Welsh singer-songwriter James Fox today unveiled his latest single, The Rest Of Our Lives. The new track – which follows December release Fire and Coal – is a gently melodic slice of radio-friendly pop-rock. The song will feature on Fox’s upcoming album All The Fours, which is due out on February 5th.
Fox has suggested that the new LP will be his most personal work to date. He told Sonic News: “This album was written during a year that most of us were forced to stop. I rediscovered music again and started writing songs for the first time in years. The songs needed to come out, it felt like it was writing itself from time to time. I started getting very reflective and sifting through my past for the first time. It was therapeutic in many ways but also exhausting, upsetting and difficult. I have been as honest as I can possibly be with the lyrics on this album and have talked about everything from my issues with gambling, loss of family, friends, the music business, my own demons and fears, right though to hope, finding new and real love and happiness and everything that was in between.”
He added: “My career has been very diverse and I’ve been lucky to have had many amazing opportunities and experiences. Writing and recording this album, by myself during a pandemic at home, is what I’m most proud of. I didn’t think I was capable of it if I’m honest, so there’s a massive sense of achievement.”
Fox’s first twenty years in the music business have typified by a sense of spontaneous variety. The vocalist, who hails from Gilfach in the Rhymney Valley, began his musical life by spending over a decade on the pubs, clubs and cruise ship circuits, and even took in a spell as part of a boyband (Force 5) with Kevin Simm, who would later feature in Liberty X before replacing Marti Pellow as Wet Wet Wet’s frontman in 2018.
Fox’s break would come in 2003 with a fifth-placed finish on BBC talent competition Fame Academy, with his well-received appearances on the show helping him secure the opportunity to represent the UK at the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest in Istanbul. Britain’s sixteenth-place finish in the competition belied the genuine pop quality of Fox’s catchy entry, Hold On to Our Love, which went on to reach #13 in the UK singles chart.
Since then, Fox has chiselled out a name for himself a musical theatre performer – enjoying successful spells on both sides of the Atlantic in Jesus Christ Superstar, Chess and Movin’ Out – whilst maintaining his multi-instrumental solo career with sporadic single and EP releases, as well as supporting sets for the likes of Tina Turner, Natasha Bedingfield and Lulu. He has also performed over 160 gigs for serving members of the British Armed Forces in Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Falkland Islands and Iraq.
Last year the singer spoke with admirable honesty about his struggles overcoming a gambling addiction. In an interview with Wales Online, Fox spoke about how the problem came to the fore during his stint playing Paul McCartney in Beatles’ musical Let It Be on London’s West End. He said: “People were paying £90 a ticket to watch me and the cast sing Beatles hits eight nights a week and I’d be running bets while the show was on. Twice I even hid my phone behind an amp on the stage and watched my bets between songs. I’d spend all night on the hotel toilet floor, crying myself to sleep, and then read a newspaper the next day saying: ‘This is the best Paul McCartney you’ll ever see’. I was so full of shame and self-loathing that I thought I wasn’t worthy of sleeping in a bed. But I never missed a day’s work. Gambling is a silent and invisible illness. You can be functioning while you’re crumbling inside.”
Last week Fox revealed that he had gone two years without gambling. He tweeted: “The help is there. Talk. Free yourself from this terrible addiction. It’s a tough road but it can be done, trust me.“
