Jack Ferry Delves Into His New Single, His DIY Approach, And More

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London based artist Jack Ferry talks us through his new single ‘Get What You Want’, experimenting with sounds, and more

We’ve been longtime fans of Jack Ferry since his Falmouth University days, which saw him playing extensively around town and releasing music. However, a few years has passed since then and the numbers on the cake have increased, as has Jack’s musical maturity. His latest release ‘Get What You Want’, is Jack at his most grown up, sonically, and lyricaly. His sound has grown into something more expansive and experimental, showcasing his musical abilities.

It’s been a while since we spoke and after getting our socks well and truly blown off by the new single we thought, what better time to chat!

We spoke to Jack about his new single, his DIY approach, and more!

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Kieran: Hey Jack, great to chat with you again! How have you been?

Jack: Kieran! It’s been too long! I’ve been up and down, and all around, but doing my very best!

Kieran: How has 2024 been treating you so far? What’s been going on?

Jack: I’ve been alright, you know? Keeping very busy, doing a lot of session work and eating grated cheese directly from the fridge – these two events are intrinsically linked as I find myself coming home quite late from gigs recently.

Kieran: You recently dropped your new single ‘Get What You Want’. Could you talk us through this release and what it means to you?

Jack: Absolutely! I’m dropping a lot of enthusiasm for what is ostensibly a very sad song! It’s really all about reflection and coming to terms with how you would actually feel if you achieved the dreams you’ve told yourself you’ve been chasing. I started writing it about a friend who seemed to be giving up on the dreams they had when they were at school, but in the end the song ended up being about me and reflecting what I’ve been up to since leaving university. It’s weird to be so publicly open about how I feel on a deeply emotional level and slap it on Spotify and all that, but that’s just the world we live in these days.

Listen to ‘Get What You Want’ here:

Kieran: You recorded every instrument yourself with this one and did so all in your house, which is really impressive. The track sounds like it was made in a studio! How do you go about this and do you enjoy this DIY approach?

Jack: Yeah, I really can’t take all the credit for how good it sounds – I’ve got to give a big hand to my frequent collaborator (and wonderful friend) Jake Wild, who mixed and mastered the track for me. He’s really done a bang up job on this mixing and shuffling my sounds into place. I also got my good pal Kelly Morris (currently performing in the West End musical SIX) to sing backing vocals for me as well – I love their voice so much; we’ve been working together so long that I can’t imagine not having a voice like theirs on this track.

Like all white men in their mid-to-late 20’s, I’ve got a Focusrite set up in my spare room with wires and microphones and cables tumbling out onto the floor, running into keyboards and bass guitars and anything else I can get my grubby little mitts on. I usually start with a basic (and embarrassing!) acoustic guitar take, before laying everything else (bass, guitars, combo organs, drums, and a moderately tough trumpet solo) all over it. Doing the vocals was probably the most fun part, and probably why I love recording at home by myself. There’s a huge multitrack choir at the end where I’m singing maybe nine different vocal parts, and I cannot tell you how embarrassed I would have been to record those in front of a professional sound engineer that I’m paying to watch me sing like a castrato over and over. I’m my own worst critic, but at least I’m cost effective, and I don’t keep a mirror in the studio either, so I don’t have to watch myself squawking out a top C-sharp.

Kieran: It’s a bit more of an experimental sound in comparison to your previous release ‘Laika’, what did you do differently when writing and recording?

Jack: I think I dug a little deeper in terms of the writing this time around, that’s for sure. With “Laika”, it was easier to talk about how I felt about a dog I never met – and don’t get me wrong, the story of Laika makes me blub like a disgraced politician – but it was very objective; you know, here’s a story, here’s what happened, here’s how I feel about it now I’ve been to the Science Museum in London and seen the little poster they have about her. With “Get What You Want”, I wrote about myself going through something that I’m still going through, and through that I really had to figure out how I feel – what I wanted, like what I really wanted, and what would make me happy. I definitely worked a little harder on looking internally for this one, which I think really comes across in the song.

Recording was pretty similar overall, just layering and layering. I got to play a really nice organ part on this track though – I’m kind of obsessed with combo organs, I think they should be on every song that’s ever been written. I dream of the day I can walk into my spare room and see a Hammond B3 staring back at me, but the synthetic stuff is just as good, provided you close your eyes and imagine it’s being played by Billy Preston.

Kieran: Did you have any specific influence for the new release?

Jack: I really wanted to keep it a little more musically simple this time around, nothing too “jazzy”, as they say. I was in a lot of bands as a teenager that would use nothing but major chords and just keep them coming, or cover songs that you could essentially play on auto-pilot – and looking back on it, it was totally freeing! I don’t think I could point a finger anywhere specific to where this song came from other than a need for a little bit of simplicity in my life. But I can tell you where the influence for the album art came from!

I don’t think I could point a finger anywhere specific to where this song came from other than a need for a little bit of simplicity in my life.

Jack Ferry – 2024

I played the song to my mum, and she immediately sent me a photo of a painting called the Rokeby Venus by Diego Velázquez. She’s an art historian, so I don’t really know what I expected. In the painting, Venus is looking at herself in the mirror, but she’s got this look of such deep melancholy as she stares into her own eyes, and I understood immediately what she meant. I showed the concept to Shauna James, my wonderful photographer, and we moved all the furniture around in her flat to make it work. The two different outfits (the dark and the light) I’m wearing in the cover were entirely her idea, and I cannot thank her enough for it.

Kieran: What are some artists that you look to generally for influence? 

Jack: Generally, I really listen to a lot of bands and singers that have a kind of gloomy look at life with an upbeat backing track. The Beatles, Courtney Barnett, The Beths, and They Might Be Giants are the four pillars in my mind that will always spark something in me, and they’re the artists I get compared to the most. My sister actually texted me the other day when the They Might Be Giants version of “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)” came up on her shuffle, and she said – and this is a direct quote – “You could have sung this, sounds just like you, it’s mad, it’s a proper glitch in the system, it’s sending me so confused”. So, I suppose their arthouse rock sensibilities have rubbed off on me in a big way, especially using wind, brass, and accordions to augment songs. And maybe even their nasality.

Kieran: What’s something you want to achieve with your ‘music career’?

Jack: I really just want to be playing music every day until I die. I’ve been taking on a lot of session work recently, playing keys, bass, saxophone, and singing for Clara Moschetta, Eve Garland, LEKNA, and quite a few others here and there – I really just love making music, no matter how far back on the stage I’m sat. I think the thing I really want with my music career is just that – a career. If I can wake up every morning and clock in at the power chord factory, I’ll be happy. That’s what I want. Ha, hope it’s just like I thought…

Kieran: Lastly, what else can we expect from you in 2024?

Jack: You can expect to see me getting exorbitantly sweaty on stages all over London, playing my own songs, and adding instruments to my friend’s groups. I’m also deep into recording a collection of songs that I’ve been trialling live to very positive feedback about life and culture and all the regular stuff that consumes us. I’ll have a couple more singles as the year drags on, and honestly, I’m so excited to release them. People have been so nice about my last few releases, and it really feels like I’m onto something. You will let me know if I am, right?

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