P&P Spotlight: Andrew Isbell & Aaron James (EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW)

As supergroups seem to dominate the current era of pop and alternative music, singer-songwriters Andrew Isbell and Aaron James put a unique spin on the concept. With over a decade of experience as a drummer, and numerous collaborations under his belt, Andrew is ready to explore new things he can do with his creativity. Aaron brings his unmatched skill on the guitar to the table, along with his well-developed view of romance, which working on first album helped him sharpen.

Their strong-standing friendship and similar musical styles helped in the making of their brand new song, "Midnight In Marseille." That said, it's unlike anything that either of them have ever done before. Given both of their history in the music industry, one might expect a rock-leaning track with introspective lyrics. But instead, they opted to create something that sounds like it came straight from the soundtrack of a French romance movie. Despite the track's profoundness, and its skillful and phenomenal execution, the creative process was much more natural than it might seem at first glance.

Image credit: Andrew Isbell & Aaron James; graphic created by Karly Ramnani

YOU'LL LOVE ANDREW ISBELL & AARON JAMES IF YOU LISTEN TO: La Femme, HushPuppies, Troye Sivan, Taylor Swift, COIN, lovelytheband, MANESKIN, Imagine Dragons

Andrew, your musical journey has spanned so many years and had several chapters to it - what inspired such a creative shift, into what we're hearing from you now?

ANDREW: I've found that I really enjoy producing, and I really enjoy the studio and writing, because you get to get in the room with certain people. Aaron would be a great example. When we're in that room and we're making a song, you've got a whole little world that's locked in there, and you can do whatever you want and play around in that and have fun, and there's no boundaries. I really like to be the one steering that ship, because it's fun to watch. Aaron's an amazing artist, and I've worked with a lot of really fun people. They come through and they've got all these ideas, and I'm so fascinated by the way that people's brains work. My job is to help bring those things out. And sometimes in this case, my job is to be a part of it. It's just fun. I get a little glimpse into different sections of humanity, that's kind of what it feels like to me. It's special in this case with Aaron, just because we've been friends for so long.

Why do you guys feel that this particular song fits best with the current season of your lives?

AARON: I released an album this past fall. It was my first ever album, called Nobody Really Makes Love Anymore. It's definitely a COVID baby - I had been working on it for 2+ years and it was just this unfathomably large undertaking. Not just as a physical project, but emotionally and mentally, it encapsulated a pretty large phase of my life. This is the first song I'm releasing past that. I feel like I was definitely in a mindset where I just did this big thing. I wrapped up this huge all-encompassing idea. Now, I'm kind of starting from scratch and not knowing exactly what direction I wanted to pivot in, what changes I wanted to make, kind of what new stories I wanted to tell or new things and themes I wanted to focus on. I think a lot of that came from also not being totally sure where I was at in my life at the time. And I think that's what music is for me. It's just kind of like a means to reflect and a means to kind of understand myself and the world around us.

The first person I thought to turn to in that time of trying to figure things out and trying to do something different was Andrew. Just because we have been friends for a long time. He's someone whose work and whose character I trust beyond explanation and just kind of going and making I live in Memphis but kind of making these little weekend trips to Nashville to kind of just write and sort of hang out and kind of see what comes out. And then this was one of the songs that ended up coming out from that and it kind of ended up being something we were both incredibly proud of. And I feel feel like it became very important to me because it was sort of like the stepping stone into this new sort of chapter. I kind of closed the door on this whole thing I'd been working on and put so much of myself into. And this was kind of like the first step into me realizing, okay, this is where I'm at. This is kind of what I'm interested in, what I want to focus on and the things that mean a lot to me.

Outside of your friendship, how do you feel as though your two distinctive musical styles came together for "Midnight in Marseille"?

AARON: I think it was a unique moment for us to meet, in that we were both sort of figuring out our styles and our next steps, in terms of what kind of artists we wanted to be. So there wasn't really any sort of like, "I do indie folk and you do rock, so let's form a super band." It was just kind of like, "Hey, we're both kind of figuring this out. Let's just kind of see what happens." And we just both happened to express ourselves in a way that was conducive to making a song that, as we all agree, slaps in its own way.

