This self-taught, self-made troubadour from Wimbledon, England is much more than an angry young man with an acoustic guitar. In fact, he doesn't even play guitar—he plays an acoustic bass. And that should tell you quite a bit. It starts to explain why his sound is a kaleidoscopic wonder of beats and samples and, yes, bass, able to keep pace with his vivid storytelling lyrical style. His spectacular debut LP, Panic Prevention, is equal parts Billie Bragg and the Streets, and led to Jamie's winning the NME solo artist of the year award in 2007—ahead of Jarvis Cocker and Thom Yorke.

Jamie T is interviewed in our music issue, discussing his incredible year. In 2007, he went from strumming his acoustic bass for friends to the top of the UK charts.

PLAYBOY: Where do you get the ideas for your songs? Do they come to you complete?

JAMIE T: Depends on the idea. I pick up on things I find funny or interesting. Any play on words or things that are fun to say. Most of the songs I've written are different snippets that end up being put together. Though these days I seem to have more fully fledged ideas. I don't think it means I'm getting better at songwriting. It's just a different way. I quite like the chaos of building songs from snippets of ideas. I like listening to music that's two lines about one thing and then it changes to another topic. It makes it interesting to listen to.

PLAYBOY: Do you work at it?

JAMIE T: I write all the time. Bits and pieces. My attention span isn't very long, so I find it quite hard to sit down and write a song. It's an easy way for me to get ideas for songs—writing down bits and pieces.

PLAYBOY: You've been writing songs since you were 14. Any of the old stuff decent?

JAMIE T: "Do You Have the Time" I found on a 4-track. That's from when I was 14. I re-recorded that and gave it away on my English website. That one's still around, but the rest of them are far gone and buried somewhere for no one ever to find.

PLAYBOY: How do you compose?

JAMIE T: A lot of the songs on the album I wrote on the electric bass. Then I got a computer with Logic on it and I started finishing the songs off on the computer. You can do more stuff, use different sounds. It's a good way to get inspiration to finish up. I would use beats and loops sometimes, samples as well. I work with a lot of samples. I'll try out anything.

PLAYBOY: Your music seems to have a lot of sources of inspiration, everything from folk to reggae to punk and hip-hop. Where did you get exposed to so many different sounds—is Wimbledon a melting pot type of place?

JAMIE T: My friends have always been very into music, and some of them were older than me. So I was quite lucky to get into good music at a young age. Wimbledon is a fucking boring place. So boring you've got to find something to do with your time. But it's on the outskirts of London, and London's a diverse place. I hung out with different groups of people, being a bit nomadic, making an effort to go places rather than stay in the same spot. We used to all skateboard, so we'd meet up. You meet people from all over the city.

PLAYBOY: When you decided to use the computer to flesh out some of your acoustic ideas, were you already quite handy with computers?

JAMIE T: I have a friend—who plays with me when I play live—who is a programmer. He helped me out, showed me how to record. Then he left me to my own devices. I was lucky to always have him a phone call away if I couldn't figure something out. But the best way to do it is to teach yourself. Not knowing how to use equipment is a good thing in the studio—it gives you boundaries. If you know too much about the equipment it can fuck the inspiration up—it doesn't leave room for mistakes. Often those "ah shit that sounds wicked" moments are when you stumble on something good.

PLAYBOY: But given your success finding an audience via the Internet, surely you spend a lot of time on the computer?

JAMIE T: I don't use the Internet very much actually. It's cool for finding a track, though. I had a Don Drummond album I came across when I was in Bordeaux as a kid—in a seven-story Virgin Megastore. I came across it by mistake. I think I bought it just because it said "1964 ska" on the cover. Anyway, I had that CD until I was about 16, when someone nicked it at a party. But now I can get whatever tracks I want when I lose something like that. Still, MP3s sound like shit. And I don't like that digital glitch you get with MP3s—worse than a skipping CD.

PLAYBOY: How did you first start getting stuff out online?

JAMIE T: I was playing around for three years or something. I was playing acoustic bass. But I was doing all these recordings at home, and I wanted to know what people thought. I was always solo when I played live. The internet was a way to get the music I was making in my bedroom out to people. I got a lot of feedback off that. It gave me another outlet. In the end it's about whether the songs are interesting or fucking boring. You don't have to be a musical expert to know that. That's what's so cool about writing songs and playing them to your friends. They are the ones who really know whether it's good or shit. You don't know—you are too involved. When you post stuff online you get better peer review.

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