‘Spooky Brit Rock’ | Interview with James E. Gray

Heavy on guitars, featuring a megaphone-like crunch delivery and a beautiful chord progression, James E. Gray explores the simulation hypothesis. From Plato’s Allegory of the Cave to Bostrom’s trilemma: Are we living? Are we breathing?

Describe your sound in 3 words

Spooky Brit Rock

Tell us a few things about Simulation. Considering it started as a demo back in 2015, how did the core concept evolve over a full decade of production, and how do you know when a song that’s been in the works for ten years is finally ‘finished’?

It started as a project for my university degree in songwriting. The initial rehearsal and recording sessions in London were with a Grammy winning producer and featured a couple of guest musicians who were classmates at the time but are currently touring with chart-topping acts. Over the next year I spent some time with another producer adding extra guitars, harmonies and percussion before I then added some organ and piano in my home studio. I tried several mixes, but it never felt finished. A year or so later, a band that my music is often compared to, Muse, announced their new album, ‘Simulation Theory’, and I decided to shelve the song for the foreseeable future. Now, several years later, as I’m working on my new upcoming album, I decided to revisit the track. I re-mixed and remastered it and it suddenly felt finished. I played it to some people and they loved it, so; I thought that maybe now is the time!

Nick Bostrom’s paper on the Simulation Hypothesis is pretty heavy philosophical territory. What specific ideas from his work resonated with you enough to inspire a track?

When he concluded that, in terms of probability, it is most likely that we are living inside a simulation, I was confronted with a new possibility for the nature of reality. No explanation is fully satisfying as there are always more questions to follow, but it was one more thread to pull at. I have, also, always suffered with anxiety, and so, it was interesting to see if there were any ways in which I could use the idea that we’re in a simulation to provide some calm. Since studying an online module via The University of Edinburgh on Science, Philosophy and Religion, I discovered a few things about the brain and consciousness; I also put some pieces together which made me consider whether the electrical signals in our brain could be our version of a character in a game receiving instructions via the controller. There doesn’t need to be a controller; it could be algorithmic, pre-programmed or random. When it came to completing the track, I wanted it to sound very organic, with all of the live instruments and live takes that we did, as kind of a juxtaposition with the idea of being simulated or programmed.

What does the ‘Spooky Alt’ tag mean to you specifically?

My music isn’t particularly mainstream, so I think it’s ‘alternative’, and I love spooky sounds, like theremins and harpsichords. I even have a track called Spooky! My favourite time of year begins when the leaves fall off the trees and we get into Halloween and Bonfire Night. I also like thinking about things on the edge of normal. One of my favourite ideas is by Patrick Jackson, who wrote, ‘The Sphere Network’. He has used his reverse engineering skills in IT to discover that there is an ancient network of AI metallic spheres all over the world and they use things like quantum tunnelling to create an effect that we mistake for poltergeists. I don’t know if any of it is true, but, I like thinking about it and trying to create music that gives me the same sense of wonder.

Artists and people that have influenced you?

This track was influenced in a large part by a Børns track that came out when I was in the middle of writing it. I met him in London and gave him a CD of the demo of Simulation, but he probably didn’t have a CD player! The first music I was ever into when I was a young child was Lightning Seeds and Blur. I then followed Damon to Gorillaz and then discovered Muse and Radiohead which I think were then gateways for some classical and some heavier music.

A guitar riff you wish you had composed yourself?

I really like Devil in a Midnight Mass by Billy Talent. I’m not a fantastic guitarist, though! I create a lot of my riffs on the piano and then transpose them to guitar, where I spend a lot of time practicing them before recording!

What first got you into music?

Apparently, when I was too young to remember, I used to always want to listen to Simon and Garfunkel. The first thing I ever learned to play, though, was the piano intro to New Born – Muse

If you could change anything about the industry, what would it be?

Recorded music itself has lost its value. The value now seems to be in everything that surrounds it, like merchandise. Even live music seems to be increasingly difficult to make work. Music seems to be more valuable now when it is paired with something else that has more economic value, like a movie, a game or an advert. I think in part it’s because, when downloads first came about, it was easy to download a song in a few minutes, but a movie could take hours or days, so, people never got used to having movies or games for free. But with music, it became the norm and that snowballed to where we are now. Would I change it, though? I’m not sure, because, at least with how it is now, it is probably easier to share your music with the world as an upcoming artist, than it is to share your movie, if you are an upcoming filmmaker. I’m not totally sure that the royalties are as they should be, though; one of my projects has a lot of streams – more than several million – and there is basically no money.

Thank you!

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