Jack Colwell tells us about his new album
Our friend, Jack Colwell, is just about to release his debut album, so our editor, Bobby Townsend, asked him some questions about it:
Hi Jack! Great to speak to you! How have you been getting on during the pandemic? Is everything ok in your world?
Hi Bobby / SYS! Hope you’re well, too! I’ve been pretty lucky during the pandemic. It’s been absolutely awful to watch the world shut down on the news, and obviously really scary with the death toll and infection rate. I am trying to be thankful for good things I have in my life at the moment and appreciate the somewhat slower pace of life. I’ve taken up my on-and-off again watercolour hobby.
Excitingly, your album is coming out at the end of the month. Can you tell us a little about it?
Yeah, I’m super excited for it! SWANDREAM is a queer narrative about my childhood. It is in many ways a hopeful album about dealing with trauma and mental health. To me the album is a collection of songs that take place across a night – they’re visions and nightmares from my past that I am forced to confront while transfiguring into a grotesque version of a Swan. It’s also written around my primary instrument, the piano, which I think kind of makes the piano a bit of a character on the album!
You worked with Sarah Blasko in the creation of the album, right? That must’ve been a dream! Can you tell us about the input/influence that she had?
It was pretty amazing! I met Sarah when we went on her Australian tour together in 2016 for her album, Eternal Return. I was really honoured to be asked because I’d always really admired Sarah as an artist ever since I was a teenager. Working with Sarah was definitely a dream come true – and she was so generous with her advice, wisdom and time – and just so supportive and encouraging! I have to stop myself because I’m gushing haha. But I learnt a lot about composition and arrangement from Sarah. I’ve always been drawn to really maximalist music. Extreme, using big type of instrumentation: string sections, brass sections, orchestras, choirs etc, but I think Sarah really taught me the value in having space in music, and at the end of the day you can put as much production and instrumentation on a record but the songwriting has to come first. Sarah and I worked one day a week at her home for a few months before we went into the studio crafting the structure of the songs, and really discussing what the core emotional element in each work was, or how the songs could lend themselves to different arrangements (like making a conscious decision to have the piano be a focal instrument as an example). I feel I can hear a lot of Sarah on the record, and she really steered the whole ship. She got her whole team of players on board who had been performing and touring with her for a while, and even jumped in on backing vocals – a true honour! It was a very special experience.
It feels like this album has been a long time coming. How do you feel now that you are finally about to release the album into the world. Nervous? Excited?
Yeah! It has been a while – I did put out an EP in 2015/16 and then a string of singles before releasing my debut. In truth, the record was actually recorded at the end of 2018, and then due to some behind the scenes madness the first film clip wasn’t able to come out until the end of 2019, and the record now in May 2020! That’s a long timeline! But things happen that just push certain things around, both professionally and personally, and sometimes I think If I’d done this album right after my first solo EP it would’ve been a totally different record, I mean, I may not have worked with Sarah for example as we didn’t really know each other as well then. And, I have to say, as an independent artist it’s a lot to organise when you’re your own team. Sometimes new artists come along and there’s an EP and an album really quickly after and they’re suddenly on big tours and things, which is awesome! But behind that curtain they do often have whole teams of people getting them to that stage, and focusing on each part of the release. I’m happy to lift the curtain a bit and say that my team is basically me, and a few other key friends and mentors, and sometimes that means things need to go at a particular pace – but it’s here! And I’m honestly thrilled. I can’t imagine SWANDREAM being born any other way!
Presumably you would have played some live shows to coincide with the album’s release in normal circumstances? Is it frustrating not to be able to, and are you planning some live gigs/tours for later in the year?
I had some potential plans to tour the UK/Europe actually! So, I am a bit sad that seems off the cards for the foreseeable future – but I just think with everything that has changed so rapidly that you have to kind of let those dreams go quickly and just focus on what you can do – otherwise you could get really stuck and focused on the negative! I mean, at one stage I was even wondering if I should delay the release of the album, but I think even though things seem so awful in parts of the world, things do have to move forward – we can’t stop time.
Do you have any live shows planned for later in the year, and are there any plans to stream any more live performances in the meantime?
I don’t have any live shows planned for later in the year, waiting for an answer on all of that, but I am doing a livestream from my Facebook and Instagram to celebrate the launch of my album on Sunday 31st May at 7pm AEST.
You always seem to have so many things going on. What else has been keeping you busy, aside from your new record?
I love to keep busy! And I always feel really passionate to work with other artists! At the start of the year I was over in the UK performing with Patrick Wolf for some of his comeback shows at the St Pancras Old Church in London. Patrick is such an incredible musician – I remember the first time I heard him sing in person (not at a live show, as I’d seen him when I was 17 and had a fake ID and snuck into The Factory in Sydney to watch him perform!) I was really struck by how remarkable his singing voice is. It might sound crazy because obviously he sounds incredible on his albums, but when you’re just in your lounge room having a sing sometimes you don’t expect people to sound like they do on the record. I was blown away! The shows were a lot of fun, and I am looking forward to hearing Patrick’s album in the future.
Do you have any tips/recommendations for people in lockdown? Any good TV shows, books, films, records, or handy hints that you want to share?
Hmmm, I dunno! I always say things to myself like I’ll suddenly do heaps of exercise, or read lots of books but I never really do. I think people should just try to be kind to themselves. I feel I haven’t wanted to listen to anything really intense at home so I’ve been playing a lot of soothing classical music, or piano works by Aphex Twin. I really like this album, Milkteeth by a UK artist Douglas Dare, and Owen Pallett put out a new record, first in six years, Island, that I’ve had on repeat the last few days. Megan Washington’s Dark Parts clip is great viewing too, she did all the animation herself to go with her new catchy song in 7/4! Big Washington fan here!
Finally, what are you going to do now that we’ve finished this interview?
I might try to finish off one of my watercolours. They’re pretty terrible, but I’m getting better. Slowly. x
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SWANDREAM is out on May 29th. You can pre-order it here: https://jackcolwell.bandcamp.com/album/swandream
Keep up to date with Jack on Facebook.
Interview by Bobby Townsend. Photo by Maclean Stephenson.
