Foto-© Vivien von Glischinski

Durch die Hügel der kalifornischen Landschaft streifend hat sich der alt-J-Frontmann aus dem Verbund gelöst und ist als JJerome87 zu neuen Ufern aufgebrochen. Die Leadsingle Brush Me Like a Horse aus dem mit Spannung erwarteten und letzte Woche erschienenem Solo-Debüt The Canyon markiert seine Rückkehr zur Musik – und ist das Ergebnis neuer Entdeckungen, sowohl auf musikalischer als auch auf persönlicher Ebene.

In diesem, vorab geführten Interview begegnen wir uns auf einer menschlichen Ebene, verbinden uns über die Kraft der Natur und sprechen über seinen persönlichen Weg in dieser neu gefundenen musikalischen Landschaft – bis hin zu Momenten der Erleuchtung. Eines wurde dabei glasklar: Er ist zufrieden, gespannt, auch ein bisschen verunsichert – und vor allem wird er seine Musik ganz sicher nicht auf TikTok promoten!

Thank you so much for meeting me. As many will know you as the frontman of the populair band alt-J, you have now released your first single as a solo artist! How does that make you feel having to release something on your own?
It’s interesting. I think ultimately, I’m excited to separate myself from the band for this period of time, and show myself as an individual, essentially. You can attribute the writing to just one person. As a result, you are trepidacious about it and equally excited. So I’m very fortunate to be in a position where, with the band, I’ve accumulated a lot of great experiences and I’ve made a lot of friends and I’ve gathered a healthy amount of fans, which means that I don’t actually have to work in an office to supplement my writing. So, now I’mf taking a sabbatical and I’m taking time to just work on myself as a writer and I think it’s exciting for me, because I think people who like alt-J ,like this, and that feels good.

Yeah, I can understand. Was this something that you were looking for while being in the band? To be seen more like an individual?
Well, I think it’s less being an individual, I suppose, it’s more when you’re working with a particular group of people for 15 years, inevitably, you want to have a creative break at some point. It is a bit of a cliché with bands that they do solo projects, and I’m reinforcing that expectation, I suppose. I wanted to do my own thing for a period of time, but I think it’s just healthy for me and for the band that we can do separate things, like the drummer has released an album in the past. That’s a really important thing to be able to do, and to be given your own agency is a really good way of resetting the dynamics of the band.

Was there a particular moment in which you decided to go solo? Did something spark it, or was it just more of a gradual process?
It was a gradual process, but over a small period of time. We’d finished writing The Dream, which came out in 2022, our last album, and normally writing completely stops because you’re just necked essentially, creatively speaking. Actually, my writing got stronger and stronger, and I was writing about more personal things, like the birth of my daughter, my daughter’s growing up, and I felt more comfortable writing this in my own name than using alt-J. Spending so much time singing about my daughter with the band, it felt less right.

You said your songwriting has become better, but are there sonic elements that you’ve taken from your time in the band or are you exploring new avenues?
Certainly, as the chief writer for alt-J, inevitably, I will be taking a lot of J’s sounds into this project. From someone who grew up writing original music with the band during the dubstep era, and where EDM was becoming really popular, there are some synth elements to the writing that I can’t live without, like deep basic synth that I just love. The quirky lyrics are my personality, I suppose, and that’s unavoidable, which is something that we’re known for as a band. The thing that I wanted to maybe move away from, which would have happened, whether I planned or not, was having less harmonies, like Renaissance harmonies, which was something that I’m really proud of. I think Gus has done amazingly, the keyboardist of alt-J, and I look forward to working with him again in the future. For this album, I wanted it to be more gospel, more Motown. I wanted to honor the sounds that I was trying to lean into. There were things that I knew I wanted to take with me and there were things that I knew I didn’t..

You described the song as having a “distinctly Californian sound”. What does this mean to you? As someone who is from England, I also find it quite fascinating that that sound resonates so much with you.
I knew I wanted to work with session musicians and I think California has a famous history of session musicians and big bands. There’s a session group called the Wrecking Crew, this huge band in the 60s and 70s and they were some of the best musicians and they all had this really unique chemistry with each other. They played on some of the most famous records of that era. I knew that LA sessionist musicians were the standard and they had a history in some Blues and Motown and Country. They had this skill base that I couldn’t find in London and they could react to the things that I wanted to recreate quicker and more effectively, so that was something that I would sort of label as a California sound. Also, just working with a different producer, he has a different world of audio that he’s grown up in. So he has different plug-ins, he has a different system, he has different instruments, and it was a sound that he had accumulated through his years playing in punk bands in Venice Beach. I knew I wanted a completely different flavor to the intricacies of equipment that were around us as we were writing, and that was also important. Culturally, working with Americans in recreating- maybe, not recreating- but using certain American style genres as ingredients, I think working with Americans is a much more realistic way of doing that rather than working with an English producer who lives in England.

