JODIE HARSH
In conversation with Nick Grimshaw
She might be Harsh by name, but she’s anything but harsh by nature. British DJ and fashion lover Jodie Harsh has risen from the narrow streets of her native Kent to hanging with Madonna and Lady Gaga, and most recently opening for the Spice Girls at “Wembley fucking Stadium” – her words. Now stepping into a new world by mixing her love of nightlife with music, the three-time Billboard Dance number one owner is ready for a new challenge.
“The plan is to be like Diplo... but in a wig,” laughs Jodie to friend Nick Grimshaw. The pair first met on Myspace. “I’ve done everything in the wrong order. I started doing drag, events and then started to DJ at events. And then after that, I started to make music. Really it should have been making music and then do a show and then find a look. I’ve done bits of songwriting, I’ve written for artists like Charli XCX and done lots of production and remixing Beyonce and people like that.”
Her first single Tuesday is a certified bop, and is part of a wider range of work, she tells Nick. “I’ve sat on and so I thought about making an album,” Jodie explains. “It’s time to make stuff work. I went back to the studio and finished stuff to get it out there – my own releases.”
While the number of drag queens and queer people breaking into the mainstream is on the rise, a drag DJ like Jodie Harsh is fully aware that there’s still a greater battle to acheive global success. “I feel like back-in-the-day, because I do drag and am known primarily for wearing this wig, some doors might have been quite closed for me but now you’ve got Drag Race. Like, drag queens are on the BBC. Pabllo Vittar is the biest thing in South America, and people like Charli XCX are running around with drag queens on stage. I mean if you haven’t got a drag queen in your video, you aren’t even a pop star. It’s like the door is open for me as a producer to keep kicking it open.”
Here, Nick speaks to Jodie about partying with the likes of Amy Winehouse and Madonna, stepping into the world of music with an album all of her own, and why she refuses to let her drag lose its punk edge.
Nick Grimshaw:
Hi Jodie, I like seeing you in the day.
Jodie Harsh:
Do I look different?
Nick Grimshaw:
No, not at all. I guess we should start by discussing when we first met, which was...
Jodie Harsh:
I think it was on Myspace. I think you messaged me asking to DJ at a club. It was when I had this club Circus. You didn’t even live in London at that time. I’d been around but was about six months into doing actual clubs and bars. You came and I made you a resident DJ. From like 10 till... when people came in.
Nick Grimshaw:
I was and I loved it. It was so fun.
Jodie Harsh:
It was a pleasure to break your career. (Laughs)
Nick Grimshaw:
Amy Winehouse used to come and DJ. I remember once I was DJing and she wanted I Don’t Like Cricket, I Love It. I didn’t know if that was very Circus, fitting in with this really rave and gay night in Soho, but we played it.
Jodie Harsh:
There aren’t that many pictures from that era. I found a box at my mum’s house and there’s pages from Hello and Boyz and QX.
Nick Grimshaw:
The London Paper was, I guess, like a printed Instagram.
Jodie Harsh:
I would wake up at the end of the day really hungover and see what we’d be up to the night before.
Nick Grimshaw:
It was clubbing pre-Instagram. How do you think Instagram has changed your clubbing experience?
Jodie Harsh:
When I’m playing now as a DJ, everybody has a phone in their hand. People are less in the room and documenting the party rather than being in the moment. This is obvious. People care more about what they look like now. I see people using Facetune in the club... I mean I’m probably guilty of that myself.
Nick Grimshaw:
That’s you! You’ve had a signature look through your career. Talk to me about when you first put on the now famous wig.
Jodie Harsh:
That happened a few years in. I realised it framed my face because if I have hair on both sides, I look really weird. And if i don’t have that volume, it doesn’t look like me. I worked out nobody else had that hair and it’s uniform. I’m the least ‘drag queen’ drag queen out there.
Nick Grimshaw:
I love that it’s a uniform.
Jodie Harsh:
I admire people that have one look like Karl Lagerfeld and Anna Wintour. They look the same all the time.
Nick Grimshaw:
When did you first, as a kid, think about expressing yourself this way? Maybe even pre-drag?
