Turn Me Round by Pflame is an absolute banger that will have us singing and dancing in no time! The lyrics are not only incredibly empowering and uplifting, but the beat is also contagious. He would like to believe that his music has a special capacity for inspiring people to be their best selves. So “Turn Me Round” is the ideal choice if you’re looking for a song to uplift your spirits and get you moving! Check out the exclusive interview below:
1. Can you tell us a bit about where you come from and how it all got started?
PFLAMES: I was born and raised in Omaha Nebraska and really have always been drawn to music in some way. Music was super prominent in my household growing up. My mom sang in her younger years and my dad always kept an immaculate record collection. Heavy into jazz, blues , r & b…those kinda things. So a lot of my earliest memories have a soundtrack. I really got inspired to create my own music at an early age as well. I think I started my first band with some of the neighbors when I was 5 and have been off and on every since.
2. Did you have any formal training or are you self-taught?
PFLAMES: I am for the most part self taught. I did take guitar lessons for about 6 months when I was 9 but didn’t really take it to seriously. By then I had this idea that I wanted to write my own songs and my teacher as great as he was, was teaching me to play covers that I wasn’t interested in at the time. Later on I kind of wished I had paid him more attention because he was really trying to teach me the fundamentals and I just wanted to jam. Later on maybe when I was 13, 14 something like that I locked myself in my room with a bunch of Prince albums and started deconstructing those. I had been playing guitar in a band with friends and over the summer the band kinda broke up. We did all our practicing in my bedroom and everyone had left their instruments there for like 6 months …so essentially I started the summer a guitar player and by the time school was back in session I was also playing bass, keys and drums.
3. Who were your first and strongest musical influences and why the name ‘PFLAMES?
PFLAMES: I will forever be a die hard Prince fam. Like I had aspirations prior but I’ll always remember seeing Purple Rain (the movie) and having a religious experience. I saw everything I wanted to do with life in that movie. Tempe way his music affected people. Made them cry, made them smile. The affect it all had on them in the movie, like that 3 song stretch at the end…man that was what I wanted outta life right there. I’m gonna say I saw that when I was 5 and came home begging my parents for a guitar. As I grew I was drawn to it all tho. Stevie Wonder was another big influence. In hindsight I guess I was just drawn to the multi instrumentalist. The one man band kind of thing stuck out to me even before I knew that’s what they were doing. I was big on hip hop too, The Fat Boys, LL Cool J…that first golden era…I’m pretty sure my first concert ever was when I was 10 & if I remember correctly it was Run DMC, Public Enemy and Dj Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince. I was a sponge and absorbed it all. I was a midwestern kid in the late 80’s/90’s it was a melting pot. Pflames kinda came from a serious of nicknames. At first I was JP just my initials then it kinda morphed. When I started producing in the super late 90’s maybe 98/99 people would come through my parents house to get beats and everyone would say I had fire beats and Jp turned into James Pflames but I got annoyed cuz then I would have all these random people calling me James lol so I just chopped that part off and a star was born lol.
4. What do you feel are the key elements in your music that should resonate with listeners, and how would you personally describe your sound?
PFLAMES: There an honesty to my music that I feel resonates. The heart is my lyrics. I’m older than a lot of other artists so my perspective is different. I’m old enough to have lived and had experiences and luckily not be left jaded. I put stories and emotions into it, in a lot of ways I say more in my music than I do to people in real life. I know it’s pretty cliche these days to say music is therapy but to me it really is. But I think people feel that when they listen to me and that’s what connects. My sound is pretty funky. I feel like if u put 1999 era Prince in the studio with Stakes is High era De La Soul, then mix up Voodoo Era D’Angelo for spice with Late Registration era Kanye executive producing it…that would come close to what I FEEL it sounds like lol. I’m doing new things but it also feels familiar, comfortable like home a little.
5. Creative work in a studio or home environment, or interaction with a live audience? Which of these two options excites you most, and why?
PFLAMES: I’d say creative work in the studio excites me the most. Partially because I haven’t performed much since Covid but also because right now…I love the creative process. I love the inspiration that comes from making a super dope beat and writing a lyric that I know is gonna resonate, flipping that perfect sample…that s**t drives me!
6. For most artists, originality is first preceded by a phase of learning and, often, emulating others. What was this like for you? How would you describe your own development as an artist and music maker, and the transition towards your own style, which is known as HIPHOP?
