‘I’ve done every job in music – it’s been a long road’
Award-winning producer, DJ and multi-instrumentalist Jax Jones tells us what to expect from his sold-out gig at Rock City in Nottingham this Friday
It’s great to see you back in Nottingham. Does the city hold memories for you?
I used to play in Stealth in Nottingham, that was one of my first-ever gigs. I’ve played Stealth a few times but it’s been a couple of years so again I’m excited to be back and it’ll be the first time I do my live show there.
Your breakthrough hit was probably “You Don’t Know Me” which came out back in 2016. It is still a big song for you today. How do you feel about that?
That song will always have a special place for me, being as at the week of release we missed the number one spot just because Ed Sheeran dropped one of the biggest songs of all time, I think it was Shape Of You or something like that, so that was a tough one. But we were pretty close, and my last number one was I Got U with Duke Dumont, so like to have You Don’t Know Me was kind of like my first solo hit with no other DJ and obviously it was really cool to have collaborated with Raye on that one. It just kind of started to make everyone aware of who I am. Over the years, people have told me how much [that song] defined their summer, defined certain moments in their life, which is what a great dance record should do, so I’m really proud to be a part of that. It’s taken me all around the world man, to stages in Serbia like all the way to Asia, Japan so it’s been a game changer for me.
From the release of that track it was quite a long road until Snacks, your album. Did you expect it to take so long?
At the time an album wasn’t in mind. The dance music is always changing so for me at the time it was just kind of adapting my style to what’s going on... not necessarily following the trends, but figuring it out. I was still kind of defining my sound. Which has ended up being amazing because now my music is so exciting because I don’t speak to one particular sound, all you know is once you hear the “whatcha whatcha gonna do” it’s going to be a great record. It took a while, now the beauty of it is, it’s the only album to have six top tens, and nine top twenties in total on it.
Are you proud of your body of work now? It’s just banger after banger on it, was that always your intention for an album?
Yeah, I think there’s two sides. Dance music albums either remain for the clubs, for DJs to pick up on and beats that you hear in the clubs, or there’s the other side of it where it should feel almost like a greatest hits and that’s what Snacks feels like to me. I’m really proud of the collaborations we got on there like Demi Lovato, Bebe Rexa, all the way to
great up and coming artists at the time such as Mabel – obviously she’s gone on to be a superstar now.
Before you were Jax Jones you did a lot of other things. Can you tell us a bit about your early days with music? Were you in an indie band?
I’ve done every job in music. I was signed in a band to Atlantic years before – Ed Sheeran and I got signed at the same time. I got dropped in that period after making an album, which happens to a lot of bands, but I learned so much. I worked with writers all around the world, lessons that I brought into Jax Jones. But before that when I first left uni, because it’s been a long road, my parents didn’t agree with me doing music so I had to leave home pretty early and just kind of figure it out. I had to get a job pretty quickly and luckily I landed on my feet, playing guitar for N-Dubz which was my first-ever job.
So all the way back then when you were playing guitar for N-Dubz, was it in your mind that one day you wanted to be a solo artist?
I knew I always wanted to be a producer and at the time I did a few remixes, I was chasing that. One-off grime records and bits like that, on the underground – even did a track with Miss Dynamite back in the day. At the time, the rise of the DJ producer especially in house music from a commercial stance wasn’t as popular. I was still making rap and R&B, dabbling in pop so it took a while to make that connection. And then Jax Jones was what brought it all together really, and I was like “this is a really natural fit; I love house music let’s do this”.
So, is that you now? Are you going to keep releasing music as Jax Jones?
Yeah exactly, now that we’re a few years in, we’ve had all those hits, we’ve had an album out, and we’ve kind of made the statements that I want to make and now it’s about looking to the future, building longevity, having more hits but also showing my taste, putting on an amazing live show, hence the tour, and just becoming known as an artist which is difficult as an electronic act.
So, apart from the gig tonight, what can we expect from you?
I’m in a band, well I’m in a modern-day superband with Martin Solveig, who’s a bit of a legend, very surreal that we’re in a band together. And the band basically means you know that we make music together and kind of bring our worlds together. It’s called Europa. Our first song was All Day And Night, which was a top ten last year, so we felt it was about time to drop a new one. So that’s what we’ve done, it’s called Tequila.
And what can we expect from the live show – will there be elements of Europa in it as well?
I mean the Jax Jones live show is like no other kind of dance show out there right now, where you get all those big songs but performed in a new unique way. We have unique versions that no one else has. Then you get a Europa section, sometimes I like to bring out special guests because of my influences in rap music and all the collaborations I’ve done, I love to bring out special guests. So whether you want to sing along, whether you want to party, whether you want to just hang out with cool people that’s my show.
■ Jax Jones plays Rock City on Friday, to a sold-out crowd.