About a decade after signing his first record deal and releasing the hit single āHow I Want Ya,ā featuring Hailee Steinfeld, actor and musician Hudson Thames is starting 2025 by releasing his long-awaited debut LP,Ā Bambino. The album is laced with moody pop anthems, deeply emotional ballads, and genuinely timeless songwriting, paying homage to icons like Elton John, Billy Joel, and Paul McCartney.
Thames began playing piano and writing music at a young age, growing up in an artistic home, thanks to his parents. He took the albumās title from the Italian word for ābabeā or ālittle oneā becauseĀ BambinoĀ was a childhood nickname he received at 12 when his father remarried into a large, boisterous Sicilian family. That family includes his stepmother, Tricia Leigh Fisher, daughter of entertainment icons Eddie Fisher and Connie Stevens.
The album reflects Thamesā transition from childhood to adulthood. Interviewer Annie Lesser sat down with Thames to discuss his debut LP, how he has evolved as both an artist and a person, and how that growth shaped the album.
—
ANNIE LESSER: This is your first LP, and Iām sure a lot of work went into it. Youāve mentioned that the album represents your transition from childhood to adulthood. Since you started acting and making music at a young age and grew up in a highly creative family, I imagine you didnāt have to convince your family to support your artistic pursuits like many creatives do. Instead, Iām curiousāhow did you navigate your career path in a way that felt like your own choice, rather than simply following in your familyās footsteps?
HUDSON THAMES: I started writing songs on my own in the bathtub, which I’m sure was influenced by having music in the house all the time, but I would bring songs Iād written to my dad, and heās a brilliant piano player…from Mississippi, [with a] soulful honky-tonk vibe…And he would score [what I had written]. And then he would teach me how to play the piano part to it. So, it’s almost like his style of piano playing got really baked into mine from the get- which I was kind of grateful for because it threw me into a soulful gospel-driven musical upbringing. And then I kind of circled back around to pop later in life.
It has everything to do with who I am as an artist, and it’s honestly one of the things that I’m the most appreciative of is that my writing and creativity did come from me, and there was never any pressure [from my family saying] Hudson, you should do this. None of my brothers are musical or do anything involving [the arts], but all the resources were there for when I was.
I always make the comparison to the Detroit auto industry…My family is clearly a big band of hippies, which was the most fun way to grow up ever…very open and artsy- fartsy. But [entertainment is] the industry of the town that I grew up in… And that’s kind of why I compare it to Detroit. If I was born there, I probably would do something with cars.
AL: I like that you brought up your gospel influences. Your press release is focused on your music paying homage to pop ballads from the likes of Elton John, Billie Joel, and Paul McCartney, but as soon as I turned on your record I was immediately struck by a gospel sound.
HUDSON THAMES: Ā I appreciate you saying that because I like that translates to listeners. It’s always really funny. When I do gigs with new musician friends and they start walking through the chords of a song, they [comment], āOh, whoa, this isn’t a pop song. It’s a church tune.ā And I like that underneath it all, thereās a lot of that [gospel influence].
AL: Beyond just gospel, there’s a lot of theatricality to your music. Iām sure this comes from your performance background, with your first professional acting job being in musical theatre.
HT: This ties into [what I was saying earlier]. I started writing songs [at] eight or nine years old. Around that same time, I was a crazy kid jumping off the walls, a complete adrenaline junkie. My parents [who didnāt know what to do with me], had a friend who had an improv class. And she [suggested], āHudson can come to class for free…he needs an activity.ā So [I went] just to go blow off steam, [but I] fell in love with [acting] from an improv standpoint.
And then…some kid in class [mentioned auditioning] and I was like, what is an audition? Because my parents were really careful to not force anything on me, and probably hoped that I would not want to [act], to avoid a lot of the pitfalls that they faced, but I did. I was like, oh my God, you can do this as a career? So I started auditioning for different things and I immediately latched onto [musical theater] because that really felt like the marriage of music and acting for me.
So I auditioned for this play called 13 when I was 11 or 12, that took me out to New York. We did that on the East Coast with Ariana Grande, Liz Gillies, and a bunch of other supremely talented friends who have gone on to be total forces in that world. That is where my love of performing sparked. I was like, oh my God, I wanna do this every night forever.
AL: As an actor and performer what work have you put into translating your album into a live concert performance?
