Singer-songwriters singing sombre songs about heartbreak and heartache are ten-a-penny. It's trendy to pen tragedy and put it out to the world to a backdrop of pitter-pattering piano and gentle giant guitar tones. Every now and then though, someone comes along and breaks the mould, bringing songs of love (and loss, it's unavoidable these days) to the masses. Ed Sheeran gave us 'Thinking Out Loud'. George Ezra gave us 'Budapest'. And now, JP Saxe gives us the pre-pandemic penned, post-apocalyptic anthem, 'If The World Was Ending'.
If there was a time when his music was only reaching those around him, he's now living in a completely different world where a single song of his has racked up 450 million streams and 94 million views. While he's not averse to the success its bought, the fact it's come during a global pandemic has been a bit odd.
"When I first recognised the song was resonating with people because of Covid-19," he says, "I was originally rather conflicted about it. I wasn't sure if it was within my moral compass to be enthusiastic about the silver lining of my song reaching more people in this situation.
Love, it seems, is at the centre of JP Saxe's universe; whether it's international heartbreak ('25 In Barcelona') or homegrown happiness ('3 Minutes'). This year's 'Hold It Together' EP slipped between the happiness of new-found love and the heartbreak of a breakup, but his latest offering, 'Hey Stupid, I Love You' is him well and truly opening his mind.
Whether he's being a 'Sad Corny Fuck' and professing his love, or stripping back his soul to sell his heartbreak, JP Saxe puts honesty and relatability at the heart of his writing, especially now he's working with other artists.
"The only way to be relatable is, to be honest. I always used to argue with writers in sessions, when they say about having to be less specific so we can be more relatable. That's totally valid for some songwriters, and it certainly has a place in music, but my argument, for my own music, is that my favourite movies have nothing to do with my life really, they'll be protagonists who are having experiences I've never had. You know, I've never lived on Tatooine, and yet I will still relate to those stories and find myself in them. I don't see why songs have to be any different.
Ironically, it's through finding that feeling of realness in a session with a writer that lit the spark that spawned his super-hit, 'If The World Was Ending', which he co-wrote with Julia Michaels, and produced with Finneas. An experience, he admits, is one for the books.
It's safe to say that there's way more of the world listening to his music than his friends, and yet it's still providing JP with a reality check. Through the success of his song, he's been able to reflect on who he truly is as an artist and where he would like to go by staying true to himself.
"If there's anything I try to take personally from 'If The World Was Ending' doing as well as it has, it's the encouragement that I don't have to be anything other than myself for this music thing to work. I think that it's a really scary thought, as an up and coming artist, to think 'does who I am match the success that I want?' and do I have to be a different kind of artist to have the kind of artist career I want, and I always rejected that, but I certainly worry about it.
Although writing 100 versions of 'If The World Was Ending' seems like a mammoth task for a man with a mammoth heart, it's actually something JP views as nothing more than a trip through normal human behaviour. Throughout his growing catalogue, his songs strike a chord with everyday emotion, and it's here he truly feels at one with his growing fanbase, and with grounding himself as a person.
"It's one of the wonderful contradictions of being an artist. On the one hand, there's this uniqueness in sharing your experiences in songs and having people sing-along and listen, but on the other hand, in order for the songs to resonate, there's this acceptance that my experiences are not that special, my take on my emotions is not that special, my feelings are not that special, and that's why they connect.
"I think that was part of the understanding that enables me to only write about my own life, because I trust that if I really make it feel like the part of my life it came from, my life is not so unique that other people are not going to find their lives in it. I'm just the same person going about the same basic emotions everybody else goes about.
Being human, at the end of the day, is all JP Saxe knows how to be. In a year that's seen him fall in love, he's also experienced devastating loss, all in the wake of a global pandemic that's truly put things in perspective for him. His experiences, as ever, have informed who he has become as both a human and an artist.
"I'd been writing in LA, but I was back in Toronto, because my mum was sick. I literally finished the EP on my laptop sitting beside my mum in the hospital, and it integrated itself into my life in a really meaningful way.
It came out only a week or two after my mum died, which was right before my first European tour where I did a few dates with Lennon Stella. This was all right before Quarantine, so when I say my life has changed a lot since January, there's been all kind of readjustments to what it means to be myself."
Through readjustment has come reflection, and on reflection, JP Saxe has set his sights on an even shinier spotlight than the one he's currently standing under.
"I'd like to be playing in football stadiums around the world - if that's the number of people who end up liking this music, that's amazing. Most of my favourite artists are massive pop artists, so I don't think it's entirely fucking impossible, but I haven't got to where I am now by aiming for the goal. I've got there by aiming for the art that I want to make and see where it takes me. If it's 40 people in a cafe in Canada and that's the only people who will genuinely like listening to my music, I will still make music for them."
JP Saxe isn't a singer-songwriter chucking out meat-and-potatoes fodder for the chart show massive. He's a human being hitting up the human heart and putting his pen to paper to pop down his thoughts and feelings and feed them through the rest of the world's lives. While he's got lofty ambitions, he's also got a songbook of stories to tell, and as long as he stays true to himself, he'll keep wondering what would be if the world was ending.
