Jimmy Needham – Vice and Virtue

By: Jamie Steinberg

Q) How would you describe your sound?

A) It is somewhere in between soul music and pop. It’s sort of marriage of soul and pop.

Q) Who are some of your musical influences?

A) I grew up listening to Motown and great 60’s R&B artists. Anything that is real emotive like that…I listened to the blues a lot growing up and a lot of hip hop was a lot of my influence. As I got older, I started listening to more pop music and folk music. Mainly with the folk music, the content was so good I loved how they were singing; however, the style wasn’t my favorite. So, I think what I try to do is marry the style that I love with the content I love of those folk singers.

Q) Vice and Virtue is your latest album. How did you come up with the title?

A) This album, for me, explores the very fine line between those two words. Vice, being those bad things and habits that people do. Then, virtue is the more idealistic, kind and noble things that you would aspire to act like. I say “fine line” because I have just discovered there really is between what is legitimately called “good” and legitimately called “bad.” I think we are too soon to label certain communities as “the bad guys.” They do all the external sinful activities that most of humanity would deem vices and then there is the other group of people that we see who don’t cheat on their taxes or cheat on their wives. They hold the door for you, go to church on Sunday and are nice human beings. The older I get and, honestly, the more time that I grow as a Christian, I’m realizing that is not really a good indicator of your goodness either. How many of us are doing good to be seen by others? I was seeing that in my own heart. I was seeing how much vice was really inside my virtue. All of the good things I was doing weren’t done out of a love for God, for instance. They were done out of a desire to be made much of, known by others and approved of by people. That, quite honestly, is just as bad as some of the vile things people are doing in the world. I don’t see myself as much different than murderers or prostitutes. Essentially, we all have the same dysfunction. Theirs is just more external and mine is more internal.

Q) What is your song writing process like? Do you need the music before the lyrics?

A) It’s been a combination of both, but I knew coming into Vice and Virtue that I had to approach my songwriting completely different because I wanted to try a different sound. Typically, how I have written is grabbing my acoustic guitar and going up into my bedroom for eighteen months and coming out with ten songs. This time we took a completely different approach. One of the things that I did was I got a band together of all my favorite musicians. We went into a room for a week and wrote as a band. I’ve never written as a band. We wrote music for six songs and then I sort of processed lyrics over the span of a year. My producer, Will Hunt, would send me tracks of just beats and grooves that he would create. I would press Play and start writing lyrics and melody on top of it. It would just awaken in me all sorts of new creativity. I wrote in studio instead of coming to the record with all the songs done. A lot of the songs from the album were created as we were making the album. So, it was a very exciting sort of leap of faith for me to try my hand at different techniques, but what I think came out of it was some really unique stuff that people hadn’t heard on my past records.

Q) How much hand did you have in the production of your album?

A) I’m pretty involved. I also know that it’s never really helpful to micromanage. That’s why I think it is important to get a good team around you. My team was headed up by Will Hunt who did my 2008 release of Not Without Love. Will and I live in the same city and I love his work. He is super creative and I just sort of cast visions to Will about the vibe I am looking for and the artists I was listening to at the time. I just said, “Help me get there.” He totally did! He He did an excellent job of capturing what I do as a singer/songwriter bluesy soulful thing and bringing it a bit more modern. There is a lot more programming on this record then I have ever had on any of my records. That stuff I definitely can’t take credit for because it is just not in my wheelhouse. The title track music is virtually all Will. He wrote the track and I wrote the lyrics and melody to it. It feels very collaborative, but at the same time I know this record wouldn’t sound at all like how it does without Will being a part of the process.

Q) What are some of your favorite tracks off Vice and Virtue?

