Singer-songwriter Paula Jasmine James grew up in Gdańsk in Poland. She was awarded a scholarship to study music at the age of eight, and has been singing and playing flute and piano for as long as she can remember. She later studied vocal at the Jazz Academy in Katowice and trained as a music teacher at Bath Spa University – where she grew fond of the creative environment and decided to stay on and pursue songwriting. Bath in UK has been her home since 2006.
“I was always a performer at heart and had always written songs but it wasn’t until my arrival at Bath Spa, with its recording studios and amazing teachers, that I was able to focus purely on composition.”
About Eve’s Julianne Regan became my mentor and her expertise and support were truly invaluable. She was one of the very first to hear Haunted House and her conviction that what I was doing was worthwhile meant the world to me. I’ll be forever grateful for her dedication.
Paula uses the piano as her main compositional tool. She surrounds herself with creative minds and chooses her collaborators based not just on the way they sound, but also her sense of them as people – kindness and compassion are the most important factors in her creative process. Jan Freicher, who lives in Switzerland, is Paula’s long-term collaborator.
“Jan and I have an incredible musical connection and understanding – it’s hard to explain it, but when we work together it’s very apparent. It’s like a marriage, but better – because we don’t have to live together!”
I call him my twin brother. Haunted House is our first full album together. It’s jazz with a big pop influence, and there are acoustic solos in almost every song – where the lyrics end, the solo instruments are able to continue my thoughts in a more mysterious way.
“ I think we all live in a haunted house – or maybe the haunted house lives in all of us… The songs are about human anxiety and insecurity, and how we deal with our ghosts and fears.”