James Thomson & The Strange Pilgrims set for new album

For Thomson and the band – lead guitarist Marty Burke, drummer Tim Burns and bass player Craig Rattray – it’s another chance to hone their live show, albeit in front an audience that will bear little resemblance to their dedicated followers at Hunter pubs.

Musicians don’t generally take shows they don’t want; and an all-expenses paid jaunt to Malaysia promises to be an adventure. Plus, there’s a second leg, with band flying into Western Australia on the way home for shows in Perth and notably at the Nannup Music Festival in the south-western corner of the state.

Once back to the Hunter Region, the Newcastle musos will focus on recording an album before the end of June.

Thomson has already put out two albums – his eponymous debut, 15 originals soaked in acoustic blues, followed by Cold Moon in 2015 – a sleeker product with 12 songs (11 originals), pushing into the arena of alt country/Americana. 

The next album holds promise of reaching a wider audience, partially based on the band’s extensive touring and growing reputation, but mostly on the power of Thomson and his band getting tighter after a year of solid touring, spending studio time on a demo of new songs and understanding one another’s strengths.

While Rattray and Burns have worked with Thomson for quite a while, lead guitarist Marty Burke is the newest recruit and biggest influence on the band’s direction.

Burke is a member of The Lairs, one of Australia’s wildest rockabilly bands. After a show at the Carrington Bowling Club last year featuring Thomson, The Lairs and Chris Wilson, talk turned to Thomson needing a guitarist for a quick run to Byron and Brisbane.

“We were sitting around bleary-eyed around midnight and I said ‘you ought to come on our tour’ and he said ‘yeah’,” as Thomson recalls.

With Burke as a permanent fixture with great style and flair, it has taken some weight off Thomson as guitarist and singer.

Thomson can feel the evolution.

‘“It comes back, to my writing acoustically in room, but not being able to transfer that live or in studio. It’s always been easier for me to write that way.

“With the band, with this current lineup, for some reason it works live and in the studio. I don’t know if it is the chemistry. It’s hard to describe.”

On stage, the band has become more daring, exploring rock and rockabilly without losing it’s bluesy country tinge. 

“Dynamically, we can pull that off,” Thomson tries to explain. “Not just wind it up and let it go for five minutes. We’re actually really thinking about parts and arranging things.

“I think the way Marty plays is little bit like, it’s not like we’re all playing the same thing up to a solo and then Marty plays a solo. We’re trying to really, from a melodic and harmonic point of view with the guitars, have something that co-exists, rather than we are both playing the G chord and then the C chord and then the D chord and then go for it. Maybe, it’s something more musical.

“On some songs it has evolved quite naturally.”

Burke, a long-time musician, is enjoying the ride with the Strange Pilgrims (named by Thomson after a Gabriel Garcia Marquez compilation book of short stories). “Nobody writes songs in the bands I’m in,” he says. “Nobody’s actually serious about songwriting.”

Thomson’s first paid gig was a decade ago at the Hamilton Station Hotel.

“I played solo with a guitar, doing Lou Reed and Beatles songs,” he says. "I did have my own songs, but I had nowhere near the confidence to sing them. I suppose that is something that really has evolved. It was happening anyway over time – trusting the songs. The band has really accelerated that.

“I think that because I was naturally a shy person I was not, in some ways, not really suited to being up on stage. It took a while. But hey, I really enjoy this. And that’s alright, I’m allowed to.”

That newfound trust has seen the band revisit some of the songs off Thomson’s first album, which highlighted his words and vocals, but took no chances musically. Somethin’ Bout A Fast Train, Not For You (Odds & Ends), and Postcard from that album have been reworked with rich textures from the band. 

The creative juices saw them lay down demos for another handful of tracks last winter that have become part of their show, notably Sunday Girl and Friend (“People come up to us and say what ‘Stones album is that off of,” Burke laughs.)

There remain some tight songs off Cold Moon on the playlist, like Heartless, Runaway Heart and Highway Nights.

The musos are all fans of the Rolling Stones. In this discussion, over beers at Lass O’Gowrie Hotel, there’s talk of the Stones legendary album Exile on Main St, and how hard they worked to record it organically. It weaves into a conversation about having a producer push them hard on their next album, the desire to record as a band rather than one instrument at a time.

The dream: get a new album under their belt and take aim at bigger goals. But, they will do it their own way, with their own music and sound.

For Thomson, it all comes from the same place: “I think there is something primally human in blues and country music that everyone, most people, regardless of age or sex, can respond to.”