Jodie Harsh:
I used to put my pants on the outside of my outfit and lip-sync to Michael Jackson and Madonna. I’ve always been the theatrical kid. I’m the gayest kid ever when you look back at pictures.
Nick Grimshaw:
I used to do a Cher show. Like a show of Cher. I’d put on all my mum’s necklaces.
Jodie Harsh:
I never used to wear my mum’s clothes or anything like that. I wasn’t that kid. My grandmother used to put lipstick on me, but drag happened for me when I was 18 and moved to London.
Nick Grimshaw:
Who did you idolise on the telly?
Jodie Harsh:
I’ve always loved Madonna.
Nick Grimshaw:
And you’ve met her, right?
Jodie Harsh:
Yeah, loads of times, actually. But she doesn’t do pictures... You don’t really get to ask for one. [Laughs]
Nick Grimshaw:
Have you been to her house?
Jodie Harsh:
Yeah, I have. You can’t be cool with somebody with that level of fame. It’s Madonna. But I don’t think I’d be like that with anybody else.
Nick Grimshaw:
Did you ever go out in drag in your native Kent?
Jodie Harsh:
Yes I did. It’s so weird. It’s now got really gay. I felt like the only gay in the village growing up. Now I’m not gay enough.
Nick Grimshaw:
Everyone is in a gimp mask now. Did you get shit before?
Jodie Harsh:
I wasn’t bullied in school but I was always very obviously gay. I’ve known I
was gay since I was a little kid and owned it. I used to hang out with the cool girls so nobody really gave me shit. I was the funny one - it was my armour really.
Nick Grimshaw:
So how many wigs do you have?
Jodie Harsh:
About 20.
Nick Grimshaw:
And how secure is it?
Jodie Harsh:
It’s pretty secure, it’s very tight because when I’m in drag, I become really stupid. The wig is so tight and strapped to my head, you can see this deep read mark when I take it off. I think it cuts off the blood to my brain. Have you ever spoken to me and I’ve been a bit...
Nick Grimshaw:
I always thought it was because it’s so loud?
Jodie Harsh:
It’s because I can’t think!
Nick Grimshaw:
So you don’t really party.
Jodie Harsh:
I don’t take drugs any more. I got to the point a few years ago where I was really relying on alcohol and drugs every time I went out, and that would continue. I’d stay up a long time and it was quite isolating. I got to the point where they started changing my world, I become a different person. I wasn’t really being the real me. I had a few instances and wake-up calls that it wasn’t working for me.
Nick Grimshaw:
In your career, that lifestyle is almost encouraged. You’ve not got anything stopping you from going out because of work the next morning. It’s all at night.
Jodie Harsh:
And it’s almost expected. When you’re in entertainment or nightlife or any of those industries, it’s a given, but actually loads of people that work in it as well don’t touch anything. And then I see people on drugs or really drunk in a club, I think it’s not really ‘the look’ anymore.
Nick Grimshaw:
It gives me the fear now when I’m working and I see people that drunk they’re banging into walls, I worry about how they are going to get home. But when I was younger, I thought that was fun.
Jodie Harsh:
I just don’t think younger people are all that like either. There’s been a real shift.
Nick Grimshaw:
Especially when we were younger, when we were teenagers, that impression of who was cool was people paralytic and off their heads. They were almost held up as icons.
Jodie Harsh:
It’s not that appealing, and I work in nightlife so I’d be a bit of a hypocrite if I said, ‘Don’t do it or touch it’. I’ve just personally worked out that me as a human, a friend, a lover, a son-slash-daughter, to not rely on things. It’s the best decision I’ve ever made..
Nick Grimshaw:
I don’t like being drunk or hungover or not in control. We used to go out every single night and the aim would be to get blackout drunk, and now that gives me the actual fear.
Jodie Harsh:
Do you remember my 25th birthday?
Nick Grimshaw:
Yeah, yeah. Did you live near a weather lady?
Jodie Harsh:
Siân Lloyd? Yes she lived in the same building. I woke up the following day with my head in a pile of glass from my glass bedside table. It was moments like that where it wasn’t working for me.
Nick Grimshaw:
Talk to me about your music career. Did you have aspirations when you were younger to make music?
