Colin James - (laughing) Yeah, the last few weeks have been a little crazy.

John - You just got back from the Western Canadian Music Awards. It must be fun networking and seeing old friends at events like that?

Colin - Well, yeah I've been around a while now and I see people I haven't seen in a long time, familiar faces and young up and comers so I can see what's on the buzz. It was great and I had a really good time.

John - I have to tell you, I love your site. You have a wicked website man.

Colin - Thanks. We had a site that was cool before that but it didn't do anything plus it had a lot of flash so if you didn't have high speed so this new one is great. I'm really pleased with what they've done. We've only been up for two weeks and we're selling a fair amount of records.

John - Well, it looks like a newspaper there's lots there. Okay, this new album I have to tell you your version of Nick Drake's "Black-Eyed Dog" scared me. (laughing)

Colin - (laughing) What do you mean?

John - (laughing) I feel that's the most brilliant thing you've ever done! Your vocal is breathtaking!

Colin - (laughing) Thanks.

John - Your voice really resonates. How did you mic up for that song?

Colin - It was all mic'd with super live mics to the point that there were no punching in ability and if you blew it in the middle of the take the take was over. We had two huge room mics, two very sensitive Neumann's (prounounced Noyman) and we had a bunch of room mic's as well. We also had a computer generated heartbeat that half way through kind of became our feet. It was really a getting in the zone thing with me, Jeff Trott and Craig Northey. We just kind of sat down got into the vibe, closed all the windows, lit some candles and I know it sounds a little hippie dippie but we really tried to get there to that special spot. When the song ended everyone was kind of in a trance. It's probably because we were all concentrating so hard not to make a mistake. (laughing) So, it was all about the vocal because I couldn't screw up. Actually, there's one vocal on the album that if I had my way I would of tried to redo but my producer (Mark Howard) convinced me that it's the performance that matters not the really tiny stuff.

John - Well, years after you're dead and gone my friend (laughing) people will remember "Black-Eyed Dog."

Colin - And it is the universal language of death.

John - Yeah, Nice segue.

Colin - (laughing) Yeah, it's about death comes knockin.' It does have a spooky lyric and my kids won't listen to it.

John - (laughing) Is that right?

Colin - Yeah, it freaks them right out.

John - You've been on an interesting journey with the Blues. At times it's right there in your little bag of tricks then your relationship seems to change with the genre.

Colin - You know I've always strove to keep things fresh and not fall into a rut and I hate the idea of repeating myself over and over again plus you change as you grow too. When I was a younger kid I loved the Blues. That's all I wanted to hear and when I was sixteen up to twenty-five I was a purest and anything else was bullshit to me. Then you start loosing that holier than thou thing and let more music in. I love the Blues but if someone told me that all I was going to sing were Muddy Waters songs for the rest of my life I'd cry! I love him to death but you have to grow.

John - Well, you're on a journey.

Colin - Yeah.

John - And a journey is not about staying in the same place.

Colin - Exactly. It's about pushing yourself as a writer, pushing yourself as a singer so if you're going to sing soul soulful try to sing it with even more soul. I've been really lucky that I've been able to thread that needle because it's not always that easy for people who want to change styles. So, I've been lucky because a lot of people who know what I'm about have let me do that without abandoning me.

John - I heard an interview with Pat Metheny years ago where the interviewer asked him how he knew that he was progressing as a guitarist. He just said that the Pat Metheny of ten years ago couldn't have recorded his latest album. It wouldn't have occured to him. Could the Colin James of ten years ago have recorded that cover of "Black-Eyed Dog?"

Colin - Well, no I probably couldn't have cut it in the first place. I wouldn't have gotten it. You know the guys I aspire to like Van Morrison, who's my ultimate hero. Well, he just gets more soulful all the time. He sang "Into the mystic" beautifully years ago but listen to his new records he still sings as wonderfully and as soulful.

John - He also crosses genres. He's back to Jazz now. He just signed with Telarc for a few albums. Here's a guy who is really on a journey.

Colin - Oh, absolutely. He's been the soul guy, he's been the Johnny Lee Hooker guy, he's been the mystic and the pseudo religious guy and he's done it all great. Look at the body of work he has behind him now and he didn't just stick to one thing. Religiously, he was all over the place (laughing) One minute he's thanking Gurdjieff (pronounced "gur-jeef" or "gur-jeff"), and the next minute he's thanking L. Ron Hubbard. God knows where all that came from but as I always say what ever gets you through the night.

John - Hey, nice segue again. (laughing)

Colin - (laughing)

John - Well, you didn't cover "Whatever Gets you Through the Night" but "I'm Losing You." That's such a natural Blues song.

Colin - It really is.

John - It's your first Lennon cover right?

Colin - Yes it was.

John - Was that a challenge for you because it was a Lennon song?

Colin - Well, there's a certain hallowed ground just like the Hendrix song was and you know when I did Otis Redding I got some flack. Not really bad flack but people saying, "How can you have the gull to do "These Arms of Mine." Some people get pretty serious about that kind of stuff and some people don't care. "I'm Losing You" was just a great guitar vehicle and I certainly didn't think it would be the first single out of the shute.

John - "Make a Mistake" is going to Adult Contemporary and Smooth Jazz radio right?

Colin - Yeah and that's a format I've never been on in my life so it's kind of cool.

John - The journey continues right?

Colin - Yeah, I'm really pleased it's so great to get to a new bunch of people. For me at this point of my life to reach out to people that may or may not have followed me makes me happy.

John - "Make a Mistake" has such a smooth Soul/retro feel.

Colin - Craig (Northey) and I set out to write a kind of soulful "If You Don't Know Me By Now" type of ballad and originally we called it something else. We had the chords and knew the music was good but we couldn't nail down the chorus. Originally, it was going to be called "Three Minutes with You" or something like that. So, I phoned Craig up and said this title is just not cutting it. So we spend a whole day working on the title and finally "Make a Mistake" seemed to work so we went from there. It's a pleasure to sing live on stage and it has that old feel but it's not stuck in the mud either so it's contemporary in its own way.