Pigeon Spins Featuring an Interview with JeezJesus

JeezJesus - Somewhere Between Love & Misery

Although eclectic and prolific in his approach, JeezJesus creates music and art for a very unique subsection of alternative society. He is here to satisfy those who truly seek the experimental and alternative. This project is an authentic experience of alternate expression in the digital age.

Interview with JeezJesus

(º)> Somewhere Between Love & Misery is described as a closing chapter on a significant part of your life. How did personal experiences shape the emotional core of this album?

I am massively satisfied with this release. Finishing it and finally releasing it really does feel like the end of a very pivotal few years of my life.

“Somewhere Between Love & Misery” was written in a massive period of personal struggle, change and growth, a period where I had started coming to terms with certain downfalls in my own character. Before writing this album, and throughout, I had been attending therapy. This therapy was very targeted and focused, I had chosen to engage quite heavily with it in an attempt to tie up some loose ends in my own mental well-being. This process caused me to be incredibly reflective on my life and very aware of issues that were effecting me in the moment. No doubt this experience of self-reflection had a significant impact on the emotional core of this album.

(º)> The album is split into darker and lighter halves. How did you decide on this structure, and what story or journey were you hoping to take listeners on?

Well at first, I already had a lot of contrasting material that I had written which was sat on my hard drive. I liked most of it, if not all of it, even the songs that never made it to the final cut. Ultimately, the decision to create such a stark contrast between the two halves of the album became a greater artistic choice representative of my own personal journey of growth and discovery.

This period of life was a massive period of change and this contrast is representative of the sudden change in my own life. When listening to the album from start to finish you are following the story of my life from the last two and half years.

(º)> Your music draws from 90s industrial, 80s synthpop, post-punk, and new wave. How do you blend these influences while maintaining a sound that is uniquely JeezJesus?

All these genres, although incredibly different, tend to share a lot of similarities. These similarities also tend to satisfy the tastes of a very specific music listener. It wasn’t too difficult to blend these influences as these are the styles of music I have grown to love and appreciate over a very long time. Bands within these genres also manage to be quite genre fluid and sometimes considered hybrid artists. I’m only really doing what my favourites bands and artists have done best.

As for maintaining a style that is uniquely me, I am fortunate to have found a process of creation that is very personal to me. I find that in any art form the workflow process is so important to its creation. I am also using very similar equipment in the production of my music and using similar music production processes and techniques across board. This in hand, ends up creating something that is very unique to me. I guess, this is what you would call finding your artistic voice.

(º)> Eclecticism seems central to your work. Were there moments where the album risked feeling too disparate, and how did you keep it cohesive?

Oh yes, definitely! I was worried about this. As I said in the previous question, I think the cohesion of it all comes from my workflow process and my use of familiar technology, which I understand incredibly well. Also, I have so much faith in the material, and most of all a massive love for everything I have written, that the need for it to be entirely cohesive was superseded by my desire to show the world what I had made. Being all so representative of this specific period of life, it felt inappropriate to release these songs on separate bodies of work.

(º)> Thematically, the album touches on socio-political anxieties as well as personal emotions. How do you balance these broader and deeply personal elements in your songwriting?

Life is full of broad and complicated feelings and emotions. My music is an exploration of all my own personal frustrations, anxieties and stresses. I manage to achieve this balance, when covering these broad themes, because what you hear is deeply personal to my own lived experience.

Art is wonderful because it has the potential to be so representative of a person’s lived experience when done well. I only hope that with this album I have managed to achieve this. I also hope that when people listen to this there is something they hear in this that they can relate to. Whether I’m talking about problems with the current economic system, war or just simply the innocence of romance, these are all things that have a significant effect on a person’s life.

(º)> You’ve evolved from GIMP to JeezJesus, exploring industrial, goth, darkwave, and experimental electronic sounds. How has your artistic identity shifted with this evolution?

Well, my GIMP project was my first solo project after many years playing in bands and merely being an aid to other peoples’ creative vision. So GIMP was the first time I really took the reins of my own creative direction. GIMP was a lot more performative than my current project, and in some respects was a lot darker and a lot less mature. The project wasn’t as refined, but has been vital in leading me to where I am today. Looking back on my GIMP alias it feels like it was more of a front I was hiding behind, a front that was holding me back from really expressing myself. Without it though, I don’t think I’d have had the confidence to express myself artistically as well as I can today.

