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Mitch James Has Legions of Fans and Just Toured the World. So Why Is He Giving Up Music?
Mitch James found his audience and had huge prospects not just in Aotearoa but across the globe. But as the singer/songwriter tells Rolling Stone AU/NZ, the deeper he fell into the music industry, the more his integrity was at stake.
As a budding young musician who taught himself guitar as a teenager, Mitch James had endured a commendable slog of trying to make it as a recording artist before he first rose to prominence in music in late 2016.
His efforts included a stint in London, where he’d landed on a one-way ticket bought with money saved up from cleaning cars. Arriving at an £18-a-night hostel, he wasted no time hitting the city streets to showcase his voice.
After countless nights busking, performing at open mic nights, and grasping any opportunity he could, James was plucked from obscurity and pulled back to New Zealand thanks to a nod from Maala, another Kiwi rising star. He travelled home to the welcoming arms of awaiting management who were offering a sweet deal which promised to put his name in lights under a major label record.
Seemingly overnight, his voice was being played on the biggest radio stations – two singles in one month – with a campaign that included radio interviews and social media spotlights. James quickly began to appear on summer festival lineups, and in a matter of months, there were posters scattered around main centres announcing a 10-date tour.
“You’re the new darling child. It’s really incredible to be honest,” James says as he reflects on those early years.
“I had high expectations going into everything, but when I saw the actual results and them blowing away my initial expectations, which were very high, it was like nothing else. But what comes with that is a lot of expectation of ‘you’re a company man’ and ‘you have to do exactly what we say.'”
While many of his contemporaries could strum a guitar in the same manner, few could conjure lyrics as tender as James could.
“Move On” was the follow-up to his first signed release, “No Fixed Abode”; just 20 years old at the time, his innate vulnerability in sharing his own highs and lows quickly captivated fans.
Songs that followed included “21”, “All the Ways to Say Goodbye,” and “Bright Blue Skies,” tunes about navigating the turn to adulthood, love, and loss. This was James’ power, sharing relatable experiences in heartwarming songs.
And then there were the live shows.
He effortlessly put the emotion into his lyrics as he performed them, and on-stage, it took no more than a guitar strapped over his shoulder, modest band, and a bright grin to sweep joy across an entire room.
It was this genial presence, combined with his meticulously-crafted and honest songwriting, that initially helped James become noticed as an artist – not the machine that was supporting him. But after the success of his first self-titled album in 2018, which peaked at #2 on the NZ Albums Chart, he began to feel an uncomfortable shift in who was in charge of his artistry.
“When you’re an artist and an individual and start to stray away from those expectations, no matter how major or minor you may see it, you’re stepping away from what these people expect of you,’ he explains. “A lot of that expectation was not always aligned with my vision or my truth, so to speak.”
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James’ push back on decisions began to cause frustrations, and his opinions weren’t viewed as collaborative but more so problematic. Feeling as though he was losing any input into his music, his efforts to be heard resulted in a four-year delay between his first album and his second.
“I’ve always had my own beliefs, but I tried to be a company man as much as I could and when those lines started to blur, it’s when things started to get a bit messy,” James says.
“You can’t speak out because you’re still under contract, and when you’re still under contract you want your music to come out, otherwise you’ll stay forever shelved and you’ll never be able to release music again. I think that’s a major thing that I fell into was I was trying to appease people just to get my record out.”
As he reveals, sticking with it made him not only question his integrity at times, but also his talent. “I was stuck in that precarious position for four years and I was told my albums weren’t good enough and my music wasn’t good enough.
“Instead of following your artistic vision, you’re going down the wrong path, just because you feel like you need to get your record out and once you start to follow that path, that’s when you start to fall off track. The results start to fall off because your fans feel like you’re straying away from what originally got you there and eventually you’ve just lost all of your vision.
“When you’ve lost all of your vision, your fans feel like your music isn’t hitting the same way, and when your music starts to not hit the same way, you start to doubt yourself even more and that’s kinda the trap I found myself in.”
Upon the eventual release of his second album Patience in November 2022, it was clear things weren’t working out as he had hoped.
“There was a lot of politics behind it but it didn’t have anywhere near the same fanfare,” he admits. “When I look back and I step away from the whole situation, I know that I was trying so hard just to get my record out that I had strayed away from everything that made my fans love me in the first place.”
Patience peaked at #13 on the NZ Albums Chart, and while some would view that as a positive, there was disappointment within his camp. “Once I got the record out, I got dropped from my record label which is the biggest irony of all time,” he says.
With a new sense of motivation to prove himself, James ventured down the path of releasing music as an independent artist, but it wasn’t long before he realised his motivation was lost. The damage was, unfortunately, irreparable.
“When you keep getting told you’re not good enough, you start to not believe that initial confidence that got you there. Once that seed has been planted in your head that you’re maybe not good enough and you have to follow these rules that these labels and these people put out for you, you start to lose track of why you did this in the first place,” he admits.
“I feel like I was playing catch up as a person, yelling, ‘This is who I am as an artist’, but the world moves on pretty quick. On one hand you got out of this whole political game of trying to appease people to release your music, but at what cost?
“It’s really bittersweet because I’m starting to release this music which represents me well, but I’ve been so tired out by the process and all the politics that it just feels a bit too little too late. If I were to sum it up in one sentence, it makes me feel sad because it’s just a very tiring process.”
To make things even harder, even after his enviable achievements, it was proving almost impossible to make music work financially.
“It’s a hard but necessary thing to say, ‘I have to look at other avenues’, because it’s just not feasible,” James says. “You have to look at the dream, so to speak, and be like, ‘What am I really doing here long-term?’ Because I know that eventually it’s going to be diminishing returns.
“I felt like I had to leave at a stage where I could still hold my head up high. I would rather that than keep on trying and flogging a dead horse.”
Today, as James prepares for the end of his career in music, he’s walking away with more than 300 million streams and two albums – with a third and final record around the corner – to his name, as well as some other massive accomplishments that give him immense pride: opening for Ed Sheeran, touring the world, and leaving a legacy of songs he knows were appreciated by many.
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“It’s such a blessing to see how many people it affected, because for the longest time it was all about me and what I’m going to prove all those people who doubted [me] wrong and realise it was never about you. It was about these people that you can effect through your stories, and that’s why I can step back now and be so at peace with it,” he says.
While he’s exiting with his head held high, there’s an undeniable sense that things could have been different.
“I think the love for me has gone because of how the industry is formatted. It’s really not as artist-friendly as it used to be. I got into this because I loved making music and I loved making people happy, and when you realise that the music industry is not as simple as that, it’s a really sobering moment… Yes, I could have gone onto bigger and better things but I just truly believe this is where I am supposed to step back.”
On September 18, James shared a carefully-worded post, choosing to focus on the positives in order to thank everyone who has supported him.
“It was hard to write it and find the right words, but at the end of the day, the right thing to do was to be grateful for the people who got me here,” he says.
“I’ve thought about what my 16-year-old self would have thought if this was it and this was the end and I started crying, because this has been everything and more.
“I would do it a million times over, and I’d retire at this point one million times over if that was my legacy, so I’m just so grateful.”
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His final album, the aptly-titled This Is Not What I Had in Mind, is set to be released in November, and then it’s time for James to move on.
“At the end of the day, the magic is how you make people feel, and I think I’ve been so blessed that I can see that and feel that,” he says.
“The music that I release now will affect people in a positive way and give them the emotion of love and hope and make them hug their mum a bit harder or love her a bit harder… To know I’ve had that impact on the world is why I did music.”
