James Hope: 'I was brought up on one of the roughest council estates in Leeds and I love it

Titled Shameless & Free, it’s testimony to the persistence of a musician who says his ambition is to eventually be regarded as one of his home city’s finest songwriters.

To fund the record, Hope, who owns a carpet cleaning business, took on an additional job as a bathroom showroom manager. As a father of three, he’s itching to show his children the finished vinyl. “I’ve already asked my wife to by some picture frames, so they’re going straight up there (on the wall),” he tells The Yorkshire Post. “Originally I was only going to record so I could say to the kids, this is what I’ve done. My kids are getting into guitar now and they go to singing lessons as well, so handing them a physical copy of the album when it’s out, I just want to see their faces light up. They’re my biggest fans, they know every lyric to every song.”

Remembering his teenage years, Hope says: “My dad used to have guitars lying around and I learnt three chords and I started writing songs to the three chords I knew.” By his own admission “not the best behaved” of pupils at Corpus Christi Catholic College, he was persuaded by the head of year, the late Ann Maguire, to sing in the choir. “I would always be rehearsing,” he recalls. “I got a little band together in school and it did pretty well, we had gigs at Joseph’s Well when we were only 15 or 16. But after school people moved to different cities and I never joined another band, I just went and did my own thing.”

By 21, he had “got pretty big in Leeds” and went on tour in France, but gigging came to a halt when he and his partner had two children “in quite quick succession” and that “became the focus of (his) life”. Yet still, friends would suggest that he “needed to do something” with all the songs he had composed. “I would say, oh, they’re just for me to muck around with, but I sort of got pushed into recording the album,” he says.

Seeing the success of his cousin, Ben Hope, who has made four albums with the Leeds band Apollo Junction as well as playing at venues such as Elland Road and The Piece Hall in Halifax, provided an additional spur. “I remember watching Ben’s band when there were four people watching them in The Cockpit years ago, and then they did everything right,” Hope says. “I sort of followed their steps on how to do things and just got bigger and bigger in the last three years. Ben has given me loads of advice as well and loads of good contacts.”

Shameless & Free was recorded with Ben Stinson at Loom Studio in Birstall. “Ben Stinson has been a real revelation for this album,” Hope says. “What I needed was somebody who wouldn’t be bothered by me helping them produce it. His knowledge has been brilliant, he put me in touch with BBC Introducing, where I’ve had radio play. Loom Studio I can’t praise enough.”

The songs are draw from life experiences, Hope says. “I was brought up on one of the roughest council estates in Leeds and I love it. My passion is the people on that estate. They get a really bad rap, but once you’re in there and with them they’re the loveliest people in the world. I'’ve written about my experiences of drinking with them, staying out late, being in kitchen parties with them. But the album’s in two parts – 50 per cent are rock songs , 50 per cent are love songs. I suffered very badly with mental health six or seven years ago, I was really depressed, I was drinking a lot. I’ve been sober five years and a lot of the heart-breaking ballads in the album were written when I was at my worst point, I didn’t think I could go on. But I wrote these lyrics and eventually I put music to them.”

To launch the album, Hope is playing a free gig at The Fox & Newt in Leeds on Friday. Support is from east Leeds singer Dan Kelly. Shameless & Free is released on streaming services the same day and physical copies are available fromhttps://elasticstage.com/jameshopemusic