Was there a certain world that you were envisioning for this specific sound and this album?
Yeah, also to go back to the previous question, there’s this laid back energy to California. There is this constant sun, blue sky. There are these wonderful hills that roll all around the city of Los Angeles. and there’s this relaxed environment, which a lot of people are drawn to. The Hollywood system is LA, it’s performance, it’s grandiosity, and it’s also self-assuredness and confidence in being able to do something special because you’re in a city that is all about entertainment. That was also another thing.

I felt like listening to Brush Me Like a Horse, especially sonically, I would say I got a very relaxed feeling, but also an eerie feeling, because the bases are so heavy and a little bit distorted. Besides, what is the story behind the lyrics? What does this all mean to you?
Well, officially, it’s a song about someone who’s going through a metamorphosis. They’re changing from a human to a horse. That’s the official story. It’s this idea that what they’re experiencing and what people are witnessing around them is the same thing, but the difference is that the people around them start to very quickly forget that they were once a human, so they start treating him more and more like a horse. So he’sf trapped in this nightmare world, where he’s losing his identity. That was the rough idea, but I write music in a way where I allow the audience to interpret the meaning, because I think that’s really important. Actually, I find it more fascinating than just prescribing meaning to someone. Also, lyrically, I sort of skirt the line between being playful, but also being peculiar. That’s quite a fun line to play between. I also fell in love with an instrument in Carlos’s studio, which is called the Mellotron. It’s like a piano, but you have cards that have sound effects that are installed and sometimes there are things that are taken from other bands. They are like archives. I had Black Sabbath cards and so I used a lot of the old Black Sabbath sound effects. Before “Brush Me like a Horse”, we sculpted these sounds using all of these sound effects. That is basically the foundation to the verse that I then sing over. It does have this eeriness and I think playing between moods is really important because you don’t want your audience to completely fall into what they think they’re listening to, because you want to surprise them through the sonic choices you make.

Yeah, I definitely got that eeriness and it’s really interesting that that’s basically a sound that you took from another band and manipulated it, and made it your own. I was also wondering if, because the song is about this man that has metamorphosed into a horse, I was thinking if there was an element of your journey as a solo artist that you resonate with?
Yeah, no, I’m a horse now.

Yeah, you are a horse. That’s what I was thinking. You’re the horse now.
I’m carrying this album on my back.

We’re all brushing your hair.
I suppose that’s part of why interviews are fun because it is kind of like therapy. These observations can be quite existential. I start thinking about it. I’ve never thought of it like that, but then if I start processing it, I suppose that it applies to becoming a solo artist and the weird world of transitioning from one thing to another is something that I am doing at the moment. So, it’s applicable for sure. It is interesting doing interviews, because you start to reassess things, case in point, yeah, I’m a horse.

I guess meanings also change over time. Maybe you had a different idea when writing it, but now, because people are interacting with the song, they have different interpretations. To me, the horse is not necessarily a bad thing. Horses are seen as these beautiful creatures. In my view, this song was more about you taking care of this beautiful thing. Then, I was listening to it and I was like “ oh wait, maybe this song is not about that” or maybe it is? I don’t know.
Well, I agree. I find, out of all domesticated animals, there’s a higher level of consciousness you can feel and see and experience with a horse. There’s something quietly profound about spending time with a horse and they’re extremely intelligent and gentle creatures, but they’re very sensitive to human behavior, which means when you have- and I’m not someone that’s grown up with horses or anything like that- but I had a moment. This was 12 years ago. I got a flight to Berlin and I drove to the outskirts of Germany or the borders of Germany and Poland, from Berlin, and my partner was doing a dance course. It was a bit bohemian, so everyone was going in these sweat tents, getting naked and having underwater Shiatsu massage and all these weird things. You’d have two guys that were fighting, one was a Brazilian jiu jitsu guy and the other guy did Krav Maga. They were fighting and it was a very weird polar opposite experience in this one compound where it was essentially conceptual dance. I went to visit my partner and I was just like, „What the fuck is going on?“ So I took myself out of that environment and I went for a long walk. I came across this field with these horses under this beautiful bridge against this lovely river, and this black horse came up to me. We must have spent maybe an hour together, just absorbing each other’s energy. It was really, really profound and lovely and, in a weird way, it may have even been the origin for some of this song. It’s not directly about that; it may have even started the initial growth of writing about horses, I suppose.

