James Ellis Ford’s new album Misplaced In One other World tells a narrative of survival and creativeness. He made it from his hospital room throughout most cancers therapy.
Transcript
ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
James Ellis Ford has a profession many musicians can solely dream of. He produced information for the Gorillaz, for the Arctic Monkeys, along with his solo profession. However in late 2024, Ford was identified with an aggressive type of blood most cancers, and it was throughout that battle with the illness from his hospital mattress that he made his new album. It is known as “Misplaced In One other World.” James Ellis Ford, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
JAMES ELLIS FORD: Hello. The way you doing?
SCHMITZ: I am nicely. Thanks. I need to ask you the way you got here to study of your most cancers prognosis. Are you able to inform me that story?
FORD: Within the run as much as Christmas 2024, ’25, I might been working fairly closely, as I all the time do. and I used to be beginning to really feel slightly sluggish, fairly actually, however form of put it all the way down to, you already know, burnout or no matter. I used to be – possibly I used to be working too onerous. However then just about on Christmas Eve, I obtained hit like a ton of bricks.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES ELLIS FORD SONG, “OVERTONES”)
SCHMITZ: And what was the prognosis?
FORD: It was AML, which is, yeah, myeloid – acute myeloid leukemia.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “OVERTONES”)
FORD: (Singing) I’ve had the strangest feeling.
I used to be in a fairly dangerous means. I believe it is acute, so it both – you already know, it will get you in a brief time period, and also you get assist or you do not, because it have been.
SCHMITZ: James, how are you doing now? What’s your well being like now?
FORD: I am at present superb. Yeah, it has been a curler coaster. I had the chemo, after which I had a stem cell transplant. Now I am again to my unique immune system. Technically greater danger of relapse – so there is a slight sword of Damocles hanging, however in any other case, you already know, I really feel superb. My vitality’s good. I am residing life and, you already know, attempting to take pleasure in what there’s to take pleasure in.
SCHMITZ: So that you made an album of music whereas in isolation at a hospital in between rounds of chemotherapy. Inform me about how you probably did this, and inform me concerning the technique of doing that.
FORD: Yeah, it form of, I suppose, appears slightly mad from the skin that I might do this. However fairly actually, within the second, I actually wanted it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “DID YOU EVER WANT TO GO TO YOUR OWN FUNERAL?”)
FORD: (Singing) By no means once more, by no means once more.
I am used to creating music day by day, and it is a massive means that I sort of regulate my psychological well being and be ok with – and so I used to be remoted in a white room in a hospital, not in a position to actually see anyone. However my vitality got here again slightly for the primary time, and I began to really feel a bit higher and had some artistic ideas and simply had a sort of actual overwhelming need to make one thing, actually, I suppose, to remind myself who I used to be.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES ELLIS FORD SONG, “DID YOU EVER WANT TO GO TO YOUR OWN FUNERAL?”)
FORD: My spouse introduced in slightly desk, and I had a microphone and a laptop computer and a small little keyboard and made the entire report in a few weeks.
SCHMITZ: So that you recorded your voice whilst you have been within the hospital?
FORD: Yeah, I wrote the lyrics and sang it and did the whole lot in these weeks within the hospital. Yeah, you already know, a bunch of recent ideas and emotions to course of. And so I used to be simply sort of singing. , first thought, finest thought, actually – it is fairly unfiltered, the stuff that I used to be singing. And I simply form of obtained on with it and actually loved it, fairly actually.
SCHMITZ: So, James, I need to speak about a few the songs on the album, beginning with the music “Folks Simply Do not Know.” This was one in every of my favorites. Inform me about what impressed that music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “PEOPLE JUST DON’T KNOW”)
FORD: (Singing) There is a vivid mild up forward. Nonetheless, it is all eyes to the bottom.
Wanting again, it was about everybody having their very own expertise and the way onerous it’s to narrate such a isolating and sort of lonely expertise as being unwell to anyone, you already know, after which additionally folks and their impact on the world and folks do not usually notice what injury they’re doing to their – to – you already know, like, the injury we’re doing to the planet every day.
SCHMITZ: Proper.
FORD: , and by some means not acknowledge the horrors of the world – simply how surprising that’s.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “PEOPLE JUST DON’T KNOW”)
FORD: (Singing) Bubble made for me ‘trigger everyone seems to be misplaced.
SCHMITZ: Now, clearly, your mortality weighs fairly closely upon this report. You have obtained songs in right here titled, “This Will All Be A Reminiscence Quickly”…
FORD: Yeah.
SCHMITZ: …”The Ever After,” “Homesick For One other World.” However I believe the sound of this report has a lot vitality, and most of the songs on this album, I believed, carry a humorousness. , I am pondering of the music “Parallel Dimension.”
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “PARALLEL DIMENSION”)
FORD: (Singing) And I am undecided this poison is not simply making it worse.
SCHMITZ: The lyrics on that music truly made me giggle slightly. How did you preserve this humorousness by means of all of this?
FORD: Properly, I believe the easiest way I can take into consideration that’s that I used to be attempting to cheer myself up. There’s a thread of existential dread, however in my precise temper in that point, I used to be attempting to not enable myself to wallow in that. , as a basic rule, I used to be attempting to maneuver in direction of the constructive issues in my life. And there is, like, love letters to my spouse and to my little boy, and, you already know, speaking to myself. That is going to be OK. You are going to get by means of this. This may all be a reminiscence quickly or no matter. Regardless that I fairly just like the double-edge to the, it will all be a reminiscence quickly. , that was truly one thing that somebody texted to me, and I like the truth that it was meant in a purely constructive means.
SCHMITZ: Proper.
FORD: However it was additionally, you already know…
SCHMITZ: However it may very well be actually darkish. It may very well be like…
FORD: Yeah, precisely, you already know?
SCHMITZ: You are within the afterlife.
FORD: Yeah, humanity might additionally simply be a reminiscence quickly.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES ELLIS FORD SONG, “PARALLEL DIMENSION”)
SCHMITZ: Now, James, is there a music on the album that conjures up a selected reminiscence of your time within the hospital?
FORD: Yeah, there’s one music known as “Right here At present,” which truly is a really particular reminiscence, however it wasn’t truly within the hospital.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES ELLIS FORD SONG, “HERE TODAY”)
FORD: It was a second that I had between the primary and second rounds of chemo after I was allowed out. Me and my spouse and my little boy drove out to the countryside, and it was an attractive day. We discovered a tremendous sort of picture-perfect area with an attractive outdated tree, and we simply sat beneath this tree. It was so easy however so profound and overwhelming to me on the time.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “HERE TODAY”)
FORD: (Singing) The doorstep appears thus far (ph).
That music is about that second and the way particular these quite simple and unglamorous moments are and the way I form of – me, I suppose, promising my little boy that I would not take them with no consideration ever once more. There is a readability and a gratitude that I’ve now that I am very grateful for, and I am attempting to carry onto, you already know, as actual life encroaches once more. , the place I’m now in comparison with the place I used to be final 12 months – I am in a a lot, significantly better place.
SCHMITZ: That is James Ellis Ford. His new album is “Misplaced In One other World.” James, I hope you keep in that higher place. Thanks a lot.
FORD: Thanks, man. Recognize it.
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