PFLAMES: I go back to the age thing. When I was younger especially, tho I would never pander to a specific sound or demographic…I wanted people to like it and to be accepted by my peers. Even when I was clicking off the boxes I thought I needed. A club record here, a chick record there I still wanted to sound like me or fit in with whatever I was listening to at the time. I would make songs that I thought would fit in between a Jay z record or a Kanye record or whatever. So I studied a lot of Just Blaze and early Kanye productions, Timbaland and Missy. There was a time in like 01 where u couldn’t tell me I wasn’t the third member of the Neptunes lol. I was chasing those fans and those sonics but without the budget lol. And it was hella fun! I made fans and made money and had experiences some would kill for but it was never enough. Later on I realized it was a personal thing something I had to work on internally, always chasing the next thrill or new thing and not really living in the moment but that’s another topic all together. Honestly I never really wanted to sound like someone else. I always kinda had this desire to stand out while fitting in if that makes any sense. I blame that on the Prince influence. No matter what he did he was always Prince. And I’ve always been Pflames no matter how hard I tried …for better or for worse.
7. What’s your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles – and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative, and entertainment?
PFLAMES: Music is life and should encompass all of that. Music is supposed to make u feel things, learn things, question things and take honest looks at life and the world around us. And that’s all apart of personal narrative I think. When I talk about my journey and who I am, u will hear my thoughts on politics and religion. I love God and question God at the same damn time in my personal life, why would I not express that in my songwriting? There’s more than likely someone out there having the same or similar thoughts. Maybe my song or lyrics or whatever, maybe that will be the thing that makes them feel less alone in those feelings. I think every artist is different and has a different take on things or feel a different type of responsibility in what they do with their art…for me I don’t have a filter between my feelings and what I create. I create to express myself and I put it all out there.
8. Could you describe your creative processes? How do usually start, and go about shaping ideas into a completed song? Do you usually start with a tune, a beat, or a narrative in your head? And do you collaborate with others in this process?
PFLAMES: Honestly it depends. Sometimes I will have a lyric or idea come to mind. Other times I’ll sit down to jam and find a riff that speaks to me and go from there. Most times it’s a continuous stream tho. Te lyrics will lead to a beat or the groove will give itself lyrics but it’s never laborious. It all has a way of flowing. Once the idea is laid down then I decide how to color it. Do I need a singer here? Or another voice there? Maybe I want to here another perspective on the songs subject matter, most times that comes after I’ve laid down a solid foundation. The good and bad part about doing everything myself is that I can really strike when I’m inspired and not have to wait for other musicians or studio time. It’s just a matter of going downstairs and being in the moment. On the album I’m working on now I got to do things I’ve always wanted to but never really tried to put together. I went outside my normal circle of collaborators and got to experiment with sounds and textures I normally wouldn’t. I can’t wait to share it!
9. What has been the most difficult thing you’ve had to endure in your life or music career so far?
PFLAMES: I think truly the last 3 years of my life have been the most difficult and trying in life and with music. My mom passed away in September of 2019 and that started a period of loss and depression that I’d never experienced on any level. Normally when life got hard I would throw myself into work or a project. So like 3 days after she died I was back at work pushing 10hrs days as a way to not have to deal. Then Covid hit and I had nothing but time. Nowhere to run, nothing to distract me and I hated it! I tried writing but there was nothing there. I couldn’t create. Nothing sounded good or felt right. And it stayed that way for a long time. I would have random bursts of creative energy. A song or 2 here and there but not a lot that fully sucked me in. I was just lost. My fire was gone. But my mom was always one of my biggest supporters. She was always down to listen to my music or my rants about it, whatever and when I lost that, I kinda lost me. Then I’m 2022, September again I found out my dad was dying and that shook me up again. I wound up moving my family back down to my childhood home to help take care of him for the last few weeks of his life. I think being in that house, talking to him, being in the rooms where my love for it all began. The room I learned to play guitar in. The space I became Pflames in sparked something. Listening to my dad tell stories about taking me to buy guitars and finding peace with a lot of things…it opened me up to the muse I was missing. I sometimes feel like that was his parting gift to me in a way. He called me home and helped me find myself again and just did his cool dad thing. As much credit as I give my mom he was just as important if not more, buying my equipment, driving us to shows, making sure I could figure it out and find my way. Even on his deathbed he was taking care of my spirit. Then I wrote an album about it.
10. On the contrary, what would you consider a successful, proud or significant point in your life or music career so far?
PFLAMES: I think I’m most proud of who I am, where I am right now. I’m 45 and making the best songs of my life. There’s a level of freedom and pure joy that’s apparent in the songs. I feel like I’m 16 and in love with the process again and that to me is success! I wake up loving what I do and the way people are receiving it. It goes back to the end of Purple Rain…I’m making music that affects people and makes them want to be on this journey with me. That’s why I started making music in the first place.
11. Do you think is it important for fans of your music to understand the real story and message driving each of your songs, or do you think everyone should be free to interpret your songs in their own personal way?
PFLAMES: I’m stuck in the middle because I leave it all out there lyrically that I feel like they know exactly what I’m saying but I also know music is subjective and tho I may say things one way someone may hear it another but I want them to find something personal in it. This is what connects us. It’s the unifying element.
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