I’m a solo musician born and raised in London with quite a musical background. Both my parents were singer-songwriters when I was younger, so I think I was inevitably going to be a creative person. Writing music is sort of my way of expressing myself, and there tend to be rather dark themes in my writing surrounding mental illness, difficult relationships, and trauma. You’ve got to get it all out somehow, right?
There were a bunch of small indie bands that I would see performing a couple of years ago and I would watch in awe and just know that I wanted to be doing that, mainly the frontman of my old band, who was in a different band when I met him. I saw him play and it all changed from there. Things didn’t end on great terms with that band, but I wouldn’t be where I am today without them and I’ll always remember my time with them fondly.
I got really into Shoegaze bands somewhat recently and it was sort of like a revelation – bands like Holy Fawn and DIIV have been massively influential for me since then, and I would say that Holy Fawn are absolutely my favourite band. It’s that sort of ethereal darkness in their music, that’s the kind of sound that I’m going for now.
I would say that my song-writing process is pretty free-flowing and something I don’t try to force or control in any way, but I do like to take a sunset walk to get inspired sometimes. Nothing is quite as inspiring as a naturistic view for me.
I wrote it quite a while ago actually and it came from a very dark place. It’s about dealing with mental illness in a romantic relationship and feeling stuck in that dread of not knowing how to help your partner, or yourself for that matter. Musically, it was one of the first songs that I wrote during that time that really felt technically complex. I don’t like it so much now, but it was an important stepping stone in my musical journey and will always have a special place in my heart.
It was a bit of a nightmare, to be honest. Half of it was filmed by my best friend rather last minute, who is not a videographer, and the rest was filmed by my ex-boyfriend, who is also not a videographer and hadn’t even handled a camera at that point. I won’t go into too much detail about that relationship, but this person is who the song is about and is probably the most important person in my life. It felt sort of poetic having him film some of the video for me and he did a great job. We’re in the process of filming another music video now for the second single, Home, which came out last month.
I am actually in the process of releasing an EP, yes. It’s called Rebuild Me and it’ll be out on 22/8/22. In The Deep and Home are both part of that release and it’s all building up to that.
That’s a tough one because I haven’t performed as much as I would’ve liked to at this point. There have been complications with getting my band together and I’m still in need of a drummer to really bring my live sound to life, but I once did a solo gig at The House of St Barnabas in London and the acoustics in there were incredible. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever sounded so good live since. It’s the most memorable venue I’ve played to this day
I would absolutely recommend my good friend NIVMH who released an EP earlier this year and has an amazing dynamic on stage. I would know, I play keys and do backing vocals in her band and she plays bass in mine. She’s a remarkable musician both live and in the studio and I’ve always been in awe of her since our days in college together
Once the upcoming EP is out this month I’ll be working on some new stuff for sure. I have loads of ideas that I haven’t had the time to play around with properly yet. These songs are all at least over a year old or more, so I’m excited to start branching out and developing my sound. Hopefully, I can keep the music releases more consistent from now on, but I won’t make any promises. I do have another EP in mind already though.
Find out more:
Website: https://www.jazdagerofficial.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jazdagermusic/?hl=en
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JazDagerMusic