It’s almost like you felt a connection with nature. You also talk about that California has a certain laziness and sunshine and I always relate nature in a way to this calmness. That’s also how it kind of relates with each other, maybe subconsciously, maybe you didn’t even know.
I think sometimes you have these Tetris moments where everything clicks into place. I think you probably have that epiphany, maybe more commonly when you’re in nature, when you’re not talking, when you’re not overthinking, not overstimulated by being in a city, being around people, overthinking what you’re saying, sort of interpreting what other people are saying, reading between the lines of things. I think you’re in this cacophony of doubt when you’re with other people. When you go to nature, everything is much more simple and it just exists because it’s got a very simple pattern of biology and that you being a part of that reminds you that although you have high levels of consciousness, you are equally that simple in terms of how you grow and how you live and how you exist. You can have a balance with that experience. So, maybe there was something to be said about being a horse.

So profound. I’m kind of at a loss for words. Coming back to that whole idea of you came from a group and now you are a solo artist. I was wondering if there was a difference between releasing a solo project in comparison to releasing something as a group? Music industry-wise or maybe even feeling- wise. You kind of already talked about that, but I was wondering if you have anything to add.
I’ve only ever played in one band and I’ve never even performed on my own before. The iteration of the band hasn’t changed. We may have lost a member at the beginning of the second album, but we have never changed the band in any way. So, my experience was only mostly focused on writing music, performing is the other side of that. While we have become quite used to a system that happened because of the success of the first album, we had a commercial succes the second album, the third album had a particular taste to it and then the fourth album was probably our most critically successful album. So, we have a history of positive growth as a band and slowly we are playing to more and more people. You are essentially a planet that has such mass that it attracts people every time you release new work. Whereas when I’m doing my own thing, I’m starting from scratch and I’m essentially a new artist, and it’s very hard to persuade people to listen to you. That’s where I am right now. I find it quite fascinating, but it means I have to start from the beginning again. It’s exciting and daunting, because obviously when I first started, I was in my 20s and all I had was time and youth. I had the exuberance of youth, and I had a fuel cell, which would mean I could tour for nine weeks straight, and it wouldn’t be a problem. You know, we toured so much as a band, around the States and Europe and the UK, and it was pretty much all we did. It doesn’t seem feasible with the life that I have now as a father, so I am daunted by how much I have to commit to achieve my hopes, not my expectations, just my hopes, which is that I could do something with this. I always go back to this thinking; you’ve written something that you’re really proud of and anything on top of this is a perk. So I’m satiated by that. I’m in a space where I’ve done great things from my perspective, I’m very happy with what I’ve done and I think that is the greatest achievement. I’ve worked with people who are amazing, and I’ve met many people who are amazing, and I made jumps into the unknown and that’s really great. Ultimately, I’m very fortunate that I can come to Europe, and there’s enough interest for me to do a week of promo. I think ultimately the reality is that, I think most people will be more interested in when [alt-J] do another record, which I completely understand, because they’ve grown up with us and they’ve invested all their time, money, and energy supporting us. Me doing this other thing is a bit different, and I understand why that might be something you won’t necessarily engage in, but there is this element of unknown. I’m living through that unknown. We’ll just see what happens.