The shift to JeezJesus, came after I had given up music for a few years. My first album under this alias, “Dr. Electro Love” was supposed to be the first GIMP album, as it was written in the GIMP era (in the first few months of the pandemic). Unfortunately, I shelved the release as I let go of the GIMP alias and took a big hiatus from music, a hiatus I never thought I’d come back from. I rediscovered “Dr. Electro Love” when I was curiously looking through an old Dropbox and after listening to it, it reinspired me to start writing music again.

Pursuing music for the majority of my life to little success had been quite deflating, but once I started writing again under the name JeezJesus, I started to enjoy producing music and being a creative more than ever before. At the start of this project I went through a massive period of creative exploration, trying to rediscover my artistic voice again. Eventually I think I’ve started writing music that back in my GIMP days I would have loved to have written and, in all fairness, a lot of my current material would have really suited that project. Today, I feel like I understand myself and what works best for me, so I find it a lot easier to express myself more authentically with a lot more precision.

(º)> Your earlier works, like Super Creeps & Spooky Beats, paid homage to 80s industrial goth. How does Somewhere Between Love & Misery push that aesthetic forward while exploring new territory?

“Somewhere Between Love & Misery” and “Super Creeps & Spooky Beats” both are incredibly inspired albums, and I definitely do like to wear my influences on my sleeve. “Super Creeps” was an attempt to try and reimagine some of my favourite songs with a more modern production, whereas, with “SBL&M” I wasn’t trying to reimagine anything really. “SBL&M” feels more original and unique when compared “Super Creeps.”

I think a lot more influence went into “SBL&M,” but quite subconsciously. What you are hearing throughout the album is my attempt to try and tame all of my musical influences into something quite personal and unique to me. I think you have to write stuff that is very inspired to eventually create something quite fresh and exciting. There is nothing in this world that is created without influence, but once your influences have been committed fully to your subconscious brain you can start detaching from them. Once you have detached from your influences, when in the creative process, you eventually come to a point of creative autonomy where you are creating with more personal direction.

Honestly, I didn’t really listen to much music when writing this album, and the more autonomous in my creative process I have become, the less I feel the need to be inspired. The aesthetic is pushed forward because it has become more detached from my influences and more authentic to me.

(º)> Atmosphere and emotion are central to your sound. How do you use instrumentation, production, and vocals to convey mood and tension across the album?

A lot of the equipment I use to create music, I have been working with and learning for a long time, so I know my setup very well and I never tend to deviate from the equipment too much. The familiarity I have with my synthesisers and the range of emotion I can get out of them definitely helps me to create a lot of atmospheric depth. I have a great collection of synthesisers that fill very specific roles in my music arrangements.

As far as production is concerned, I studied music technology to a Master’s level at University and left with a Distinction, receiving a very high quality of education whilst also being given a lot of creative freedom and resources to experiment with. This coupled with my continued creative freedom as a music producer outside of University has led to me having deep and intrinsic understanding of a lot of complicated music production techniques. I understand the technical so much that it is easy for me to be very creative with my music production adding to this level of emotional depth throughout my music.

I am not really trained as a vocalist, but have had to sing in various occasions in life prior to my solo projects. Through constantly recording and listening to my own voice I have learnt a lot about what style works best for me, what I can and can’t sing, and how to phrase certain lyrics in interesting and appropriate ways. Also, it helps being such a competent producer when trying to mix my voice into my own work, whilst trying to find new and experimental ways to process my voice.

I like being in complete control of every part of the music making process. This gives me the artistic freedom to completely craft this unique sonic world that is authentic to me. Luckily I have the technical abilities and understanding to make this possible. It’s been a lot of hard work and learning to get to the point of being able to convey a variety of moods and create a diverse range of atmospheric soundscapes with such ease.

(º)> Your work appeals to a very specific alternative subculture. How do you balance accessibility with staying true to the experimental and alternative ethos?

I don’t really know how accessible my music really is, I’m kind of biassed because I’m my own biggest fan. I always manage to stay true to being experimental and alternative because all the music I love is experimental and alternative and I tend to write music I want to listen to. I’m not writing music to be popular and accepted, I’m writing music to find other weirdos like me. Being accessible is never really an aim of mine. I just write music that I think is cool!

(º)> If listeners take away one key feeling or insight from Somewhere Between Love & Misery, what would you want it to be, and why?

Life is difficult and full of very complex problems and emotions. It is the struggle in life that helps defines us, but to overcome that struggle successfully is what makes us better and greater people. Something along those lines, quite cliché right?

And why this message? Because I only ever want to have a positive impact on people and their lives. I was born to help people and if my music can do that then great, it would be the greatest privilege if my music and art helps at least one person on this planet.

(•)> That's all, Folks! Check out  JeezJesus on the Pigeon Spins Playlist