Foto-© Universal Music

Am kommenden Freitag kehrt mit Jessie Ware eine der UK-Pop-Sensationen der letzten Jahre mit ihrem neuen, mittlerweile fünften Studioalbum That! Feels Good! zurück! Das neue Album folgt auf das 2020er Album What’s Your Pleasure? sowie ihre letztjährigen US-Support-Shows für Harry Styles und ganze 2,4 Milliarden globale Streams im vergangenen Jahr, große Festival-Auftritte und eigene Shows! Nun heißt die Britin mit That! Feels Good! auch mithilfe vom legendären Produzenten Stuart Price alle Hörer in ihrem eigenen Disco-Universum willkommen – wir sprachen mit Jessie via Zoom!

That! Feels Good continues stepping left from what you were known for throughout the 2010s and up until What’s Your Pleasure? You would normally think of beautiful, rich R&B vocals and sort of a quiet intimacy like on your songs Wildest Moments or Tough Love. What I love about your more recent sound is that you’re kind of turning the tables a bit from longing and the possibility of love, to like an embrace of lust and sexiness. This is dance music now. Can you talk a little bit about what on the outside looks like a transformation of your identity as an artist?
I think it came from quite a desperate place where I was just deeply unhappy. I just thought doing music wasn’t for me anymore. I felt like I’d maybe run my course. I felt like people were kind of losing interest in me. I think I was kind of losing sight of myself and the place I returned to, which is probably where I left too quickly, was dance. It was where I started my career and then I was kind of quickly gobbled up by a label, which was lovely and a huge compliment. And then they want to make you sell as many records as Adele, which is always going to be impossible. I knew that I was approachable and quite normal and wasn’t the most left field, even though I had loads of references. But I don’t think I was ready then, hence why there was a kind of vulnerability and a quietness about my music. There were like moments like Say You Love Me, of course, and Champagne Kisses but I was not being fully honest with myself about who I was. Then the podcast [Table Manners] happened, which showed me, warts and all, with my mum, making mistakes, being quite loud, maybe obnoxious. People really liked it, and I realised people seem to quite like me when I’m being my true self. I think that kind of released me from these pressures of feeling like I needed to have mystique and I needed to be what people pin up as an artist. I’d always had support by critics like Pitchfork, who can annihilate people. They’ve always supported me and they saw something in me and I think they saw and understood, like the references that I was trying to get to with Prince or Cocteau Twins, but I just think What’s Your Pleasure? was this kind of last chance saloon. It was me not trying to do it for anyone else, very much doing it for myself, and the place that I felt the most comfortable, which was the club, and doing it in a way that still had a beauty to it and a drama and embraced all the bits that I love from musical theatre to soul to dance music to pop, all of it. Here we are now with That! Feels Good, which is even more unashamedly upfront and confident. I don’t think I would have been able to make this record 12 years ago, because I didn’t feel that way about myself. I’ve been lucky enough to gain wisdom and experience through being able to still make music. That’s led me to this place where actually I feel very comfortable in myself as a woman in music, as somebody that I feel like is making my best work, showing more of myself and revealing more, even if that isn’t necessarily through the words. The production, the vocal production, the choice of melodies, the choice of call and response, you know, all of those things. And it feels really coherent to me.

I think you are making your best work and I think that for a lot of the artists that you mention like Prince and Cocteau Twins, lots of great pop artists, even like Bowie and Beyoncé, those kind of stylistic changes often feel like a great artist wandering into interesting new territory and kind of experimenting and coming out with something unusual. And they might stay in that territory a bit before they try something new again. But that’s not what this feels like to me. This feels like you’re kind of revealing this hidden side of you that’s always been there and you’re coming home to it. And I say that because you sound so comfortable in this mode. Is that what it feels like to you? Does it feel like an era or does it feel like something that you’re going to do before you try something new again? Or do you not think about that?
Maybe. Am I feeling the most comfortable I’ve ever felt making music? Yes. Hopefully that will continue. Whether that will be another record like this, I think, no, I’ll have to go and try something different, but hopefully, the prominence of my voice and the decisions I make vocally production wise, will still feel like a Jessie record, even if it does feel like it’s got a little different landscape. I think this was just really throwing every musical love that I could into one and seeing how much I could get away with.

One great development on That! Feels Good is your irreverent, humorous side. Perhaps the best example of that, and maybe my favourite song on the album, is Shake the Bottle. Can you talk to me about that song and where it comes from?
Shake the Bottle was meant to be like the naughty cousin of my song Oh La La, from What’s Your Pleasure? I knew I wanted something like that because it had been such a big hit on the stage. People loved it and they were egging me on to put my fingers around the mic stand and basically wank it off. It wasn’t necessarily about trying to do it again but about how do I have something that can complement that on stage? So I’m constantly thinking about how it’s going to work live. That immediately made me go to the B-52’s Rock Lobster. I like the time signature. That kind of slightly frenetic, really character driven popular music that’s kind of mad and brilliant and confident. Then we had the pre, we have that and we got the chorus later. The verses are really what people are going to remember. You could say they were conquests by the singer ,who is me, but I have not slept with any of these people. Maybe I’ve slept or dined out with people like these people. But these are not real people. They are creations of the mind and other people’s experiences of dating and how painful and brilliant that can be. And yeah, it’s basically kind of poems about different blokes and it all kind of climaxes to a Matthew and a popping of a bottle, it’s just a bit of fun and it is humorous and it was very much thanks to the people that was writing it with. We’ve kind of created these naughty siblings with each other where we giggle when we’d be writing songs like this. We were just thinking, can we say this with a straight face? We can do it in a very monotonous vocal, which kind of allows it to not feel desperate or silly. I think I probably watched a lot of lip syncs at that point, and that was probably in my mind too.

