When I look back at what I’ve overcome, I’m like: ‘This is a celebration’
JESS GLYNNE TELLS NAOMI CLARKE HOW SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN HER PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE INFORMED HER UPCOMING THIRD STUDIO ALBUM
“I’M NOT here to say sorry, I’m not here to say nothing, I’m just here to be me”, Jess Glynne’s soulful voice croons in the intro of her new album.
After a challenging few years personally and professionally, spent mostly out of the spotlight, the 34-year-old Grammy-winning singer, is ensuring everyone is clear over her intention as she returns to the stage – to be unapologetically herself.
“I feel like I have been misunderstood and I think that’s something that I don’t want to continue in my career,” Jess reflects.
“I want people to listen to my records and understand where they’ve come from, and understand the person that I am.”
Many artists hail each album as a “new era”, but for Jess, her life has significantly shifted since she last released one six years ago.
After she lost a close friend, a member of her team, she underwent a period of self-reflection.
She realised she had grown into a different artist from the one who signed with Atlantic Records in 2013 and so left the label and her management team. She signed with EMI, and secured management with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation.
“I was absolutely terrified,” she admits about taking the plunge of cutting ties with her previous teams and carving out a new path.
“I thought ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’ Massive moments of doubt, massive moments of fear because I was all alone.
“I’d no one in my career supporting me at that point.”
She reveals there were points over the past four years where she considered quitting the industry due to the “way it made me feel, the pure slog, the scrutiny”.
But her devoted love of music continually drew her back in.
“The amount that I’ve put in and the self-belief and the fight and the battles [I’ve gone through with] myself and with people around me to get to where I am, I was like, ‘Nah man, you can’t throw it all away’,” she recalls.
The north London-born and raised musician – who is dating ex-footballer and sports presenter Alex Scott – had already created an impressive legacy.
She broke through in 2013 as the voice on Clean Bandit’s Rather Be, which became a global hit and took home a Grammy for best dance recording. Her husky tone and distinctive vibrato continued to produce number one singles on collaborations with Tinie Tempah, Rudimental and Route 94, before she released her 2015 debut studio album I Cry When I Laugh.
It shot to the top of the charts thanks to club bops – Hold My Hand and Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself – which both went to number one. Her second album in 2018 was a platinum-selling chart-topper too, bolstered by earworm I’ll Be There.
Jess cemented her position in the upper British pop echelons further as she supported the Spice Girls on their 2019 comeback tour.
Now she’s releasing her third album, created over the last four years and simply titled Jess.
“It’s a very honest, vulnerable record that’s just telling stories and evoking pure emotion,” she explains.
Following the Intro, the album opens with Silly Me, a soulful tune which reflects on past mistakes.
She bookends the 15-track record with another deep exploration on Promise Me, a strippeddown ballad where she seeks reassurance. However, it is catchy midtempo track Enough which encapsulates the message of the record as she sings in the chorus: “I’m more than enough.”
“When I wrote that song, I think it was just highlighting, this is me being me, unapologetic and being honest and being raw, and I think that’s just how I need to lead,” she says.
“And to stop pressuring myself to be this artist or be that artist or regurgitate a song like this or be something from our past, I need to look forward and be me now...”
Like many artists, the singer’s behaviour and relationships have been scrutinised over the years, which she admits has caused her to become “incredibly protective” and, at times, reclusive.
“I talk about it now and I’m like: ‘Yeah, you did it, man!”’ she says, as she reflects on how far she has come through “a lot of self-work and therapy”.
She adds: “You had those moments but you fought through every doubt and those dark days when you couldn’t walk out the door at one point, [when] you couldn’t be in a room with people without having a complete panic attack or meltdown, you couldn’t talk to people.’
“When I look back at what I’ve overcome and where I’ve been I’m like: ‘This is a celebration.”’
Jess is resolute in not letting melancholy seep into her music as she likes to “see the hope in anything”.
“I’m so grateful that I still get to do what I love,” she says.
“I’m releasing an album and I have managed to navigate my way through each challenge and I’m still standing and still doing what I love. And I’ve overcome all of those hurdles and it’s like: ‘What’s left to come?’ I don’t know.
“I’m sure there are going to be mountains of them. But it’s nice to know that I’ve overcome those and I’ve become a stronger, more able human being in those moments because of them.”
■ Jess Glynne’s new album, Jess, is out now via EMI Records