Jessie Ware

I’m so sorry that I’m eating!

I wouldn’t usually be doing this, but I’m fucking starving!

Well, it’s just been really busy. I just stacked it walking into the offices, so I was obviously really faint with hunger. I’ve been really, really busy. But being busy is good and I managed to take a holiday with my kids, which is pretty audacious. Especially with an album coming out. Yeah nuts! Back on the grind now so all good.

We went to Cyprus. I taught my little boy to swim so that was great. I felt like I got really good mum points on that. I learnt to french braid my daughter’s hair, which has been the greatest gift to her. Because she’s got amazing curly hair. I mean this is what I do to my hair [gestures to messy bun perched on top of her head]. Me learning how to do two braids she just thinks I’m the fucking coolest thing ever.

That’d be great. And she can be my hair person.

Well it came from the song that we made. I mean in the song it means something slightly different to just joy, I guess. But it made sense for me to have it as the album title because I think I’m in such an amazing place in my career where I’m able to do a number of different things and wear all these different hats. Actually, I’m enjoying making music the most I’ve ever done in my career. And so it’s just what it says on the tin, it’s like That! Feels Good! Pure and simply I’m having so much fun. There’s so much joy coming out of the album and the music, but also in a more kind of an intimate world. It can mean something else.

It could be that moment in a club when you hear that song and you’re like, oh my god, that hits so hard I love that. That feels good. Yeah, you know, it means lots of different things. But for me, I’m having the best time making music. Performing. Understanding myself as an artist, being a parent. I’m having a great time.

Yes it’s about freedom and letting go. I guess I kind of did that in Free Yourself as well but it’s the sentiment of that feeling of freedom on the dance floor. I think there’s nothing quite like it. Especially when you’re with loved ones, with your friends, when you’re falling in love with a stranger. It’s something that I constantly return back to because I think there’s such euphoria when you dance and you sing, and I get to do both.

Totally you put on music or I think that with food too. They can solve lots of things. But dancing it’s like, dance it off you know? I think particularly when it’s been a pretty heavy few years dance music has never felt more necessary.

I think when a remix is done well, it’s so vital. You see how the Disclosure remix of Running did things for both of our careers, but also more importantly, for the club. My first proper regular experience of live music, or like dancing and music was when I was 16. I was going to gigs, but I would regularly go back to clubs. And it was where I felt happy, it’s not that I was unhappy but I mean, I loved it. I love the sense of community. So, for me to be able to be making a version of pop music, but also dance music helps me connect with and remain within the club. A remix can do that. If one of my songs is going to get played on the radio and reach a different audience. Well, I want to still be able to be in the club. For me it’s really important and it’s also a great way to collaborate with new people and old friends.

I was going to Fabric. I was going to a club that was in a church I don’t think exists anymore in Brixton called Mass. There was a night called Movement there which was an amazing Drum & Bass night. Friends were putting on a regular Drum & Bass night in Battersea, in Wandsworth Road called Potent Sounds. And it was in this club, we all were underage. I don’t know how we got away with it. You get to see Andy C, Friction. It was like, we get so many amazing people down and it’ll be on a school night. I still don’t actually understand how my Mum allowed me to do it.

I was driving myself there in my Fiat Cinquecento, I wasn’t drinking and we would just rave and then I would drive home.

It was innocent! It was pure, we were there for the dancing.

I mean, I’m lucky I got to go to Printworks recently before it closes. I don’t get that much time at the moment, that’s also why I want to remain in dance music so I can go and call it work.

I went to a queer party called Body Movements.

Yeah she was amazing! I hadn’t heard her before, it was amazing. Loved it.

Shygirl is amazing too.

Well Kim is amazing. I’m so thrilled for Kim. She’s very hard working and has been doing this for a very long time. And it’s all kind of starting to happen – well it was working before – but she says she was a club kid. Yeah. Now she’s a bloody popstar.

My mum told me that I used to wiggle my toes in the highchair when food would come before I could speak because I was so excited, she said I came out hungry. So yeah, food has always been my greatest joy. And then being able to combine that with work? I didn’t think it was going to work out how it did. It was a chance to chat to people with the podcast. My mum’s a great chef to have a home cooked meal and a chat with, it was not meant to do what it’s done. But obviously other people are as interested in food, food memories and Lennie’s cooking as I am. It was complete luck that it worked out how it did. Probably because it was very authentic, you know?

Early nights, my children obviously and sunshine.

Definitely. Let me think, that first gin and tonic on a flight when one of your kids has fallen asleep. Watching my kid learn to swim on holiday. Watching my kids make friends on holiday. That was amazing. You don’t get to see them when they’re at school. Do you? What else brings me joy I don’t know. Fucking hell so much stuff.

