Big Valley Jamboree: James Barker Band interview

Ahead of their Saturday set at the Big Valley Jamboree country music festival in Camrose, James Barker of the James Barker Band chatted with The Gateway about their upcoming album, and their recent single. 

“We’ve been doing this for a minute. We were young when we did that first album, and we’ve matured in certain ways, but we’ve also learned that we maybe are just going to be immature the rest of our lives,” Barker said. He added that the band considered digging deeper in an emotional sense, but in the end, felt it wasn’t who they were. 

“We’re just small town dudes who like to have fun, drink beer, and hangout. And I feel this album reflects that. We don’t usually take ourselves too seriously. Even when we do talk about more serious stuff like heartbreak, it’s in a pretty light-hearted way,” he explained. 

The new record is also inspired by a range of sounds. “As a group, we all grew up with pretty different musical backgrounds. There’s a lot more pop, more rock, and even a little bit of blues and classic rock,” Barker said. 

“There’s so many country fans, and they’re actually country fans. It just hits different,” Barker says

And while there’s a range of inspiration instrumentally for the band, for Barker, it’s mainly country. “When we first started the band, we did more rock, but it didn’t matter what I did, how I write and sing, because I was raised on George Strait and Alan Jackson, I feel like I can’t not sing and sound country. It doesn’t matter if we put it over heavy guitars or pop beats, it would still sound country,” Barker explained. 

And he said he feels there is a benefit to it. “It pulls things back to feeling like country. And it gives the rest of the group some wide variety to choose instrumentally.”

And with this being the band’s first record release in some time, Barker said it’s a very different experience. 

He compared it to a book in that individual songs are the chapters, and the record as a whole contains the ideas presented. 

On playing an Albertan country set, Barker said there’s a lot of genuine appreciation for the genre. “We love Alberta. It’s so country based. There’s so many country fans, and they’re actually country fans. It just hits different.” 

Post-release, the band expects to come back to Edmonton.