INTERVIEW: Jasmine Rae returns with new album 'Lion Side': "This is the album that I didn't think that I'd make"
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Australian country music superstar Jasmine Rae today releases her first album in over five years with the remarkable Lion Side. Recorded in Sydney and Nashville with producer Lindsey Jackson (Jessica Mauboy, Tori Kelly, The McClymonts), the album comes after several years of Rae soul searching, self reflection and the need to find greater purpose in her life. Experiencing bouts of anxiety and indecision, Lion Side very much reflects this stage in her life, with Rae opening up about her struggles - as well as over coming them - in the lyrics. “I am fraudulent” she bluntly states on the album’s fifth single ‘Fradulent’.” There were so many times I said I didn’t want to record new music. So much writing and music was coming out of me, but I wasn’t impressed by it. I wasn’t impressed by many things at all,” she says. “I got sucked into unhealthy comparison. I listened to work done by others. My writing was real, it was raw, but so what? Just because it’s real, doesn’t mean it needs to be shown. [But] then I realised that being real is a superpower. It’s what heals us together. So I knew I just had to keep bleeding it out.”
Perhaps thanks to the intensely personal story winding through Lion Side, it is an incredibly warm album that effortlessly connects with your soul. Rae’s musical talent is broad, and while she retains her country roots, Lion Side has broad appeal, riffing on a number of genres. Single ‘Green Light’ is an addictive electro-pop song with a gentle but insistent bass line. ‘Don’t Do It For The Haters’ is a classic rock tinged belter, while the tender, heartbreaking ballad ‘Jessica’ is country music at its finest. The title track ‘Lion Side’ is one of the album’s highlights, with a message of empowerment delivered passionately by Rae set to a thumping beat. “I have dreams to protect / So I must rise from the dead / I can hunt with the best" she sings. “I think everyone has a Lion Side and a bit of fight inside of them,” Rae says. “This album is letting out that side and all the
other sides of me.”
One of Australia’s most successful female artists, Rae has accumulated over 20 million streams of her music, and has received multiple awards, including the CMA Global Artist of the Year in 2013, the only female solo
artist to ever win the prestigious fan-voted CMC Oz Artist of the Year award, alongside three ARIA Award nominations and nine Golden Guitar nominations. With the release of Lion Side her success is guaranteed to continue and we recently caught up with her to find out more.
Hello Jasmine, how are things in your universe these days?
R: Today I'm having a wonderful day, because today's the first day where I'm chatting to people about the album and it feels real. People are going to hear these songs that I've been sitting with through these weird tumultuous times, and I’m like ':oh my gosh am I actually a singer because all I’ve been doing is sitting in the lounge room in my Ugg boots. Do i actually sing? Do I actually write? Do i actually perform?” To be reminded that yes I am and yes there's an album coming out and people have actually listened to it and want to hear more makes it a good day today.
Congratulations on Lion Side. It is such a beautiful compilation of tracks. The album has been several years in the making, how are you feeling about it? What makes this album particularly special for you?
This is the album that I didn't think that I'd make. I always write and make music daily. It's like my journaling process. I knew I'd always do that but I didn't know whether I would actually release it. Whether people would actually care or want to hear it. There was a tour that kind of came out of the blue with an American artist and I just sang a song that I'd been tinkering around with and I never really got to do that before - be on tour when I'm not promoting an album and just get to try some stuff. I was feeling quite uninspired at the time but people responded with so much love. I went through a change in process while making this album and so there are songs on there that I thought no one would ever hear. That people are hearing them is really cool
I think that's so evident while listening to the album. It's an album very much for you. Particularly we want to go to ‘Don't Do It For The Haters’ which was your song written in response to the barrage of trolling and hate mail you received following the 2017 copyright lawsuit against Ed Sheeran, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill which was centred around your song ‘When I Found You’. Can you tell me a little about how that song came from I guess tears to rage to page to our ears?
Oh my gosh, it's a long story. There was a lawsuit that I decided not to be involved in, for many reasons, however the co-writers that I wrote with decided to go ahead and that's completely their right to do so. However, because I was the face of the song, people thought that I was part of the lawsuit. So I copped so much hate even though for personal reasons I didn't want to sue these people and I get nothing from it if they win. I've copped hate [before] obviously from things that I've done I've sung a song people don't like and they hate on it. That's fine. That's your opinion. Or I wore an outfit people don't like. That's kind of subjective. Or if I have actually done something wrong. But this was something I didn't do. I wasn't part of this lawsuit and I copped so much hate, you know? And I'm a sensitive people which many of us are. I felt very misunderstood. Very alone. And there were also people saying ‘you're an idiot for not doing the lawsuit, you should be getting heaps of money’. I copped hate from every single angle. I didn't want to put myself out there anymore for a little while there. I definitely didn't want to co-write and I didn't think people wanted to hear music from me. There’s a part of this tour that I was mentioning and I realised that we played a song on there and people loved it. I was around my band who I love and they loved playing the song. There's so much love around what we were doing. I kind of re-fell in love with it again. I realised that yeah, there's a heap of hate but I don't do it for the haters. I do it for the love. So that is kind of how the song came about and I actually co-wrote it in Nashville. I got back on the co-writing wagon. Kind of a nice little bow on top of that story and that's why I wanted to include it because it's closure for me for what occurred.
