Foreword By Michael Sheen

R.U.R

Joyce is the solo music of former Future of the Left guitarist/vocalist and founder of Running Punks, Jimmy Watkins. Jimmy famously quit world class athletics at the age of 25 to follow his musical passion. Since his decision to step away from the running track, he spent over a decade touring the world as a musician and won the Welsh Music Prize in 2012 with Future of the Left. Jimmy left Future of the Left in 2014 with the intention of no longer making music. All that changed when he started running again in 2019. This positive decision led to him quitting alcohol and rediscovering his love of music. Jimmy is well known for his Running Reviews, where he runs and reviews an album at the same time, and along with encouraging people all around the world to reconnect with running and music, these reviews helped Jimmy find the confidence to start writing music again.
Joyce is the name of this new found creative voice that Jimmy discovered through running and going sober. In the past, Jimmy had always written and recorded with a band, but with Joyce he was keen to explore home recording and discovering a new voice there, just like he did through running. The first single released as Joyce was called Foreword By Michael Sheen. This song had its world premiere on the Drive Time show on KEXP, and gained praise from Michael Sheen himself, who declared “Well I loved that. Brilliant. I’m now officially a fan.”
R.U.R is the brand new single by Joyce. It was written by Jimmy and he plays everything on it himself. This is what he says about the creative process behind R.U.R:

“I had the music for R.U.R written and recorded two months before I knew what it was going to be about lyrically. The words came together after I read the 1920 Czech sci-fi play R.U.R. In the play the manufacture of robots gets out of hand, and they end up taking over the world, and killing all the humans. I was sat in a soft play watching my kids playing as I thought about a future where robots were in charge, and it made me suddenly realise how magical the most mundane moments of human existence are. There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that we may be amongst the last humans on this planet, and I felt this sudden urge to record moments from my life as though leaving a note for our future masters. I talk about quitting alcohol because of exercise, I talk about a dream I had which came true the next day and I talk about the state of the world we are living in right now. I wanted to show that what might seem normal and uninteresting to us, is fascinating and heart-breaking compared to the life of a machine without a soul. When I finished the song, I realised that the sci-fi element of it had actually helped me write a song which would explain to my kids who their dad was and what he was like. I loved that twist. When we think about a future that scares us, we can sometimes find what’s of value to us in our lives now. This helps us decided what knowledge and magic we want to pass on to the next generation.
I wrote and recorded everything on R.U.R myself, and it’s the first time I’ve ever done that. It felt great to put so much of myself into a song.”
R.U.R had its world exclusive on Drive Time on KEXP, and Kevin Cole has played it several times since. 
Jimmy is currently making a feature length film where he will be running across America in 2024 and playing a gig every night as Joyce. Filming has already started on this, and Joyce will be providing the musical soundtrack for the once in a lifetime adventure. The film will be focussing on the mental health battles faced by some touring musicians, and how running and music can combine to help those who are struggling.

Joyce

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