James Blake's dad

Most people will have read by now the James Blake interview in yesterday's Guardian. In it we find out some interesting things. First off, Blake makes a veiled reference to his dad being in the music business. We read that his dad doesn't want to "get involved", but he does mention that he played one of his dad's records when he guested on Rob Da Bank's Radio 1 show a while back. Guardian scribbler Alex Needham suggests it might therefore be James Litherland, who played with people like Leo Sayer in the 70s.

If so, this would be him:



Later in the interview, Blake explains the need he feels to make clear he is "for real" in being a genuine part of the dubstep circuit - something that it had never occurred to me to wonder. He tells Needham: "I've got a lot of friends in the dubstep scene. I mean, I'm in it!" This appears to be a defence prompted by Needham's line of questioning - which seems to hint that as Blake is white and not on the breadline, it's possible he is just a middle-class university boy piggy-backing on someone else's music. The Eminem of dubstep, maybe. I don't see that - indeed, I'm sure it's merely a conceit on Needham's part. When Blake emerged last year, his low key, moody, wordless tunes scarcely hinted at populism. It was only the Feist cover that could possibly have led to the suspicion that he was after the Radio 1 crowd, as Needham, playing devil's advocate, suggests.
But if I'm right about the potential of this chap Blake, he will be a big, big name once his album comes out. As Alex Petridis suggests, his sound is not mainstream, and the Radio 1 popheads will not necessarily "get it". But - stating the obvious - lots of other people buy music - and I sense that the indie crowd will love it, as well as those with an interest in the underground.

Blake also appears to have been pretty late in catching on to dubstep, or electronic music generally. It was only at 19 - he's 23 now, I think - that he first came to appreciate it's power. He says:

"The DJ played a Coki track called Haunted, and it took me so far into my own head that I couldn't work out how it was happening," he says fervently. Before then, Blake hadn't even considered electronic music as a serious art form. "When I thought of dance music I thought of trance."



In the interview, he also name-checks Mala, but hints at his broad sensibilities by talking of his love of Bonnie Prince Billy and Arthur Russell.

And as for the sandwich at the top, Needham tells us that Blake spends much of the interview eyeing his sarnie enviously as he tackles the hack's questions.

That's what you get when your news ed asks for colour.

Read the interview here