Yeah, I think it’s also exciting for a fan of your band to see what else people can do. As an audience member, you’re like “maybe I can check this out because this sounds different than what he’s usually put out”. I was also wondering, correct me if I’m wrong, but the album The Canyon, of which Brush Me Like a Horse is a part of, you could purchase it on your website back in December. Why did you do that? Take us through that process, that decision. Also, why would you release your single now? Because it does not follow the standard way of publishing music.
It was essentially a thought-experiment. I wanted to see how strong the songs were on their own. They were only available in one place. I was curious to see just how much of a grip the streaming services have on how people absorb music. I liked the idea of having one place, because you would get a taste of what you were listening to, or what you would buy. If you liked what you heard, you could buy it there in the shop. I did it because I wanted to reach out to my fans first. I thought, we have a lot of fans, and out of respect and out of an understanding, I wanted to reach out to them first and say “this is something that I’m doing, if you want to listen to it, it’s here.” I wanted to see whether I could do it without the modern day institutions dictating terms. It was really just an experiment. I was very proud, but it hasn’t worked out as much to the extent that I hoped it would work out. So, the plan was to release it down the line through streaming sites. I just wanted to give six months to the fans to absorb it in this way and I believe that if you write something and you work really hard on it, people want to buy it. People want to support people, people care about you, and they want you to continue to do that and that does involve a transaction at some point. So I thought this might be a healthier way. I have a lot of fans, a lot of the hardcore J- losers, as they’re known. That’s not me calling them losers; they are a self-titled fan group. A lot of them supported me through that, and that was amazing. If I want to reach a wider audience, which I do, and I want as many people as possible to hear the album, I have to go down these traditional routes. You have to play the game. It’s incredibly difficult for any artist to get their work out there, because every day it’s a landslide of music and things get covered very quickly. I can’t even get my head around how music breaks free or has a little area of the forest where they can grow. I’m very fortunate that I have alt-J as a springboard, but even that doesn’t capture an audience. So, you just have to hope ultimately that the songs are strong enough to exist on their own, and they can find light through the canopy, essentially,

Well, I’m sure, and I also find it interesting that you used that as a bridge for your old fans to cross onto your new music, in a sense. Was this experiement also your critique on places like Spotify? Is it maybe too accessible?
Without Spotify, I don’t know how successful we would have been as a band. So, it’s a bizarre situation because back in the early days you could make money by selling vinyl or records. With Napster in the early 90s and then streaming sites, gaining control of illegal downloads of music, I think the format changed significantly, and it doesn’t favor the artist. But, it is the state of the landscape, and you have to exist in it as best you can. It has an algorithm that can distribute your music to a much bigger audience, to an international audience, so there are benefits to using streaming services, but then you also have to be careful what you say, because you don’t want to…

Yeah..I understand. I also think you’ll never promote your songs on TikTok.
Artists now have to be entertainers and have to do things far outside their remit of experience and passion to publicize their work. They do have to have Instagram accounts, where you start to become almost like a YouTuber or a TikToker or a public figure as a way of sort of pushing your music. There are people that can do it, and then there’s people that can’t do it but try to do it. I would be in that camp. I think if I was to do TikTok, I just wouldn’t, I don’t think I’d feel confident about it, so I’m limited in terms of my ability to market the music of what a modern day audience would expect.

I find it funny, because I think you said on Instagram that you do not like social media, but, to me, your solo name really reminds me of a username.
Well, it’s an old email address. My name is, as British names go, nothing special. It’s Joe Newman. There’s an artist called John Newman. So, I had an email address and it’s a very Boomer email address where it’s my name and the year I’m born. I was leaning into that because I was like “fuck it, I’m 38, and what?” This is what early middle-age looks like, and I’m going to use this username.

Proud to be a “boomer” on the internet! Why do you hate social media or do not like social media? What are your grievances towards it?
It’s just so invasive, and it seeps down into the DNA of our culture, so people utilize it to the point where most people can’t live without it. There’s a lot of societal mental health problems as a result of social media. There’s algorithms that target advertising to children, there’s bullying that goes on, as a result of the format. It’s a dangerous thing to give to children. Also, you don’t really know what these companies are using it for or where they’re getting their information, who they’re trading their information with, and it makes everything unstable and it polarizes the world. They’re in their echo chamber, where they start to fear and hate at higher levels and discourse goes down and respect for different opinions goes down. You have people in the highest points of office that utilize it as a tool to create chaos. There’s so many aspects to it. From my point of view, I stopped using Facebook a long time ago, and I have an Instagram account that is a business account, so I feel quite disconnected from that. There was a time when we released An Awesome Wave, where we had a Facebook manager, or account manager, and he was just like “how can I help? How can we help? How can we let people know about this?” Now, we’re in a situation where you have to pay Meta to not limit who, you know, probably shouldn’t be talking about this….it’s quite scary.

I agree. Sometimes it’s a bit over-encompassing. I am basically a child of the internet and I even recognize that sometimes we have maybe gone too far. Now, how could you even navigate the music industry without it? Like you said, unfortunately, it’s the way you have to promote or make your music stand out.
I just feel we established ourselves before it became locked into the chronic culture of doing things in the enemy’s constraints. I’m lucky enough to have enough distance from it.