James Bay has joined other musicians in the world of Instagram Live, going back to his roots by teaching guitar to self-isolating fans - something he says was “really quite a scary thing to do.”
Bay, who returned home to London before the start of the lockdown after five weeks of recording in Nashville, says he thought the lessons would help him keep in touch with fans.
“I thought [I'd] connect with my fans on there and say hi, and show them that I’m alright and offer something,” the new face of fragrance Tommy IMPACT tells us down the phone from his home in London.
“When I was 18, I had a year where I finished school and I wasn’t doing anything else yet - so I taught guitar for a year the best I could,” he says.
“I wasn’t a super-efficient teacher, but I was decent,” he adds, telling us he has plans to do more. “We’ve got time,” he laughs.
“The bigger reason [for doing the lessons] is that these times are crazy. And I think if we all do the right thing and stay safe, then they might be manageable. It’s still a little early to tell, but let’s have faith and be hopeful,” he says.
Although Bay spent over a month recording his new album with “obvious Rolling Stones influences”, like many other musicians the timing of the album is now unclear “as things have changed so drastically literally in the last two weeks.”
“The entertainment industry is in a difficult position,” he says.
Bay isn’t the only musician affected by COVID-19, as the likes of Sam Smith, Lady Gaga and Cardi B have also delayed releasing new music.
Others like Dua Lipa have continued to release material remotely, with the singer putting out her new album on Friday.
The singer-songwriter is also part of a new campaign for Tommy Hilfiger’s fragrance Impact - which aims to celebrate 'dreamers who dare.'
Bay says his own impossible dreams include “Mr [Bill] Murray... [playing] a 19 year old me” in a biopic of his life. Also, “Aretha Franklin is a very big hero of mine so I would have been starstruck to meet her” he says.
Otherwise, he follows a motto he heard in a Quincy Jones documentary: "I’m only going to choose to dream so big that I’ll never really achieve those dreams. But everything I get on the way to trying to achieve them should be kind of fun."
Bay, who has two Brit Awards under his belt and a number of Grammy nominations, calls creating new music “a bit of a dare."
He thinks the mainstream music industry "requires fresh approaches" and celebrates names like Billie Eilish and newcomer Holly Humberstone.
As for Bay, he thinks the biggest dare of his own is putting his music out there. “Broadly and actually quite intimately, I think a lot of what I do for a living takes a lot of daring to be honest to think that people might want to hear what I’ve got to say in a song. I’ve got to be pretty confident.”
James Bay is the new face of Tommy Hilfiger’s fragrance Impact, available from Boots.com and The Perfume Shop.
