OCBS: James where did you grow up?
WBJ: I grew up in Compton, Paramount and Cerritos. I spent summers in Kentucky with my mom’s whole side of the family. It was a really, really rural area of Edmonson County about 40 miles southwest of Mammoth Caves. I spent my summers there from the time I was 9 until I was 16.
OCBS: You were a teenager when?
WBJ: The eighties, the early eighties.
OCBS: What got you interested in music?
WBJ: I had an Uncle named Edd Tunks, he owned a produce market in Garden Grove. My dad would drop me off over there on weekends. My uncle was a guy who used to play guitar in some bands in the thirty’s and forty’s. He said he played for Bob Wills for a while, I don’t think he did but he said that. He had all these really cool records and he used to teach me about music and play me his old records. He was a grouchy, crochity old fucker and I was one of the only people he liked and I was probably one of the only people who liked him.
OCBS: Who were your musical influences?
WBJ: Cab Calloway, Louis Jordan, Johnny « Guitar » Watson, my uncle Edd Tunk,Phil Alvin and James Harmon
OCBS: Anyone other than your uncle who was instrumental in your musical development?
WBJ: No, not really. My brother played and a bunch of my cousins in Kentucky played but they never really showed me anything. They weren’t any kind of huge influence on me.
OCBS: What are your first musical memories?
WBJ: My mom playing records and stuff.
OCBS: What is the best record you ever owned?
WBJ: Oh man, I had a lot of really cool records. When my uncle died he left me all his records. He had a shitload of 78’s, I had seven or eight crates of them. Everything from western swing to fifties rock and roll and everything in between. A record I really liked in the early seventies was the American Graffiti record.
OCBS: Back in the early days, what kind of material were you playing?
WBJ: Blues, swing, rockabilly. Pretty much the same stuff as I play now.
OCBS: How old were you when you started to play music?
WBJ: I started learning how to play when I was 10, 11, 12. I started playing in bands when I was 14.
OCBS: You were doing live performances at 14?
WBJ: Yeah
OCBS: Where
WBJ: Any place I could, parties, little bars. I started playing in clubs when I was 16. I was always big and bald so it was pretty easy. Nobody ever questioned how old I was.
OCBS: What was your first band called?
WBJ: The Moonlight Wranglers.
OCBS: What was the most embarrassing song you ever played?
WBJ: Rock around the clock, I hate doing those kind of standards.
OCBS: What was the first instrument you ever played?
WBJ: Guitar, no probably piano.
OCBS: Why the Blues?
WBJ: I like it. It talks about life and what happens. Everyday life, good things, bad things, happy things, sad things. I can talk about what’s going on in my life and let everything out, it’s like therapy every time I play.
OCBS: Is there a particular genre of Blues that you call your own?
WBJ: We are lumped into what they call West Coast Swing, it’s just music to me. It’s American music, it’s a little bit of everything. OCBS: How come the Blues seems to last?
WBJ: I think it’s because it talks about life, about things everybody experience
OCBS: How does a white guy deliver an authentic blues experience?
WBJ: Same way a Chinese guy does, by tellin’ the truth. I believe if you’re singing about something that happened to you, something that’s real, something you experienced it’s going to get through in a way that says, « This isn’t bullshit » like you’re singing about something you’ve never done or someplace you’ve never been. It’s a lie to sing about something you’ve never done or someplace you’ve never been.
OCBS: When you write a song are you writing a story or are you writing the music first? What’s the process for you?
WBJ: It works both ways, most of the time it’s a story I’m telling. The music and the story come kind of at the same time.Every once in a while some kind of little musical hook will pop in and then something will wrap around it. Usually it’s kind of around the same time. I sit there with a guitar and come up with something and keep working it over until it works.
OCBS: Do you collaborate with anyone when you write or is it a solo effort?
WBJ: It starts out with just me and then I usually get with one of my guitar player friends after that and mess with it a little more. The final product is a collaborative effort engineered by me.
OCBS: Why White Boy James, other than the obvious?
WBJ: It’s just a nickname that stuck when I was younger.
OCBS: What do you like most about being a musician?
WBJ: I like everything about it, I like the people, I like the other musicians, I like the way people look when you’re playing. I like making people feel good.
OCBS: What do you like least about being a musician?
WBJ: Club owners.
OCBS: What was the best rumor ever started about you?
WBJ: Probably one of the ones where I died, anybody who knows me knows that I’ve never been dead for more than a couple of minutes.
OCBS: People have the idea in their heads that musicians party non-stop, any comment?
WBJ: It’s not like that. It’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of stress, there’s a lot of bullshit, logistics and work that go into a just a little bit of performing. I not a very good businessman, I have a low tolerance for bullshit.
OCBS: Would you share any personal life experiences that got in the way of making music?
WBJ: I had a heroin addiction problem for about twenty two years, that got in the way. Went to prison for almost five years from 2001 to 2005, that got in the way a little bit.
OCBS: How were you able to rise above those experiences?
WBJ: I realized that’s not what I wanted to become or who I was even though I ended up there. There’s real criminals in there, it made me realize that’s not where I wanted to be.
OCBS: When was the first version of White Boy James and the Blues Express?
WBJ: 1989, Scott Abeyta was in that one too. Things changed and the other players went on to other bands.
OCBS: Tell me about the current White Boy James and the Blues Express
WBJ: Scott Abeyta on guitar (he also runs Rip Cat Records),Blake Watson on bass, Max Bangwell on drums; it’s a great line-up.
OCBS: What is the future of White Boy James?
WBJ: I want to travel more, I want to go overseas, the music does really good over there. I want to travel the U.S. more. I’ve got a bunch of new material, I’ve got enough material for three new CD’s right now. I’m in the Screen Actors Guild, I do voices for video games. I want to be in films, it’s gonna happen. They’re grooming me to play bad guys and weirdos.
OCBS: Go figure
