Tim Booth Clarified His New Album Is Not About Donald Trump

Singer Tim Booth made it very clear that his band James’ latest album, Living in Extraordinary Times, is not an album about Donald Trump.The opening track Hank makes no attempt to pretend it’s anything other than a full-on musical assault on the Trump administration.

Alternative rock band James are preparing to release a new album, Living In Extraordinary Times, which is partly inspired by the President of the United States.

One of the tracks, titled Hank, references fascists in the White House while Booth states his disdain for Mr Trump’s stance on women and minorities.And he believes the rise of Mr Trump and the far-right means the world stands at a similar point to 1930s Europe when Hitler cast a shadow over the continent.

As someone who has joint UK-US nationality and has lived in California for the past decade, Booth has strong opinions on the US president.

Booth insists that – despite the lyrics “Fake news divides to conceal/History’s rich get to keep whatever they steal – Heads is actually positive in its outlook.

Booth said , “The second half of that songs is ‘Here’s the dream, ivory tapestry, dovetailing empathy’. I also go on about Mycelium – mushrooms create this underground network that links vegetation.

“If a tree is lacking in minerals, through this underground root system, one tree will give the minerals to the other tree that is dying. It’s a sharing system.So within that song that starts out quite aggressively addressing the status quo, it says ‘Here’s the dream, this is what we want where there’s enough for everyone’.

“It’s a very positive statement, so James are always, I think in the end, a hopeful band.”

The new album also touches on the profoundly personal with the track Coming Home (Pt 2), which Tim says is an absent father’s apology to his children and is a sequel of sorts to Come Home from James’ seminal 1990 album Gold Mother.

Speaking at his home in Los Angeles, he told the Press Association: “There are only two songs directly about Trump’s America. I don’t like political songs, generally. I don’t listen to them. And I find I’ve probably written about four in my life.

“But when there’s a level of racism and misogyny and just blatant, blatant lying and yet he can hypnotise at least 40%, it feels like we’re in the 1930s in Europe, where anything can happen. There could be a takeover. It feels like he’s that dangerous to democracy.

“I see him as an incredibly dangerous man for the planet. Because America is the most powerful country in the world and to have the head of that country, somebody who is so un-self-aware, narcissistic, unthinking and un-self-conscious in the right meaning of the world.