A Chat with JShell (15.02.23)
Featured in Plastic Magazine, We Write About Music, Buzz Music, Iggy Magazine and Rock Era Magazine, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist JShell is turning heads across the globe with his unique brand of alternative rock. We speak with JShell about his new album, In My Head, collaborations, music videos and much more!
OSR: What drew you to music?
JShell: When I was young, my parents would play music in the car on the radio. I remember really digging ‘Rock The Boat’ by The Hues Corporation and ‘Fly Like An Eagle’ by The Steve Miller Band and it just took off from there. Discovering The Beatles was life-changing for me. Also, back when they actually played videos, MTV was a huge deal for my growth as a person and a musician.
OSR: What inspires you to make music?
JShell: Music is my favourite thing about being a human. I enjoy going to as many live music concerts as possible. Seeing and hearing bands and artists bring music to life has always driven me to want to do the same thing.
OSR: You recently released your album In My Head. What can you tell us about that?
JShell: The album is the realisation of my dreams. I’ve been in bands most of my musical life and the time came where I really wanted to do something on my own like Prince, Lenny Kravitz and Paul McCartney, just to name a few DIY artists, where I wrote and sang all the songs and played most of the instruments. I didn’t mean for there to be a theme or backstory but when I came up with the title ‘In My Head’ for the title track of the album as I was walking home from the studio one day, I realised that the entire album is a snapshot of what goes on “in my head”.
OSR: You released a music video for each of the tracks on the album. What inspired this?
JShell: We live in a TikTok world where people are watching videos on their phones all day long so it seemed logical to make videos. But, more than that, I wanted to challenge myself and do something that would stand out. It took an extra 10 months after the album was finished to write the scripts and find the right collaborators to help me make the videos, but it was worth it.
OSR: What was the most exciting and most challenging aspect of creating In My Head, including the music videos?
JShell: The most exciting and most challenging aspect was seeing the entire project slowly come together. I’ve been saying that making the album itself was like building a house and making the videos was like building a guest house on the same property which takes a lot of time. I had to remind myself that just by putting one foot in front of the other would eventually lead me to the end of the journey.
OSR: What does music mean to you?
JShell: Music means everything to me. It literally makes everything better. There are many nights where instead of watching television or doing whatever, I put the headphones on and do a deep dive into music for hours, which can be anything from listening to my personal collection to doing a deep dive and finding bootlegged concerts on YouTube. And if I’m at a pub that has a jukebox, I’m the guy who’s playing tunes all night.
OSR: Which do you find more rewarding to create: the music video or the melody itself?
JShell: The melody for sure. There can’t be a video without a song and there’s nothing more rewarding for me than turning a melody that I originally hummed into the voice recorder on my phone into a full-blown rock epic.
OSR: You collaborate with numerous artists on In My Head. What do you feel are the benefits and disadvantages of collaboration?
JShell: The benefits of collaboration are that each collaborator brings something unique to the song that helps to bring it alive. Also, in addition to the more well-known special guests, I had the opportunity to work with very close friends and family members, and it was just a thrill to have them share in the experience.
The only obvious disadvantage of collaboration is that the more collaborating you do, there’s a greater risk that your vision for a song may be compromised. For example, I really wasn’t a guitar player coming into the recording of In My Head but I knew that if I had someone play the rhythm guitar that wasn’t me, any rock track I was making might not come out the way I wanted it to because a guitar sound is central to rock music. So, I forced myself to become proficient enough on the guitar to do it myself.
OSR: What do you hope people take from your music?
JShell: While it would be great if people recognised that there’s a lot of interesting things going on in each song, I just hope that people like it and want to play it again. There are so many things in life that take our attention and for someone to even want to take a few minutes of their day to listen to my music is an honour and a privilege.
OSR: What are your future plans as JShell?
JShell: Right now, all I’m focused on is getting the word out about In My Head. In this day and age, you have to be persistent, relentless and consistent because nobody’s going to hand anything to you. The future will take care of itself.
Many thanks to JShell for speaking with us. For more from JShell, check out his official website, Instagram and Spotify.
This artist was discovered via Musosoup #sustainablecurator
