To say that James Graham has been through it in the seven years since the last Twilight Sad album would be an understatement. He lost his mother to dementia, became a father, and his own mental health struggles led to the band cancelling a tour with the Cure. The day we talk about the Scottish band\u2019s sixth album, It\u2019s the Long Goodbye, turns out to be the anniversary of his mum\u2019s death. \u201cIt\u2019s all right,\u201d says Graham. \u201cIt seems like a good day to talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking from his home in north-east Scotland on a dark, murky evening, Graham is unflinchingly open about his experiences, often moved to tears as he recounts the last few years. \u201cI was so ill at some points while I was writing these songs that it\u2019s all quite hazy,\u201d he says. \u201cBut the moments are coming back to me \u2013 of why I wrote a certain song. When I listen to one, I can feel it, \u2018Fuck, you were really in it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
double quotation markI was so ill while writing these songs, it\u2019s all quite hazy<\/p>\n
In every conceivable way, It\u2019s the Long Goodbye is in it as Graham confronts his experiences head on. If you know the Twilight Sad, it\u2019s nothing less than you\u2019d expect \u2013 starting with 2007\u2019s Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters, they are a band who have always sounded as if they have lived every ounce of their songs. These are songs as therapy \u2013 about alienation and inner turmoil, rich in metaphor, with Graham\u2019s evocative Scottish brogue capable of sounding tender and threatening against guitarist Andy MacFarlane\u2019s turbulent guitar.<\/p>\n
Yet the metaphors have been dropped for this record. The result is a visceral collection of tracks that act as a diary of Graham\u2019s recent years. Lead single Waiting for the Phone Call sees him capture the dread of preparing to hear the worst over a propulsive, pummelling riff, then he\u2019s \u201cdealing with the dark again\u201d in Attempt a Crash Landing \u2013 Theme. \u201cAnd this time we\u2019ll lose,\u201d he sings, resigning himself over crashing guitars. The album\u2019s title is drawn from his experience of watching someone he loved slowly disappearing before his eyes. \u201cIt\u2019s seven years of saying goodbye so many times,\u201d he says. \u201cMy mum lost her speech so quickly. It was like the worst horror film. I tried to find the glimmer of light when we were with each other, but \u2026\u201d His voice trails off.<\/p>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t know why Robert Smith chose us\u2019 … James Graham and the Twilight Sad performing in 2023. Photograph: Scott Legato\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got two boys now. And Arthur was born very close to when my mum was diagnosed. So as he was developing, she was going down and, at one point, they kind of met in the middle. It was such a headfuck.\u201d<\/p>\n
As 2023 came to a close, his mother was in her final months, while the band were about to support the Cure in South America, after previous runs with them in Europe and North America. Graham reached breaking point. \u201cOne morning, I woke up and I couldn\u2019t move. I just said, \u2018I can\u2019t do this.\u2019\u201d His voice breaks as he speaks. \u201cI phoned our manager and the decision was taken out of my hands. I got an email from Robert right away, just saying, \u2018None of this matters. Get better.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Robert is Robert Smith, the Cure\u2019s singer, now known to Graham and MacFarlane as Rab. They\u2019ve been almost inseparable since Smith asked the band to join the Cure on their world tour in 2016. It\u2019s something Graham still can\u2019t get to grips with. \u201cOf all the bands,\u201d he says, \u201cI don\u2019t know why he chose us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith finds it easier to explain. He tells me he \u201cinstantly fell in love with the attitude, the intensity, the emotion, the spirit, the tunes, the textures, the words and the voice\u201d after Mogwai\u2019s Stuart Braithwaite suggested he listen to Fourteen Autumns. \u201cI bought every subsequent release and was pretty much a superfan when they asked me to cover a song in 2015.\u201d This was There\u2019s a Girl in the Corner. \u201cI spent a lot of time with them on that first world tour. We became really good friends. Over the last 10 years, that friendship has blossomed and has become a very valuable thing to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recalling that 2016 tour, Graham says incredulously: \u201cSome days it was just us and him backstage listening to music, having a laugh. And it was just like, \u2018Can you believe this?\u2019 He\u2019s one of the best songwriters of all time, telling you that the songs you write are not just good, but that he loves them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith features on three tracks on It\u2019s the Long Goodbye. But, says MacFarlane, speaking in a cafe in London the day after my chat with Graham, \u201che wasn\u2019t just playing guitar, he was helping give advice with arrangements and stuff.\u201d He remembers Smith giving them advice on the demos, too: \u201cHe reaches in his bag and pulls out a pad full of notes about every song. It was like getting a lecture off the teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smith helped to fine-tune a record that had been developed over seven years by Graham and MacFarlane, now both 41 and the only remaining original members of the band. \u201cI wrote when I could and felt like I had to,\u201d Graham says, while MacFarlane focused on guitars rather than the icy synths they\u2019ve also traded in. \u201cIt\u2019s the yin and yang. There\u2019s an energy and positivity to it, to go against the grain of the lyrics.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI really felt sorry for Andy,\u201d says Graham, \u201cThe amount of shit he had to listen to. I did apologise to him quite a lot. But he\u2019s also lost a parent so he was there for me.\u201d MacFarlane, whose father died of cancer around the time the band started, recognised the effect of seeing \u201csomeone getting smaller. I understand the feeling of losing a parent and transferring it into music.\u201d<\/p>\n
As the band prepares to join the Cure on tour again this summer, there\u2019s excitement but trepidation, too. Right now, Graham feels like a different person. His priorities have shifted, his world has changed. In the \u201ctiny, wee village\u201d he now calls home, \u201ceverybody just knows me as \u2018Arthur and Norrie\u2019s Dad\u2019. It\u2019s brilliant.\u201d His children \u2013 the \u201cone thing that got me up every morning\u201d \u2013 are his focus and Graham says he\u2019s \u201ceven more proud that I managed to still be there as a family member and a father than I am of this album\u201d.<\/p>\n
In retrospect, not playing that South American tour in 2023 seems like a pivotal moment. \u201cIt was due to start in November,\u201d says Graham. \u201cMy mum died in the January. I know, to this day, that if I\u2019d done that tour, it would have been a disaster. I was put on medication straight away. And it\u2019s taken from that moment to the end of last year to really start to feel \u2026 I don\u2019t want to say OK \u2026 But to start to feel a sense of happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n
His voice starts to crack again. \u201cI\u2019m so fed up of being back there,\u201d he points with his hand. \u201cI know what people think. James is miserable blah blah. And I know that\u2019s part of me.\u201d He pauses, takes a deep breath. \u201cBut I\u2019m so ready to be happy.\u201d The words hang in the air. \u201cI\u2019m ready to show people that you can go through that and get to the other side.\u201d He laughs, quietly. \u201cLook at me, I\u2019m sitting here crying in front of you. But I am really excited about being given a second chance.\u201d You can hear that hope on the new album\u2019s closing track, TV People Still Throwing TVs at People, as Graham repeats the refrain: \u201cIt\u2019s OK to feel this way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was me realising there\u2019s no handbook that says this is how you\u2019re going to feel,\u201d he says. \u201cI come from the central belt of Scotland, where men don\u2019t talk about their feelings too much. And there\u2019s an element, at the end of the record, where you\u2019ve still got those doubts because you were told to push it down and get on with it. But in this, the most extreme circumstance, it\u2019s like, \u2018Why the fuck are we not talking about this?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the Long Goodbye is released via Rock Action on 27 March<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To say that James Graham has been through it in the seven years since the last Twilight Sad…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-546712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}