Yard Act perform in The Current studio
by Jill Riley
October 24, 2023
Leeds band Yard Act shored up their emerging sound during an unlikely time; specifically, in the midst of the global pandemic. “I have a lot of respect and space for people that didn't catch that creative break that we did,” Yard Act frontman James Smith reflects, “but we did, and we made the most of it.”
Nominated for the 2022 Mercury Prize for their debut album The Overload, it’s been a whirlwind for Yard Act ever since the world began reopening. The band’s earlier forays to North America had been primarily restricted to the coasts, but September of 2023 saw the band carve a slice across the American Midwest, with shows in Minneapolis; Madison, Wisconsin; and Chicago. During Yard Act’s visit to Minnesota, they visited The Current for a studio session hosted by Jill Riley.
Watch and listen to the complete session above, and read a transcript of Jill Riley’s interview with James Smith below.
Interview Transcript
Jill Riley: You're listening to The Current. I'm Jill Riley. And we have a band in studio today making their Minneapolis St. Paul debut, a band from, well, based in Leeds, and we've been playing this song "The Overload," which you may recognize as being the band Yard Act. It's been a pretty big whirlwind for this band. And we're so glad that they're able to come to Minneapolis St. Paul, because they know they've been in the United States, you know, kind of sticking to the coasts for previous visits, but we're lucky to have him in the studio. And I am here with James from Yard Act.
James Smith: Hello, Jill.
Jill Riley: Welcome to The Current.
James Smith: Thanks for having us.
Jill Riley: It's excellent to meet you.
James Smith: Yeah, likewise.
Jill Riley: What, you know, saying "it's been a whirlwind," because it has, because really, you're still a fairly new band.
James Smith: Yeah.
Jill Riley: But it's been incredible. I mean, "The Overload," so that came out at the beginning of 2022, and just like the buzz around it, and the fact that it was what shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, I mean, how has it felt for you since releasing that debut record?
James Smith: Honestly, I didn't feel anything last year. It was too chaotic, and non stop to really process any of it. But that said, coming out of the back end of that album campaign, you know, over 18 months on, which you know, what is it? What are we now, September? What's that now? What's that?
Jill Riley: Don't ask me to do math on the radio. I'm very bad at doing that.
James Smith: Twenty-one months! Yeah! Twenty-one months later, I can look back on it, and I feel really grateful for everything we've done, and I'm really proud of coming through the other side of it and seemingly having achieved quite a bit, which is nice.
Jill Riley: Yeah, achieving quite a bit in again, relatively a short amount of time. I wonder, before we talk about the new song, could you take us back, James, to how the band started?
James Smith: Yeah, yeah, of course! So yeah, we haven't been going that long. It was 2019, and me and Ryan [Needham], who plays bass, we were, we were sort of, we were friends, sort of pub associates, we used to, we were both in local bands in Leeds that played shows together, and we'd done a split single together for a local record shop, Jumbo Records, and kind of off the back of that we got quite close. And then Ryan needed a place to stay, me and my wife allowed him to move in with us, and that kind of formed the basis of Yard Act, those late night demoing sessions in our spare room. And at the time, we didn't know what it was gonna be; it didn't really sound like this. At the time, we were trying to do our best to be Guided By Voices, and came out quite far off, but the first thing we ever did, "The Trapper's Pelts," was actually kind of sort of like, we were trying to do something in the vein of Hot Freaks by then, and it kind of became its own thing.
And then we kind of got a band together, and then we had one track recorded and the pandemic hit, and we'd only played like three shows in Leeds. And in the U.K., we managed to put that single out and it kind of gained traction in the lockdowns kind of on the internet and through — the BBC 6 music in the U.K. got really behind it. And then we didn't play any shows as a band for like, a year — over a year, I guess. But we just managed to get in the studio when stuff lifted slightly and stuff, and we kept putting out singles. And then we came out the other side of it with an EP, and everyone seems to be into it, and it carried on. And then we recorded the album, again, in a sort of space when we weren't still gigging, we hadn't played any of the album as a band, it wasn't really written as a band, it was kind of written remotely and recorded across separate houses and studios. Yeah, and then the album came out as the world opened up, and we haven't really stopped since.
Jill Riley: You haven't! And you would think that starting a band, you know, pre pandemic, and then trying to, you know, write some songs and get some stuff out there during the pandemic, you'd think, "OK, this couldn't be a worse time to start a band." But actually, in your case, I think just the circumstances seemed to really kind of benefit your kind of concentration on it.