A) One of them is a song I wrote for my wife. It’s called “Only You” and production wise it was interesting because I wrote it in studio, which again I never do. It was exciting. I wanted to write a song musically like this for a while that sort of explores my falsetto more. I’m sort of more vocally at that Marvin Gaye to Justin Timberlake falsetto. It is just a song appreciating her. She seemed to like it. I suppose that is all I need out of it. I think, lyrically, one of the most important songs on the album was a song I wrote the very last for the record. It came at the eleventh hour. It’s called “Jekyll and Hyde” and it is sort of a summary of themes on the album. It was a bit of an homage to the styles that I grew up, the twelve bar blues vibe. It’s sort of a retelling of the Jekyll and Hyde story by Robert Louis Stevenson. I think it is a good picture of what this record is about because it talks about how there is sort of a criminal, lunatic inside of all of us. Some live it out and some are just those that don’t drink the potion. The kicker though about the story was that Jekyll was Hyde. The good guy was the bad guy. The bad guy was the good guy. We all need grace and we all need help. That, for me, was very helpful emotionally and spiritually.

Q) Your song “Mr. Nice Guy” features a rap by KB. How did you come to work together?

A) I ran into KB backstage at one of the Lecrae dates in Los Angeles years ago and found out he was a fan. I have become a fan of his and started listening to his stuff. I called him up about eight months ago or so and said, “We haven’t worked together, but I love your stuff. Would you want to do a feature?” He agreed and sent me this great eight bars and it fit with the song. I’m super glad to be working with him. He’s such a humble dude. He’s kind, loves God and a great artist. That was exciting for me to have him on.

Q) You have kind of an epic poem with “The Story” at the end of the album. What do you think fans will connect to with the song?

A) “The Story” is last on the record, but it is the thing I wrote first. I didn’t write it for the album. I wrote it for a girl’s wedding at our church. She said she was getting married and that she wanted to commission me, basically, to write a poem for the wedding. She said she would love to incorporate the whole marriage language. I tried my hand at it. I hadn’t written anything in a long time and was kind of nervous. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off and it took me a day and a half. It just came to me. It ended up fitting thematically with the album and Will sort of imagined this really cool Beck and Ocean’s Eleven sort of music underneath it and we made it into something more than just lyrics. I put it at the end of the record because, hopefully, by then you are asking really good questions about your own motives and how you can be free from this monster inside. I’m trying to convey this that the spoken word is all about the gospel. It’s all about the good news and what Jesus came to do on behalf of his people. I’m trying to just communicate that if you want to know what the answers to all of our vices and virtue, the solution is as simple as the gospel, embracing Christ. It’s kind of an epic because it is about six minutes, but I’m hoping that as people listen through the album they will come away going, “I was given the problem and the solution all in eleven tracks.”

Q) You are a part of social media. Why is that such an important way for you to connect with your fans?

A) As time goes on, that’s just how people are connecting and I just want to go where people are connecting. I didn’t originally plan to have a big presence on social media. It’s just that I got on it and people who liked my music were connecting with me more there than in written letters. So, I think that it is a super easy way to communicate ideas and information. It helps me to make sure my fans feel appreciated. It helps me to make sure my fans are informed about what is going on in my career and where they can get new stuff for me. It’s also can be hazardous to your emotional and spiritual health if you are on it too much. If you can balance it is is great.

Q) What can fans expect from a live Jimmy Needham concert?

A) It’s going to be interesting because the music on this record is so much more beat driven and a little bit more programmed. It’s mostly electric guitar work (if there is any guitar work). So, I’m exploring more of that live. We’re doing the Vice and Virtue Tour in the fall and we’re bringing out a full band for that. Will Hunt, my producer, is coming out for that. He’ll be drumming and doing live programming for that. I just want to explore that a little bit more. I’ve always just been acoustic guitar guy. I think they can expect me to be pushing some boundaries there and exploring the electric world for a while. It’s going to be fun!

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your music?

A) I’m humbled that they listen. I’m kind of surprised when people come to my shows. I’m like, “How did you hear this song that I wrote in my bedroom when I was eighteen years old?” I’m grateful. Big or small, my fanbase means a lot to me because they provide me for the opportunity to do the thing I love, which is getting to make excellent music that promotes the news of Jesus and the gossip. I couldn’t do it without them.