James Apollo

A haze of pain, fear and opiates
If he hadn't rolled up the river when he did, things would have been awfully different. "I'd be playing in a house band in Branson, or selling appliances of my porch.”

Fortunately for James, the Apollo clan moved up the river at a young age, leaving the old home of Libertyville, Arkansas behind, and heading for the sweet life of the upper Mississippi.

That early taste of the road stuck, and after striking out school, jobs, and the attention young ladies, James Apollo struck out himself, hitting the road in a kind of eternal tour of the US. "I was living in diners, sleeping in the trunk of my car, and playing a new town every night. I had it made."

James finished up a west coast tour and wound up living on a boat in San Francisco "when the land ran out." He describes it fairly dark times. "I had no one. I thought that's what i wanted. I'd write these songs about beauty and sadness and love and loss, but what did i know? I was captain of a sinking ship.”

After a night of drunken dares, Apollo moved to New York City. Inspired by the city's concrete canyons and his own Western longing, he released GOOD GRIEF (2006), an album the London Times called "Americana in the truest sense."

Apollo spent another year on the road, but his luck ran out when he got back to New York. In the summer heat, home for a few precious days between tours, he was returning home from a late-night rehearsal on an old motorcycle when a van ran a red light and flung Apollo 20 feet through the air. "I was in a cast from the waist down," he recalls. "I woke up in a haze of pain, fear and opiates."

He describes the event as “the best thing that's ever happened to me,” and explains, “New York City was tearing my heart out. Before the accident, I was a cruel, unhappy bastard, and my loved ones were getting mighty few. I needed a way out." It took 6 months before Apollo could walk again. But as he recalls, “I looked mighty good with a cane.”

From that dark experience, the bittersweet sounds of "HIDE YOUR HEART IN A HIVE" were born. The album caught the ear of the BBC, who invited Apollo to perform the first single, "I've Got It Easy," on-air. HIVE also captured the attention of the mainstream press in the US and UK, marking a line between Apollo's time playing half empty rooms, to the current days of enthused crowds.

Despite a savage touring schedule, Apollo found time to lock himself into a Brooklyn recording studio last winter to record his latest EP, ANGELS WE HAVE GROWN APART. The bowery bum orchestra features many of Apollo's New York coconspirators. It's these haunting tunes James Apollo will be playing when the born rambler and his hobo troupe tour the US, UK, and other parts of Europe throughout the year.