James McVey On Grasmere EP Tour & New Music: ‘It’s come Full Circle’
James McVey, promoting ‘The Grasmere Shows’, September 2025.
‘When I'm doing shows, I think ‘what would I like to see?’ Something I can go up to the artist after because they’re on the merch stand, or 500 yards away at the O2 and they're in a glass box?’
James Brittain-McVey is no stranger to stardom. As founder and member of The Vamps, the first band to headline the O2 five years in a row, the 32-year-old has achieved global success – and fame – that many dream of.
Almost two decades after his first sticky-floor pub gigs, a deep love of music prevails. The Grasmere Shows, his next independent venture, is rooted in passion, catharsis and appreciation. Speaking from his study, decorated with a fairy light wall of framed gold and platinum accolades, it might seem hard to believe the musician would want to go back to the start with these ‘no bells and whistles’ gigs in intimate venues.
What becomes evident during our chat is that James McVey’s tour is a love letter to his career beginnings, before The Vamps. The Grasmere tour is McVey’s self-curated opportunity to step off the pop pedestal, and return to the grassroots music he’s been making since the start. Read the full interview below.
James McVey, The Grasmere Shows. Image credit - James McVey
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Interviewer: So this is the Grasmere Shows tour, but the Grasmere EP is not out yet, so you’ll be playing unreleased songs, right?
James: Two of the songs are out, ‘Climbing Boots’ and ‘Sometimes’, but there's two others I think that will go on this EP. I like the thought of people being able to hear songs for the first time live… hopefully they like them. But I like them, which I guess is important!
That's the first step. Well now everything's up to you, how’s the experience of having complete control?
James: It's really nice that there's not anyone forcing me to do anything, but I quite like having guidance, and I think it's hard to apply pressure on yourself in a healthy way. In my career there have been deadlines or rigorous schedules, but I actually think I work better under those sorts of parameters.
This music will be the last thing I'll do for a while solo. In many ways it’s really fun, fulfilling and freeing, but I do want to move back into a world with a bit more consistency. I’ve done all this music with just one other person, Alex, who I love. But moving forward, I want to work with more people and maybe experiment with different sounds.
For this tour, have you decided absolutely everything?
James: Yeah. I want these shows to resemble how it was when I was first doing gigs at 16. It’s going to be just me, my guitar and Alex, really relaxed and informal, not trying to convey this massive production. It's funny, there's a lot of infrastructure around touring, so even down to merch design, often we'll have rough ideas, but then people will bring them to life. So I've struggled a bit with that because it's not really my area of expertise. But honestly, everything from the tour is down to me, which is a challenge I enjoy.
You've kind of done it in reverse. Often, artists work their way ‘up’ to the bigger rooms, working with more and more people. By now doing it all yourself, you’ve taken any degree of fame out. You’re making yourself very accessible through these intimate shows, was that your intention?
James: First of all, thank you. I'm not a massive believer of the ‘them and us’ mentality. Maybe at the start of The Vamps I was so shy there probably was the perception I didn't really want to engage with people, but the reality is I was so overwhelmed. The whole fame element was not the reason I started the band – I really didn't like that.
“That’s how music started for me, in pubs and small venues, where you have a genuine, tangible connection. I think when people start building that wall between themselves and their fans, something’s lost.”
When I'm doing shows, I think ‘what would I like to see?’ Something I can go up to the artist after because they’re on the merch stand, or 500 yards away at the O2 and they're in a glass box? There's definitely a place for those shows, but my solo music was not an endeavour to climb any sort of fame ladder. I wanted it to be very accessible, approachable, relatable. That's how music started for me, in pubs and small venues, where you have a genuine, tangible connection. I think when people start building that wall between themselves and their fans, something's lost, it makes me quite sad.
I've got friends now with kids old enough to go to gigs – and it's come full circle. Now I can relate to the audience much more than I ever could at 17/18. Back then it was a crazy whirlwind, I didn't really associate the crowd with real people, which sounds bad, but it was probably my way of coping with social anxiety. I didn't know who I was at all, and I think we were all constantly trying to keep our heads above water. As opposed to now, pace of life is slower, so it's about really enjoying the process of musicmaking and the shows – perhaps in a way I wasn't able to.
Playing where you really can see the people in the room is a much more vulnerable way of performing. Does that make you more nervous than playing those big venues?
James: Not really. I like the challenge of being able to perform in those environments. There were times [growing up] where I'd play to genuinely nobody, or a crowd that didn't care. I think that's how you build your skills. I feel an element of that has been lost in the industry now, but it does almost feel like going home to that original way, I can't press play on a backing track and let that carry me. There's nowhere to hide, and I quite like that, because the music I make is intended to be listened to in that format.
Like my Tokyo show – it’s one of my favourite places in the world, and it’s literally going to be me stood in a room with a guitar. And then we're doing an official after-party thing in a music venue, so it's gonna be this mixture of a Japanese house band performing, and me, I don't really know what's going to happen, it’s just going with the flow.
“I can’t press play on a backing track and let that carry me. There’s nowhere to hide, and I quite like that, because the music I make is intended to be listened to in that format.”
You shared on social media that these songs had been really difficult to write. How are you feeling about performing them live?
James: After I did my last group of songs, I felt quite stagnant with my songwriting, and then loads of life stuff happened and it correlated to me writing more music. I've been rehearsing today, and I was thinking about maybe what I'd say around the songs and yeah, there's definitely going to be moments of emotion, but I think that's what songwriting has always been for me.
It started being 13 years old trying to write about a girl I fancy… all the way through to my place in life now. I never wanted to be at a point where the music I was making meant nothing. Either… I'll be completely fine… or it'll be really hard. I don't really have a halfway thing with that.
Is there anything else you want to share about these new songs?
James: I'm just really excited to put them out. [Alex and I] went to a cottage in the Lake District in a place called Grasmere, which is probably my favourite place in the world. I went there for the first time in January 2019, kind of to escape. I just did a TV show that made me famous in a way I definitely didn't want – but didn't anticipate either. It became the place for me and my wife to go, I proposed to her there.
And we made the whole thing in five days. Sometimes people spend months and years even on albums, but I quite like the thought of us just going in and doing these songs. They're a little bit rough round the edges, but that's kind of what I wanted.
James Mcvey, ‘Grasmere’. Image credit: James McVey
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Tickets for London have sold out, but you can catch James McVey’s ‘The Grasmere Shows’ in Edinburgh, Manchester, Birmingham, Paris, and Tokyo, starting 2nd October.