With her new album ‘Different Kinds of Light’ just announced for an August release, Jade Bird has moved to Austin, Texas and embraced who she wants to be. We dropped her a line to find out more.
Words: Laura Freyaldenhoven
Two years after the release of her self-titled debut album – which features the introspective genius of tracks like ‘Ruins’, ‘Love Has All Been Done Before’ or ‘My Motto’ – and singer-songwriter Jade Bird is announcing a new album, ‘Different Kinds Of Light’. From her new home in Austin, Texas, she speaks to Dork about moving across the pond, accepting love, and the kind of musician she hopes to be.
Moving away from home for the first time is a big step. What made you move all the way to the US?
I’ve always loved the US. There’s a bit more space just in general. My best friend, who was my videographer/photographer for years since we were kids, was renewing a lease here, and we were desperate to move in with him. We just kind of thought while we’re young, I guess this is the type of thing you’re supposed to do: get on a plane to America and see how it goes!
Did the big move influence your writing?
The pandemic really influenced my writing. I had what I thought was my whole album, and then the pandemic hit, and I wanted to record it so desperately. But I had to quarantine in Mexico before recording in Nashville, and in that apartment, where we stayed for two weeks, I literally wrote half my album. It was something about the way it was such an alien situation and kind of an alien place even though it’s beautiful. I remember being in the apartment, and there were street musicians outside. You’d hear it every morning, and I just ended up writing the most unique to me, for me, stuff. It was so different, and I just loved everything I was putting out.
So, what happened with the rest of the album, pre-Mexico?
It’s interesting. I’ve been sat on this album for a really long time, and the reason I chose to do so is that I get the feeling it’s the best thing I’ve done by a million miles and the best thing I will do for a little while. I’m that proud of it that I can sit on it for almost a year, or I will sit on it for a year before releasing it and still want to play it live. I didn’t scrap what I had; I kind of morphed it. It was supposed to be ten songs, turned into sixteen songs, and then we cut it down to fourteen.
Working on the album for such a long time, did that help you find yourself and the sound you were going for?
It was so essential. As a young artist, you often feel like you have to put out an album a year, and I was all for that, but it’s really interesting the fact that I was given six months more time than I would have had, and the fact that I then created this album that I’m so, so proud of. That six months allowed for six more songs that really are pushing the sound of this record. They are pushing it to a new place. It just feels like such a leap forward that I couldn’t have done if I didn’t have time to live and progress. Writing is like living. If you don’t live, you have nothing to write about.
What do you write about when you’re stuck indoors for two weeks?
For me, it was specific situations. There is this song on the record called ‘I’m Getting Lost’. It was horrific, in the UK, what happened to Sarah Everard, and this song is about my frustration. There is nothing I love more than a city at night. I find it so poetic because it feels so apocalyptic. When you go to Trafalgar Square at three in the morning, it’s the coolest thing ever; there’s no one there. But I was feeling so exasperated that I can’t do it alone. I can’t go out alone, and I never could. I have to be chaperoned like we’re in the 18th century. ‘I’m Getting Lost’ is basically about falling out with somebody and feeling so trapped and so desperate that you just run the risk and you go and get a train in the middle of the night. I think it’s things like that. It’s the time you have to dwell on situations and feel sour about something… Also, love.
What about love?
This album is a lot to do with having a relationship that is defined by itself and not let it be defined by my past. Because my other relationships were fleeting, breaking up. My parents’ relationship, my grandparents’ relationship, they were all doomed. This album is about really walking into waters of like, “Okay, you’re still here. I still love you. What’s this all about then?” and the different ways you go through that.
Did you know that you wanted this album to follow that specific concept when you started writing it?
It kind of came to me. I really thought I was going to write this extroverted concept album. There were studio sessions with Linda Perry, I was really into the riot grrrl scene; it was really where I wanted to go. And then I wrote a few songs for that but more songs for this other thing. So, I thought, “Well, if I’m writing more songs for this other thing, I’m just going to let that carry me. If that’s fate deciding that’s where I’m going this time, then that’s where I’ll go this time.”
Let’s talk about the album. What does the title ‘Different Kinds Of Light’ mean to you?
We were on holiday in Japan after touring, and I only had this one piece. To me, it was a premonition because I had nothing else, and I was really struggling to create. I had just come off what felt like four years of touring, and I couldn’t write what I wanted to write, and I was getting so confused, but I had this ‘Different Kinds Of Light’. We redrafted it, me and my partner, and got so excited about it that we then flew over to do the writing session. The title ‘Different Kinds Of Light’ is kind of about the different phases of being in a relationship and accepting that I’m not my parents, and if I’m not, then how do I make this work. This different shade of being in love primarily, in the none cringiest way possible.
Another important song on the album is ‘Houdini’, which is often classed as a break-up song, but it’s a little more than that, isn’t it?
It’s actually about male figures and abandonment from being young. My Dad was in the army, parents divorced… I had another male figure who left and shattered my heart into a million pieces. ‘Houdini’ is about that and, to me, it felt a little bit trivial to assume that –due to probably my gender and my age– it’s just a break-up song. If you took a minute to look at the things I’m talking about, I’m not breaking up with anybody. ‘Houdini’ was closure on the past to start a new phase. I wrote that song, closed the door on it, and started to write about my present.
Are you more proud of this album than ‘Jade Bird’?
The first record, I think I was very young. I couldn’t quite get where I wanted to be with it. But equally, I don’t sit there and lose sleep over it. I’m glad I moved through it. I’m glad I released it. For the small group of fans I had, it’s become quite important to people’s life, and that’s kind of magical. I am proud of it in a way, but this second record is so much closer to how I want to be seen and how I want to play live, and my songwriting heights I want to reach. That’s so important to me. I can’t even explain how seriously I take that craft, how good I want to get, and there are some glimpses on this record that are really exciting to me.
Tell us more!
I always thought, to be a great writer, you have to be able to write about other people. It’s fine writing this album that’s really introverted and me trying to work out myself, or my family, and my childhood – this weird trauma album. But the second one, there are some stories in it about people. There’s this one about this war veteran that my partner went to see to buy a guitar off him. He flew over to Virginia and got into a car with him and found out that there was severe PTSD going on, to the point where he was hallucinating as he was driving. He was telling me all this on the phone, and all got a bit crazy. I went back and wrote ‘Red White and Blue’, and I’m just so proud of it because it feels like such an examination of a character. It’s moments like that where I can tell that I’m getting closer to where I want to be.
Where do you want to be? What’s the dream?
I think the musician I want to be is… I want a catalogue of work that I look back on and feel there was some sort of unique sound I got to. The thing I love about PJ Harvey, Tori Amos, even Alanis, I look at their catalogue and think, “You really tapped into something there. You really tapped into something new.” Especially Tori Amos. I listen to her and wonder how was this album missed in a critical way? I just want, like I think any artist, a catalogue of work that represents me and that I’m proud of. When you’re young, you want to take over the world, but you shortly realise – when you become a little bit less arrogant– no, I actually just want to do my craft and be proud of that.
Taken from the June 2021 edition of Dork, out now. Jade Bird’s album ‘Different Kinds Of Light’ is out later this year.
