A Chat with James Stevenson (04.07.2025)
Interview with Karen Beishuizen (Guest contributor)
James Stevenson is an English guitarist who has performed with The Alarm, Gene Loves Jezebel, Gen X, The Cult, Holy Holy, The International Swingers and Chelsea. We chat with James about his guitar heroes, Billy Idol, Kim Wilde, his solo albums, and more.
Did you always want to be a musician growing up?
Stevenson: Since I was about 13. Before that, I wanted to be an archaeologist.
Who were your guitar heroes?
Stevenson: Well, my number one was always Mick Ronson, I just love his incredible sense of melody and the way he always created the perfect guitar part for the song. That’s why it’s such a privilege for me to play in Holy Holy with Woody Woodmansey and Tony Visconti. I also loved Jeff Beck, Paul Kossof, Chris Spedding, and it’s impossible not to be in awe of Jimi Hendrix or Prince, for that matter. I’ve never been into technique for its own sake – I think a lot of players confuse dexterity with creativity.
Billy Idol asked you to join his band Gen X as the lead guitarist. Are you still in touch and how was it working with him?
Stevenson: Actually, it was Tony James, the bass player, who asked me to join. I think they auditioned every guitarist in the UK! I’d been in Chelsea, travelling back from a gig, thinking to myself, “What am I doing with my life?” I’d scraped through some exams at school and decided to apply for a place in university, I was still only 21. I actually got offered a place in a couple. Then Tony rang and asked if I still wanted to be in Gen X. That was the end of my academic career right there! I got on really well with Billy. In fact, on tour we used to share a hotel room. He had mountains of natural charisma. If I run into him we might say hi and have a chat – but no, I’m not in touch with him on a regular basis.
You worked with Kim Wilde on her debut and second album. If you see yourself now in the video ‘Kids in America’, what is your fondest memory of those days?
Stevenson: Well, Kim is an absolutely lovely human being. I flew all over Europe doing TV shows with her – in fact I was a professional mimer for a year! We had a lot of fun together. We used to drink together in hotel bars after TV shows. I remember once, in Rome, after drinking too much with her on a rooftop bar, I woke up in a bed of geraniums – I didn’t make it to bed!
You played in many bands: The Cult, The Alarm, Chelsea, Gene Loves Jezebel. What makes a great punk band?
Stevenson: A great song is always the bottom line for me and a great singer. In fact, every member of a band is crucial. If a drummer in a band sucks, that band is never going to sound good, no matter how good the rest of the band is.
Are there currently artists out there you would love to collaborate with or you wished you had?
Stevenson: To be honest, I’m busy enough with all the bands I play with already! – but I would have loved to have played on a Bowie album. I was also a huge fan of the early Roxy Music albums, so maybe Bryan Ferry. I’d definitely love to play on a Brian Eno solo album – I think some of the stuff I recorded on Scott Walker albums would lend itself to that. It would probably be a laugh to work with Liam Gallagher – I always liked Oasis. Oh, and Ian Hunter of course – I have massive respect for him.
You can make an album with 7 of your favourite songs where you play lead guitar, what would you pick and why?
‘Angel’ by Jimi Hendrix – I think it would make a great instrumental.
‘Life On Mars’ by David Bowie. I think it’s one of the greatest songs ever written. The melody is so addictive, I think it would sound great played on a guitar.
‘I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’ by Elvis Presley. I absolutely love Elvis – he isn’t called The King for nothing – also ‘If I Could Dream’ could be a good one too.
‘Sign Of The Times’ by Prince – Love the groove on this and a great melody too.
‘Friday Night’ by The Darkness – One of my favourite live bands.
‘Armagideon Time’ by The Clash – Covers punk and reggae in one hit!
‘Come Together’ by The Beatles – So many great songs to choose from – but this one would get my vote.
‘What’s Going On’ by Marvin Gaye – Such an incredible song, but also just to play along with James Jamerson’s bass. In fact, I could have picked any track from this album.
Your 2 solo albums: What was the process like making them, what are they about, and why should people listen to them?
