"I 'play' shows,' and I 'work' in the studio," James Apollo says, explaining whether he likes performing or recording best. 
   "I write songs sitting alone at home, and that gets a little of the trouble out. Then we all work them out in the studio, and I start to feel like I've taken some troubling situation... and made it a little bit beautiful."

'Beautiful' is definitely a word that's been used to describe Apollo's voice - a "melancholy, smoky, evocative instrument" that translates Apollo's songs about the human condition, which he's been composing since he was a teen in America's deep south.

Now calling both New York City and Seattle his home bases, Apollo is actually better known in the UK than in the U.S., and has just returned from Great Britain, where he played a dozen live dates as well as BBC and XFM live sessions in support of his new album, Angels We Have Grown Apart. XFM's John Kennedy - who hosted Apollo's sessions - may have 'the remedy' for radio, as his cheeky tag line puts it - but it could just be that Apollo has the cure for revitalizing the Americana music scene. And that cure is amplified by his zest for performing.

"When I get the chance to take that beautiful thing and kind of hand-deliver it to people at a live show, there is no greater gratification," he says.
  
His new album was recorded in Brooklyn with an eclectic and ever-expanding group of fellow musicians, who seem to easily rally 'round Apollo in order to help him bring his compositions to life.

"We recorded at a strange little place called Seaside Lounge in Brooklyn," Apollo says, "it's just a little wooden space - barely room to swing a cat. But you pile a little bum orchestra in there, and everybody gets this natural, whispery mash of sounds. It's tight as a submarine, and you make friends fast."
   Those friends included (deep breath) Alan Estevez on guitar, Clifton Hyde on piano/steel guitar, Matt Palin on bass, Katie Hasty on vocals, Jesse Selengut on cornet/trumpet/organ, Darren Morze on percussion, Joseph Woullard on sax/clarinet/glockenspiel, Stefan Zeniuk on sax, Josh Clark on glockenspiel, and Pinky Weitzman on viola. (Whew.)
  

"There were only supposed to be five people, but, you know, invite a few to the party..." Apollo laughs. "I felt I really had to make the most of all these great musicians I was meeting. Like every record I've made, this session started out without any real intention... just a mix of music and well-equipped people."

Apollo also did some instrumental experimenting on this set; both that challenge, and the summer weather, added to the darker feel of the album.  "It was the first time I'd arranged any horns since I was a kid," he explains. "It was June. It was hot. I'm used to studios being cool, dark, lonesome and relaxing  - this was everything but."
  

"You know how loud a bass saxophone is - it's like a firehose aimed at your ears. And the thing is, a cellist will play a part, then sit quietly and wait for the next part, while a bass saxophonist will blow, and when he's done with the part, he will keep blowing. He will keep blowing like a sliver is holding his lips to the reed. Then, when he's done, he'll ask if he can come back tomorrow and help mix. So it was tense, but i had a hunch that tension would come out pretty.

"

Some touring is already in the works for Apollo, though - in addition to the just-completed UK dates, he already has a few U.S. dates scheduled for this summer, with more certainly on the way. And he's even got that packing thing all figured out - bring as little as possible...

"Usually the traveling quarters are so packed, that there's no room," he explains, "I went to pick a drummer up for a tour once, and he had a whole duffel bag full of shoes - six weeks on the road, and he never heard the end of it."

... and bring nothing that might cause trouble, even if it's all in jest.
   "I used to keep a very fake, but very real looking, nickel-plated .45 in my equipment case," Apollo says, "That is, until one night in Charleston when some fellow backstage caught sight of it. 'Wow - a .45 huh? Check this one
 out,'  he said - and then he produced his own, very real .45. The next day i chucked mine in the river, and I look on that as a good decision."

Overall, Apollo calls Angels a "mix of the fog-fueled, darkened, stuck times" in his life, where both of the cities he was spending time in - New York and San Francisco - were wearing him down.

"I was longing to escape back to the plains at the day's end," he remembers, "one place was the end of the West. The other was a concrete cage. I was so lonely in both environments, and it was my fault both times."

Since the U.K. has already reached out its collective hands, perhaps that would be a place he could consider living - especially given that musical peers like Elbow's Guy Garvey and The Pogues' Andrew Ranken have already declared their fandom for Apollo's work. At the very least, one suspects he'd have a rollicking good time trekking overseas to take on some British collaborators.

"Yeah, I wish I knew Guy from Elbow," Apollo ponders, "maybe i could beat him at cards and stowaway on one of their tours. I think things are just a little more down to earth over there. Some friends of mine in Glasgow went to see Ryan Adams play this huge stadium. Then, after the show, they basically kidnapped him and recorded a full record with him over the course of a night. Just people making music with other people. It seems a little less likely that a thing like that could happen in New York. So, yes, I do have some collaboration schemes... but its not done yet, and until it does, its all just talk."