Some years on from an early appearance on stage in a sixth-grade musical, singer/guitarist James Bruner is beginning to make a mark as a promising solo artist. Raised in Springfield, Illinois, his love for rock came from discovering greats like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath as a young skateboarder – activities that share in rebellion.
Bruner released his latest EP, The Otherside, a few months back. Across its five tracks, there’s ample rock’n’roll street smarts à la Guns N’ Roses and the Rolling Stones.
“It’s hard rock, it’s classic, it’s got some indie vibes as well,” he says. “It’s a great representation of the things I was experiencing at the time.”
From the EP, Switchblade is a boisterous burst of swaggering guitars that blazes by in under three minutes. Big Shot is the big single: a soaring, treble-heavy stomper with Bruner’s honeyed vocals and lots more epic guitar playing. That one has more than half a million streams on Spotify.
At 24 years old, it’s no surprise that Bruner injects an effervescence into his music. But he comes across as someone whose appreciation for music burns as brightly as his aptitude for it. He dropped out of the University of Kansas and moved east to throw everything into his craft.
Having picked up a guitar at 15, he says he was a singer before a guitarist. But scroll through some of the gig videos he posts on social media, and you’ll probably agree that he looks the part with or without a guitar. Sometimes, for less willing frontmen and women, an axe can be armour. But not for Bruner.
“You can hide behind it if you’re not careful, but all my favourites, like Lenny Kravitz and Mick Jagger, play guitar, and I wanna be the whole package.”
Talking of social media, Bruner is savvy enough to recognise that it’s part of the modern game, using an old farmer comparison: “Take your music to market, then get off.”
“There was that reel of Kurt Cobain playing Come As You Are at MTV with a caption on the screen saying something like ‘Imagine telling this guy he has to post five TikToks a day for the algorithm’,” he says. “It helps to schedule posts, because I can get sidetracked with my ADHD.”
He’s already had several opportunities to come to the UK, most recently to support Welsh rockers Those Damn Crows. “It’s the best education – a lot of life lessons and growth. Touring is like finding yourself every time you go out,” he says. “The world is big but it’s also small.” Bruner says he’s already working on new music, and that “there are elements that people haven’t heard yet”.
The world might be about to get even smaller for him if he keeps this up.
The Otherside EP is out now (self-released). For updates, visit the James Bruner website.