ANDREW: That song, to me, stands out even from my own work. And most of my own work recently has been for other artists as well. So this kind of feels like if I were to produce an Aaron James song, but also we wrote it together. That kind of changes the aesthetic for me a little bit as well, because it's like we built that little world together. But it also was nice not to, in the same way, make a catalog-specific song or a genre-specific song. We truly just were hanging out and we were watching French movies. I think we were talking a lot about Wes Anderson, and the color yellow, and all of these interesting conversations that were centered in that first weekend. Then that just became the theme.

I've never written anything not autobiographical until this song, and I really like it. I find myself more attached to it, and less exhausted to listen to this song after it being done, because I was able to build something outside of my mental state. I'm very much enjoying that. I don't know if that will continue to be the case that I do, but for right now, it's kind of a nice little breather.

AARON: Dude, that is extremely interesting because I don't think I've done that either. I have songs that are about friends, or maybe people I've known or know, maybe talking about their stories a little bit. But this song is completely imaginary. It's not necessarily about might have been inspired. Maybe we could search back and tie it to a [specific] person. But I don't think either of us sat down and thought, "We're going to write about this person or this situation." It was a romantic, imaginary sort of thing. And I don't typically do that either. I don't know if there's something there that we haven't figured out yet, but that's kind of weird that we are.

I love that! It reminds me of Taylor Swift in a sense, because the pandemic caused her to start writing fictional stories in her songs, and up to that point it was mostly autobiographical for her too.

ANDREW: Yeah!

Could you give us a little more context on the writing process, and where the song came from?

ANDREW: We were talking about paintings, and I think I had just gone to a Picasso exhibit around that time. Paintings are intriguing to me. So we were talking about the idea of seeing someone out in public - you see a person, and you think that person does not need any other interaction than just this moment. Like seeing someone out in the wild, or on the beach or on the street. And it's almost like a perfect little snapshot. If you could grab the painting, like this individual is in this frame. The picture is complete. It doesn't need anything else to make it better. We were kind of rolling with the idea, of looking at a painting of a woman on the beach at a museum, and kind of that framework for writing this song.

AARON: I think I was coming at it from a similar place. The project I had released before this [Nobody Really Makes Love Anymore] was heavily inspired by a lot of early 2000s romantic movies and stuff, that I would be watching as well as tapping into past relationships. I think there are a lot of themes when it comes to romance, whether it's movies or whatever, where it's like two people needing something. Or people being meant for each other. That's all that's very beautiful, and I'm not trying to disparage that. but it's like one person needs the other person. If I'm being super honest, a lot of times it's like a man finding a woman and the woman is, like, the missing link for him or whatever. I kind of liked the idea of [having] no missing link - the picture is complete.

Definitely! I love how songs like this shed light on the broadness of the concept of love - and that it can appear in so many different ways. Could you take us through your world building process a little more?

AARON: I think the world building was honestly the funnest part, just because it was very much a Wes Anderson vibe, which is very funny now, [because] he's trending on TikTok months later. And tomorrow Asteroid City releases everywhere.

But I definitely was treating this song as if we were literally making it [for] a soundtrack, like we had on The French Dispatch just in the background for a while. It wasn't like we were sitting and watching them, they were just kind of going as we were making it. To me, it was kind of like a reference of, "Okay, could I hear this? Does this go along with what's happening in the movie? Does this fit the vibe of what's going on? Does this fit cinematically into what we're seeing?"

ANDREW: I think they stayed on for the entire 48 hours. They were just back and forth on mute. It happened very naturally, we weren't trying very hard. I remember walking into the studio that morning and being like, "Hey, we need a song together. We've never sang a song together. Let's do it." Whenever I'm producing, I feel like there's always a certain moment where musically something happens in the room, and then I'm just like, "I got it. I know where we're going." It just zooms in on a vibe or an idea.

That was just where we were going to be for the day, and it was awesome. Those little guitar parts there, at the very beginning of the song, were also the very first thing that we made in the writing process. Even more than the lyrics, like, the guitar parts I'm attached to because I remember feeling the aesthetic of the movies plus them. And it was just me, Aaron, and our friend Cooper sitting in the basement studio enjoying that.

Since "Midnight In Marseille" was both of your first time going this far away from autobiographical songwriting, would you guys consider doing it again? Perhaps in the form of a prequel or sequel?

