London, UK · indie rock · alternative

Jamie T

1 festival played →

Wimbledon's motormouth storyteller of night buses and last orders, whose skiffle-punk debut Panic Prevention still gets sung back at him word for word.

Jamie Alexander Treays grew up in Wimbledon, South London, and was privately educated at Reed's School before leaving at 16 for a local sixth form college. He suffered from panic attacks as a teenager, a detail that gave his debut album its title, and started out playing bass guitar and singing in an unvarnished south London accent, closer to talking than crooning.

Early singles established him fast: "If You Got the Money" reached number 13 in October 2006, and "Calm Down Dearest" gave him his first top ten placing at number nine the following January. Panic Prevention followed in January 2007 and was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize. "Sheila," its best-known song, sets a story of a drunken night against a recording of John Betjeman reading his poem "The Cockney Amorist"; its B-side "Rawhide" features backing vocals from Lily Allen.

Kings & Queens followed in 2009, led by the single "Sticks 'n' Stones," which reached number 15 in the UK singles chart. Jamie T then went quiet for five years before returning with Carry on the Grudge, followed by Trick and The Theory of Whatever, with a compilation of B-sides from 2006 to 2017 released in between, in 2018.

The records move between acoustic sketches, guitar noise and drum-machine pop, with the same crowded, detail-heavy lyrics running through all of them, a constant across a catalogue that otherwise keeps changing shape.

Read more

indie rockalternative