James Durbin
James Durbin Just Wants To Celebrate
by Ally Abramson
James Durbin has a whole lot to celebrate right about now. Durbin, who came in fourth place on the tenth season ofAmerican Idol, is readying for the release of his new disk. Celebrate hits stores this April. The album is awesome – it’s got a little something for everyone. Durbin is a nice guy, and his music is great. He’s calm, cool and collected, but when it comes it singing, James is not shy. Recently, I sat down and had a conversation with him about his new album, his fans and his career.
You were on tour recently, right?
Yeah, I just got off of an acoustic tour.
What was your favorite part of being on tour?
My favorite part of being on tour is not only just playing music, but it’s also meeting my fans and making new fans. When my fans come see me they always bring someone new that hasn’t seen me before, so it’s nice to always know that I’m trying to win someone over. It really makes me perform at my highest. It keeps me, and the energy levels high, even for an acoustic show. First off, when people heard acoustic show and James Durbin they thought that was really weird. Even some people came to the show not thinking it was going to be very high energy. They left very surprised cause we made it a lot of fun.
You’re going on tour again soon, right?
I’m in the middle of booking some tour dates right now. I’m trying to get a summer tour started up.
That sounds really cool. What’s the best city you’ve performed in?
What’s my favorite city that I’ve performed in? I really liked – let’s see – we did Dallas and we did Houston back to back and those were really awesome shows. They were at the House of Blues. They were really cool. They were in the smaller rooms. I think one of them was the Peacock Room, so the architecture and the design, they had all this really cool folk art. The sound guys knew what they were doing and all that good stuff. Another great one was the Agora Ballroom in Cleveland, because the likes of Billy Idol, The Beatles, Elvis, they all played there. So it was cool, you could really feel the energy emanating through the building.
So a lot of music history. Must be inspiring.
Oh yeah, a lot of music history. And then also, 7th Street Entry, which is at the venue called First Avenue in Minneapolis. That’s where they filmed the movie Purple Rain. There’s just all these amazing bands coming through there.
Wow. Sounds like you’ve performed in a lot of interesting places, to say the least.
Yeah, definitely. It was awesome.
You’ve got a new album coming out which I really enjoyed. Let’s talk about that.
(Laughs) Yeah, totally. So yeah, Celebrate comes out in about a month now, like one month. I’m really excited. I just got a really big box of pre-orders with CD covers at home and I’m driving home to go sign ‘em all. (For the record, he signed them all the next day. Impressive.)
So you’re really happy with how it turned out?
Oh yeah, I’m really happy with the way it turned out. I spent about a year and a half working on it writing songs and producing and yeah, it’s really great. It’s definitely where I’m at right now. I’m just riding the wave and living the dream, so why not make good music.
I love that philosophy!
It’s all good music. I loved the music on my first record. I love the music on this. I just like to go with the flow and evolve and change a little bit and try new things, you know? It doesn’t hurt to try new things.
Speaking of new, how is this album different from the other stuff that you’ve put out?
I’d say it’s a little bit more mainstream than the first record. It has songs on it that catch your ear. You hear them on radio, but also writing some hooks, keeping in mind licensing, commercials and movies. When you hear a song in a movie, it’s very catchy. There’s something about it, it just sticks in your ear. I made sure to put a couple of those on the record.
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