Jodie Harsh:
I’ve done everything in the wrong order. I started doing drag, events and then started to DJ at events. And then after that, I started to make music. Really it should have been making music and then do a show and then find a look. I’ve done bits of songwriting, I’ve written for artists like Charli XCX and done lots of production and remixing Beyonce and people like that. I have three Billboard Dance number ones.
Nick Grimshaw:
Do you?!
Jodie Harsh:
Yeah, and I’ve done other bits and bobs. Over the past year, I’ve been through the stuff that I’ve written and there’s so much stuff that I’ve sat on and so I thought about making an album. It’s time to make stuff work. I went back to the studio and finished stuff to get it out there – my own releases.
Nick Grimshaw:
Your first single Tuesday is a proper tune!
Jodie Harsh:
The industry is weird now because it’s about playlists and you have to work the music business differently to what it was a few years ago. The plan is to be like Diplo... but in a wig. I feel like back in the day, because I do drag and am known primarily for wearing this wig, some doors might have been quite closed for me but now you’ve got Drag Race. Like, drag queens are on the BBC. Pabllo Vittar is the biest thing in South America, and people like Charli XCX are running around with drag queens on stage. I mean, if you haven’t got a drag queen in your video, you aren’t even a pop star. It’s like the door is open for me as a producer to keep kicking it open.
Nick Grimshaw:
100%.
Jodie Harsh:
And I want to tour my own show just how I used to do club nights in East London and Soho. I want to bring a piece of queer London nightlife to the stage each night.
Nick Grimshaw:
The Met Gala theme was camp and we mentioned Drag Race and how mainstream it is. How do you think that has affected somebody that does drag?
Jodie Harsh:
I feel like it’s absolutely been good for business. Aside from me, it’s amazing for queer people in general. When I was a kid and Queer As Folk came on telly, I watched that and it resonated with me. It felt so new and controversial having gays on TV. Nowadays Queer culture is at the forefront of popular culture and that can only be a good thing for us queer people. That representation in mainstream media is really important.
Nick Grimshaw:
We had Baga Chipz and Crystal on the show and it was was probably the most reacted guests we’ve ever had. People loved it! The reaction was like what we’d get for Selena Gomez.
Jodie Harsh:
50 years ago, it was illegal to be gay in this country and it’s amazing there are now 10 queer contestants on a TV show made by the BBC.
Nick Grimshaw:
When I was younger, I was scared to be a bit camp. Now I’m livid I’m not a drag queen! I should have been gay-er. Have you met RuPaul?
Jodie Harsh:
Yeah I have, a few times. We follow each other on Twitter. Ru is nice. We DM on Twitter sometimes. He did pave the way in popular culture. He’s an icon. We owe a lot to Ru.
Nick Grimshaw:
So when might we get a fully completed album?
Jodie Harsh:
There’s an EP out beginning of next year. The next single is out 31st January. Vula is on the next one. It’s a bit like the Scissor Sisters’ Let’s Have a Kiki. It’s a spoken phone call.
Nick Grimshaw:
I saw the Cock Destroyers were at your club. Are you actually friends with them?
Jodie Harsh:
I fucking love them, they’re mates of mine. They come around for dinner. They both have kids, are absolutely lovely and are hard-working women - and love what they do.
Nick Grimshaw:
They should have hosted the Met Gala! Would you ever stop doing drag?
Jodie Harsh:
I do think that doing drag has stopped me from getting a boyfriend. Drag can fuck with your head a little bit. Would I ever stop doing it completely? No. I enjoy the creative process and I enjoy that it puts you outside of society’s norms. I love the punk aspect of it. I like being different. I push myself to be different.
Nick Grimshaw:
Do you still get nervous?
Jodie Harsh:
For really big crowds or festivals.
Nick Grimshaw:
What about the Spice Girls?
Jodie Harsh:
Wembley fucking Stadium I played this summer. I’m just a boy in a wig from Canterbury, that’s fucking mental. The Spice Girls, I grew up watching them. That was quite scary.
Nick Grimshaw:
I heard Adele was there and wanted to sing with them. They turned it down. I heard they’re going to do Glastonbury.
Jodie Harsh:
Amazing, they should do that!