Jeremy M Flies Low
York Pop Singer-Songwriter explores growing up (and more) on their newest single "Little Man"
There is perhaps some comfort in escaping, especially when you do so with some kind of creative or productive activity such as making or consuming art. Personally I like to listen to music, watch music videos or TV shows, and I’ve been getting into reading again recently. But there is a dangerous line where relaxation and de-stressing can turn into avoidance. One must strike a balance where you rest from the weariness of the world but also return to it and address things that are making you unhappy instead of running away from them.
Mustard has observed that humans sometimes to like to escape from the real world. Being able to escape allows humans to seek comfort and decompress from the troubles that may currently going on. Each human has their own way of escaping. Escapism comes in many forms. It could be listening to music, going to a live show, or signing an NDA to be apart of a hit television hidden camera prank show.
Jeremy M, a 22 year old singer and songwriter from York United Kingdom explores growing up and escapism on their newest single “Little Man” which can be found wherever you listen to music.
In our interview below you will get an opportunity to learn more about Jeremy M. Together we discuss their songwriting process, having their music played on BBC, and so much more!
1. Mustard is grateful and appreciative to have you join them at Off The Shelf. How are you doing today?
Hello Mustard, I am doing okay today. I am feeling a bit under the weather but the sun has been shining all week and I have been baking a lot recently, so I things are good overall!
2. Mustard has observed that you have been writing songs since you were fifteen. Have any of these songs been released?
My first three singles, Freedom, Sometimes and Even If, were all songs I wrote or started writing when I was 15. Freedom was written and recorded in 2017 as part of my GCSE Music coursework at school, and Sometimes and Even If were written the following summer in my bedroom. When I came to record the latter two in the 2020 lockdown, I decided to change the chords in Sometimes, the lyrics in the verses of Even If, and the names of both songs. They were originally “Declaration of Independence” and “Fight This Fight” which both hold the aura of a very obviously pretentious teenager.
3. Mustard wonders what artists inspired you growing up? Do you still listen to these artists now?
The main artist I listened to as a teenager was a Christian Pop artist called Jamie Grace. I first discovered her in 2015 and I was so inspired to learn that she wrote her own songs and was discovered from her YouTube channel where she would post videos of her singing her original songs. She is most definitely the reason I started writing my own songs.
In 2020 I discovered dodie, another musician who made her start on YouTube but runs her business independently. I had heard of her before when she was really popular online but at the time her fans had a reputation in my head as being “annoying (whatever that means) and she was also known for cute folksy songs which I wasn’t a fan of at the time. I’m glad I found her when I did though, it was the perfect time and I was completely blown away by her voice and songwriting. She inspired me to continue to pursuing a career in recorded music at a point in my life when I was considering giving up. It’s possible that the EP would never had happened had I not found her music.
4. During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 you began creating demos of your original work. What was your process like back then? How has it evolved over time?
Although I had started writing songs on guitar in 2017, my main instrument was still the piano during the lockdown and I wrote most of my songs on there as I had a digital piano in my bedroom that I could play with headphones so as to not disturb the rest of my family. I also didn’t have a computer or microphone of my own so I had to borrow a laptop and a microphone from my brother and a Cubase license from my school. I didn’t even have headphones, so I had to play the audio through the speakers and place the microphone at the other end of the room, close enough that I could still hear the audio when standing at the mic to record, but just far away enough to mean the mic didn’t pick it up very well. I also made a lot of demos on GarageBand on my phone during that time, especially when my brother needed to use his laptop.
Nowadays I do have a laptop and Logic Pro and a pair of headphones! I also have a proper microphone I use to record my songs, but when i just want to lay down the foundations of a an idea quickly I just use the built in microphone on my laptop. It sounds surprisingly good when I record in my bedroom at home!
5. Last year you took part in Charitindie for the second time. Could you share more about your experience taking part in this annual livestream charity event?
Charitindie is such a fun event to be part of, especially because all of the musicians I have met through twitter take part in it and I am fans of all of them and I love getting to see their sets each time! I like that it gives me a good reason to rehearse my songs and I like getting the opportunity to debut songs that I have never played live before. And of course raising money for a good cause is always a great feeling.
6. 2019 saw the release of your debut single "Freedom" in which you ask to be given that freedom. Since its release, Mustard wonders, if you were given that strength?
“Freedom” is interesting because it was a song I wrote about being in denial about my sexuality and praying to God that He would take it away from me. A very personal song about a very specific experience I was going through at the time that continued to haunt me for many years after I wrote it. But since then my life has changed so much that the song has taken on the complete opposite meaning; it’s now a song about realising something about myself and asking God for the courage to stop hiding it and to live freely, which I think is a much more beautiful message. He has definitely answered that prayer for me.
7. Three years later two of your self-produced singles received support from BBC Introducing in York & North Yorkshire. How did it feel to have your music featured on BBC programming? Do you have a favorite BBC program?
It was really cool to have my songs played on the radio, especially after having sent songs to BBC Introducing for several years while I was still learning to record. Funnily enough I have become a product of my time and I don’t really listen to the radio anymore unless I am in a taxi and the driver has it on. As a child my dad would always play BBC Radio 2 in the car. Steve Wright Sunday Love Songs would play on the drive to church, Simon Mayo Drivetime when we would go places after school. My most recent memory has to be Jeremy Vine’s daytime show driving around town on the weekends. Maybe in the future when I have a car and a driver’s license I can get back into the radio.