Stevenson: The thing was that I just always wanted to make a solo album. There were times when songs or bits of music that I presented to bands I’ve been in, haven’t got used, or got used in ways that I didn’t like, but I wanted them to be out there. I was always a bit nervous about my voice because I’m not a real singer and people said to me, “well, you know you should get guest singers in”, but I didn’t want to do that; I felt I had to sing my own songs. So some of those songs on my first album, Everything’s Getting Closer To Being Over, like ‘Come On People’, that was originally the music to a Gene Loves Jezebel song called ‘Slumberland’ that was going to go on the album Heavenly Bodies but didn’t get used, and there’s ‘Naturally Wired’ on that album as well, that was also was an outtake from the GLJ album VII, which I kept the riff which I wrote, and totally changed the melody and the lyrics.
I decided I was going to make my first album in 2012. I had the songs together and I knew the people that I wanted to play on it, mostly friends, you know, Steve Norman from Spandau, Glen Matlock, people that were just mates. Pete Rizzo, the bass player from Gene Loves Jezebel and Mark Taylor, the keyboard player. Of course, Peter Walsh, who produced it, is a really good friend; in fact, I’ve just been doing an interview for the Scott Walker website with him about the stuff of Scott Walker’s that I played on.
Anyway I rang up Pete who was living in Germany at the time and I said “listen I’m going to go in and record my first solo album, if I send you some bits and pieces along the way will you give me some advice and tell me where you think I’m going wrong?” and he just said to me, “James I’m getting on a plane and I’m producing your record and I wouldn’t let you do it with anyone else”, so I was really, really chuffed because I knew whatever anyone thought of the songs or anything else I knew it was going to sound brilliant sonically because Pete Walsh is a genius. I mean, he’s done Scott Walker, Simple Minds, Peter Gabriel, all these people, and he hears things normal people don’t hear. I think that really comes across on both my albums, the sonic quality, he produced both of them.
So anyway, I did the first album and it got amazing reviews, and that kind of gave me a bit of impetus and confidence, and I did a couple of solo gigs in which I made the transition from being a side man, which is all I ever really wanted to be, to being a front man. I had quite a big band because I wanted to represent the album properly in a live context, so I needed the girl singers and all that stuff. When that album came out, I was very, very pleased with it and I’m proud of it. Then COVID happened, and lockdown, and my little brother Dave, we were very close, became very ill. He lived in Australia and he died in 2020.
If I drop dead tomorrow, I can say I’ve had an amazing time, but I’ve had a lot of tragedy in my life as well, I mean, you know, my mother died when I was only 21, stuff like that, and my best friend died when I was 18 and he was 18 of some bizarre type of cancer. Anyway, I wanted to compose a song for Dave’s funeral. I couldn’t get there because of lockdown and it was in Melbourne in Australia. So I recorded it at home to a click track, and then I thought well maybe I could get Smiley, who was the drummer in The Alarm, to play some drums on it and then I can send it all to Pete Walsh and he can mix it at home. So we did it like that, and I was really pleased with the results, and I said to Pete Walsh, “Do you think we could do a whole album like this?”, and he said, “Yeah, I think we could”. So that’s how the second album, The Other Side Of The World, came about.
There’s a lot of heartfelt songs on that album. My favourite song I think I’ve ever written is on my second album, it’s called ‘I’m Getting Over You Now’, about a girl I was really in love with. The title track is about my brother, because he had this disease called Pick’s Disease, which is like early onset Alzheimer’s, so he was on the other side of the world mentally, but also because he lived in Australia, he was literally on the other side of the world. Anyway, we recorded a whole album like that remotely with me sending takes around to Smiley and to different musicians for them to play parts on; Terry Edwards played sax on it and Harriet Stubbs played some piano and that album got great reviews too, in fact Viva Le Rock magazine put it #32 in the top 50 albums released in 2021. I’m very proud of both my solo albums, and I hope as many people as possible hear them. I’ve been thinking about doing another. I think I might have one more solo album in me.
What are you currently up to?
Stevenson: Well, I’ve just finished a Gene Loves Jezebel UK tour and just before that some UK dates with Holy Holy. I’ve just done an interview with Uncut magazine about working with Scott Walker. I have some US dates with Gene Loves Jezebel at the end of September, and I’m thinking about putting together another solo show here in London. So, like I said, I’m immensely proud of both my solo albums, but hardly anyone’s heard them! They’re both on Spotify: Everything’s Getting Closer to Being Over and The Other Side of the World
Find out more about James Stevenson on his official Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, YouTube and Spotify.
