After almost a decade with his enormous yet somehow tender, fragile voice fronting Starsailor, James Walsh has emerged as a singer-songwriter in his own right, with an acoustic guitar and some big, new tunes to travel wherever the road may take him.   One minute Starsailor were unknown in Wigan, the next they were being hailed as “the new Coldplay” after only their second gig, and front covers of magazines like NME propelled their debut album – featuring what would become James’s trademark lovelorn voice and epic songs – into the Top 10. They ended up selling over three million albums and towards the end of Starsailor’s decade of success, James started playing acoustic gigs to promote the band abroad, and started to enjoy the new found “freedom” of playing without a safety net.   “The great thing about the band is it’s a comfort thing,” he explains. “You know what the set is, you know what’s going to happen, and you know they’re there to back you up. With the acoustic stuff, there’s this whole new sense of freedom. You get stuck in that album-tour-promotion cycle. Now I can have beats on laptops, experiment with synthesizers or strings sections, write or work with all sorts of people in all sorts of different countries or environments. I feel much more like a singer-songwriter now, living it and breathing it.”  Just over a year after taking the difficult decision to put the band on extended hold, James has barely looked back.