Riot_ cycle we were so exhausted from giving a strong, angry, almost negative energy, that we went through into a new thing that’s got a bit more joy and bit more hope and a bit more fun to it.” He’s currently posted up in Yorkshire, a world away from his new home-base of Los Angeles. Eagerly prepping for Counterfeit’s upcoming tour, but more importantly, the release of new single ‘It Gets Better’. There’s no more apt way to demonstrate that you’ve embraced a more positive outlook than a song that rouses as much as it offers advice and a reassuring pat on the back. “When we started writing I was like ‘Man, I’m just really… sad?’” Jamie chuckles with disbelief in his voice. “I’m really sad with what’s going on in the world, and I need to try and pull myself out of this.” “While [the debut] definitely had messages of positivity in it, it was very much self-absorbed and in itself,” he continues. “With [‘It Gets Better’], what I wanted to try and do is pull myself up and make myself more aware; to speak honestly and truthfully about the things that I’ve experienced and what it is that I’ve seen. What it means to be a person.” Holding this concept tight in his palm, it became the voracious building blocks for the new era of Counterfeit; one that he’s more than happy to share because really, we’re all going through the same motions. “That concept was important because on a personal level. No matter what I go through, or what I feel when I’m in the lowest depths of my person - this too shall pass. “On a social level, my whole meaning of existence at the moment, including this band, is to try and unify people, to make them look at one another as people again.” It’s why a Counterfeit show may appear to be an exorcism of sorts. Someone who professes
18 Upset
to give “one-hundred per cent of of me, I’m like, I’m comfortable who it is I am in any art form,” the sure, but I’m actually really tortured artist is by no stretch a ‘uncomfortable’ because it’s character, but the dumping of all painful. Happiness, joy, love the emotional turmoil that Jamie and acceptance of yourself and feels at the time. accepting of our surroundings is “I definitely can enjoy that role uncomfortable.” because it feeds into the negative Not a rock star hiding in the parts of myself that I am very shadows, Jamie’s ready to be the aware of but the journey that I’ve self-confessed “stroppy” figure been on,” he says. who leans into the emotions and “I’ve always tried to be open waves of life. and honest, particularly with “I’m a sassy, theatrical those people who connect motherfucker. I have no problem with the music and who come with that. I used to want to be the to the shows, so if I ever meet hard guy, the tough dude - I don’t somebody and they want to talk care about that anymore,” he about addiction or depression, enthuses. they’re talking to somebody who “I wanna me be! And camp! understands And theatrical! what those Be stroppy, things are, and loving, and the depths that giving and kind those places and just sharing can take you that. I think that too, the places hopefully what they can take this journey and JAMIE CAMPBELL BOWER this experience you within yourself. moving forward “Recently I was stood outside a will give me and teach me is a real hotel, getting into the character, sense of myself, and just being and I had an actor say, ‘Are you okay with me. That’s what I want alright, man?’ And I was like ‘I’m for everybody.” just in it, I’m just fucking in it’. He With the second Counterfeit said, ‘You know, you don’t have full-length fast approaching, to be the tortured artist? What Jamie wants it to encompass the you’re doing is entertainment’. same therapeutic feeling that he’s “And I said, ‘Yeah I do see that, been discovering on his journey and I do agree. There’s an element to this point. of entertainment to anything “As the process goes on, I’m that’s in this industry. But my trying to put as much of myself in goal as an artist is to always be there as possible. Even with the as truthful to myself as possible’. artwork, I’ve created a character I’m never going to sit there and that’s based on a fucking sing about something that I don’t teddy bear that I still have!” he believe in.” chuckles. “He still travels the Delving into the many facets world with me, and his character of his life brings with it its own is going to be a part of the world of subliminal charge. “I try not to Counterfeit!” let it weigh on me, but I’m not So, with all that, it would seem sure I’m conscious of it... yet,” that Counterfeit - a name that he smirks. “Perhaps I’ll become itself implies a level a conscious more conscious of it. I’m not imitation - are now the antithesis sitting in as much pain as I used to that very word. to, I’m moving forward from it “Yeah, totally! Maybe it was... with each day that passes, and call it serendipity, call it foresight, that’s really enlightening for us. call it whatever you want,” he “If I sit in that pain, and I’m ends with a husky laugh. P in my ego, and all the bad parts
“I’M EXCITED TO BEGIN A NEW CHAPTER OF THE BAND”