ANDREW: I would love to do it again, but I don't know that I would love to define what we would do again. I think I just had so much fun in the process of making this individual piece, that I think it would be a bummer not to try that certain set of ingredients again, in whatever fashion it is. Naturally, as a human, I want to write more songs with Aaron and Cooper, because it was such a good day. So I don't know if that means that I want to reenter the world of "Midnight In Marseille," and make another French-sounding indie track. I think that I just want to live more in that world, in that batch of ingredients and where we were making it. I think was fun enough to do it again, but I don't know if it would necessarily be a sequel.

AARON: I think if it comes naturally, we'll figure out what to do. But I definitely don't want it to be the last time I'm in the room with Andrew and Cooper creating again, for sure.

ANDREW: I don't think I can pick where this song, specifically, will go. Because in my mind, when a song is done, I'm like, "Sweet, that little world is now closed. And now I will make another one." That's kind of how I view my work. And so with "Midnight In Marseille," I don't really think of it as a continuing work. But what would make me feel very satisfied is if we were able to get a placement in any type of film that feels appropriate for it. I feel like being able to pass that off to a different medium, for another artist to use it in a way that would honor the work, and honor their work, would make me feel so happy.

This song would be perfect for that! Definitely manifesting it for you guys. Since you both are Tennessee-based, how do you feel as though that affect your perspective when writing about Paris? Have either of you been there before?

AARON: I've never been to Paris. I've never been to Europe in general, but I tend to gravitate towards music that's created there, as well as movies and stuff that are made there as well. So I've never been there, so I don't know the culture, but I'm inspired by those things. This sort of natural creation came out that probably could fit over there. I know I've been listening to a lot of Kings of Convenience. They're two acoustic guitar players - there's the harmonizing acoustic guitars, which we did. And it's another kind of music from that area that I really enjoy.

ANDREW: I have been to Paris, but I find myself continually mesmerized by film adaptations about Paris. I don't know what I missed about my experience there. Like, maybe there's something I didn't see. Or maybe I just love the artists who made things representative of Paris. I feel like at least from my side of things, the vibe of the song is much more based off of somebody else's interpretation of France, than my personal interpretation of what that experience would be like.

Definitely! It's fascinating from a different lens.

ANDREW: Yeah! Midnight In Paris with Owen Wilson is one of my favorite movies ever. And it's just so daydreamy, and it talks about all these things that you can discover in a place and artists coming there. I guess it was a big thing for writers to go into Paris, specifically Western writers. It's just an interesting concept to see someone else digging in and finding that gold, which I wonder if that would be the case anywhere. I wonder if someone made an interesting film about Tennessee, if I would like their film version of Tennessee, finding those nuggets of really cool things and pushing it to the surface.

Andrew - before this current chapter we're getting to explore right now, so much of your experience in the music industry has been as a drummer! What speaks to you about this instrument in particular?

ANDREW: I think drums came most naturally to me, and something I particularly enjoy about them is how much of a leader you need to be to be a good drummer. A good drummer is like a traffic director.

So true! And now, to wrap things up with our P&P Classic: what's your favorite lyric from "Midnight In Marseille," how do you personally connect to it, and what was going through your head as you wrote it?

AARON: "Sun-bathed, someday I will hear the way she sings / Rarely melancholy, always in a summer's reach." The first two lines are kind of recognizing that this person is a whole individual, and not someone who has some sort of missing part or romantic misunderstanding about them. But it's also me admitting that maybe I'm not like that yet...and admitting that I don't quite have everything figured out the way I'd like to, but maybe one day I can reach that level of fullness. And the second half I just really like - "always in a summer's reach" is just a cool way of saying that this person is never too far away from joy, light and understanding. If there's anything I hope this song can do, it's to help shift the culture of romanticizing the idea of needing someone else to make you whole, and instead, romanticize the idea of being your own full, confident, individual self.

We hope "Midnight In Marseille" transported you to a surreal fantasy world within Paris, or at least grew your perspective on the meaning of love - it sure did for us! If you're looking to further acquaint yourself with the work of Andrew Isbell and Aaron James, both together and as individual artists, we've curated just the playlist for you.