previously to this record, it’s kind of mad how much we’ve done, to be honest with you, without having a record out, but we feel we’re at the right stage now. You don’t want to put things out too early, and obviously, you don’t leave things too late, but we just feel like now is the right time. 

I’ve been listening to it over the last couple of days and it feels like quite a vulnerable album. What do you think led you to that? 

We haven’t really been writing songs for very long. The band had a previous line-up before lockdown and then at the end of lockdown, our songwriter left. So, Me, Jack and Joe sort of took it upon ourselves to write and it was our very first attempt at songwriting. I do feel like it’s vulnerable in that sense, and it’s raw because we’ve not been doing it for sort of 20 years, and it feels manufactured. We’ve just sort of put ourselves into it, because we’ve not known any other way to do it, if that makes sense.

From your EP to this Debut album there is definitely a level of maturity that can be heard. You’ve mastered your signature now, if I listened to another Pastel song I’d know straight away. How do you feel you put that stamp on your songs?

I don’t know and I’m glad you said that because it’s not something that we intentionally do. I don’t know where that came from, we just put ourselves into the song, so I suppose the signature is just us. There is no mathematics behind it or anything. 

Do you feel that maybe there were, non-musical art forms at the time that inspired the album, like films or books or stuff that you were listening to at the time that you might have taken inspiration from?

Me and Jack started getting heavily into films and one of the big ones was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, we read the book and watched the film. I remember in an interview before we said that Fear and Loathing, was our biggest musical inspiration and then someone slagged us off saying how can you get inspiration from a film? I was thinking, you’re clearly not doing it right then mate, because we watched this film, and it gave us a feeling of like, “This is amazing!”. It’s really trippy, it’s really psychedelic. It’s very chaotic, it’s vulnerable. So we were like, f*ck it. Let’s just use that. The energy that that film gave us was like, it spurred it on for months.

If something gives you a buzz and makes you feel good and makes you laugh, then sort of take that energy forward.

Listening to Souls In Motion, there is a clearer balance between who you take inspiration from and how you’ve formed your identity as a band.

My auntie would say to me when I was younger, “What’re you listening to at the minute?”, and I’d say, and she’d be like, “Are you not listening to anything new?” And I’d say, “Well I don’t really.” Because there’s only ever been a handful of things that I like, so the main reason why we started a band in the first place was that the music we love and listen to – we didn’t find any. So I think we took it upon ourselves. We thought if no one else was going to do it, we’d do it!

That’s a big role to take on, What would you say is one thing that you’re always reflecting on as a band, How do you keep that in motion?

What we do is we kind of just try every time we do anything, it has to be a step up.

For example, when we did our first headline tour, the vibe that we wanted was for it to be a big party so we took a DJ with us on tour, and we hoped we had after-parties after some of the shows.

When we do our second headline tour in February, the tour for the album, we want that to be more about the show. So we’re taking a lighting guy, a sound guy, techs and others that are going to cost us a lot of money but there are two ways of looking at it, we can either do the tour and say, oh, right, we can make X amount if we sort of do the bare minimum, or we can go, no, let’s create something. I think that’s a good example of, just in general, as a band, how we constantly try to step up from the last time.

Talking about your tour, you’re set for such a busy 2025, you kick off with your record store tour, and then you’ve got your UK tour, and you’re going into next year with a bit of a bang, right?

Well in our minds we start the tour tomorrow because we start support with The Twang and apart from Christmas, we’re on the road until March.

Eight shows with The Twang, in some incredible venues, the one you’re most excited to play with them?

Personally, I would probably say the Ritz in Manchester, just because I’ve been to see so many gigs there over the years, so on a personal note, and I think I speak for the rest of the band, in that sense we’ve all been to that venue to watch gigs before, so that’s probably the one and then I would probably say Birmingham as well, because obviously, that’s The Twangs big homecoming and I think that, that venue will possibly be our biggest indoor venue so far, so Manchester and Birmingham.

Do you have any rituals for whilst you’re on the road, because from now until March is a long time, How do you keep your heads together?

Stay off the drugs. 

To be honest with you, right? I kind of live for it, I love being away. People just sort of see with, like, the three weeks that you’re on tour and think that’s it, but we’re already on when we’re on tour with The Twang on the days off, we’re going to be rehearsing for the acoustic tour, because obviously, a lot of these songs, we’ve never played them acoustically. So we’re gonna have to try and figure that out. So even whilst we’re on tour with The Twang, the days off, will be in the rehearsal room working on January and no doubt, then once Christmas is out the way, before we do the in-store tour, we’ll already be thinking about the February tour.

Being that prepared, What are your expectations, How do you think your first headline tour in 2023 will compare to this upcoming one in 2025

I think it would, it will just be more of a show, one thing that we’ve tried to say to each other is, don’t call them gigs. We’ll call them shows, you know, to like, subconsciously get that sort of stuck in our head. I just want people to walk in, watch it and walk away going, that was a proper band and that was a proper show.

The first one, I loved it, It was amazing, but it was all very raw, you know, we didn’t really know what we were doing, to be honest with you, we’ve gigged a lot more, and we’ve not like even when we go on tour with The Twang tomorrow, I’m looking forward to watching them and soaking up to things that they do. 

