Interview with Jade Bird
Jade Bird is an English singer and songwriter.
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Max Raskin: I want to start with England — it sounds like you traveled around when you were younger. Is there a part of England you most identify with?
Jade Bird: What a good start. Yes. I definitely feel like my roots are in the north of England, which is sort of layered because my dad was from Chesterfield in Derbyshire, and so I spent a lot of my school holidays there. But I was living in Wales from the ages of about seven to 15, 16 with my mom and grandma. No one in my family is from Wales, but I feel like my humor and everything feels a bit more northern.
MR: What is Welsh humor?
JB: That's a great question. I think maybe the whole of the UK it's a bit more sarcastic. But northern…you use euphemisms? Humor is one of the hardest things to explain in words ever.
MR: Yeah, that's right. What about food or dress — is there anything about being from the north that makes you different than someone from London or Manchester?
JB: With food, it's more homely — you're talking shepherd's pie or they have peas pudding up there.
MR: When you go back home do you have a restaurant that you love going back to?
JB: Not particularly, no. Sorry. Terrible answer.
MR: If I were to ask where’s home, where is it?
JB: I don't really know.
Gaming and Carhenge
MR: When you got to America was there anything you really wanted to do or see that was quintessentially American to you?
JB: I think I've always been more interested in small towns, and hidden things, and the culture in those places. I don't know why the first memory that came to mind was when we did our first American road trip, and we saw Carhenge. And it's quite literally as I'm describing it, it's cars piled on top of cars. It’s this random…you could call it a sightseeing location…but it's just incredible, and it's just outside of Alliance, Nebraska.
MR: Was that the first time you were ever in America?
JB: Yes, that was my first road trip. I think I was supporting this guy called Son Little, who's an incredible artist. And I was too young to even play or stay in the bars They booted me out right until the second I was playing. It was pretty wild.
MR: Do you have any hobbies other than music?
JB: Yeah, I read a hell of a lot, and I game a lot.
MR: What do you game?
JB: I grew up playing Xbox and Call of Duty; I used to play with my dad a lot. Now I've switched to PC, so I play everything, from Fallout to The Last of Us to Sims…the whole nine yards.
MR: Did you watch The Last of Us?
JB: Yes.
MR: What did you think about the new season?
JB: Oh, well, it's not as good as the game.
MR: How long will you play video games for at a time?
JB: I'm a bit healthier now, but when I was a kid, we're talking eight hours.
MR: Holy cow.
JB: A working day.
MR: And were you good?
JB: Yeah, I was really good.
MR: Can you share what your handle was?
JB: Yeah, it was TweetyPieHD because I was in a clan.
MR: This was for COD [Call of Duty]?
JB: Yeah, yeah.
MR: Did you ever play Age of Empires or any of the civ builder games?
JB: No, no. I was into shooters as a kid…especially zombies and stuff, and then recently I'm more into city builders.
MR: Why do you think you were into shooters as a kid?
JB: I think I am extremely competitive. And that was kind of the only way I would bond with my dad — we would just play shooters.
MR: Do you have really good hand eye coordination?
JB: Probably. I think a lot of what I do is kind of based around that. Either playing guitar or gaming. I played sport as a kid, too.
MR: What sport did you play?
JB: Netball and hockey.
MR: What's netball?
JB: It’s English-Australian…primarily girls sport. How do you explain it? When you get the ball you have to stop, so you can't run with the ball.
MR: Interesting.
JB: It's pretty sick.
MR: There's no stick or anything, right?
JB: No, it's a hoop ball sport, but it's great.
Musician’s Music
MR: Are you religious?
JB: No.
MR: Do you believe in God?
JB: I think I am curious, and I go back and forth about fate and whether it’s planned out for us.
MR: Whether what's planned out?
JB: Are you making decisions? Have they already been made for you? How much can you change your fate and destiny?
I definitely believe in some sort of afterlife and souls and things like that. I think I'm spiritual, I'm not dead inside.
MR: What’s the worst decision you've ever made in your life?
JB: I can't tell you about though, Max.
MR: What’s the best concert you've ever played?
JB: I think it would've been either All Points East Festival in 2019, or Manchester 2019. I love those shows.
MR: If you had to recommend one of your songs to someone who has never heard you, what’s the first song that comes to mind?
JB: Off the new album it would be “Wish You Well,” that finishes my record. And if not that album, probably a song of mine called “Lottery,” I really like.
MR: What's the last album you listened to front to back?
JB: I think maybe Townes Van Zandt’s self-titled album. The one with “Waitin’ Around to Die.”
MR: Where do you listen to your music?
JB: Spotify.
MR: What were your top songs from last year?
JB: It was Alex G — he's been in my top three for five years, it's ridiculous.
