James Bay Gets 'Intimate' and 'Outrageous' on Debut Album

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It's time to get to know James Bay.

The English singer-songwriter has officially arrived on U.S. soil with his debut album, Chaos and The Calm, and two high-profile TV gigs on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and the MTV Woodie Awards at South By Southwest. ETonline caught up with Bay backstage at Woodies in Austin, Texas, to get the scoop on his new music.

EXCLUSIVE: Backstage at the Woodie Awards

"I did a very quiet troubadour thing for a while," he said. "There's a whole other spectrum of sound on this. I show everyone that I like to play intimate, and I like to play outrageous, as well. So there's lots of bigger sounds."

Chaos and the Calm hit shelves on March 23, just weeks after Bay nabbed the BRIT Awards Critics' Choice award overseas. The 24-year-old was also ranked 2nd in the BBC Sound of 2015 list, just behind fellow Woodie performers Years & Years.

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Bay recently kicked off his headlining North American tour with a sold out show at New York's Bowery Ballroom, with upcoming dates in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago already sold out.

"The crazy thing is watching [the tour] selling at the moment, which is insane," Bay gushed. "I've not headlined in the states before, so live, there's gonna be that same sort of thing that's coming from the album. I'm playing with a band properly for the first time -- it's gonna be cool."

This year is gearing up to be a big one for Bay, and he's not shy about his big ambitions.

"The bucket list really is, it's venues. It's just wanting to play in bigger and bigger places," he said. "Somewhere between 2015 and 2016, I don't want to jinx it, but it'd be crazy to go somewhere like Madison Square Garden... Here's to hoping!"

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Among the other performers at the Woodie Awards last week were Fall Out Boy and Big Sean. Check out what the rapper had to say about the strong women in his life (hello, Ariana Grande!) in the video below.

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