James Bay: ‘To be a man talking about mental health still doesn’t feel accepted’

In 2019, James Bay seemed to be having the time of his life. His number one debut album of anthemic indie-pop, Chaos and the Calm, had been streamed a staggering six billion times, he had just supported Ed Sheeran on his European stadium tour and he was preparing to record his third album in Nashville.

“But underneath, I was having a bit of a crash,” says Bay. “On the surface, it didn’t look that way at all and it sometimes feels like my job to make sure it doesn't look like that, but I was struggling. Just with real insecurity, imposter syndrome, anxiety.”

By the time the now 31-year-old singer-songwriter from Hitchin was finally ready to release his pandemic-delayed album, Leap (out next week), he was faced with a decision. He could go on with business as usual and let his music do the talking, or he could reveal the painful circumstances in which he started writing the album. In May, he published an open letter on social media revealing his mental health battles for the first time.

The letter specifically mentioned imposter syndrome, the all-consuming feeling of not deserving success that is more commonly discussed as something that women experience. “Though mental health has become a more open conversation, there’s one nuance I feel a little affected by,” he says. “In my world and in this society, to be a man talking about it in conversation still doesn’t feel as accepted as I would like it to be.”

While the last few years of therapy has been useful, Bay wishes men could speak more among friends. “I think sometimes, you need to break it down with your nearest and dearest. And I’m recognising that it’s still not the most immediate and fluid experience to get into it with other men, which I find a shame.”

I wonder if his honesty has in turn helped other men open up to him. “In terms of the men in my life who I’m close to, yes it’s better,” Bay says. “It’s not without its mumbling though. And it still has everyone looking at their pints.”

Bay’s the first to admit something else positive came from his personal crisis. Unsure exactly what album he planned to record when he decamped to Nashville in early 2020, the process of writing through his emotional low inspired his most vulnerable album to date. Yet the record is also surprisingly uplifting, with bombastic choruses that will likely fill up as many summer festival fields as his biggest hits Hold Back The River and Let it Go.

“It’s funny because sad songs come naturally to me,” he admits. “But then I had a bit of an epiphany after all that happened in 2019. When I was struggling, there were some people in my personal life who were doing whatever they could to lift me up and help me keep my chin up. And for the first time ever, I recognised that in my writing. So songs would start sad but instead of getting to a chorus and saying effectively woe is me, boo-hoo, I was saying thank you. I need you. I love you and I’m so grateful. I think the combination of those two emotions in these songs was something I hadn’t really done before.”

The album is most obviously a musical love letter to his girlfriend of 15 years, Lucy. The couple now live together in North London and have an eight-month-old daughter, Ada, but have been together since they were 16. Halfway through recent single, the lighters-aloft epic One Life, Bay sings “Do you wanna marry me?”

Is this album really the world’s most romantic proposal? Bay smiles. “You’ve heard the words you’ve heard. Beyond that, I’ll keep you posted…”

An in-album proposal would seem fitting, since Lucy was the one who encouraged Bay to take music seriously. “She sat on the sofa one evening, not quite 15 years ago, and I think we were watching the Brits and I said something stupid like, I could do that,” Bay says. “And she said, well, you’re not going to do it sat on the sofa, knobhead. And she was absolutely right. She’s always been a complete champion of mine.”

Soon after, Bay started busking and playing open mic nights around Brighton where he attended college, until a YouTube video of him performing was spotted by the record label who went on to sign him.

By 2014, Bay had scored his first huge Top 10 single with Hold Back the River. Within a year, Chaos and the Calm had sailed to the top of the charts and Bay had picked up three Grammy nominations and been named the Brit Awards’ Critics’ Choice. He won the Best British Male Solo Artist the following year, performing live at the ceremony with Justin Bieber.

“A lot of people state I had an overnight success and ask how it was, but there was nothing overnight about it,” he says. “Two years before I won the Brit, I was working in a bar in the daytime losing my mind thinking that I was 21 – which is ancient for pop music. I felt like everything was taking forever.”

By the time success came, Bay was almost as well-known for his signature fedora and shoulder-length hair as he was for his music. He was almost unrecognisable when he ditched both for his second album, 2019’s Electric Light, but now the hair has grown back and even his hat still makes an appearance at live shows.

“I was just going a little stir crazy,” he explains. “Way before I met any managers or had any fans, I was in Brighton as a 19-year-old and just decided I was going to wear this hat every time I played because maybe people would remember me for it. Then there was a moment when it didn’t matter if it was on or off, I was still being asked to do photos with people. It doesn’t define me. I don’t think I’ve met anyone yet who comes to the show for a hat rather than the music.”

Though Leap was largely completed before the pandemic, the inevitable delay to its release allowed Bay to continue writing songs for it through 2021, working on one track, Save Your Love, over Zoom with Finneas. Billie Eilish’s brother and producer even revealed he’d been a fan of Bay as far back as 2016 when he attended an intimate ‘in conversation’ appearance Bay made in LA. “He was in college at the time,” Bay says. “And I was like, argh, you’re so young! Agony!”

He's now aware releasing an album means heading back out on the road, into the spotlight and away from his girlfriend and baby again, perhaps risking a return to the crisis of confidence that threatened to overwhelm him in 2019.

“What I was going through then, will happen again,” he says. “It goes in cycles so it’s going to be something to navigate. The horrible reality is I’ll feel some of that again because I’m not really any different from 2019. But I’m trying to take the chance to talk more and see the opportunities that life is offering.”

 Leap is out on July 8. James Bay is playing festivals throughout summer and tours the UK in November