Jade Bird has found a ping pong table. She’s meant to be upstairs, filming an interview at BRAG HQ, but she and her team have managed to lose themselves in the building, and have burst into a completely different office space, which contains, amongst other things, a long, blue ping pong table. And there she is, beaming, sending tiny orange balls flying across the room while her friends and colleagues look on happily.
In some ways, this feels like an apt metaphor for the young singer-songwriter’s career to date. With her rich, classically trained voice, and her warm, confessional lyrics, there’s an alternate universe out there where Bird is a popstar in the Lorde or Selena Gomez vein – a musician who makes the kind of silky, electro beats that consistently seem to dominate the charts these days.
But in our world, Bird is no glitchy chanteuse – she is a country artist in the purest, most unfettered use of that word; a Ryan Adams type, or a Lucinda Williams, with an exceptional ear when it comes to robust, full-throttle choruses. Indeed, so powerful is her unique set of creative gifts, that stardom does not seem far off at all for the 20-year-old; she’s already toured with the likes of First Aid Kit and Son Little, and has impressed at Austin’s own SXSW two years in a row. Make no mistake – she knows where she’s going, and she’ll get there too. She’s just taking an alternate route, and, crucially, having fun while she’s there; turning a brief stop in an unfamiliar office space into an opportunity to hone her ping pong skills, and to live her best life.
The BRAG: What’s your proudest accomplishment?
Jade Bird: Getting an album together. We’ve almost got it together now, so composing and putting the album together – that’s something to be proud of. And I think being able to keep holding onto myself throughout the process; that’s really something too.
What inspired you to become a musician in the first place?
I just ended up doing it – like when I started playing the guitar, it was just a channel for what I was feeling at the time. It kinda just happened. And I love performing – I think I discovered that when I started gigging when I was 14. I love people, I love music, so it’s the perfect match. But it feels almost accidental.
And you were never nervous about playing live?
Oh yeah. I used to get the shakes. I’d be playing my grandma’s old guitar and I’d be like, ‘Oh god.’ But I still get nervous now when I’m playing big shows. It’s a nervous energy that I enjoy in a way. It’s a bit sadistic.
You can never put a formula on creativity; I think that’s why I really like it. It’s different every single time.
Is it a generalised fear, or is it a fear of something going wrong onstage?
I’m a perfectionist, and I do not like mucking up onstage. I work as hard as possible to make sure I don’t. So the fear is kind of people not enjoying it as much as you want them to. But I mean, touch wood, everything has gone well so far.
What tends to inspire your songs? It can be anything, really. I mean I work with words, obviously, so it can even come out of something like a conversation. I landed in Germany once, and I said something about “always bringing the rain”. So I’ll write down a line like that, and then wait a while until it works itself into a song. And it can be things like books, as well. I’ll find a word that I love – it’ll just speak to me.
But it can almost be spiritual as well. Sometimes a line will just pop into my head. So it can be all different things. You’ve just got to look for it.
And then do you sit down and go, ‘I’m going to write a song today’ or does it have to be more impulsive?
It’s a bit of both. I force myself to write. Like, at the beginning of this month, I went back to writing a song a day because I was worried that I wasn’t writing as much. But with ‘Lottery’, that was quite spontaneous. You can never put a formula on creativity; I think that’s why I really like it. It’s different every single time.
If it was a job, and it was the same every day, it could get pretty dull.
Exactly. And that’s exactly why I’m doing what I do. There’s a spontaneity to it; a magic that I hold very dear.
That’s why I write so many songs, and gig as much as I do, and get on the 25-hour flights and don’t complain about it. Because I do really appreciate how lucky I am.
If you weren’t a musician, what would you be doing with your life?
Well, I was never daft when I was at school. I was never stupid. So I think I was like, ‘I want to be a criminal lawyer’ when I was about seven. I had images of being in court going, ‘Guilty!’ I was very dictatorial even when I was young. But it would have been awful, and I doubt I would have been very happy. I mean, sometimes I struggle even now, and I’m doing everything that I bloody want to do.
Does this feel like everything? Like, this is all you’ve ever wanted?
It’s everything and more. I’m not even being cliched about it. That’s why I’ve worked so bloody hard to make sure that I can keep doing this for as long as I can do it. That’s why I write so many songs, and I gig as much as I do, and get on the 25-hour flights and don’t complain about it. Because I do really appreciate how lucky I am. It’s about being able to put your creative vision across. I mean, I’m quite resistant to calling myself an artist – it feels like that’s something you’ve got to earn in a way. But I guess I do have a thirst for knowledge, and the desire to grow. And just being able to travel the world and play my music and create albums – it’s just it. For someone like me, it’s all there is.
So making an album was always the dream?
My biggest aspiration is to create a really great album. You know what I mean? One of the records that really stands the test of time. And who knows if we’ll be able to get that on the first try. We’ll see. But that is definitely the biggest goal. And it’s always been that way?
Were you into music when you were very young?
Growing up, my parents were into different music than I’m into now. They liked dance music and stuff like that. But I remember really loving music when I was at my saddest, when I was younger. I had the songs that I used to cry to. And then after that I found Bob Dylan, and lots of the blues musicians I listen to now. I love that moment when you find a song that you wish you’d written. There’s one by Chris Stapleton called ‘You Should Probably Leave’ and that is a bloody great song. I just heard it, and it clicked. And I do it for those moments. You want to write those songs; the songs that just mean so much to people. You do it for yourself, almost.
‘Lottery’ is out now through Liberator Music / Glassnote Records.