MR: Who's Alex G?
JB: He's an artist. I think maybe if your listeners skew a little older, I'm not sure it would be their thing, but he's just an artist that I just think is absolutely incredible. He's got like eight albums.
MR: And what's the song that you most listened to?
JB: I think this year it's his new one, “Afterlife,” and then last year it would've been “Runner.”
MR: Oh wow, it looks like he did the soundtrack to this movie I Saw the TV Glow. It's either one of the worst movies I've seen or one of the best.
JB: I watched The Butterfly Effect with my friend and had the same feeling.
MR: I loved that movie! I’m about to interview Ethan Suplee who was in it.
JB: Are you serious?
MR: Yeah.
JB: Everything that could possibly be traumatic, they put in one movie. It's mental.
MR: I thought it was a fun movie.
JB: I wouldn't describe it as fun, Max, it's pretty bizarre.
MR: Do you like the Grateful Dead?
JB: Honestly?
MR: You could just say no.
JB: I just haven't listened to the Grateful Dead. It's an artist I've completely missed.
MR: You’re really into the singer-songwriter stuff.
JB: Yes. And I adore loads of Americana and Heritage acts, you name it and I'll probably know it…but the Grateful Dead, I've just completely missed.
MR: Dylan or Leonard Cohen?
JB: Maybe Dylan, although, they're so different. Leonard Cohen you have to be in the right time or place. I remember listening to “Suzanne,” and it was this particular moment, and it just felt like a bowling ball in the chest. Whereas, Dylan, I've been obsessively listening to “Girl from the North Country” and that record, Nashville Skyline, I'm taking pretty direct inspiration from that.
MR: Did you ever listen to Nina Simone's “Suzanne”?
JB: Yeah, I was big into Nina when I was a kid.
MR: She has a nice album of a few Dylan covers.
JB: It's great. I agree.
Free Association
MR: Do you use any apps that you think most people might not have heard of?
JB: Catan, the game.
MR: When you sit and scroll, what do you waste your time on?
JB: Oh, I'm not special, Instagram or TikTok, probably one of those. A product of my generation. I like Goodreads. I'm into ChatGPT, unfortunately now — I know you're not supposed to do that.
MR: When you say you're into it, what do you do with it?
JB: It's just endless. I like to write stories, and I like to get it to create animation for the stories.
MR: That's cool.
JB: It’s like you are watching a story come to life. I do that.
MR: How famous are you?
JB: Not very famous at all.
MR: How often do you get recognized?
JB: There was a moment where my UberEats driver recognized me…that was pretty strange. Bless him.
MR: Do you want to be famous or no?
JB: No, I think it's quite dark.
MR: Do you want to be like a Carole King where your work is famous but you aren’t really recognizable?
JB: Well, that's the goal, isn't it? You want to be able to play shows that you can have a crowd full of people and you can have that energy, without having to have people question who you are with, and come up to you on the street 24/7. That must be an awful experience, to be honest.
MR: I want to do a quick free association round, I'm going to just say names of either artists or things, and can you just tell me just the first word or association that comes to your mind?
JB: Yes.
MR: Warren Zevon?
JB: I have no idea who that is really.
MR: You know the song “Werewolves of London”?
JB: Yeah.
MR: You’ll love him!
Laurel Canyon?
JB: Joni Mitchell.
MR: What's the first Joni Mitchell song that comes to mind?
JB: “Help Me.”
MR: Woodstock?
JB: Crosby, Stills & Nash.
MR: Crosby, Stills & Nash, or Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young?
JB: Crosby, Stills & Nash.
MR: The Sopranos?
JB: Haven't seen it.
MR: Tony Blair?
JB: Iraq.
MR: What about Bob Marley?
JB: Weed.
MR: Do you do drugs at all?
JB: Not really. Sometimes.
MR: Do you want to be American?
JB: No…I love a lot of things about America, but I think, no, I don't think so.
MR: Is your boyfriend American?
JB: Yeah, from LA.
MR: When you get married and settle down, would you live here or in England?
JB: In America.
MR: Why?
JB: I think the weather's a little bit better. And I think musically, I feel very at home here. Despite everything right now, usually there's a bit more optimism, and I enjoy that feeling, like the sky's the limit.
MR: What's your favorite Dylan song?
JB: “Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You” from Nashville Skyline. It's got this beautiful key change.
MR: How do you write songs? On your phone? With a pen and paper?
JB: Pen and paper, always.
MR: Do you have a notebook?
JB: Always a notebook.
MR: What kind of notebook?
JB: I used to have these Standard Issue Notebooks No. 3 from DesignWorks — it’s a company in Nashville I quite liked. I've returned to something that’s Moleskine-esque.
MR: Do you hum things to yourself in Voice Memos?
