INTERVIEW: Jess Day releases new single and announces headline tour in May: "If you have a vision, do it yourself otherwise it's never going to line up with what's in your head"

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Jackson Thornbury

South Australia’s Jess Day today kicks off her 2022 with the release of her new single ‘Gravity’. Written and produced by Day, the track is a rollicking, punchy pop-rock track that expertly combines a traditional rock feel with a more poppy beat that compels you to move. Like everything Day does, her vocals are utterly captivating and pull you completely into her world.

“’Gravity’ is a bit different to my usual tumultuous break up songs,” Day says. “It's about being hesitant as you're falling for someone, for fear of past failures repeating themselves again - but sticking with the fear. It's about needing the right someone to sort of hold your hand through that fear, with all your baggage, and it paying off where you eventually find yourself transcended into something really honest and safe. It turns out, they don't hurt you like the others and there's this newfound hope and adolescent-like wistfulness about love again.”

Day also announces today that she will be going on tour across Australia in May, which will see her perform new material alongside her classic hits.

Day grew up in the remote mining town of Roxby Downs and released her first single in 2018. She has since steadily attracted critical acclaim for her music which blends indie, pop and rock with hints of country and soul. Her music is warm, relatable and she has that special talent of being able to really connect with you as a listener - you can’t help but feel that emotional spark every time you listen to her music.

We recently caught up with Day to find out more about ‘Gravity’ and her plans for 2022.

Hey Jess, it is so very lovely to steal some of your time today. You are an incredibly creative creature. We have your new single ‘Gravity’ pumping out its deliciousness into speakers and hearts everywhere. How are things with you?
They're good. I'm back at work at the moment teaching online lessons, so I've got something to do at the moment. I’ve been making lots of pottery, I've just been having a great time. And now I've got music coming out for the first time in ages, this one I'm really excited for.

I'm loving that you’re making lots of pottery. Has that always been a thing?
I got a wheel around November last year, so I've only been doing it for a couple months. It's consumed all of my mental space, I'm obsessed with it! It feels like when I would make music, and discover how to make it, without any of the pressure of being successful. It's really nice to have a creative outlet, just for fun.

You are incredibly creative, writer, performer, producer lyricist, you do the whole thing. With that in mind, how do you find that all encompassing creative control? There must be both a satisfaction, but also a trepidation that comes with that?
The way I look at is if it's 100% in my control, it's 100% in my control. If I fail, then I can't really blame anyone for it. So if I succeed, it's great because I know I've done that personally. If I fail, I am almost okay taking the full responsibility for it, because it lets me know if I need to improve. I think I'm also scared to collaborate or cowrite because I've never really relinquished that entire creative control to someone before, because I get so emotionally attached to presenting it as my experience. If it's not exactly lining up with my experience, then I fear that it might get diluted. It's probably a great experience, but I quite like doing it myself. I work really well by myself, I'm quite an introverted sort of person so it lines up with that.

Let's talk about ‘Gravity’. Oh my goodness talk me through where this glorious track came from.
’Gravity’ came about almost two years ago now, quite a while ago. It was when I had decided that I'd had enough with toxic relationships. Yeah, I was kind of a victim but there must be a reason why I'm only drawn to these toxic people and why they're drawn to me. I did some soul searching and I don’t know if my nervous system can be trusted anymore because it's been conditioned to really get excited around people that are like coin slot machines, you don't know what they're gonna do. Your nervous system gets addicted to the cortisol and the state of arousal. I was not used to healthy, unproblematic relationships, I found them boring and stable. I had one and then self sabotaged it because I was like, ‘I'm just not feeling sparks’. Turns out the sparks were just red flags! I got into another healthy relationship and my psychologist was like, ‘you've just got to stick it out, if you find someone that's attractive, and you have similar interests and similar values, and you get along just stay with them, and eventually you might fall in love’. I tried to self-sabotaged that as well, but this person was like, ‘No, we're not doing that, I'll be here to support you, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater’. And it was great, I really just needed that push from someone. It was a really healthy, anthemic sort of love. So the verses line up with a little bit of hesitation about it, and the anthemic choruses are just this all consuming positive emotion.

It's gorgeous. You've got this line ‘I've been waiting the part where you take me by my hand / You say I'm worth waiting for’. It gets you from the inside, it's beautiful. Have you always been a wordsmith?
Yeah, definitely. In school, I was always very good at writing. I won a lot of writing competitions for short stories as a kid. I would always write in my diary, quite poetically I thought! I've always been into writing, [but] I didn't think I was going to end up being a songwriter, butI always knew that I liked writing stories. Now, the lyrics are usually brought on by a musical motif that sparks emotion in me, and then it's sort of a game of finding the words to match that.