James Smith: Yeah, I know that a lot of people, a lot of creative types, when people that I'm friends with and that went the opposite direction and got really bad writer's block, and I've got a lot of empathy and understanding for that. But me and Ryan went the opposite way; we found having all that time, even though we weren't together, when, you know, he lives just down the road, so we were kind of, we'd see each other in the garden. But we were writing and recording separately and sending stuff to each other — he'd moved out by this point, by the way. I found having all that free time incredibly empowering and creatively fruitful. So we benefitted from it where others didn't. And I have, you know, a lot of respect and sort of space for people that didn't catch that creative break that we did, but we did, and we made the most of it.
Jill Riley: Now, what would you say would be the main inspiration for ideas? Because you seem to be kind of an observer.
James Smith: Yeah.
Jill Riley: Is that fair to say?
James Smith: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Especially on on "The Overload."
Jill Riley: Yeah.
James Smith: It's kind of changing going forward. I've started to look inwards a little bit more, which is always ... not the greatest... But, yeah, on "The Overload," yeah! I mean, yeah, I was at home, so I was trapped like everyone was in the news cycle. You know, I think watching the government seemingly get it wrong at every step and being just aware of the sort of frustration and the suffering that people were feeling and the loss, and just not knowing. I think it pulled the rug under from everyone. And I know I said that like creatively we benefited from it, but the world as we knew it, did... you know, these invisible foundations that hold modern society together, they all collapsed. And that, I suppose that's what "The Overload" was about, it's that sort of paranoia and that unknowing and that. And "The Overload" itself is the overwhelming amount of information that I was consuming from outside sources coming back at me through a screen basically.
Jill Riley: A lot of this!
James Smith: Yeah, and just a lot of that, like, because there was nowhere to put it except for music, like, you know, unless you can rant on Twitter or whatever, but I don't, when you need an outlet, you need an outlet, and I get why people have to do that, but I don't, you know, it's, yeah, I put it into music and and into lyric writing. And that was huge! It was an outlet. It was cathartic for me. And I also look back on my sort of past and dug back into my own childhood memories and growing up to kind of sort of, sort of, you know, sort of, to basically see that growing up in the 90s was the same as growing up now. We still face the same problems; they've got worse, but we always knew they were coming. It's not like something went wrong one day out of the blue; we've been on this path for a long time. So yeah.
Jill Riley: Sure. It just took a little shaking, to just kind of wake up to it. I'm talking with James Smith of Yard Act. We're talking about the origins of the band and "The Overload," which came out in the beginning of 2022. What did it feel like to be shortlisted for the Mercury Prize? Was that kind of like, "Wait, what?"
James Smith: Yeah. Yeah it was. I always listened to the, any albums — usually, I've heard quite a lot of them because I'm quite on the pulse. But I always listened to the... Well, I always check out the entire shortlist for anything that I've missed and listen to it because it is like a barometer of good taste. And so to be included in that was an honor. From the start, I didn't think we would and didn't deserve to win, I thought there were better arms that came out that year, but to be considered amongst them was more than enough for us. Yeah, it was definitely...
Jill Riley: Did you feel some pressure there, though?
James Smith: No.
Jill Riley: OK, good!
James Smith: I think I would have felt pressure if we'd won it, because I would have felt it had been taken from people who deserved it more. But this is just the start. We have more creative avenues we want to venture down. And more work to do.
Jill Riley: Yeah, well, before we move off of that record, because I want to talk about the new song, the new single, "100% Endurance." Tell me about the connection to Elton John, because that is wild, and it's something that I love about Elton John is he is so like, plugged in to what's going on with music now. And he is like, just to think of somebody on that kind of like, platform and level and fame. But just knowing that he is still a music fan.
James Smith: Yeah, he massively is, yeah.
Jill Riley: OK, so how did you: one, get in the studio with Elton John? But how did you first meet?
James Smith: In the studio.
Jill Riley: OK.
James Smith: But he kept name-dropping us in interviews, saying we were one of his favorite bands. He also kept name dropping the Hold Steady, which was cool.
Jill Riley: Excellent.
James Smith: And he, yeah, it was a friend of mine sent me the first like clipping where he'd said it and it was just like one line and in a bigger feature. And we thought that would be the end of it. We were like, "Well, that's cool he knows and likes it, but that won't lead to anything." And then he kept saying it, and so we did a cover of "Tiny Dancer," which was probably slightly calculated. I love that tune, but we had to do a cover for Apple Music, and he obviously has a show on Apple Music. Can you mention Apple Music on The Current?
Jill Riley: Yeah, totally. It's completely informational. OK.