JB: Very rarely, I'll write down words or phrases and bank that, but very rarely melody, that's only happened a couple of times in songs I've released.
MR: Who is your guitar inspiration?
JB: I'm not a shredder by any means. I liked Johnny Cash, and I liked the more bluesy-esque players.
MR: And what about piano?
JB: Piano, it just felt a bit different to me…it was more classical, so I was into that.
MR: What kind of classical music do you listen to?
JB: When I was a kid, I was pretty obsessed with Chopin.
MR: How often do you play guitar? Do you practice every day?
JB: No. When I'm on tour, obviously I'm playing every day, and when I'm in an album cycle, I'll play every day. If not, three or four times a week.
MR: And when you're on tour, do you go on a bus?
JB: Sometimes if I'm with a band, but when I'm on my own, I'll go van or car.
MR: Does that suck?
JB: No, I prefer it. I really like driving.
MR: And what do you do when you're traveling?
JB: I read a lot.
MR: What do you like to read?
JB: I try and do a nonfiction and then two fiction.
MR: What nonfiction are you reading now?
JB: The Shock Doctrine — I'm trying my best, it's pretty hard.
MR: The book by Naomi Klein?
JB: Yeah — trying to read that. I was just writing about this book I read that stuck with me — it’s called The Trauma Cleaner.
JB: What kind of fiction do you read?
JB: All kinds. Right now I'm trying to get into sci-fi and dystopian.
MR: I love sci-fi and dystopian stories.
JB: Right? I just bought Metropolis. I'm rereading 1984.
MR: You want me to give you a book that you’d really enjoy?
JB: Yes, absolutely, as many as you can.
MR: No, no — not as many as you can. I have to earn the right to recommend things. I might cut this out of the interview but I have this system where I give people a chance to recommend something to me and if it’s good, then they get a point — and as long as they are in the positive, they can keep recommending, but if they go negative, they can’t recommend anything anymore. So don’t be so quick to take my recommendation…first see if you like Warren Zevon.
JB: I might steal that, Max. That’s brilliant.
MR: What podcasts are you listening to?
JB: There's an amazing one called Things Fell Apart, by Jon Ronson. It's basically about the culture wars, and he goes into these small scenarios where a culture war raised its head. It's incredible.
MR: His name is a spoonerism of Ron Johnson.
Netball and Mental Health
MR: You seem pretty well-adjusted. Are you pretty well-adjusted?
JB: In life?
MR: Yeah.
JB: I wasn't, and in the past year, year and a half, two years, I am.
MR: Why weren't you?
JB: I think I was going through a lot of personal upheaval, and yeah, unresolved familial kind of trauma, to be honest.
MR: Did you go through therapy?
JB: Yes. Quite a lot.
MR: And what kind of therapy was it?
JB: Just talk therapy.
MR: What did you do to get healthier? Did you exercise too?
JB: I could give you all them things that my mother would say — I drank more water and did exercise, but honestly, I fell in love, and it kind of changed my life.
MR: Were you miserable and then you fell in love, and then you were happy?
JB: Kind of, yeah. I was in a really bad relationship that I felt was crushing me, and then I ended the relationship, and met someone shortly after.
MR: How shortly after?
JB: Pretty soon after.
MR: Days or weeks?
JB: Weeks.
MR: And in that interim period, you didn't go for runs or anything like that?
JB: No, I've always been pretty consistent with everything.
MR: What do you do for exercise?
JB: Obviously in true LA fashion, I've started Pilates. I used to do netball, but it's really hard to hold down a routine for a team when you are on tour.
MR: Wait, you do netball in America?
JB: Yeah — I found a team here of expats. But it's just hard to commit to anything.
MR: What’s the music group you think you've seen the most in your life?
JB: I struggle a bit with live music sometimes, to be honest with you. I don't see a whole ton of live music.
MR: Really?
JB: Yes. I struggle as a musician watching it because you always know the sound isn't necessarily quite as good as you'd want it to be, or you can see things, and it's a bit like when you do it for a living, it's different.
But the best show I've ever seen is Phoenix. There was this festival in Australia before everything hit, and it was just the best show I've ever
MR: Do you know Taylor Swift?
JB: Yeah.
MR: Do you know her?
JB: Not personally.
MR: I really want to interview her.
JB: What would you ask her?
MR: The same questions I'm asking you.
When we finish, what is the next thing you're going to do?
JB: Drive home and sort my life out…pack up my stuff.
MR: Are you using movers?
JB: Everything's everywhere. A bit of movers, a bit of doing it ourselves.
MR: And are you an organized person?
JB: I am in some ways, but in other ways, definitely not. I like to keep track of things and make lists.
MR: How many people are in your phone book?
JB: 394.