I am Hugo James (my first name is Paul, but I only use it with officialdom), a young (?) 52-year-old who is trying to put his music out there for anyone who might enjoy it.
I am a translator by profession (lots of languages – I’m a lingua-freak), and I have also been a musician all of my life. Classically trained (piano/harpsichord/church organ), but I was attracted to folk/world music in my youth, but always preferring a folk-rock/folk-punk version.
The piano accordion kinda became my main instrument because it is a portable version of what I was best at initially, but I also play many other instruments. And I sing: not brilliantly (although I’m always working on that), but with a voice that fits my kind of music. Theoretically at least.
I was in various bands over the years, which I contend were really quite good, but never got anywhere. Due to this, plus a lot of other disappointments in my life, I became a serious alcoholic (not overnight, you understand: it’s always a process), with booze, as with many people, seeming to rocket-fuel me during earlier times, but eventually turning me into a gibbering wreck.
My 30-year drinking career was punctuated by much total mayhem, but also travel, some professional and artistic successes in spite of everything, and some wonderful people (although a lot of utter b*****s as well).
The last 10 years has been a cycle of trying to get a grip on things, and I have gained a lot of first-hand experience of living with people with serious, serious problems who have also been totally failed by society.
I am a cradle Catholic (my mother is Spanish, and was brought up by Jesuits in Franco’s Spain, so hard-core devotion was everywhere as I was growing up. My own faith wavered a lot over the years (a priest once called me – only half-jokingly – the “worst Catholic since Vlad the Impaler”), but always remained there, sustained by my unshakeable desire for social justice (a lot of the usual pseudo-intellectual rhetoric – but I am also proud to have provided a fair amount of practical help in different contexts), and sustaining that in turn.
All of these elements have come together somewhat over the last two years: the 11th of February 2022 will mark two years exactly since I last touched an alcoholic drink, and I have been hunkered down in my home town in the English countryside throughout COVID helping my parents, who are quite medically vulnerable.
This “forced sabbatical” from the hurly-burly of life, has helped “re-set” me a lot, and of course it enabled me to produce my album. I am usually ludicrously busy with my translation work (I have always worked from home, so no change there), but in early 2020, literally no work came in at all for a period of 2 months, which I used to record and produce all of the audio and video material. Within my belief system, God moved in one of those mysterious ways of His.
The songs themselves had been swilling around in my head forever, and everything just poured out and fell into place. I recorded it all in my home office, using quite a rudimentary set-up, really – but it is amazing what you can do with computers these days, and I have enough instruments to equip a small folk-rock orchestra.
So although I describe “The Good Thieves” as a band, this is wishful thinking on my part: I would love to work musically with other people who could become friends, and so I am hoping that might be a possibility some day. But in the meantime, the whole project is just me.
I produced a physical CD of the album, which is called “None Shall Stand”, and which consists of ten tracks of prophetic biblical lyrical content set to what I think is quite powerful and catchy folk-rock backing (and an eleventh song put together specifically for Gathoni – see below). My target audience is essentially people like me, who want to express their religious faith through music, but can take or leave the frankly all-a-bit-samey-and-lightweight material produced by a lot of Christian artists, and want something a bit more substantial. People who would like mainstream acts like The Pogues, The Levellers (going back a bit there, but hey), Mumford & Sons etc.
I also created a website on Bandzoogle, which is at: https://thegoodthieves.org
All of the songs on the album are available to stream and/or download there – for free, although I ask whether people might be kind enough to make a donation to ongoing financial help for Gathoni Wambaa, a severely disabled Kenyan girl whose mother and grandma are having desperate trouble looking after her (she needs massive medical help, and it’s horrendously expensive).
We managed to raise £2000.00 (sterling) for her in the first couple of months – but in reality this was down to my wife reminding friends and relatives in various African countries that she is the daughter of a Chief.
And this is actually my main motivation for this project: I care not for wealth and renown in my own right (“Good job, really” says everyone else in the world….), but I would very much like to raise as much money and awareness as I can to help as many people like Gathoni that I can, from now on in my life.
Other socials:
Facebook: facebook.com/paulhnjames
Twitter: ThievesGood
The Good Thieves-- How Many Times