James Smith: Cool. There you go. And so yeah, we kind of did that, and it caught his attention. After that, he gave me a phone call, and we got chatting and he was super sound. And then he called me a few times to check in; he always seemed to be in Atlanta whenever he called me, I think he might have a sort of base out there. I'm not trying to give his coordinates away, but he's somewhere within the Atlanta area when he's touring. Yeah, we were chatting, and he we knew we were gonna do this new version of "100% Endurance," and we just asked him because it was like, "Well, if he says no it's not the end of the world; we didn't expect him to," and he just said, "Absolute..." Well, he said, "Abso-effin'-lutely." Which is, that's better than saying "absolutely," innit? That's the best way you can say something. And so he was all in! And yeah, he came into the studio and he sat down at the piano and he just said, "What do you want me to do? This is your song, I'm your session player," which is quite...
Jill Riley: Unexpected!
James Smith: Yeah, the thing that I took away from that was he just said, he said, "I could never make music like you do, and I want to learn from you." And the fact that he was saying that his stage in his career, at his age, was like, that to me was like a template for how I want to live creatively, to constantly be interested and curious and to still be learning. And trying to understand how other people make stuff rather than being stuck in your own lane, I thought that was amazing. Wherever he's gonna come out with a spoken word album remains to be seen. But yeah, that was great. It was an amazing experience. Yeah, he was lovely.
Jill Riley: Excellent. I'm so glad. Elton John, the, I guess, would have been the updated or re recorded version of "100% Endurance." So OK, James Smith, from Yard Act here on The Current with me. I'm Jill Riley. So "The Trench Coat Museum."
James Smith: Yeah.
Jill Riley: It's great. I love it. I mean, the first time I heard it, it's just, again, when I say like observational, but really, I just, if I can pay you this compliment, like very clever. And upon first listen, there are things that I didn't pick up on right away until I heard it a few times. And it made me sort of reflect back on being a young person. I mean, I was a teenager in the 90s you know, when like, Columbine happened, so when I think trench coat, I guess I ... had that never happened—
James Smith: Yeah.
Jill Riley: I would still think a detective, like Inspector Gadget, or, I don't know, a flasher, or like, anything associated with a trench coat. But it is easy to go dark, because I do remember the kind of media frenzy of a black trench coat and what that suddenly became. So while the song is catchy and very danceable, you know, there is that kind of like, that dark side to it. So I wonder if you could tell us, I mean, what was kind of the basis for you? How did that song kind of get started?
James Smith: Well, it was me looking at myself. And I wanted to ... I was kind of interested in why I was not obsessed, but kept returning to my own ego, and what that was, and why I cared about what other people thought of me. And also how I was kind of portraying this kind of cartoonish image of myself, in, you know, the trench coat and the glasses, which I do have to wear, because I can't see very well. But like this, this kind of image and just the way I, you know, the, you know, this, this version of me that a lot of people were seeing, which is part of me, but it was like an accentuated version of myself for the sake of being on screen and in front of a microphone. Because subtlety and nuance often get lost in the early stages of trying to present something. You know, I think immediacy is kind of important, sort of grabbing people's attention, and I think that's what we did with "The Overload," and it does, to an extent, seem to have worked. With the trench coat, it kind of felt like transitional song, because it was it, it said now that we kind of got people's attention, we were willing to reveal more of ourselves and more sides to who we were as a band musically, and who we were as people and who I am personally as a writer and as a human, you know, flaws and all, kind of wanted to look into that.
And then so I guess, symbolically, it's about me, but also, you know, mentioning the Columbine and the history of the trench coat, this idea that things aren't finite and consistent throughout time, and our perspective of them changes. And so I think we're at a point now where we, as a society we're very fearful of what was and what's coming. And I think, I think it's kind of, it probably stems from a sort of, I think it stems heavily from social media and a kind of self pruning of ourselves to be this perfect person that I don't think anyone — it doesn't exist. And I think it actually derails proper progress in terms of, you know, amending the gaping flaws within society that we should be working on fixing, you know, by getting microscopic about things that have happened and the way they happened, and yeah, we're always just sure we're at the pinnacle of societal perfection, and we never are. And so it's about that, and I think that it's also about me. Personally, I feel like I'm always growing and changing. I'm not, you know, I don't, I never feel comfortable. I'm always restless as a human being. I'm never satisfied. And I think that maybe probably reflects back on when you were sort of saying about how "The Overload" was when it came out. And I said, like, for that first year, I didn't look on it and feel anything. And I said, like, I've looked back now, and I'm proud of what we achieved, but I'm very much, "That's amazing what Yard Act is and it's not what we'll be next year." And yeah, I'm not ready to put my trophies on the shelf and show them off to the grandkids. I don't have any grandkids yet. But when I do,
Jill Riley: Someday!
