Jaws The Shark runs through his new self-titled EP, track by track.
London-based noisenik Jaws The Shark has been blasting a bit of a trail of late. After supporting Deaf Havana on the road, now he’s dropping a brand new self-titled EP.
“This is my second EP of 2022 and I feel overall it expands on what people have come to expect from me,” he explains. “I feel I’m slowly able to start introducing different sides of my songwriting the more I grow as an artist. Songs like ‘That Feeling’ have allowed me to express a more alt-rock side, whilst songs like ‘Didn’t Even Know What I Was Looking For’, allow me to showcase a softer side. I like to write tracks that aren’t just a million miles an hour and in your face, but I also needed to make sure that it would fit in with the rest of the tracks and not stick out like a sore thumb. When I was in the studio, it took a little experimentation to try and find the right sound that would enable that. In the end I think we found the perfect blend”.
Given the occasion, we thought it was best to get the lowdown from the man himself – so we invited Jaws The Shark to offer up our latest Artist’s Guide. Enjoy!
Reno
I remember writing the chorus part of this around 2018, so yeeears ago, the guitar noodle bit that sits underneath the ahh ahh ah ahh ahh vocal part of the track. I just never got around to doing anything with it. One day I sat in my studio room and suddenly remembered it and played it, then from there onwards, I think I wrote the rest in about half an hour. I had not long before had an experience (with Mike from DPU, funnily enough) where we were both in Lake Tahoe in California, which is beautiful; we’d taken a boat out onto the lake during the day and then hit the casinos at night. We had some brushes with e-scooters after one particular casino, and let’s just say there were some sore parts the next day! Then we headed down to Reno, about an hour’s drive away and had another particularly eventful experience. The fast-paced nature of the music lent itself perfectly to my memory of the events of that evening, so I knew I had to kind of tell the story of those couple of days in this track. That’s the story of how Reno was conceived!
Destroy The World (feat. Dinosaur Pile-Up)
I wrote this track around two weeks before I was due in the studio, and I immediately knew that it was one that I wanted to have on the EP. It’s kind of slower-paced but hits really hard. I had Mike Sheils (from Dinosaur Pile-Up) drum on it, and Mike is one of my favourite drummers; he’s made for songs like this. I’ve also known Matt from DPU for a long time, and he’s one of my closest friends. I sent him the demo and asked if he wanted to sing a verse on it. He loved the lo-fi Weezer vibe of it and so, thankfully, agreed to do it. The rest is history. Always a highlight for me when I play it live.
That Feeling
I’d written all of the music to That Feeling before I’d made a start on the lyrics. Usually, as I write and record when I’m demoing, melody ideas pop into my head, and I record little mumbly parts to re-visit and collate together, but in this instance, I was really drawing a blank. I had a bit of writer’s block at the time, and it was really frustrating. I went out for a walk to pick up some food from a Brazilian shop not too far from where I live. As soon as I left the house, I was listening along to the music, and I just thought to myself, why not write about the fact that you’re struggling with writer’s block, about the frustration of it and the methods that I’d been researching about how to get over it. That was kind of it; from then on, I had a topic to write about, and it just flowed out of me. One of the more difficult ones on this particular EP in terms of getting it finished, but I got there in the end, and I’m so happy with how it came out.
Didn’t Even Know What I was Looking For
I’d written this one on an acoustic guitar initially, but it was lacking something for me; it needed more. I tried it on an electric and accidentally left my delay pedal on with one of my overdrive pedals, I started playing, and the blend of fuzz and delay made me immediately think Fuck! This is the exact sound I needed for this. It turned what was a really cute song into a lo-fi, washed-out love song.
This one probably means the most to me; I’ve never been too comfortable with opening up emotionally and getting too personal with my lyrics, especially when they’re directly about somebody that means so much to me. But at heart, it’s a love song, and I’m incredibly proud of it. The person it’s written about also loves it, and that was one of my biggest fears about putting it out there!
I’d like to do an alt version of this with strings and a choir at some point; it would lend itself so well to that.