You said it is performance led and it feels like these are all performance led. There’s a real physicality to the songs, and I just wanted to ask you how your relationship to performance has changed since these new songs. I saw you at Primavera Sound last year. When you’re playing live now, you’re creating a party space.
My musical director, William, has known me since the Wildest Moments days. We’ve known each other for years. And so it felt so special to make the show with him because he understood my roots of my first live experiences and he’d seen me perform every night for six weeks and he respected those songs. He didn’t want to throw them away. There is an important place for something like Wildest Moments or Say You Love Me. They will always remain important in my show. I’m so glad that you were at the Primavera Sound Barcelona show. That was a career defining moment to me. It was a huge surprise. I love that festival so much. I’ve been as a punter, I’ve played it once before on the Pitchfork Stage years and years ago. There was like a mad energy when I was playing and I felt it and I appreciated it. I get goosebumps even thinking about it now. It really felt like a turning point for me as an artist to feel like people understood what I was trying to do. They’ve also understood the assignment of: I need you to dance right now, and I need you to let yourself go and I need you to feel everything. I need you to kiss that stranger next to you. It was beautiful. It’s what I envisaged for What’s Your Pleasure? but like, that was in my dreams, you know? That kind of show has dictated the way that I approached writing this record. The live focus is so important for me because it’s where the songs come alive in a different way and they’re enjoyed together. They were made for an audience to enjoy live. These last two records, they have an ambition for huge performance moments and togetherness and joy and laughter and tears and all the kind of emotions. It’s a different way of performing than I’ve ever allowed myself to do or expected myself to do. I really feel like a pop star now. I feel like an artist that’s doing all the bells and whistles, but like doing it with such focus. And that’s why I think people are buying into it because they believe it and I believe it.

You just seemed like you were having an amazing time as well. I think that’s really communicated when you’re playing live. You can sense that you love your songs and that you love playing them. And your dancers are awesome.
They’re amazing. It was not how I wanted to have to play Primavera, but we couldn’t have my drummer or my guitarist, so we actually didn’t have one instrument on stage, which some people gave me stick for. We gave everything on that stage, us five, my two dancers and my two singers. The reason I couldn’t have my guitarist or my drummer was because we had a show in Manchester and we weren’t going to be able to get the gig there in time. But also What’s Your Pleasure? was able to be a club record and so I don’t think people were focusing on the players on stage. It’s really expensive touring and sometimes it’s impossible to be able to have everybody that you want on stage. But I think that it is a credit to my choreographer and my musical director and us as people, performers on stage that we managed to hold everyone’s attention. Everyone was on drugs and that was fine by me, but it was late in the night. They’d seen a lot of music. They could have been anywhere else, but they stayed with us and we appreciate that.

Could you set the scene a little bit for how these songs come together, because they are so maximalist and the production is so lush and the drums are so good and the strings and the horns. How are you writing and recording these songs? How do you get into that kind of headspace with your producers? Are you doing it remotely initially, or are you just going into studio with some lyrics written?
Well, a lot of this record was written over the Internet, over Zoom, which was not my idea of heaven at all. It was just the way it was at the time that we were writing. So I’d be with my producer, James Ford, in Hackney and my co-writers would be in Los Angeles. So that was annoying. And then they came over and then they got COVID when they came over. So then we were back on Zoom, but just not with 8 hours difference. But the way that it works with me and James is I create a big playlist like a dance party playlist and sometimes he’ll create like an instrumental off the back of my references off of the back of a mood that I’ve set. The vocals and melodies come second after I’ve found the groove, after I’ve found something I want to dance to, that I want to feel like I can make into a dance song. That’s kind of how I work the best, I think. I think there’s once that I’ve ever put in lyrics before the song’s made. It’s not how I work, and I know lots of brilliant people do work with like their lyrics first, but I feel like I’m better when the groove dictates it, and then I find my way to sit within that.

Are you writing in the mornings? Is it late at night?
Some of the songs were written into the night because of the time difference. But I wouldn’t necessarily like that. I love being within a working day. I have a life outside of music and I have three small children that I need to be present for. Even if I’m not able to be dropping them off at school, I want to be able to be there at bedtime. So my husband’s really cool. Sometimes mummy’s work goes on a bit long, but I try to be very strict about the parameters of my working day. And of course when you’re working with your friends that are in L.A. and you can’t get to each other, that’s when things change. We’d be starting sessions at 4pm in the afternoon and going till midnight, which was not my idea of fun, especially when you’re getting up at like 6am with kids. Equally it was an exciting kind of experiment and “Begin Again” was made in that setting and I’m so proud of that song. Maybe I should work later into the evening. I think the people that I work with also have families and they don’t want to be working really late. We’ve all done those sessions and I don’t feel like I need to do them anymore. It feels quite nice to think of it as your job. I always remember Nick Cave talking about putting his suit on and going up to his office, which was the attic. I really loved that idea.

Other than music what’s the most fun thing?
Eating food and travelling. Food is the greatest gift of all. It can lift my mood in a second and I love it. Especially when it’s in a foreign country.

Are you cooking alone or are you eating out?
I’m cooking. I’m cooking a lot and I’m eating out. My husband’s a really great guinea pig, and he loves it when I cook. And it’s my way of kind of turning off. It sounds really naff, but I did a photoshoot on Saturday in the morning. We had a dinner party on Saturday night. I was absolutely dreading doing the dinner party. I listened to BBC 6 Music, Giles Peterson, and I made my food, and I have never had a more relaxing, gorgeous Saturday afternoon. Music and cooking and then eating it. I love it. And then people need to just not stay till midnight because I’m tired.

Thanks so much, Jessie. It was lovely to meet you.
Lots of love. Bye!