Football, politics and passion combine to make Jamie Webster the real deal
By Nick Galvin
Liverpudlian singer-songwriter Jamie Webster is on the screen from his Reading hotel talking a mile-a-minute in his broad Scouse accent.
I suggest, based on my not being able to get a word in edgeways, that the 30-year-old is unlikely to run out of material for his songs.
Jamie Webster has plenty to say - and it’s worth hearing.
“No, I definitely won’t because I don’t f--king stop talking, do I?” he says, laughing.
It’s true. He doesn’t. But equally, the self-confessed “chatty fella” has plenty to say – about music, politics, football and more – that’s well worth hearing.
Webster is an unusual musician, not least for his rocket ride to fame: from playing Oasis and Beatles covers in Liverpool pubs to performing in front of capacity crowds at Glastonbury Festival and touring Europe.
And he’s found this success writing and singing a desperately unfashionable type of song owing more to the likes of Woody Guthrie, Tom Paxton and Pete Seeger than anything from his own lifetime.
And, inevitably, there’s Bob Dylan, who Webster discovered when he was in his early teens.
“Dylan was the first person who I ever thought, ‘Wow, he’s just telling real stories as he sees them’,” he says. “He’s not the greatest singer, he’s not the greatest guitar player, but it’s distinctive and it works for him. And I’m not the greatest singer. I’m definitely not the greatest guitar player and definitely not the best looking either, but I can tell stories that connect with people.”
Among the constants in Webster’s early life growing up in West Derby, Liverpool, were family, music and Liverpool Football Club.
“I’m a born Red,” he says. “My dad was a Red, his dad was a Red. That’s how it works in Liverpool. You don’t choose. It’s handed down and you play the hand you’re dealt, so to speak. And thankfully I was dealt the Red hand and it’s given me the best memories of my life.”
When Webster left school, he joined his dad’s electrical business.
“I learned how the world works. I learned the value of a pound and the value of a day’s work on the building sites. Nine years later, I was able to tell me dad that I was taking a bit of time off – for how long I didn’t know, but I still haven’t gone back to him yet. I’m not the best singer in the world, but I’m a better singer than I was an electrician.”
Webster’s first break came when his worlds of music and Liverpool Football Club collided. He was playing a pub gig to a bunch of LFC fans when one of them changed the words of Simon and Garfunkel’s Mrs Robinson to “Here’s to you, Jordan Henderson” (the then much-loved captain of the club). When the LFC marketing team saw a video, Webster was invited to perform on the club’s TV channel.
“It was the first time I’d ever been put on television,” says Webster. “That was the moment where people started to take me a bit seriously. And after that clip I faced for the first time a queue around the venue of people trying to get in. It was only a small 300 capacity venue, but still to have that many people outside trying to get in. It was mad. I’d never experienced anything like that before.”
And while Webster’s name has continued to be associated with Liverpool football, he is better known now as a chronicler of working-class life, heavily influenced by growing up under 14 years of brutal Tory rule.
Jamie Webster’s music is entwined with Liverpool Football Club. Credit: Liverpool FC via Getty Images
From the 2019 single Weekend In Paradise to the recent Breadline and the anti-capitalist/anti-war anthem How Do You Sleep At Night? (from this year’s album 10 For The People) bring to mind the best work of his friend and mentor Billy Bragg.
“Billy is an unbelievable role model and he has always had time for me,” he says. “I don’t really understand politics as much as people who are into politics do. But I think I know what’s right and what’s wrong, and I know a way of communicating that to people to make them hopefully see that we as people can change things.”
He has “never once” seen a politician on television and thought he was hearing the truth.
“I’m still very much within the community of Liverpool and I see how some people have to live and it’s not right. Let’s feed the children. Let’s educate the children. Let’s support doctors and nurses. Let’s make fresh food easily accessible to people. You know what I mean?”
Success and ever bigger crowds, driven by a hunger for his authenticity, have come at a rush for Webster. At times, does he have to pinch himself?
“Sometimes, I can’t believe that this is me. That this is a job. When you walk on to the stage and you see the people, you hear the screams and the crowd singing back the words that you’ve written in your bedroom you’re just like, ‘This is weird’. People ask me, ‘Where was the point that you realised that you were about to go and do all these things?’ And I often say there was never a point when I thought it was happening, it just sort of happened and I was sort of doing it.”
Webster stills gets to as many Liverpool games as his touring schedule allows. He used to watch the game from the legendary Kop behind Anfield’s southern goal, but these days he leaves that to the younger fans.
“I sit up in the Kenny Dalglish Stand now with me dad, me uncle and about five or six other fellas. I like it up there. I get a good view of the game and I don’t get much hassle. And the queue for a pie and a cup of tea is not too long.”
Jamie Webster plays the Factory Theatre, Sydney, on December 5 and the Corner Hotel, Melbourne, on December 6.