James-Henry Sweetnam’s new track “Fools” is a song about growing up in a small town–about childhood innocence and the young men who are clinging onto their youth while the world is asking them to grow up, and the video reflects that in its carefree nature.
As Sweetnam peruses how we should go about finding a balance between growing up and nurturing our inner child, it’s exemplary of an artist finding his space and voice, and bodes great things for his future songwriting.
The track was created after Sweetnam went back to his home town, Greyton, to visit his childhood friends. They them challenged themselves to record and produce an entire song within one week, and although unsure of what to write about at first, he cleverly decided to write what he knew and channel his childhood.
“During that first week, in which we had challenged ourselves to record and produce the song, we were recording everyday in my friend’s bedroom,” Sweetnam says. “I edited and produced it during the day as well. At night we would get together with the rest of the friends and drink too much beer and act like fools. The drums were MIDI and the bass was my electric guitar, pitched down.”
“We were determined to release the song as it was after that week. However, once we heard it we knew we had something special and that the song deserved a better treatment,” he explans. “After that we recorded live drums at SAE, where I was studying sound production at the time. We also added real bass and re-recorded the vocals multiple times. The only element that remains from the first week is the acoustic guitar.”
Said guitar was Sweetnam’s friend’s old beat up one, held together with cellotape, that they used to take with them on hikes and camps. “I felt we needed something that was authentic to the friend group and this felt like the perfect element for that. So it doesn’t sound like a million bucks, but it certainly has character,” he laughs. And that’s the thinking of a savvy songwriter if I ever heard one.