HT: Honestly, the biggest mission for me is always walking the line between being behind the piano and not]…āMema’s Interludeā is a very personal song for me, and I know I wanna sit on the edge of the stage and tell that story. I guess kind of leaning on some of the musical theater moments of the early days, is where that comes into play in a helpful way.
AL: Your album is about transitioning into being an adult. Right now you’re 30 years old, a very big transition age, and you’re about to turn 31 next month. So what shifts in your life really made you into the adult of this album?
HT: [Iād been trying to release this album for years] when I got out of a record deal that was leaving me creatively frustrated…I had a pretty good idea of how to finish [the album] and I knew I wanted to produce a good amount of it myself…then the pandemic happened, right when I was gonna put it out. I couldn’t tour it or promote it at all. So I [decided to] table it for a couple of weeks while this whole pandemic thing blows over, a hilarious thought. It sent me into a downward spiral. [But it] ended up turning into this beautiful thing. It gave me this chance to revise and change a lot of things in the production. I was able to improve a lot of stuff that I didn’t really give enough consideration to the first time around.
So I was getting ready to put the album out for the second time. And then I entered the most insane and hard time of my life. I got into the most serious relationship I’ve ever been in. I got sober… then the album kind of took on this new meaning…It really evolved in my laptop for a long time before coming out. I knew the day it was done. I finished āMemaās Interludeā, and was like, I think I’ve said everything I need to say.
I [compare it] to when my dad got remarried, because that was the last time that I felt like such a change in my life and such a new chapter opening up. That was signified by all these people calling me Bambino, Bambino. And so [the album title] felt right. The themes of it are love and heartbreak and becoming a man and getting sober.
AL: Speaking on your sobriety, listening to your album itās easy to casually pick up on lyrics with references to drinking, or Patron, or feeling drunk. Iām sure the context of those lyrics has evolved as you’ve done your editing and revising and reviving the pieces.
HT: Oh man, so much. It’s funny, I’m a very boisterous extrovert, but I also feel so naked talking about anything personal in a song. I feel the need to disguise it a little bit. I also just think it’s fun to go the extra mile and be like, can people figure out what I’m really trying to say here? My twenties were incredible and I wouldn’t trade them for the world, but I got caught up in the scene and with people that I needed to not be around anymore. [Shifting] my priorities and what matters most to me in life was really difficult.
AL: I feel the clearest lyrical reference to this time of finding sobriety in the pandemic is in the song ā100%ā when you say, āI still got my homies with me when I/Can’t pay the rent, world is on fire/Me and my friends are drunk on a smile/A hundred percentā Iād love to know more about what went into this song.
HT: I mean, you’re spot on…I ended up flying to Nashville during the pandemic to write for a couple of weeks and then everyone was afraid of taking airplanes. So I was basically stuck in Nashville for like a few months…But that’s where it all came to a head.
I grew up in LA with this art collective called The Hounds, and it’s something I’m so proud of and so grateful for. We have a logo that I have tattooed on my arm. But we’ve always done everything together…[in an] almost Odd Future-esque way…We’ve all become professionals together, and gotten good at what we do together, and are all able to continuously help each other and work. And that was the first time I really felt very separate from my people…It was also the time where I [thought], āI want to get sober.ā
AL: Are there any other songs on the album that you have a strong inspiration for or background story behind creating?
HT: Every song has a pretty crazy story. Like āMan of the World,ā I was in London doing an orchestral session for another song. And the producer that I was with is friends with Jamie Cullum [who Iām a huge fan of]. And he was like, I’ll just call Jamie and we’ll go over to his house and write. And I was like, what?
So we drove out to the countryside and spent the most beautiful day writing āMan of the Worldā in this cottage, where āCharlie and the Chocolate Factoryā and āMatildaā were written because Jamie’s wife is Sophie Dahl whose grandfather was Roald Dahl and they still live there.
āMema’s Interludeā has that voicemail from my grandma, who was my favorite person in the world, and passed away before this album came out.
āNoā [is the] song is the most about me. It’s more of a prayer than a song lyrically, kind of crying out, āCan I do this? This is so hard.ā I hearkened back to an old sermon that I found that I love so much from Michael Beckwith, who christened me as a kid. I was like, I’m putting this in the song.
Every poignant moment for me in the last couple of years I feel like I’ve been able to get into this album.
WORDS // ANNIE LESSER
PHOTOGRAPHY // MALLORY TURNER
CONNECT WITH HUDSON THAMES
Ā