With the release of her debut LP ‘Everything Changes’ coming up fast, singer/songwriter Jazzie Young looks back on the collaborative experience and lyrical inspirations – everything from major heartbreak to simply throwing on an old favorite movie – that brought the project to completion.
Stream: “Waiting on You!” – Jazzie Young
“Ah, change is good,” Rafiki the mandrill commented in The Lion King. “Yeah, but it’s not easy,” Simba the lion replied.
Who knows whether this scene ever popped into indie singer Jazzie Young’s head – she is a major fan of animated movies, in her own words – but the main idea there does seem to also be a principal theme in her upcoming album, tellingly titled Everything Changes.
“I have such a love-hate relationship with it,” Jazzie says of the concept of change. “On the one hand, the idea that things can change and be better is so exciting; it’s why we do things. And at the same time, it feels like a constant threat to what you already have… Nothing can stay the same forever, and when you’re in a good place, that can feel sort of threatening.”
Indeed it can. But change is something that Young has been accustomed to throughout her life, including having changed her address on numerous occasions. She was born in northern California, then spent time growing up in Hawaii and South Carolina, and now has been based in Los Angeles for some time. Her most recent location has allowed her to make some connections in the local music industry, including with Day Wave – a one-man indie rock project helmed by Jackson Phillips – as well as sound producers Isaiah Jose and John Velasquez.
All of these figures have assisted her in the creation of her still-in-the-works Everything Changes, due out this coming summer. Young has previewed the release with a number of singles, including “Waiting On You!,” which details the romantic interest living rent-free in her mind (“Your name in my head like every night, take my heart out of my chest, can you tell me what’s next?”).
Then came “Mr. Casual,” which offers a fierce critique of the “situationship” culture that she and many others in the modern era have been subject to. In addition to all this autobiographical fare, there’s a song that was born of a prompt that Young and her producers devised for themselves: What if we wrote a song from the perspective of a movie character that we really like? In the end, the honoree wound up being Lux Lisbon, Kirsten Dunst’s character in 1999’s The Virgin Suicides.
In a recent conversation with Atwood Magazine, Young detailed the complexities of creating her full-length album –
– most of all, ensuring that each of the individual songs she recorded would add up to a collective narrative and artistic statement that she could stand behind – and how she finally got to the point where she could feel as though she’d achieved that much.
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A CONVERSATION WITH JAZZIE YOUNG
This interview has been lightly edited for purposes of length and clarity.
Atwood Magazine: If you think about your time as a recording artist over the years, what have been some major highlights and areas of growth?
Jazzie Young: I feel like there’s been a lot of growth. I think it’s really interesting. A lot of my projects have been EPs, so it’s not just a bunch of singles, and I think it’s been fun to look back at the different sections of my life and the music I was making then versus [my more recent] growth with this new album. [I can reflect on] the exploration and production, but also the songwriting and harmony and collaborators and how that’s evolved over time. I think it’s really fun to have those little milestones of where you started versus where you are now, because sometimes it’s hard to be objective about your growth.
For this past album, I feel like I met most of the musicians in LA It was pretty much the first time I ever co-wrote with people, since I wrote with four or five other people for this album, especially my main producer, and I realized how cool of a connection it is to write with people. It’s such an intimate thing, and I enjoyed how they can influence the songwriting and each song, just based on their own style. That’s really cool. I’m already starting to write again, even though this album hasn’t come out yet, and it’s interesting to see the growth… taking lessons from what you’ve learned and applying them to new music.
What has the transition been like of going from making all of these individual songs to stitching them together into EPs, and now a new LP?
Jazzie Young: It’s a lot more of a marathon. It took about eight months to make my new album. I know for everyone, it’s different, and I think there’s a lot more attention behind it. EPs sometimes, to me, feel more just like a collection of songs, like, “Oh, I’ve written X amount of songs in this period of time, let’s just put them together,” kind of as this consolidated work or this snapshot of where I’m at. But with an album, I think there was a lot more consciousness.
Obviously, you want to love each song, so you kind of write them and then some don’t make the cut. And then, you go through it when you’re about six songs in and ask, “What is missing sonically, or is there another emotion I want to explore?” And there’s a little more intention behind that, of like, “I think this needs a new beat,” or, “These have all been acoustic. What needs to fit in here to make it feel like a cohesive body of work?” as you do have so much more space [when] there’s at least 10 songs. So, I think there’s a lot more intentionality in that sense, of trying to make sure that it’s not just a collection of songs, but it tells a story.
Also, when you’re listening to that much volume of music. [you want there to be] enough variety so it’s not just like the same thing over and over again. So, I think that was thought about a lot more, and there were also quite a few songs that we would write and be like, “Oh, we need to write a lot of acoustic stuff,” but then picking the best three instead of putting all of the songs in there, kind of. Or being like, “OK, this is done, let’s explore something completely different with the song structure and do something really weird because we’ve been stuck in this verse pre-chorus kind of thing.” I think within that, you get to explore a lot lyrically and sonically, which is really cool.
