Jake Bugg: 'I’m just playing to my strengths a little more'
He was the youthful troubadour, besotted with Bob Dylan, feted by the likes of Noel Gallagher and Paul Weller, who released his debut album at the tender age of 18.
Twelve years on, as Jake Bugg enters his thirties, the singer-songwriter from Nottingham has come full circle with his sixth album A Modern Day Distraction. Gone is the dalliance with contemporary pop which coloured its predecessor, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning. Gone too are the acoustic musings of the record before that, Hearts That Strain.
Here, as on his self-titled debut album from 2012 and its successor Shangri La, is a full-blooded emphasis on folk, blues and rock ’n’ roll with a social conscience.
“As nice as it was to experiment with the last couple of records, I really enjoyed it, I worked with some great people and there were some great collaborations, I felt like it was time to go back to the music that I grew up playing and to the influences that I loved growing up,” Bugg tells The Yorkshire Post. “I’m just playing to my strengths a little more, to be honest, and not shying away from guitar. It feels like a natural progression from the first couple of records, I think.”
He’s honest enough to admit that there have been misfires along the way. “Every record you make you think it’s your best one and it’s not until it’s released and you look back in hindsight (you realise that) it’s not always the case. You never know what’s going to happen,” he says.
The album’s title derives from a line in the song Instant Satisfaction. Bugg, who grew up on the working-class Clifton housing estate in Nottingham, says he was keen to address things that he’d seen going on in people’s lives during the cost of living crisis.
“It’s something that I observed from people back home or I grew up with, it kind of frustrated me in a way,” he says. “I guess the whole record is trying to highlight some of those societal issues that have been happening. It’s not just people I know, a lot of people are in the same boat. Instinctively it felt like I needed to address some of those things on this record.”
Bugg says he remains “in contact with most people that I went to school with and family” in Nottingham and has seen the financial struggles that many are experiencing. “It just feels like a vicious cycle of pretty much working to live, and I think it’s not fair,” he says. “For someone like me, I’m incredibly lucky to do the thing I love for a job and I wish that everybody had the same opportunity to follow their own passion.”
Social commentary has often been a part of the folk and blues music that Bugg grew up with, yet for a time he was conscious that many people listen to music as “escape” from a troubled world.
“I avoided such topics for a while, I wanted it to be more of an escape and not a reminder of the actual reality around us,” he says. “With this record, it just felt like the right time to pick up on that. I was listening back to Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ record, which I hadn’t listened to for years, and what a great record that is, it’s just him and a guitar and the stories are absolutely brilliant. I definitely am inspired by those sorts of singer-songwriters, for sure.”
As he’s got older, Bugg has come to realise that “people want to feel that they’re not the only ones” with struggles in their lives. “They want lyrics and songs they can relate and they see themselves in and in some way it makes them feel they’re not alone,” he says.
To that end, he follows politics as much as he can. “I think it’s incredibly important to be aware of what is happening around you, and not just in our won country but also in the world as well,” he says. “It’s incredibly frustrating, I wake up most mornings and getting annoyed, which is probably not the healthiest thing, but I do pay an interest in it.”
Quarrels on social media he finds taxing, though. “It’s not a place for debate, people don’t talk like that in real life,” he sighs. “Someone tweets that they like custard creams and someone will complain that digestives are round, it’s absolutely ridiculous. When it comes to that kind of world, I think one more voice is just going to add fuel to the fire. But if I’m asked about my opinions, I try to give an honest answer, but not on social media.”
He cites the Green Day album American Idiot as a key inspiration for A Modern Day Distraction. It was, he says, a pivotal record when he was growing up. “American Idiot was massive, I think I was about 13 or 14 diving in,” he says. “I bought a skateboard and that just hit at that time. A few of my friends were into it as well, but I was kind of obsessed. I think as I’ve got older and listened to it again it is still a great record. (Billie Joe Armstrong) was just singing about the truth and that’s what a lot of people of that age could relate to.”
Bugg is grateful for the escape that music has provided him from his late teens. “That’s pretty much why I’ve never stopped,” he says. “I feel like music has given me a life beyond my own comprehension. I feel like I just have to give everything back, I’m very grateful for the opportunity it’s given me. I wouldn’t know what to do if I ever stopped.”
A Modern Day Distraction is out now. Jake Bugg plays at O2 Academy Leeds on November 18. https://www.jakebugg.com/