This year has been like, a pretty special one for you already with you doing your first full festival season. That must have been pretty cool. Do you have any highlights?

TRNSMT. I remember driving up there and looking at the schedule seeing that we were playing at the same time as The Snuts, which in Glasgow they are probably the biggest Indie Band in Scotland right? Immediately we all thought it was going to be a shower of sh*t because they were on the main stage whilst we were on the next one. We thought ok, everyone’s going to pick seeing them over us. We didn’t get moody about it because it was to be expected but at the same time, I’d rather have been on at the same time as the Suga Babes. But then I remember walking on stage and looking out to, I can’t even tell you how many people with Pastel t-shirts on, the amount of people singing, it was mind-blowing. 

You kind of expect that at your own gig, but you don’t expect it at a festival, because sometimes festivals, even though the majority of the people there are music heads, they’re not necessarily there for you. 

What was the most rock and roll thing you saw over this summer?

I think just being in the van touring and being hungover, just being with your mates – I don’t think it gets more rock and roll than that, to be honest. Turning up to a different city each day and doing it all again, when people have paid money to come and see you. I think that’s, that’s pretty rock and roll, to be fair.

I think there’s definitely a bonding that happens on a tour bus in the sense that, these are conversations that you couldn’t have anywhere else.

We always say that our favourite time of any tour is always when we’re all in the van driving back, and everyone’s like, a bit feeling sorry for themselves then you have the best, deepest and funniest conversations. That’s when you really get to know each other. There’s no judgment. Unless you’ve experienced it, you won’t understand, but it’s such a uniting thing, where you kind of just are laughing together.

Like the debrief after a night out?

yeah, the next morning in the cafe is like that, yeah. Definitely.

There’s been a bit of controversy over festival headliners this year, Reading and Leeds was announced this week but if you could who would be your three headliners?

I’d probably have to put Oasis on there, Fontaines DC and Shack. Shack on the Sunday.

You’ve already had such a remarkable journey with your music so far, like opening Knebworth and TV appearances for Soccer, AM, all of the festivals you’ve played etc. Some experiences you’ve had probably felt that if someone told those boys back in 2020 that this was all going to happen you’d tell them they were dreaming right?

yeah, oh, definitely, definitely.

What would you say? Still feels like that, like if you were told tomorrow you’re doing this…., you’d be like, No way.

I think one thing that would be amazing, is that recently I was talking with some guys. I can’t say too much, but there was talk of some people taking us over across North America. If that came to fruition, then I think that would probably blow my head off!

Or even just sort of some good support slots. Obviously, I’m buzzing for this Twang one, because I feel like our music has a nice crossover and I think the fans will appreciate it like.

When we supported Liam, you know because there is a crossover in the music, the majority of the people in the crowd, even if they had no idea who we were 10 minutes before, 10 minutes later, were going, “I like these!”

Who’s someone off the top of your head, who you’d like to support next year? 

The easy one is to say Oasis or something, but if it is more realistic I’d have to say Fontaines.

If you could go back to the boys in 2020 releasing ‘She Waits for Me’ What advice would you give, knowing what you know now?

Just trust the process.

The main thing is the nuances right, Instead of focusing on big things, you need to get the little things right. If you spend hours and hours and hours in practice, working on a transition from one song to the next, that when you play live, takes 15 seconds it’s worth it. 

There’s another difference between the first tour and this next tour is, instead of just playing 12 songs, you need to play 12 songs that take people on the journey. It’s things like that. Just work on the little things, and once you’re tight, tighten all those little bolts, then it becomes the bigger picture. 

What would you say the journey is for Souls In Motion, when you listen to the album, what would you say it does for you? Where does it take you?

It takes me back to being a kid. I’m feeling quite nostalgic and hopeful. It’s kind of scary in some ways, because I’m, like, reminded of certain things, but the I think the overall picture that I get is my hopefulness, and like a warm, sort of loving feeling running through it.

What’s your favourite song from the new album?

Good question. 

Maybe Sunnyside 

Did you hit hurdles with this one that you were like, I don’t even know if we’ll even get this song over the line, but you were desperate to?

No not really, I don’t think there are many of the songs on there, when they came into the practice room and shown have stayed 100% the same. They’ve all sort of grown with the band. I’m not into forcing songs, none of us are, if it’s not working, just leave it. For example Your Day, we had that song we had written for a long time before working on it this time, but this time around it became something completely different. The only thing that stayed the same was the Riffs, we kept trying it so but ended up leaving it for 2 years and then all of a sudden I had this baseline idea, which wasn’t meant for that song but Jack got the lyrics out for Your Day and in less than an hour it was done. It only worked because that wasn’t our intention going into practice, if it’s going to happen it will but you can’t be forcing things.

Who is a band that you are excited about at the moment, newer bands who you think deserve some recognition?

My favourite band, who I believe is the most underrated band in the world, is a band called Shack, and they just announced yesterday, funnily enough, that they’re coming back. They’re doing a live session on 6 music I think they deserve all the recognition in the world. They are definitely our biggest influence.

Lastly, What do you think has been your most pivotal moment as a band?

I would probably have to say Knebworth with Liam Gallagher,  I think since then that’s taken us to another level.

Interview with Pastel by Molly Noble (@mols_hbu)

All photographs by Gary Walker (@thisisgary.photography)