I wish I was off my phone more. I think that’s something that would keep me happier. Switch off. I don’t know if it’s keeping me happy but I’m slightly obsessed with my Fitbit at the moment, which I know is not very METAL magazine at all but it’s making me really obsessed with my sleep. I like being in control of things I realised. I think cooking for my friends, connecting with them. I mean, even, sadly, we went to my friend’s mum’s funeral at the weekend and with my best friends we drove down to Kent to this funeral. We had the most beautiful catch up on the way down. We went to this beautiful funeral, which was a humanist ceremony. The sun came out, we planted flowers, we were there to support our friend and say goodbye to their mum. But I think friendship is so vital and important to me as I get older and especially when reconnecting with old friends and having that familiarity. I don’t know about you, but your school friends, there’s something about your school friends, you’ve spent so much time with them, day to day, they know you so well. You fall back into this really silly humour, I love it, there’s an innocence there that I love. I wish I could bottle it, it’s really beautiful to be able to revisit that with old friends. There’s nothing more nourishing.

You speak a different language to how like, if we were going to become really good friends, we’d have our thing. But there’s something about going back to being a child I think.

I’m very lucky I’ve been with my husband since we were really young and he keeps me on a level. I’ve sometimes got lost in thinking successful equals happiness, which is quite obvious. I am successful, and I am really happy but there’s been times where I’ve had other kinds of success and I haven’t been as happy but I really attribute my husband for being able to be my leveller. I think it has changed, look, I don’t disregard how lucky I am to do what I do. I really appreciate it. And I think I sound greedy because I get to do all these different things, which I feel like one would probably be enough. But I get to do all these things that just complement each other, and they make me feel happier because I feel like I thrive in chaos and creativity. And people, I get to work with so many different people. In different worlds. And that really, really makes me happy.

Yeah it works for me.

No, because weirdly I love the chaos. It’s like white noise to me, it kind of settles me. But I’m also a control freak. So, it makes no sense. But I was a real goody two shoes at school. I never wanted to get in trouble. I probably got in trouble for chatting too much. Things haven’t changed now I make a living out of it.

Well, One Love will always remind me of birthing my daughter. This was an accident, a happy accident that Bob Marley was the song playing whilst I birthed her. It was at the end of my Frank Ocean, Sade playlist and then One Love. Thank you Bob Marley, you’re great. Let me think. I feel like everywhere Fleetwood Mac has been used at every one of my friend’s weddings, including mine. Drum & Bass reminds me of my youth. But then like, indie and Ocean Colour Scene and like early Coldplay reminds me of my first experience of going to Scala and Brixton Academy and having independence. But it’s always with other people. I feel like my music memories are always with people, they always are about a situation where I was around other people. It’s not necessarily things that I’ve done on my own.

I love it. I love fixing everybody up. I love a reason to connect people. It’s what I live for.

We’re having a launch party, which I feel like it’s kind of okay, because I didn’t have a Bat Mitzvah party. And I got that Bat Mitzvahed in December. So I’m just going to treat this launch party kind of like my Bat Mitzvah party. Me and my husband and I have a massive 40th in two years. Well, we’re going to share one and we’re thinking, is it a bit much to renew our vows after 10 years? Maybe we’ll wait till 15. But we had a big party in Greece for our wedding. And so we’re just trying to find an excuse to get everybody together again. So maybe we’ll wait for 15 years because we don’t want to look like we’re pleased with ourselves but it’s also so everyone can come on holiday.

Julio Nashmore DJ’d the last one, so did my husband. Yeah, sure, why not but just DJing I can’t be asked with all the live shit.

I think if you’re smiling during the process, and you’re giggling I think that’s what has been such an interesting thing. For the last few records. It’s been very much like, shall we go there? Can we? Shall we explore this? It feels slightly naughty and unfamiliar to me because it’s not autobiographical, writing about my feelings. It’s a different world and I feel far more comfortable, actually in this more playful world. I feel like it brings more out of me and personality, so yeah, I love revelling in that play. I think it’s really helped my music.

Yeah I presumed that music had to be correct before you went into the studio and you have to have this piece of something or this theme or these words. Actually, yes, that totally can happen and it has happened like that for me before but actually also the unknown, exploring and dancing in that is actually really terrifyingly fun as well.

Have a dance? Yeah!! If I’m not dancing it’s not right!

Happiness, joy, I think for this record anyway, I want to bring a smile to their faces. I want them to look to their friends, smile and have a dance whilst they’re doing that. I think my job at the moment as an artist is to entertain and excite and spread celebration and escapism and fun. So that’s my job at the moment.

