JB-  Let's talk about your music.  You have your album "Rollercoaster".

Jim-  The whole album is like a burned CD of your favourite songs. I switch it up every time I go into a new genre.

JB- Sometimes there is this George Michael-ish sound to some songs.  Is that something you were trying to do - like have the listener close their eyes and think, "Hey, is that George or is that Jim?"

Jim-  That's a compliment.  I'll take that as a compliment.  It wasn't intentional.  It wasn't planned.  People have said that and J.C. from NSync and Justin Timberlake.  That's the critic's immediate thing to do is to compare you to someone who's already out there.  So you know, if they say George Michael, I'm happy with that because he's had one hell of a career.  So I'm OK with that.  It's like I'm bitter because I know ("Rollercoaster") is such a good record and it would do so well if I had the team that Kelly (Clarkson) has.  Sometimes you create something great and you kind of have to let it go at the end of the day.  Labels want to put out records with as little to no work, you know.  They just want it to sell and sell and sell and not have to put that much money into marketing and PR.  That sucks.  I didn't get a video made, I didn't have radio play.  You do the best you can with what you've given.

JB-  Is that sort of thing something you want to shoot for in the future?

Jim-  I don't know if you knew about this, but Sony is coming out with a gay label and it's going to be through Sony BMG and it's called "Music With a Twist".  And I've been talking to people over there and I'm very curious about it because this record label is designed for only gay and lesbian artists who have appeal to the mainstream.  So I'm thinking to myself, "I don't know who else is doing this right now but me, so who better to start this label up?"  You know, it's Sony and they have money.  They have power.  That's something that I would like to do is get on a major label.  Even if it is a gay label, who cares?  Yeah, that's a part of me but it's a way for me to still appeal to women.  Because my music does that.  Everything on the record is written very ambiguously.  I don't say he or she or girl or boy, it's "baby" or "you".  You know what I mean?  I try to do it so it will appeal to everyone.

JB-  When you do your songs, where do the ideas come from?  Are they based on your life or things you've experienced?

Jim-  Oh yeah, sometimes.  "Outside" which is the more rock song, the lyrics to that is, "Alone on the inside, alone on the outside" and basically that was a very general, to me it was a direct happening of being gay bashed all my life.  So it was, "Did you know that you pushed me to the outside?  Did you know that you cut me on the inside?  If you could only read my mind you would see that you made me feel alone on the inside," blah, blah, blah.  But I wanted it to appeal to not just people who were gay bashed but to people who were just bullied or who didn't have the perfect childhood, who wasn't the norm, who wasn't accepted.  For me that was an account of that.  Then there's "Welcome to Hollywood" which is like trying to make it and it being so rough.  And then there's just your upbeats.  There's the typical dance stuff.  Most of it I have to be able to feel something when you sing.  There's so many artists out there who don't feel what they sing and if you don't then it doesn't hit as hard.  So I try to write as much - I wrote seven of the 11 (songs) on my album.  And then with the other ones I didn't write, I still felt connected to it in some way.

JB-  What do you think about artists who pretty much just put out an album, not caring about the songs are about or what the message is and they're just in it for the money?

Jim-  And they sell millions of records?

JB-  Yeah, how does that make you feel as someone who's struggled, I guess you could say, to get the name out there and get the music heard.

Jim-  If you're young and you want it so bad and someone's waving a big fat cheque in your face but you have to do everything that they say it's very hard for young adults to look at that kind of offer and turn it down.  I want to say that I can understand where they're coming from, but there's a part of me that says "What are you really in this for?"  I mean, pop musicians are here, they come and they go so quick.  And do you want a career about longevity or do you want a career based on finance?  I mean, you can't really control that.  People's guilty pleasures are like the artists who aren't really vocalists but for some reason they're just likeable.  Kind of like the Ashlee Simpsons or Hilary Duffs.  They have a fan base, they were marketed very well and they had some great hooks written into their songs.  It sucks and yeah I get frustrated and there's so much crap on it but it's all about money and you need a team, you need people to back you in this industry because if you don't have that it's really tough to get to that point.  That's just something about the entertainment business, it's all about who you know.