James Smith: I'll still be making records!
Jill Riley: Yeah, great! But when you're in it, and you're wrapped up in it, whether it be society or personally, you can't reflect on it until you're kind of on the other side of something.
James Smith: No, there's no reflection in any conversations we have at the moment, I don't think. And I think we expect the opposite side to reflect in a moment of a heated debate. I just don't, I don't think that's how human beings work. You know, I know, I know when you believe so passionately in something, you wish they did. But I don't, I don't think we do. No one changes their mind in the heat of an argument. But with reflection, we can.
Jill Riley: Yeah. I'm with James Smith from Yard Act here on The Current. You've got "The Trench Coat Museum"; again, super, I just, I love what it is. I love the cleverness of it. And it is highly danceable, by the way. I love the music video; I watched it over and over. I don't even know if music video is right; like "short film" maybe is a better way to put it. I would encourage anyone who hasn't seen it to take a look at it. You know, when it comes to making the music, that's one thing, but then to like, kind of add that visual part of it, is that something that you're interested in? I mean, do you have that interest in, you know, presenting something, you know, in a different, you know, different form? I guess when you think about music, do you think about it visually? Like what would that look like in a video?
James Smith: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And James Slater, he directed the video, we've worked with him on every music video we've done since "The Overload," came out so that "The Trench Coat" is kind of the sixth, the well it is the sixth one we've done together now. And our relationship has grown stronger and stronger. And he kind of brought this world to life, brought the characters I was kind of writing about to life over the first album, and we kind of talked about going into the second album, we wanted to expand on this world and bring, you know, yeah, we want to make it more cinematic, because when the first one was coming out, we were kind of going on a video-by-video basis and kind of, it was, there was a through line through them, but we didn't have that much sort of oversight, sort of plan and connect them, whereas with album two, the trench coat is kind of the jump-off for a much bigger story. And it is actually the first scene in a film that we're trying to write and make at the moment. So it will, it will be connected to the music, and yeah, it's the start of something bigger.
Jill Riley: OK, more to come. Now plans for an EP, full length album?
James Smith: Second album is finished.
Jill Riley: It is finished.
James Smith: Yeah.
Jill Riley: OK!
James Smith: It'll be out next year-ish. Early next year. First quarter of next year!
Jill Riley: You heard it right here.
James Smith: Yeah.
Jill Riley: I'm glad to hear that. I've been kind of wondering, you know, because it's like, OK, you've got the new song.
James Smith: Yeah. That's not on the album, though.
Jill Riley: And, it's probably just a matter of time.
James Smith: That's a standalone.
Jill Riley: Yeah.
James Smith: That's a bridging gap between albums one and two.
Jill Riley: So that won't be on the — oh, OK.
James Smith: No, but it does, it connects the first album to the second one, so it feels like very much a part of the evolution of it, but it's not on it.
Jill Riley: Very good. Well, we look forward to it. We look forward to hearing more. Speaking of museums, I know that there are some pretty sweet trench coats on display at Paisley Park.
James Smith: Nice!
Jill Riley: You're in the land of Prince. I understand you guys are gonna go take a little tour of Paisley Park while you're in town.
James Smith: Yeah, we're excited. Yeah.
Jill Riley: So again, take it all in. Whether it be, again, your trip here, but really, take it all in. Congratulations on the success.
James Smith: Thank you, Jill, cheers.
Jill Riley: Enjoy the ride.
James Smith: We will do.
Jill Riley: All right. That is James Smith of Yard Act, and you are listening to The Current.
Video Segments
00:00:00 The Trench Coat Museum
00:05:27 Land Of The Blind
00:09:26 100% Endurance
00:12:52 James Smith interview with host Jill Riley
Songs 2 and 3 are from Yard Act’s 2022 album, The Overload. Song 1 is released as a single. All are available through Island Records/UMG.
Musicians
James Smith – vocals, sampler
Sam Shipstone – guitar
Ryan Needham – bass
Jay Russell – drums
Christopher Duffin – keyboards
Credits
Guests – Yard Act
Host – Jill Riley
Producer – Derrick Stevens
Video Director – Evan Clark
Camera Operators – Evan Clark, Peter Ecklund
Audio – Derek Ramirez
Graphics – Natalia Toledo
Digital Producer – Luke Taylor
External Link
Yard Act – official site