Joel Baker
Joel Baker has made a name for himself over the last twelve months with all of the covers work that he has been doing.
But now with the release of single Further Than Feelings and an EP on the horizon he is finally showcasing his original material.
We caught up with him to chat about the single, the EP as well as what he is going to be up to for the rest of the year.
- Further Than Feelings is your latest track so what can we expect from the new song?
I am just happy that I have got original music out as I am all about song writing. It is a feel good summer, good vibe tune - but it does have a deeper meaning to it.
The concept is not just your average love song as it is about wanting something more from a relationship than just flowery romantic stuff. So it is about choosing to love someone despite all of the consequences and wanting someone for life. So there is a deeper meaning to it but the music is feel good and hopefully it will make you smile.
- You have grabbed everyone's attention over the last six months or so with your covers so what has it like getting your own self-penned music out there finally?
It is the best feeling, it is so good. I have been waiting for so long and it is just so good to get some original music out there.
The covers are good and I love covering songs that I like listening to myself - especially hip hop covers - but as an artist I feel that the most important thing to me is song writing.
I just love coming up with creative lyrics and creative concepts and it is the most important thing for me as an artist. It’s great to finally be able to show that side of me.
- How have you found the reaction to the new track so far?
I have been overwhelmed as I really didn’t expect it. The reason that I did covers was because I thought people would care about the covers because people like established artists and they want to hear covers of songs.
I didn’t think anyone would bothered about my original stuff because I am not anybody yet. I didn’t think anyone would take much notice. It has been quite special and I have really appreciated the kind words that I have got from people. And people have started to notice and take me a lot more seriously.
The coolest reaction that I have had, it almost brought me to tears, came after a long and hard day of music stuff and I got a DM on twitter from a couple that I met in Brighton.
I have recently been on tour and I met this couple in Brighton and we got talking - I ended up giving them an EP.
About a week and a half later they send me a message to tell me that they are getting married and asked if it was alright for them to use Further Than Feelings as the track the bride will walk down the aisle to. It was just the best thing that I could have ever dreamed of and it brought a tear to my eye.
- This is the first track to be lifted off you new EP Long Sleeves so how does this track introduce us to the rest of the EP?
I think it introduces it well as it is the most representative of my sound, I guess. It is feel good, it has an interesting concept and some slightly strange lyrics and stuff but there is a good overall feel.
It is very organic in the music and production side of it and we have stayed away from any artificial sounds and so all of the strings and the percussion are real. So it is slightly messier and there are rougher edges and it is not polished but we have done that on purpose as we wanted to create a sound that sounds like we are playing in your front room.
We wanted the EP to sound a little messy because I do love music that is like that as you get to know the artist a little bit more. The whole EP is me exploring issues of love and it is about happy things and not so happy things to do with love.
I guess it does have an underlay of soulish and bluesy elements to it; those elements come out more in the other tracks. There are some quite bluesy sounding tracks on the EP and that is an element that is not perhaps present in Further Than Feelings.
- I have given some tracks off the EP a listen and it is a record that very much puts vocals and instrumentation at the forefront so why did you decide to go for this quite stripped back sound?
In about September/October I sat down with the producers and we had a discussion about which direction we wanted to go in.
We worked on the covers EP Between Kings Cross and Old Street for ages, it was only about five tracks, but the purpose of us working on that EP was so we could fully get to grips with what sort of sound we wanted to make. We were just exploring with all sorts of sounds and instruments to find out what worked and what we liked.
So when it came to actually recording the EP it was very easy and we recorded in about three recording days because we knew what sound we wanted to do. We got quite inspired by a band called Nizlopi; I know that Ed Sheeran was inspired by them.
I remember one night I had missed my last train home and I was waiting around at Joe’s for hours to be picked up by my manger. And I was showing him some Nizlopi and I was like ‘this is exactly the sort of thing that we should be aiming for’; rough around the edges but is completely natural and free-flowing.
There is no convention and there are no rules and so that really inspired us for the kind of direction we wanted to take with the music on the EP.
- The instrumentation on these tracks is also great with acoustic guitar, electric guitar and some strings all in there so how did you find working with all these different sounds?
It’s a bit crazy and it is a big messy. We use an amazing cellist called Patrick Allen; he is eighteen and has been playing cello since he was eight and he is just a boy genius.
He is at college and studying to go to university so he would come in for an hour at a time before he had to leave to go and do his homework.
We get him in and within five or ten minutes he has learnt the song and then we record as much cello as we possibly can in the space of forty five minutes. We then spend the rest of the day figuring out which bits can go where. It is a bit messy but it does work.
Joe is part of the production team and I have worked with him endlessly - he really is half of Joel Baker - but he did more than produce the record as he conducted the record. He was very very important to the musical direction of the EP.
- You have worked with Joe for quite some time now so what does he bring to your music that you feel is vital?
I know that it does sound very cliché but I really do think that it was all meant to be. I came to London about eighteen months ago to work in Parliament and randomly met a chap called Nick Brewer, he is a rapper. He brought me along to this studio - we had never met before but he knew that I did music because of YouTube - and it was here that I met a guy called Joe and a guy called TJ and we instantly connected.
There is something that is so different about those boys that I feel I just completely connect with as they just get the vision and they understand the music that I want to make.
But they are also so different to 90% of the producers out there - they think differently and they want to do the same thing as everybody else. They don’t care whether the music is trendy or in or out they just want to make great music.
It is really important for me to be able to work with someone who has the same mindset as me and has the same kind of values as me and who wants to get the same thing out of music as me. Joe is not only my producer but he is also one of my best friends now and so I can be myself and I feel totally comfortable; that environment is so vital for making music.
I think that music should always be honest and it should come from a very honest and intimate place and so if the person that you are working with doesn’t quite get you or you don’t feel comfortable it is hard to be honest. It becomes very hard to open up parts of yourself about heartbreak and about love if you are not totally one and comfortable with the person in the room.
He loves the same music as I love and so we often have hour long Ben Howard worshipping sessions (laughs). We can just obsess about one of his songs and go into every detail about every lyric and get completely lost. Things like that are very important to me.
He has been crucial to the project, absolutely crucial. It was pretty much him who took me on and decided to invest in me and we just did session after session after session. Through his guidance I have developed as an artist and he has given me so much guidance in that time.
The EP is totally and completely guided by him and I feel that for the rest of my musical career Joe will always have something to do with it; if he isn’t the primary producer he definitely will have a say in everything that I do in the future.
- So if there a full album on the horizon?
I do hope so, I do hope so. There are no plans yet though. All I know is that there are plenty of songs just stored on my iTunes ready to come out. It is just a case of putting them out in the right situation really.
This EP is very much the start - I wanted this EP to be about fifteen tracks but I wasn’t allowed to do that (laughs). The EP is going to be about five or six tracks long and there may very well be another EP after this. Hopefully the following release will be an album, hopefully.
- Finally what is coming up for you for the rest of the year?
There are lots of festivals coming up - I am very new to the festival vibe - and I played my first festival ever last week in Leeds. Honestly it was one of the best experiences of my life and I just loved every single second of it.
That has just got me super super super excited about the summer because there are a few festivals coming up like Dot To Do Festival and Secret Garden Festival. It all sounds a bit bohemian to me but I am going to go along with it (laughs).
What is coming up has a lot to do with this EP really and how well that does. I am just hoping that things keep progressing because the last few months have just been great. I am just busy enjoying myself and having a great time with all of this musical madness.