You’re currently based in Los Angeles. Are you from there originally?
Jazzie Young: No. I was born in Northern California, actually. I grew up on the Big Island of Hawaii and then South Carolina. So, I’ve been a little bit all over.
How has spending time in all of these places influenced you as an artist and the music that you make?
Jazzie Young: Obviously in the South, there’s a lot of country and folk music, and I grew up with a lot of that. And there was a lot of slack-key guitar styles in Hawaii. So, I think that folk music has a little bit of something that I love in the songwriting style and that acoustic guitar energy. I think that was very influential for me in terms of songwriting and that kind of core style.
And then, being in LA is such a cultural melting pot, and there are so many musicians, so much music and so much going on. I think that was really inspirational in broadening my horizons a bit. There are so many cool indie musicians and you’re exposed to so much, that even if you’re not writing a song exactly like that, it finds its influence in your production. You’ll like, “Wait, I haven’t tried something like that, I want to try a 1975 track,” or “Let’s lean into this dream pop aesthetic a little bit more.” So, I think there’s so much that’s inspiring here that it’s kind of leaking into my own experience.
I grew up with that in South Carolina and also in Hawaii, [where there’s a lot of] country and acoustic bass music, but I think it’s also very influential in how I like to do storytelling when I do songwriting. A lot of folk music has to do with the telling of a story, and I think that I’ve always taken that, regardless of the production I’m going for. There’s always the core of wanting to tell a story and to connect.
How did the song “Waiting on You!” come together, and what made you decide to use it as an introduction for the rest of the project?
Jazzie Young: That was actually the last song that I wrote for the album. I didn’t go into the writing session thinking I was going to write a whole album. It was my first writing session ever with Day Wave. I had never written with him or worked with him. I was working with a different producer, but we just kind of talked and we were like, “Yeah, let’s have a writing session for fun.” So we came in, and I really wanted to write a song about a crush because I had a really intense crush and thought, “I need to do something with this!” I’d been watching a lot of 2000’s rom-com’s like 10 Things I Hate About You and wanted to sonically convey that kind of energy.
Jackson Phillips of Day Wave is just so talented; he came up with those sonics kind of quickly and we wrote it all that day. I just remember driving it home and playing it on repeat, thinking “Oh my god, I’m obsessed with this song! It turned out so good!” ‘Cause you never know– you go into a writing session, it could be good, it could be not, who knows what you’re going to come up with. But I just remember thinking, “I need this on the album. This is what the album’s been missing.” Because it’s upbeat and it’s fun and sweet. It felt pretty poppy, and I just felt like that was maybe what was missing from the album and that it could benefit from something like that. So, I ended up telling my producer, “Hey, I want this on the album, how do we kind of, like, get it to fit the vibe of everything else, you know? Can we do a little massaging to get it to work with everything?”
It’s just one of my favorite songs off the album. It’s upbeat and poppy, and the lyrics are very poignant but simple. It’s easily accessible, so it felt like something that would be a fun intro to the album. It felt like it could hit the masses a little bit more easily and then we could release things that maybe were a little bit slower or more intimate. They might not have so much mass appeal, but because people heard that other song first, they might be a little more open to them, if that makes sense. So, I feel like that would be a good starting point, and it’s the first song on the album, too.
On top of that song, what else can you share about what’s gone into the making of the album? Have any cool stories come out of the writing and recording of the album?
Jazzie Young: It was one of the most beautiful creation projects I’ve ever been on. It was basically all of last year – eight months of my life. I was working with my producer, John, and he introduced me to Isaiah, and we would write and do prompts together. That’s how we came up with songs like “Lux,” which was the first single that I released from the album, last October. It’s named after the lead character from The Virgin Suicides by Sofia Coppola, which is one of my favorite movies. We did one prompt where we would be talking about film and be like, “Oh, I love this [movie]! Let’s write [a song] from this [character’s] perspective.” I think it was really fun to be able to grow and explore writing. It doesn’t always have to be like, “This really traumatic thing happened to me and I need to write about it!” Some of it is like that, but you can also explore other themes.
It was all kind of different. Sometimes, we would start with a vibe, like a guitar or sound, and then try to work from that into a song. But a lot of it, we wrote on acoustic guitar first and found a song where we were like, “This is a good song by itself,” and then [we created] the production around it. I think again, because you have 10 songs, the process is kind of different each time, because you’re trying to explore 10 different things. You can’t just apply the same formula every time, because then you’d just have the same 10 songs. So, it’s fun. This album was a lot of sonic exploration for me, at least in my head. There’s a decent amount of variety, in terms of both topics and sounds, that’s kind of exploring the different sides and genres that I enjoy in my own way. It’s a bit of an exploratory-first album, but I think it’s designed to appeal to many people. It’s got a little bit of something for everyone.
