KIA ORA! HOW HAS YOUR 2021 BEEN?
Kia ora! 2021 has been a lot. I feel like this year has been a massive weird painful joyful juggle of a whole lot of things. Coming to the end of the year it feels like things are settling though which is nice. I’m feeling a lot more secure in myself as an artist, and starting to really get into the swing of being self employed.
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SO WHO IS JAZ PATERSON? TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF.
Alrighty. Jaz Paterson – she loves cooking, eating, drinking wine, cooking, eating, and drinking wine with friends, eating, pilates, yoga, running, reading, writing, op shopping, candles, beach walks, coffee, flowers.
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HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN CREATING MUSIC FOR? BECAUSE ACCORDING TO SPOTIFY, YOU’VE ONLY RELEASED THIS YEAR.
I’ve been creating music for a long time. I started learning guitar, getting singing lessons, and starting to write when I was around 12-13ish. I’ve released music before but really wanted this release to be a fresh start. The stuff that I write and create at the moment feels like a really solid representation of me as an artist. Whereas songs that I wrote when I was 17 don’t sit right with me anymore.
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HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MUSIC TO SOMEONE
Alternative electronic pop. Maybe if BANKS and Troye Sivan had a music baby.
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DO YOU PRODUCE YOUR OWN MUSIC AND DOES FINDING THE SOUND COME BEFORE OR AFTER THE LYRICS?
For some of the songs on the EP, I started off the production and then worked with Will (my producer). For L.A., I wrote the melody and lyrics, and we started the production from scratch. Then with Heaven (final song on the EP), we started that from scratch completely on a grand piano. While I was in lockdown Will taught me how to use Logic via Zoom, so I started playing round using apple loops and recording demo vocals at home. I took the basic structure/sound of my songs to him, and from there we made them a lot bigger, added in synths and some live instruments, recorded the vocals properly, played round with melodies, and wrestled them into a space where the sound was right.
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WHERE DO YOU FIND INSPIRATION OR WHAT ARE THINGS THAT MOTIVATE YOU TO WRITE?
Painful and bittersweet experiences inspire me to write. I can write happy songs but honestly they feel less genuine. I am a happy person for sure, but I’m also a person who feels things deeply. So to me it’s easiest and feels most authentic to write about the things that sit with me in a painful way.
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YOU JUST RELEASED YOUR EP ‘ACHE’. I WANT TO ASK ABOUT THE PROMO BECAUSE I SAW POSTERS OF YOU EVERYWHERE AND I WAS HONESTLY LIKE “WHO IS THIS?!”. WHERE DID THE IDEA TO PROMOTE IN THAT WAY COME FROM AND WHAT WAS THE RECEPTION LIKE
Love it! It was actually my mentor’s idea. Sacha suggested doing a run of posters for L.A. to promote the single. The idea behind it was to promote L.A. but also to get my face out into the world a bit. It’s been quite bizarre seeing the posters all round Christchurch, and then having people from Auckland send me photos of where they’ve spotted the posters too. I tried to be chill about it but I was just like an excited kid whenever I saw them.
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DO YOU HAVE A FAVOURITE TRACK?
Body is probably my favourite track. I wrote it after I snapped after a party where I had some uncomfortable experiences, and realized honestly for the first time how much my body is absolutely my own. It was the hardest to write, but I really wrestled with it lyrically, and finally got it to say exactly what I wanted it to say. This song for me is a snapshot of my experiences of sexual assault, and the way that I’ve processed those experiences.
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WHAT MADE YOU DECIDE TO USE A PHOTO OF YOURSELF AS THE COVER ART?
I am not a mysterious artist in any way! I felt like a really clean, simple photo of me was just the right visual representation for this body of work.
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HOW WAS YOUR 2020 AND WHAT WAS THE PROGRESS LIKE FROM THEN TO YOUR RELEASES THIS YEAR?
2020 Jaz and 2021 Jaz feel like two different girls. In 2020 was working fulltime as a mental health counsellor for young people during the day, and having a merlot and writing songs on logic in my bedroom at night. I had a rough lockdown mentally, but somehow managed to write loads during that time. I feel like 2020 was me creating a rough draft of who I wanted to be as an artist, then 2021 was editing and refining and crafting that work.
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WHERE DO YOU GET THE IDEAS FOR YOU MUSIC VIDEOS FROM AND I SUPPOSE HOW IMPORTANT ARE VISUALS FOR YOU IN RELATION TO THE MUSIC?
Music videos are a super fun part of the creative process. I’ve been thinking lately about how there’s different parts of creation for a body of work. There’s the process of writing and creating the music itself, then there’s the creation of a live show, and also the creation of visual content to accompany that. At the moment I have a really great team – a stylist and two videographers/photographers that I work with so it’s super collaborative which I enjoy. I also work a lot with my brother (when he’s in NZ) who is a photographer + videographer too.
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HAVE YOU GOT MUCH PLANNED FOR 2022 (AS MUCH AS PLANNING CAN BE A BIT HARD WITH EVERYTHING) OR ARE YOU JUST GOING WITH THE FLOW FOR NOW?
I’m planning loads and also expecting to have my plans interrupted by life! Right now I’m working on playing as many live shows as I can, that’s the biggest focus for me. I’m lining up remixes for the songs on the EP. I’m also working on a bunch of collaboration tracks due for release over summer.
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SOME FUN QUESTIONS:
FAVE SNACK?
I love snacks. Crackers and cheese. Hummus and carrot sticks. Berry smoothie. Can’t choose
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OVERUSED PHRASE?
Sorry I forgot to reply to your text. Sorry I forgot to reply to your email. Sorry I forgot to reply to your message :’)