Going back to being at the helm of everything, most people start on the guitar, or a bit of the piano but what made you go ‘I need to learn it all, I need to be able to nail this myself’?
Guitar is my primary instrument. Fortunately with computers these days you can play something absolutely crap and then fix it. You can move all the little things around, so you don't really have to be great at it. I'm not a great multi instrumentalist, but what made me want to be able to do it all was just sheer lack of resources. Starting out as an artist, you don't have a lot of money. I also didn't have any musical friends really, I had a couple but they were guys and I wasn't hugely close with them. None of my close girlfriends were into music, which was quite disappointing and also why I'm really passionate about getting women into drums, guitar, bass. There are a lot of singers but there weren't a lot of people I could jam with, so I just didn't have that experience. But I feel a lot of my guy friends did, they had bands in high school and they would all jam and my personal friends just didn't want to play instruments. So I was like, ‘I'm gonna have to be my own band’ I taught myself how to record it, and then I had a couple of experiences where I had relinquished control a little bit, and I didn't like it. I was like, ‘if you want something done right, exactly how you want, do it yourself.” Even if [a collaborator} is more technically proficient, they aren't in my brain, and I can hear the whole song in my brain. Unless I can get that down, nothing is going to be as good.

Absolutely. You mentioned elevating women within the industry to learn the tools and be the band and be the producer, which is something your male friends had through school. Do you think it's something that's actually lacking from education from the get go, that girls aren't so encouraged to pick up that instrument or even those technical skills? if you don't have the confidence in learning at school, as you get older it gets harder to pick something up.
Definitely. Most of the guys that I know, know an instrument, or they've at least tried guitar, because they didn't have that thing holding them back of ‘what if I don't know what I'm doing and what if I’m not very good?’ [The men] had so many role models and I struggle to think of any female guitarists that I knew of growing up. I genuinely struggled to find people. And then you look at drummers, when I was a kid, I hadn't seen any female drummers, there was just no representation. So that hurdle of ‘I can teach myself this’ or ‘I can be good at this’ is so subconscious, but it's there. A lot of people teach themselves music, you can do guitar lessons or drum lessons and maybe we're not making women comfortable enough in that area. Role models are the most important thing, if you have role models you’ll teach yourself, and then you'll get good because you're motivated to be as good as them. If you don't see that representation, it's really hard to see yourself in their shoes. That has changed so much in the last couple of years. About five years ago, something just happened and rock, indie all these areas that had been male dominated, just bursted with all these amazing female artists and bands, it was so good to see. 10, 15 years ago I felt I didn't have that. I remember idolising Hayley Williams from Paramore, she didn't play guitar, but she was just so unapologetically claiming space in rock. She was just the best front person I'd ever seen, man or woman, and that was inspiring. Not because she played instruments, but just because she took up so much space and didn't apologise for it. She was fundamental in getting me into music. With this generation of women in rock and all these genres that I didn't see, the next generation is going to be so much better. There's going to be such amazing representation

Absolutely and what a shero to shine your your beacon of inspiration. I want to briefly discuss your 2019 single ‘Rabbit Hole’. That kick drum, that bass, your purr, it's just incredible. Your music, there's always a shift and you're always experimenting, but there's always so much grit, even from your earliest releases. When you're looking back on where you've come from, what do you think is one of the most important lessons you've learned on your journey?
That's a hard question. If you want something right, do it yourself. Not that other people are incompetent, but if you have a vision, do it yourself otherwise it's never going to line up with what's in your head. Also, I'm always surprised when people are like, ‘you're so honest with your lyrics’. And I'm thinking, shit, am I? I thought that's what you were meant to do in music. People really value honesty in music and upfront-ness, that's something I've learned. I don’t think twice about it but apparently, people are fans of blunt honesty. Thirdly, I actually do enjoy performing. I had such crippling anxiety about it my entire life, I didn't play guitar in front of anyone until I was like 16 and then I didn't do it again for another few years when I was forced to do it, because I was writing songs. I would just be so nervous, I hated performing. Now I actually like it, so that's something else I've learned is you get more comfortable, and you can actually enjoy it.

You sound incredibly comfortable, and we will soon get to see that because there's a national tour coming up, which is very exciting. Can you please tell me about that?
Yeah, it’s super cool, it's happening in May, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide. That's going to be really fun. I'll be playing ‘Gravity’ and ‘Naked’, so my last few singles I've released alongside my other songs. It's going to be the second tour I've done, but I've only headlined in my hometown Adelaide once, and that was a year ago. So that's really exciting and I'm just so excited to get back out there.

The last time we chatted, you mentioned ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ by Wheatus was the song that struck a chord with you growing up. Have you considered possibly incorporating that into the show?
That’s a great question, I'll think about that, you’ve, sparked something in here now!

‘Gravity’ is out now via Sony Music Australia. You can download and stream here.

To keep up with all things Jess Day you can follow her on Instagram and Facebook.

Jess Day will be touring Australia in May with special guest Mollie Millington. Tickets on sale now here.

20 May - The Vanguard, Sydney NSW
21 May - Black Bear Lodge, Brisbane QLD
27 May - Northcote Social Club, Melbourne VIC
28 May - Jive, Adelaide SA