The idea of chapters is popular as we reach the end of the year, whether it's deciding to end your existing one or preparing yourself to begin anew. It's scary but liberating, and oftentimes, necessary. For James Reid, he's been working on his new chapter for the last two years, and he's finally ready to unveil it to the world. 

The Filipino-Australian multihyphenate has been many things throughout his time in the spotlight: actor, musician, and many more. But in this phase of life and career, he only has one goal in mind: to be great. "When you're trying to achieve great things, you can't afford to have balance. No balance—now's not the time for balance. Now's the time to put in everything that I got while I can," James tells Bandwagon. 

James' new chapter begins with the release of lovescene:, his first album since 2017's Palm Dreams. The record centres around the never-ending cycle that is love, how we constantly move from hurt and heartache to bliss and joy and then back again.

Interlaced with his personal stories, the album sees the 'let me in' act at his most vulnerable, not only divulging his intimate thoughts but also traversing new sonic landscapes. It's the start of something great, he shares. 

So, in the spirit of new chapters as we approach the end of 2022, Bandwagon caught up with singer-songwriter and CARELESS Music chairman James Reid to talk about change and evolution, passion, and his latest album, lovescene:. 

You recently released lovescene:, your first album since Palm Dreams in 2017. A lot has happened since then, how do you feel you've evolved as an artist?

The biggest change from my last album would definitely be my writing. It's more mature, I mean hopefully, it's more mature. It's been like five years, hopefully, I've grown up since then. But yeah, definitely in my songwriting and storytelling, I'd say it's gotten a little more—well, a lot more personal. I've gotten a lot more vulnerable in this album.

In terms of the sounds, it really changes a lot. Palm Dreams was mostly R&B, hip-hop, and lovescene: kind of stretches over a lot of genres that I really like to play around with, like, pop, funk, R&B, a little bit of synth wave. It covers a lot of ground but I think it's really the vocals and the writing that ties it all together.

You mention being a little bit more vulnerable in your album now, and lovescene: takes us through the cycle of love with a lot of your personal stories embedded into the songs. Where did that initial vision for the album come from?

This album didn't come together like, 'oh, I have this vision for my album and it's going be like this and look like that, it's gonna have this many songs about these different topics'. It wasn't like that at all. The process to write, record and finish all the music and release it took about six months, which is pretty fast actually. But that's because I wasn't planning on making an album, it just kind of came together like that.

I was just trying to make a lot of different songs, trying to move outside my comfort zone, and I play around in genres that I haven't done yet. That's what I was doing and then I kind of accidentally made the album. I was going to release some singles but then as I kept going, I realised I have enough for an EP. When the songs came together, I saw that it was all about personal experiences, relationships, and the different scenarios in relationships—I started to see a narrative and how the songs connected. So, it happened very organically.

This album sees you delving into new genres we haven't heard from you yet while also sharing your personal experience, what was it like getting to be vulnerable in more ways than one with lovescene:?

It's liberating, you know. I don't go into like extreme detail in the songs but they're definitely a form of outlet for me. I guess it's kind of closing chapters in my life and being able to get some sort of closure with certain emotions, cause like when you're writing a song and by the time you finish writing it, you're kind of like, 'ah  okay, I'm able to close that.'

Sometimes working on songs can open things up and make it worst but most of the time, it was good with lovescene:.  It's been a great experience. I would say, more than anything, it's liberating— scary but liberating.

Was there a song off the album that you were particularly excited for everyone to hear?

Man, there was so many. I was excited for people to hear 'hold on tight', it's a track featuring WOOSUNG, the lead vocalist of a Korean band called The Rose. The song was produced by Sweaterbeats and it's very different from all the songs I've done in the past. It's even really different to the other songs on the album, but I really love that genre of like French electronic, club house, and artists like Daft Punk and Justice.

I like that I was able to make a song like that in that genre. I thought it was really cool and I couldn't wait for everyone to hear it because it was so different. It's been receiving a lot of love and people have a lot of good things to say about it. I was able to perform it at The Rose's concert in Anaheim on their tour and it was amazing to see the audience like singing back the lyrics to me. It's crazy. 

You had a similar experience as well at JAY B's concert in Manila when you performed 'u & i', right?

Yeah! That was my that was the first time I ever performed 'u & i' live on stage. [Fans singing back and doing chants] blew my mind. It just came out two days before then, so I was shocked but that was an amazing experience. 

We've talked to a lot of CARELESS artists over the past couple of months and it seems that each record comes as a product of labour and love from the team. So, what has it been like working with CARELESS for your own album this time around?

This one was a little different because I had worked on all of the songs when I was in LA and I came back home with about 30 songs then we picked them together like which songs would be on the album, which ones made the most sense. I got to piece it together with the team.

We're a small team so you know, we do run it like a family company. We picked the songs, worked on the branding together, and shot everything in one day. It happened so fast that by the time I got home, we were ready to have it come out like a week or so later. I really wanted to rush it to the album so it could came out before the year ends and it turned out great.

The team is really what makes CARELESS, CARELESS—from the creatives all the way to operations. They make things works, they do the shoots and organise everything. They're like my family. 

In this new phase of your career, you wear a lot of hats. From being a performer to your work behind the scenes at CARELESS, how do you balance everything?

I don't. I'm not trying to balance anything right now. I think when you're trying to achieve great things, you can't afford to have balance. You need to sacrifice for the things you want to get and so that's what I'm doing right now. No balance—now's not the time for balance. Now's the time to put in everything that I got while I can.

It's easy to get burnt out when you're working on things that are like don't interest you but then when it's something I'm really passionate about, I just don't get burnt out.

Finally, what's next for 2023?

Um, what's next? Coming up, we have the Wavy Baby Music Festival during the Sinulog Festival in Cebu where all of CARELESS will be performing plus many other acts. We have artists from Korea like Sunmi and The Rose, as well as US artists like Pink Sweat$, Bag Raiders, and local acts like Ben&Ben, December Avenue, and Franco.

We have that in January, then in February, I'll be doing a North American tour for lovescene:. I will be performing for the first time songs from the album for the fans, and I'm so excited. It's been too long. I haven't even been able to perform 'Soda' for for the fans yet, or 'Hello'. There are so many songs that I've released that haven't been able to perform yet and this will be the one time I'll be able to. It's going to be big.

And also early next year, you can expect a lot of new projects and music from the CARELESS artists, including the new roster. 

Listen to James Reid's lovescene: here.