According to your press release, this album “explores the emotional complexity of growth, love, and the constant changing state our lives take, highlighting how there can be comfort in both change and despair.” How did you come up with this theme, and how is it reflected in the album itself?
Jazzie Young: It’s called Everything Changes because that’s the lead song on the album. And for me, it kind of encapsulated what the album is about, which is the concept of change and how I have such a love-hate relationship with it. On the one hand, the idea that things can change and be better is so exciting; it’s why we do things. And at the same time, it feels like a constant threat to what you already have. Things are constantly changing, and the rug’s constantly being pulled from under your feet. Nothing can stay the same forever, and when you’re in a good place, that can feel sort of threatening, because you’re like, “No, I don’t want these things to change!” And that kind of push-pull dynamic, I have a hard time with internally and within my life.
And so, the album is very reflective of that. It’s both an examination of outside romantic relationships and also my relationship with myself and how that’s constantly [being reflected] back to me and changing how I view and interact with the world. There are love songs and also the recognition of when love is fading. There are themes of crushes and avoidance and anxiety within yourself– not feeling like you fit in the world. It’s an array of human emotions– what it means to grow and change and trying to figure it out in real time.
At this point, have you been able to share this song with your friends and fans? What have been their reactions to it, and have they been able to relate to its main themes?
Jazzie Young: I feel like it’s been the most successful release that I’ve had. For the first time, I’ve made it onto the Spotify editorial playlist, which has been a major game-changer for streaming. I feel like a lot of people have been able to connect with the song, and then I released the music video a week-and-a-half ago. It was really fun. We got to play with the kitschy energy of the song, that’s [inspired by] making fun of yourself for constantly falling in love. People have received that really well, and we also got to play with animation. I love animation and animated movies, so it was a fun meeting of the worlds.
But yeah, everyone seems to really love the song. I think it’s one that can apply to a lot of people. I think everyone has experienced this idea of a crush, or liking someone and being unsure how they feel about you, and that can be your tension-filled space. And [the song makes] it feel sweet and cute and exciting, instead of anxiety-inducing. It’s been really great and exciting to see how everyone is connecting to it, and just having it out there in the world.
I really love that song. It’s really great, so it’s nice to kind of have it be reflected back at me from the community and people who are listening to it.
Are there any particular lines from the song that have resonated the most with people or that you’ve gotten feedback about?
Jazzie Young: I guess maybe that first verse, “Am I stuck thinking about you? I don’t want to say what’s on my mind.” People have said a lot, like, “Oh, that’s been me lately,” or “Oh, I’ve been thinking about you a lot, but I want to pretend that I’m not.” But besides that, I think it’s been mainly been the song in general that people have been commenting on– like, “I love this song,” or “I love the music video,” or “This is literally me”– but not necessarily one line in particular.
Do you have a release date set for the full album?
Jazzie Young: Not yet. It’ll be in the summer. We have a strict schedule set for the release of the singles and the visuals for them, and we’re trying to get that planned out in terms of [whether we’re] running on track and then figuring when the album should come out. But hopefully, [to release the album by] midsummer [would be] the dream, and then I would love to do some release party, whether it’s in LA or New York. We’ve talked about doing different trips for the P.R. side of it, and then also doing some shows as well.
I think I’m going to release five singles off of the 10 tracks from the album. It’s a lot, but it’s a nice introduction to the music. When you’re independent, the more you can get the songs out there, the better. Some people aren’t even going to have heard of any of them when the album comes out, so it’s a nice kind of reintroduction. It allows me to expand on the song visually in the world and kind of build it out, which is good for an intro record.
What are your hopes for when the album finally does come out? And where would you like to perform it live when you get the chance?
Jazzie Young: I guess in terms of feedback, I’m hoping that people will like it. It’s really hard to know, with songs, what’s going to resonate with people. They might be like, “I love this song,” and then it’s like, very niche. And then some songs randomly are a hit, but I hope that people, if anything, can feel a bit seen and understood through their own emotional experience with this album. I think that’s just such a beautiful thing about music– just the connection that it creates– and people can feel less alone through their experience, whether it’s more fun or intimate inside. I’m hoping that it resonates with people.
As for touring, I’d love to tour. TBD on that. I know that it can be expensive, depending on where you are artistically. But yeah, that would be the goal and the dream: to make a well-received album and then be able to tour and perform it for people and have them connect with it more. I think that would be really cool.
Any final comments on your hopes for the near future?
Jazzie Young: I have a single coming out next week. I’m really excited about it. I’m really excited about this album in general, and for it to be out in the world and received by people. I’m just very much looking forward to 2025 and everything it has to offer.
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