I think I got a bit stuck in a rut for a while but then luckily I had the podcast that became a distraction which then with the success of it allowed me to feel a different way, when going into make music. I think initially, when I started making music, I was terrified. I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. I felt like I was going to get found out. I didn’t think I was enough. I don’t think I allowed myself to show enough because I was stopping myself out of fear. I remember those early days of just being like, oh my god, I’m going to get found out what am I doing? I couldn’t even enjoy the moment because I didn’t feel like it was deserving of me. I didn’t deserve to be there. Yeah, which I look back on and I wish I just enjoyed it more. I guess it’s just hindsight and I’m still here, and I’m still doing it. So it’s all okay.

It was just another avenue of thought, a distraction and creativity in a very different way. I was in charge of it and it was something that I thought of that I executed and it very quickly became a success. But I felt in complete control of that because it was just me being me very much warts and all. There was an acceptance that if I show more of myself in my music, I’ll be okay because people seem to like what they’re listening to. I think it was a really reassuring thing for me and allowed me to push harder into creating music, more open to music that showed more of myself.

Usually you indulge in the sadness and you put something on to be more miserable but I’d probably put Last Summer on by Donna Summer and go for it and have a bloody good dance! I think now I switch and put on dance music or reggae. I think reggae can solve a lot of problems.

I remember her Overpowered record coming out and just thinking that it felt so artistic, thoughtful and futuristic. She was so fashionable it was completely authentic and creative, then the music was dance pop future and I was just enthralled by her. I love how she’d never compromised. I just find her a fascinating artist and think she’s one of the best dressed people in the fricking world. It’s effortless for her. I think she’s a pure creative and I love hearing her on a beat. She’s got such great taste in music, art, style, all of it.

Look, I’m lucky to know Róisín a little bit now and she’s always been so wonderful to me. People that I really look up to and who I haven’t met are Sade and Annie Lennox. The style and sophistication and classiness with their music, their voices are so tasteful and beautiful, those are the kind of women I look at.

I’d love to feel like anybody could come and speak to me and I’d love to be a big sister to people. There’s a group of people in music and we message a lot, we check in with each other. If I can help somebody else I will. I think everyone knows that if they wanted to ask me a question, they could get to me and I would give them the time of day. You know, it’s such a hard industry to navigate and it’s also a wonderful industry to be able to make music but I think sometimes it can feel quite overwhelming how you navigate it. So I’d love to be able to be a mentor to other people.

It’s funny because I’ve always felt embraced, critically they’ve always been pretty generous to me. I think I’ve always made a level of pop. Funnily enough when I was trying to make something less commercial in the sense of just doing it for myself and there being no agenda of trying to please a radio station I then made probably my most popular record.

How old are you?

You fucking baby [laughs] I mean, you look at people like Whitney Houston, she was making pop music, which was one of the greatest soul singers as well. Aretha Franklin was making pop music but she was making soul music, but it was popular. You know, I think it’s always been acceptable. I think that yeah, sometimes pop gets a bad name. But you look at people like Charli XCX. She’s probably one of the most experimental pop artists but I still regard her as a pop star, you know? Rina Sawayama. I think pop gets a bad rap because it means it’s popular and that I think growing up even I had an issue with being regarded as a pop star because I didn’t believe that I was one. I thought I was more alternative. But actually, I think being a pop star is a bloody great thing if it can work out well. David Bowie was making pop music but he was also making the most avant-garde, brilliant music. I think that growing up as well, without sounding condescending, you realise that there’s a world outside blogs, indie and alternative and rebellion. Like, I definitely found that anyway. What are you listening to that is pop?

A good song is a good song and a good song will always live on. Murder on the Dance Floor... these are great songs. That’s why they come back. That’s why Sophie is a bloody TikTok star again, with Murder on the Dance Floor, it’s a fucking great song.

Totally.

I feel like I’m having more and more fun with every record that I make. I feel unstoppable at the moment which is an amazing feeling. I don’t need to worry about what the next record is going to be. I don’t know what it is going to be yet. But I feel excited about experimenting and trying. One thing I’ve really learnt to do, which I didn’t do at the beginning was to enjoy the moment that you’re in right now. People are loving the record. I’m thrilled with the record. I’m excited for people to hear it. I’m going to enjoy this moment without trying to think about the next record just too soon. I’m really going to just relish the world that I created and people living in it for a bit and then we’ll think about the next project. I can spiral out of control where I’d be like, oh god but but but but what if what if whatever and it just doesn’t help.

I try, I try.

Oh, God, I’m going to finish chatting about myself in about two hours. I’m going to see a friend I haven’t been able to cuddle for a few months. I’m going to put my kids to bed. I’m going to have an early night. I’m going to probably watch something. I mean really boring shit, that wholesome good boring shit.

No, wait, putting my kids to bed is not boring. No, I’m going to just enjoy that. I’ve done a full day of work and it’s lovely. But I get home and just switch off. I mean, maybe I ’ll just get a cookie for myself in an hour.