Interview with The James Barker Band
Country Thunder Florence
Florence, Arizona
April 8,2022
By Mary Andrews
The James Barker Band is originally from Canada and have four number one country hit singles there.The band decided to take the plunge and move to Nashville hoping to expand their options. It’s a very gutsy move with that kind of notoriety in their homeland. They signed a record contract with Sony Music Nashville in May of 2021.
In October, they released the song “New Old Truck” that features Dierks Bentley.
The members are James Barker (vocalist and guitarist), Taylor Abram (acoustic guitarist and vocalist), Connor Stephen (drummer), and Bobby Martin (bassist).
They are touring the country and have picked up dates with Country Thunder. Unrated Magazine was able to catch up with The James Barker Band at Country Thunder Florence and chat.
Unrated: Addressing James Barker, How did you get into music?
James Barker: For me, my mom is a guitar player and singer. So I was always around music.. She went to school for jazz vocals like Joni Mitchell and that kind of thing. She sang at my wedding. My mom has gotten shy now since we do music. She doesn’t want to do music around us.
Unrated: Do you perform the same kind of music as your mom?
JB: Not really. She was not really into country. She does mostly 70s popular.
Unrated: You mix in some pop though too.
JB: We do. We like to mix in some pop and we do a little bit of all genre.
Unrated: How old are you?
JB: I’m 29. I’ll be 30 in a couple of weeks.
Going around to the other members: I’m 29. I’m 32. I’m 28.
Unrated: Addressing JB. What about your dad is he a musician?
JB: No, not at all. He likes to pretend he can sing, but he’s an auctioneer. He is more of a performer.
Unrated: You write a lot of your music, right?
JB: We write all of our music. I feel like that is the country music thing. You have to write your own music. The story has to be believable. Everybody in the group writes.
Connor Stephen: Every single single and every song we’ve had on an album except one, “Throw Back,” James has had a hand in writing.
Unrated: That’s how you make a lot of money in this business.
JB: Oh, yes, well we don’t know yet. (Laughing)
Unrated: When did you move to Nashville?
JB: I moved down in 2018.
Taylor Abram: I moved in 2021.
JB: Taylor is the newest in town.
Unrated: The band was pretty big in Canada.
JB: Yes, we’ve been very fortunate in Canada. We started playing together in 2014. Things took off quickly. I say quickly as far as the music industry goes. We won a competition and got a single to radio. It was kind of a surprise when the single took off when it did. It was pretty awesome.
Unrated: So, you were like a big fish in a small pond in Canada and you became a small fish in a bid pond in Nashville.
JB: We really are. It’s really common not just in Canada but in a lot of countries, when you get used to being the big fish in that pond and you come to Nashville, and the guy playing on the street is playing the best guitar you ever heard. You think, ‘I’ve got some work to do.’
CS: It’s very humbling when you come from Canada. You can come to a point when you become stagnant. You come to Nashville and you become a better writer a better performer, makes you step up your game.
Unrated: I moved to Nashville in 1970, back when Willie Nelson was just known as a songwriter. The legends were unknown then.
JB: That’s crazy to think Willie Nelson is old enough to have written “Crazy” by Patsy Cline. That is the craziest thing to me.
Unrated: It was a fun time and Nashville can be a lot of fun. Changing the subject. What are your goals?
JB: We have a lot of aspirations. We want a string of number one songs in America. We want to be the biggest band in the country. We want to be the biggest band in the world.
Unrated: Morgan Wallen opened here in your time slot about four years ago.
JB: Really? So, it’s attainable.
Undated: It is.
JB: It’s not that we are cocky or overconfident or anything like that, but this is what we want to do. Our goal is to headline a festival like this. It’s all or nothing and for us it’s all.
Unrated: How did you get involved with Dierks Bentley?
JB: That’s the craziest thing! We had the opportunity to play with Dierks in 2016. He came up to Toronto when things were taking off for us. Actually we were still like a bar band. He was doing an intimate small bar show. He needed a backing band. Somehow our hat got thrown into the ring. We showed up to be his backing band. That was mind blowing for us. We did that and fast forward to 2021. We had a mutual friend, Ed Ayers, who works on songs with us. He was driving back from a wedding with Dierks. Dierks asked him what he was working on. He said, “I’m working with this band, The James Barker Band. Dierks said, “I know the James Barker Band. Show me the song.” He showed him “New Old Trucks.” We worked on the song together. I guess Dierks had this truck he got from his dad. It perfectly fit the description in the first verse of the song. He said, “I want to sing on that song.” In less than two weeks, he came in and cut a vocal on a Wednesday morning and that’s it. It was pretty unbelievable. Especially in an industry that you used to think as being contrived. It wasn’t. He just liked the song. He’s such a good guy and wanted to sing on it.
CS: When I was in high school and college, if I was asked who the were two guys we would most like to meet, it would be Eric Church and Dierks Bentley. It just so happened we got to meet Dierks Bentley. He happens to be the nicest guy you would want to meet. He’s an amazing guy.
Unrated: Is there anything you would like your fans to know that they don’t know about you?
JB: Maybe this is an overstatement but I feel like the best is yet to come. I feel like being in Nashville and being so obsessed with music, the shows and the songs are going to get better and better. We are so dialed in to how we give our fans the best experience. We want to get even better.
Unrated: Are you married?
JB: I’m married. All band members are married except the drummer.
Unrated: (Laughing) I think your fans need to know who they need to go for.
