ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
James Ellis Ford has a career many musicians can only dream of. He produced records for the Gorillaz, for the Arctic Monkeys, in addition to his solo career. But in late 2024, Ford was diagnosed with an aggressive form of blood cancer, and it was during that battle with the disease from his hospital bed that he made his new album. It's called "Lost In Another World." James Ellis Ford, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
JAMES ELLIS FORD: Hi. How you doing?
SCHMITZ: I'm well. Thank you. I want to ask you how you came to learn of your cancer diagnosis. Can you tell me that story?
FORD: In the run up to Christmas 2024, '25, I'd been working pretty heavily, as I always do. and I was starting to feel a little sluggish, quite honestly, but sort of put it down to, you know, burnout or whatever. I was - maybe I was working too hard. But then pretty much on Christmas Eve, I got hit like a ton of bricks.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES ELLIS FORD SONG, "OVERTONES")
SCHMITZ: And what was the diagnosis?
FORD: It was AML, which is, yeah, myeloid - acute myeloid leukemia.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OVERTONES")
FORD: (Singing) I've had the strangest feeling.
I was in a pretty bad way. I think it's acute, so it either - you know, it gets you in a short period of time, and you get help or you don't, as it were.
SCHMITZ: James, how are you doing now? What's your health like now?
FORD: I'm currently fine. Yeah, it's been a roller coaster. I had the chemo, and then I had a stem cell transplant. Now I'm back to my original immune system. Technically higher risk of relapse - so there's a slight sword of Damocles hanging, but otherwise, you know, I feel fine. My energy's good. I'm living life and, you know, trying to enjoy what there is to enjoy.
SCHMITZ: So you made an album of music while in isolation at a hospital in between rounds of chemotherapy. Tell me about how you did this, and tell me about the process of doing that.
FORD: Yeah, it sort of, I suppose, seems a little mad from the outside that I would do that. But quite honestly, in the moment, I really needed it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DID YOU EVER WANT TO GO TO YOUR OWN FUNERAL?")
FORD: (Singing) Never again, never again.
I'm used to making music every day, and it's a big way that I kind of regulate my mental health and feel good about - and so I was isolated in a white room in a hospital, not able to really see anybody. But my energy came back a little for the first time, and I started to feel a bit better and had some creative thoughts and just had a kind of real overwhelming desire to make something, really, I suppose, to remind myself who I was.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES ELLIS FORD SONG, "DID YOU EVER WANT TO GO TO YOUR OWN FUNERAL?")
FORD: My wife brought in a little table, and I had a microphone and a laptop and a small little keyboard and made the whole record in a couple of weeks.
SCHMITZ: So you recorded your voice while you were in the hospital?
FORD: Yeah, I wrote the lyrics and sang it and did everything in those weeks in the hospital. Yeah, you know, a bunch of new thoughts and feelings to process. And so I was just kind of singing. You know, first thought, best thought, really - it's quite unfiltered, the stuff that I was singing. And I just sort of got on with it and really enjoyed it, quite honestly.
SCHMITZ: So, James, I want to talk about a couple of the songs on the album, starting with the song "People Just Don't Know." This was one of my favorites. Tell me about what inspired that song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PEOPLE JUST DON'T KNOW")
FORD: (Singing) There's a bright light up ahead. Still, it's all eyes to the ground.
Looking back, it was about everyone having their own experience and how hard it is to relate such a isolating and kind of lonely experience as being ill to anybody, you know, and then also people and their effect on the world and people don't often realize what damage they're doing to their - to - you know, like, the damage we're doing to the planet on a daily basis.
SCHMITZ: Right.
FORD: You know, and somehow not recognize the horrors of the world - just how shocking that is.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PEOPLE JUST DON'T KNOW")
FORD: (Singing) Bubble made for me 'cause everyone is lost.
SCHMITZ: Now, obviously, your mortality weighs pretty heavily upon this record. You've got songs in here titled, "This Will All Be A Memory Soon"...
FORD: Yeah.
SCHMITZ: ..."The Ever After," "Homesick For Another World." But I think the sound of this record has so much energy, and many of the songs on this album, I thought, carry a sense of humor. You know, I'm thinking of the song "Parallel Dimension."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PARALLEL DIMENSION")
FORD: (Singing) And I'm not sure this poison isn't just making it worse.
SCHMITZ: The lyrics on that song actually made me laugh a little. How did you maintain this sense of humor through all of this?
FORD: Well, I think the best way I can think about that is that I was trying to cheer myself up. There is a thread of existential dread, but in my actual mood in that time, I was trying to not allow myself to wallow in that. You know, as a general rule, I was trying to move towards the positive things in my life. And there's, like, love letters to my wife and to my little boy, and, you know, talking to myself. This is going to be OK. You're going to get through this. This will all be a memory soon or whatever. Even though I quite like the double-edge to the, this will all be a memory soon. You know, that was actually something that someone texted to me, and I like the fact that it was meant in a purely positive way.
SCHMITZ: Right.
FORD: But it was also, you know...
SCHMITZ: But it could be really dark. It could be like...
FORD: Yeah, exactly, you know?
SCHMITZ: You're in the afterlife.
FORD: Yeah, humanity could also just be a memory soon.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES ELLIS FORD SONG, "PARALLEL DIMENSION")
SCHMITZ: Now, James, is there a song on the album that conjures up a specific memory of your time in the hospital?
FORD: Yeah, there's one song called "Here Today," which actually is a very specific memory, but it wasn't actually in the hospital.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES ELLIS FORD SONG, "HERE TODAY")
FORD: It was a moment that I had between the first and second rounds of chemo when I was allowed out. Me and my wife and my little boy drove out to the countryside, and it was a beautiful day. We found an amazing kind of picture-perfect field with a beautiful old tree, and we just sat beneath this tree. It was so simple but so profound and overwhelming to me at the time.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HERE TODAY")
FORD: (Singing) The doorstep seems so far (ph).
That song is about that moment and how special those very simple and unglamorous moments are and how I sort of - me, I suppose, promising my little boy that I wouldn't take them for granted ever again. There's a clarity and a gratitude that I have now that I'm very grateful for, and I'm trying to hold onto, you know, as real life encroaches again. You know, where I am now compared to where I was last year - I'm in a much, much better place.
SCHMITZ: That's James Ellis Ford. His new album is "Lost In Another World." James, I hope you stay in that better place. Thanks so much.
FORD: Thank you, man. Appreciate it. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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