Bio

Young, Welsh acoustic troubadour, composing and playing original, heartfelt and lyric-driven songs about love, life, heartbreak and home and currently part of the rising Hand & Face Record label line-up.

Ambitious and currently underachieving; probably the best way to describe Thom James, AKA Scarfboy’s effort over the last few years. A welsh-born singer/songwriter with a passion for lyrics, this solo side-project was a way to take all the songs that he had written throughout college, when he was away from his band, Marshal Plan (Orig. Dempsey, Emergency One).

”Some songs did not fit the band. Trying to put on a rock persona, I felt the songs that I’d written had too many words in, plus they dealt more with feelings, rather than the stories which is what we tried to write about.”

Originally choosing to play drums as a youngster, Thom bought his first guitar off his old boss and packed it up in the car when he went to college in 2003. The plan was to get away from smalltown living, experience life some more and write material that the band could practise and record without, and most importantly steer off being forced to get a proper job for another few years. However, [Foolishly] opting to study away from where the rest of the band had all travelled to, he turned to his guitar and as he progressed with the playing, the words flowed as easily as they always had but with a different direction and purpose.

”Not being able to get home, jam and gig as often as I’d liked and had assumed I would really got to me. Then other things start to happen like friends and school. You can’t just dismiss them. In the end, they help you.”

Always having a passion for acoustic music, lonely sounds became the norm on the stereo and whilst away in university, James began to jam with college friends, rather then other ‘solid’ musicians but recalls that the music was so much more honest when all you have is a love for what you’ve just recorded. “When you’ve spent 3 hours practising a song, knowing the tape is rolling and you can’t make a mistake, and you don’t want to, the finished result is an amazing feeling.”

It was in his last year of study when time and money that should have been put to better use was used pay for better equipment. From the top bedroom of his student accomodation, Thom took the moniker of Scarfboy [because it was winter and scarfs are cool] which was used to create a few ragged edged but heartfelt songs that were circulated around friends. Things haven’t progressed commercially all that much in the 18 months since but the songs keep coming and the catalogue will continue to grow.