8. Last September you released your debut EP "is it too late?" where share your experience transitioning from teenage to adulthood. When did you first begin working on this project?
The first work for this project began in Autumn 2020, when I started writing “gone forever”. I wanted to write a song on piano that reminded me of Adele, and I spent a while composing the piano part from the intro at the piano in my bedroom. This was before I had a computer of my own, so I recorded the piano onto my mum’s laptop and then transferred the recording onto my phone where I did most of the production for this track in GarageBand. About a year later I got my laptop and added the rest of the production. It probably would have been the first track we finished for the project but I had difficulty getting the right vocal take and also ended up deciding to set it to a friend of mine called George Porlemad to add guitars, bass and some backing vocals.
9. "is it too late" feels very much like a storybook. Was the album designed in this way? Could you share more about how you sequenced this EP?
Yes, I put a lot of thought into crafting the sequencing of the EP. In fact I had finalised the order of the tracks before I had even finished recording all of them. I put them in this order to tell my story, beginning with “oversharing”, a track that represents initially realising something is wrong, working through different stages of this realisation over the next few tracks, and finally finishing with a cathartic release of the need to figure everything out in favour of moving forward.
I also released the tracks in the same order they appear in the tracklist, as this was the order in which I worked on finishing them. I don’t remember whether this was a coincidence or something I decided to do on purpose, but I think for this project it was an interesting way to bring people along with the story until they can see the full picture, as that is essentially what I, or perhaps ‘the narrator’, had to do in the EP.
10. Mustard loves how you tell a story throughout your music. Who are some storytellers that have influenced you both creatively and personally?
I have to talk about my favourite songwriters for this. Eiza McLamb and Carol Ades are two songwriters who just seem to know how to squeeze a feeling into a few phrases. Phoebe Bridgers too, sometimes her songs just consist of her telling things as they are as they happen, something I have tried doing a lot more in my songwriting recently. It really helps to get ideas flowing when I don’t know what to write about and often I get songs that I didn’t even know I needed or wanted to write.
Jensen McRae is another name that comes to mind whenever I think about storytelling in music. A recent single of hers has a line that says “You said you’d raise our kids to grow up just like you, well you’re a false prophet, and that’s a goddamn promise.” I love how poetic she is with small word choices that tell you so much.
11. You collaborated with the incredible Tarquin Alexandria on a remix of "boys don't cry." Could you tell us more about how this collaboration came to be? What was it like to work with Tarquin?
I met Tarquin on Twitter in a community of dodie fans when I first started to get into her music in late 2020/early 2021. I am a big fan of Tarquin’s jazzy sound and she was a fan of the song, so I asked her late 2021 if she would like to create a new version of it. This was before the original version was even complete! It was a really comfortable collaborative experience, over the course of working on the remix we had a lot of delays due to chronic illnesses on both ends and it was a big change working with someone who understood what I was going through, especially after having just left school where it felt like most of the staff seemed not to take it seriously.
12. Mustard would like to congratulate you on the release of your newest single "Little Man" that explores growing up and emotional (dis) regulation. When did you first begin working on this project?
Thank you Mustard. This song began at a writing camp run by producer Jamie Amos at his studio in Surrey back in July 2023. I found him on Instagram after listening through Lexie Carroll's discography and checking the credits on my favourite song of hers, "familiar stranger."
The song started from a conversation with Jamie about a trip I took abroad to visit my dad when I was 16, and how being away from home still felt very significant even at my age (at the time of writing, I was 20 and it was the summer before I was going to university). I was thinking a lot about how I had spent most of my life until that point pretending to be someone else and how trips such as the one I took to write this song were my only way to escape that, but were also emotionally quite difficult as would repeatedly realise I had forgotten my true self over all that time.
I then went back to Jamie’s studio at the end of March last year to finish recording. It felt quite profound to return to the place where I wrote the song to bring it to life, especially as Jamie’s studio is situated on the farm where he grew up and growing up is such an integral theme to the song.
13. Listening to this song it also feels like it tackles the idea of escapism. Would you say there is comfort in escaping? How does Jeremy M like to escape?
There is perhaps some comfort in escaping, especially when you do so with some kind of creative or productive activity such as making or consuming art. Personally I like to listen to music, watch music videos or TV shows, and I’ve been getting into reading again recently. But there is a dangerous line where relaxation and de-stressing can turn into avoidance. One must strike a balance where you rest from the weariness of the world but also return to it and address things that are making you unhappy instead of running away from them.
14. A human gets the chance to see Jeremy M perform. What three words best describe your live performances? Do you have a pre or post show routine?
Acoustic, intimate, comforting. My only live show routine is that I MUST get a meal deal either before or after the show. I have been informed that this is a particularly British phenomenon but, for such a simple concept, it’s quite difficult to explain properly. My go-to meal deal is a ham and cheese sub, mini pork pies and a rubicon strawberry and kiwi drink from the Co-op. Yum!
15. What is on the horizon for Jeremy M?
Nothing is set in stone at the moment but hopefully I will get to play some more gigs this year. I love playing live and I take every chance I can get to do it but that only really seems to be two show a year, and I’ve already played twice so far this year. For the rest of this year I want to focus on recording my second EP, maybe get some new songs ready for the live setlist.
16. Where can readers listen to your music?
My music is available on all streaming platforms, and available for purchase on Amazon, iTunes and Bandcamp! You can find links to all of these places at http://jeremym.co.uk
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