I also want to talk about ‘Lion Side’ which is your second track on the album. The lyrics “I've got a lion side… got some fire inside... no need to protect me… just let me set it free”. I'm loving this. Can you give me a little on the backstory to this track?
I wrote this during the time that I was writing on my own with beats, which is something I didn't usually do. But usually I'd come up with some ideas and sometimes I'd write just on my own with a keyboard or a guitar but i really enjoyed taking my ideas to somebody. But I closed my heart for a year and a bit there and didn't write with anyone. But I wanted some kind of inspiration so i was playing around with loops and stuff on GarageBand and Logic. And ‘Lion Side’ is like realising the truth is the lion and so I’m not frightened because I’m going to set it free. I've got a lion inside of me. I just wanted to be honest because I felt like people didn't understand. People weren't hearing what was actually happening and if people knew what was actually happening at least they could have their opinion but i would be able to breathe. Just let me set it free and stop. I wanted to just be completely honest about all things that I've ever done. This whole album felt a little bit like a journaling session.
And did you feel, prior to this album, did you ever feel like you needed to shout in order to be heard? Or worse, were you feeling like perhaps you were smothered or you felt you had to smother yourself because you were still growing as an artist?
Absolutely. And I feel like I'm always changing as a person. I think before I felt that other people knew best about what to release, and when you’re beginning that's kind of true. You know? You don't understand everything, but then there's a point when you're like I still want to work with a team and I want to write with people, but you realise that your opinion is just as valid as everybody else’s. I think some people are born with that but I wasn't born with feeling that, so I kind of came to that discovery that my opinion is not more important but it's just as important and just as informed and I can speak and that is okay. You know? I can even make mistakes when I speak. I can even say something and be like actually no. I can be unafraid. I don't have to be always correct all the time. I can just be well intentioned as I am and just be.
Beautiful. You are a wonderful song writer. You've got this voice, your poetry really speaks and resonates on so many levels and of course you've got those wonderful pipes as well. But you play piano, guitar, the harmonica. Does it help having all of these instruments the hand? Do you feel like you’re going to annunciate the song by understanding?
Sometimes you have to listen to things with different ears, it can help finish a song. I really love the feeling of finishing a piece even though I'm still editing all the way up until it's actually finished being mastered. I'm just like ‘oh my god there's one extra thing I can put in there or take out’. Having different instruments and now that I've been working with loops and different programs on a very basic level, I think it brings new energy. but just like co-writing does, you know? Co-writing with different people. it brings new energy, which I love. I love that song writing can take a different turn if you use a piano on something or if you put a guitar over it or an electric rather than an acoustic or a beat to it rather than a real drum . I love trying that stuff and seeing where it goes.
Of course. The audience are hearing it different as well. I'm loving ‘Green Light’ which is that track that effortlessly blends your country sound into a cool kind of pop song. Then i go back and listen to it and I’m like ‘oh this is a song about anxiety’. Then the pick-up is just really upbeat. That contrast is beautiful. Was that your intention with the track?
The track was written to the beat so the beat that is happening is my feet, because I wear high heels! Or I was this day that the idea came to me. It was me on the footpath and that's where the idea came to me. I don't know if it was a purposeful thing but I think anxiety can come disguised as many things, so it's nice that anxiety was disguised as a pop sing/ ‘Oh this is so carefree’… no it's not. It snuck right up on you.
Then you've got this beautifully, poignant stripped back heartbreaking ‘Jessica’ which i think is one of the album's highlights. Can you tell me a little bit about ‘Jessica’?
’Jessica’ is a song I wrote with Lyn Bowtell, we had never written together before, she's an incredible singer, song writer, vocalist and human. She connects people together. It was actually her idea, she wanted to write a story about a husband losing his wife. And I’ve never really written from that point of view before. I've lost people in my life, but I'd never lost someone in a car accident but I fear it constantly. I wanted to dive in as a song writer with her to this place that's not my story to tell - but to tell it. It was a really interesting thing. We have played it live in our piano show, and we're going to do a couple of piano shows coming up, a very covid safe sit-down audience, and when I sing it, it feels like I have to carry it very gently. I wrote this song with Lyn but it's not my story to tell.
On that note, you've done a lot of touring. I just want to know from your perspective, have you seen the sales and sizes of your audience growing the more you're out on the road and connecting face to face with people because you say it doesn't change when you're doing a live gig as opposed to putting an album out?
