When Jim Glennie, bassist of JAMES, talks about the beginning, he doesn’t romanticise it. “We appeared just post-punk”, he says, settling into the memory. Punk had blown the doors off everything, and in its wake came a strange, fertile openness: “everything was wiped clean at that point…you could be anything”. He was a sponge then, in the 80s, soaking up The Fall, Joy Division, The Pop Group, Gang of Four, Pere Ubu, even early Human League with their stark screens and video art. It was a period of discovery that felt bottomless, the kind of era where stumbling into a new band could rearrange your entire sense of what music could be. “That's why festivals are so wonderful”, he adds, “you never know what you’re going to find”.

Those early influences didn’t fade so much as deepen. He still carries The Fall’s stubborn northern spirit, their refusal to play by the industry’s rules: “spiked and edged and weird and rough but wonderful”, he says, almost affectionately. And then there’s Peter Hook (Joy Division, New Order) - his “joy and inspiration” - whose lead-guitar approach to bass cracked something open in him. “You can be whatever and whoever you want on this instrument,” Glennie says: “don’t just follow what everyone else does”. The bass, he insists, is widely underrated: “it can be structural, melodic, and expressive… if you let it. There are no rules or guidelines in music”. 

What’s striking is how little of that early spirit has left him - the stubbornness, the curiosity, the risk appetite, they're all still there - you can hear it when he talks about the band’s relationship with their audience. “We don’t play by the rule book”, he says, “you have to be a bit selfish”. For JAMES, relevance isn’t about chasing trends but staying emotionally honest—Frontman Tim Booth’s lyrics - political, personal, unflinching - anchor that honesty. And the band's refusal to perform ‘Sit Down’ for years wasn’t contrarianism; it simply didn’t feel right: “it felt weird and wrong to play something you don’t want to”, Jim says. But after COVID, the song’s message of solidarity hit differently: “it became relatable to us once again…it was a shared experience between us and our fans and the world”. 

That instinct for connection shapes everything, especially their live shows. Glennie lights up when he talks about the chaos of changing the setlist every night: “we want that feat and that risk”. Big arenas demand a different kind of reach; intimate rooms offer immediacy; festivals require adaptability: “people may not have turned up to see you - so what do you do?” You read the room, you pivot, you trust your instincts. Even the lighting technician becomes part of the improvised show, shifting colours and moods in real time as the band veers off script: “we’re all connected in a way by playing in this fluid way”.

This sense of connection extends inward, too. The band’s six-year split looms large in Glennie’s memory - not as a wound, but as a turning point. “We were so uptight and pains in the ass”, he admits, but working with Brian Eno helped loosen them, teaching them to embrace spontaneity, to let go of rigid plans. When they reunited, they did so as different people, older, wiser, and more appreciative: “it was such a delicate, precious thing to us all; we came back determined not to let it happen again”.

When asked what was to blame for setting his musical journey in motion, he laughs - a warm, self-deprecating sound. He wasn't interested in music at all as a kid - it was his best friend Paul, newly punk-obsessed with dyed hair and big ideas, who declared they were starting a band and that Glennie was to be the bass player. Glennie, however, had never touched an instrument. At fifteen, his mum fronted him the money for a second-hand bass and amp, and two weeks later they played their first gig at the British Legion: “we were absolutely appalling”, he says, grinning: “but after that, I was addicted”. Every gig he could get into, he went - “so Paul is to blame”.

There’s a steadiness to Jim Glennie, a clarity that comes from decades of doing the work, losing it, finding it again, and learning to love it differently each time. He talks about music not as mythology but as a craft, a means of connection and sheer stubborn joy. Maybe that’s the secret to JAMES’ longevity: a band that never stopped being curious, never stopped taking risks, and never stopped finding new ways to meet their audience - wherever they happened to be.