This is the weirdest thing. Putting an album out during a time when you're not allowed to tour or even have a hug with someone for a photo is so strange. I don’t want to be touring. I don't want to put anyone's lives at risk. I will do some intimate shows, but it is very weird to be doing it. It's amazing to see it before covid, to see it with your own eyes. It's like ‘we played in this bar two years ago and there were only this many people and now there are 3 times or twice as much or someone brought a friend’. It is cool to be able to see it grow with your own eyes. And then, there are people who have come to me and said ‘oh, we watched you in 2009’. And it's like wow. There have been people who have been amazing followers of what I've been doing for years. So, the live part, especially getting out to rural areas, it is part of the story of the music and your story with your supporters. They tell you about their lives and you get to actually share that part which is a little bit missing at the moment other than on social media. We're trying … we’re trying to make it work.
You released your first album Look It Up in 2008. Listening back to it now, what do you hear most immediately that has changed about the choices, you made back then compared to how you perform, write, create now?
Every album has been different. I actually won a competition called Telstra Road to Tamworth and that got me a recording contract. I'd be travelling to Nashville. Honestly I wasn't super sure where Nashville was when I won. I was 20 from the northern suburbs of Melbourne. I hadn't actually been on a plane. I didn't know anything about that stuff. So definitely the way that I went about making that album was very different. I actually saw the music industry change because there was no streaming back then. There was no social media in 2008. I think there might have been Facebook a year later or something. I still see myself as an artist who has many albums to go, but I've been able to make albums in a changing landscape. Every time we've done albums it's been quite different but this time it's very much streaming and at the beginning it was very much physical CDs and physically going over and writing with people which I still actually do because I'm too distracted to do things online. I can't multi-task. You have to get me in the room, tie my feet to the floor and be like ‘we're doing this now!’
Going back to those years, how did music shape your childhood and who were those shero's that you listened to and sang along to and looked up to?
Well Dolly Parton, absolutely. However, I now realise that the Dolly Parton I thought was all the Dolly Parton songs ever was just one greatest hits CD that we had. But of course, when you're 7, you're like ‘these are all the songs that she has, I know every Dolly Parton song. all 12’! So, I'm still now learning songs that Dolly has written and maybe only released for a specific movie or a specific soundtrack or something, which is what I love about Dolly. I actually got to meet her when she was here. I don't remember any of it because I was like a deer in the headlights. the photos are so weird. I loved listening to The Dixie Chicks, I loved Shania Twain, the Spice Girls, Alanis Morrissette, Missy Higgins, Kasey Chambers. So many. B*witched, ‘C'est La Vie’, I still work out to that song. I love Jewel. She released a poetry book and I write poetry - well I write what I think is poetry, i have no idea if anyone else would actually like it but I write a lot. I’m like ‘oh my gosh, a singer can also write poetry? That's what i do’. So that really inspired me. I don't see myself as only a song writer. I see myself as a writer.
Did you always want to do this?
I always did see it as the thing that I did. We have a big family so it was like ‘Jasmine, sing.’ I'd be like ‘Okay, I’m going to be a singer singing anyway’. It's always been something that I knew that I'd do. There's many things I want to do in my life and music is one i always want to do. I studied some acting, I love voice acting as well and I'm actually studying speech pathology.I get into a bunch of stuff, but music has always been the main thing that I do.
And lastly before I leave you, what is the best piece of advice you ever received in your career and do you remember who it was from?
Wow. This is a really good question that I will now think of many better answers after this.I actually get really great advice from watching people do things well, not necessarily someone telling me how to do it. So I've got to tour with Adam Brand, who's a fantastic Australian country music artist, and watching the way that he puts his shows together was just brilliant. People haven't been super forthcoming with sentences of advice. Well, Ronnie Dunn handed me a shot of tequila once and I was like ‘but I’ve got a show tomorrow’. He just continued to hand the tequila but that's not really advice is it? That’s just a good night out!
Lion Side’s out of the gate, what's on the horizon for Jasmine Rae?
I am doing two intimate shows with very. very small amounts of tickets per show. Me and a piano player. One will be in Tamworth and one will be in Brisbane on the 25th and the 29th of July. Apart from that, hopefully touring will open up again to a small extent in the new year. I’ll be chatting with people online. It's a weird time to release an album but I just want to connect with people as best as possible online and in the small capacity we can live.
Lion Side by Jasmine Rae is out now via ABC Music/Universal Music. You can stream, download and purchase here
Jasmine Rae is performing three intimate live shows this July. Tickets are on sale now
July 26 - Johnny Ringos, Brisbane
July 27 - The Ranch, Sydney
July 29 - Moonshiners Honky Tonk Bar (The Family Hotel), Tamworth
To keep up with all things Jasmine Rae, you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
