Jonathan Whiskerd
Jonathan Whiskerd is the talented singer/songwriter/producer behind his debut single, ‘Blind Belief.’ He has been in Austin, Texas working on his album with the help of producer Bruce Hughes and is now back in London to promote the fantastic new single which is a slice of emotional pop that expresses Jonathans truly intimate feelings.
Before the single is ready to be released, we caught up with the friendly chap to talk about about inspirations, aspirations and his love for music.
Your latest single ‘Blind Belief’ will be released on the 20th May. Where did the inspiration for the song come from?
Well it’s basically about believing in people or believing in the person rather than believing in an ideology, and it’s inspired by someone very special to me and I wanted to express that in the song.
Your forthcoming album is due to be released this autumn. What should your fans expect from this? In terms of the sound and lyrics.
I’m a big fan of the big American sound so I would say it’s quite an American sounding record in terms of the feel of it, in terms of the groove but overall the aesthetic of the record is quite simple, it’s quite spacious, quite atmospheric, lots of driving rhythms and hopefully songs that are quite easy to connect with and that people can understand.
Where do you get your ideas to write the songs for your album and in general?
The album basically is a diary of the last three years of my life, and the songs are about the experiences that I have, the conversations that I have had, people I have been close to either friends or were I’ve been romantically involved with and they have inspired me in some way. So I like to write about people and experiences.
Where did your love of music stem from? Has this always been something you loved to do from an early age?
Absolutely, I started singing when I was in primary school my primary school music teacher got me into singing. I joined the choir but then when I was about 13/14 my dad bought me a guitar for my birthday and that’s really where my love of performing and song writing began and I started to learn other peoples songs and it fascinated me how they were put together and that spared me on to start writing and to perform with my own band.
What artists do you aspire to be like?
I’m a big fan of John Mayer, he’s an American song writer, I love his song writing. And I’m a massive fan of Guy Garvey from Elbow. I think he is such an unlikely frontman and rock star and the reason I love him is that he writes such beautiful lyrics and my big passion is writing lyrics.
You spent most of your childhood in Austria- Did you get any inspiration for your music by being in a different country?
On the album there are a few songs about feeling like an outsider or feeling like a stranger. I didn’t feel like that when I was growing up but what was weird was moving back to the UK, although I’m British I didn’t really know how to fit in. So in that sense, in going away and growing up in a different environment then coming back to the UK it was strange at first. But I loved growing up in Austria and living out there.
How do you prepare before a gig? Do you have any rituals?
Before I go on stage I like to get together with the band and spend some time getting in the right head space and I like to sing a little to warm up. As the whole idea of my performance is to try and re-create the way I was feeling when I wrote the song. So me and the band try to get in the head space of the song.
You have done a rendition to Katy Perry’s ‘teenage dreams.’ What other songs do you love to sing?
I’m a really big fan of the old soul songs, motown songs, such as ‘I heard it through the Grapevine’ by Marvin Gaye and ‘Sitting on the dock of the bay’ by Ottis Redding. I use to do a lot of busking and I enjoyed covering these songs as I think they are fantastic songs and beautifully simple songs.
After you graduated from university, you spent a lot of your time busking and playing clubs. When you didn’t seem to be getting your break was there ever a time were you just wanted to quit?
Yes absolutely. I think the thing is with music you just got to keep going and keep reinventing yourself and if for whatever reason it isn’t working you’ve got to it change up. I found gigging was quite lonely so I did lose heart, but then I started working with bands again and this reignited my passion for it. For me the joy of music is the collaborative element.
What’s next on the agenda for you?
Last month I did a national schools and radio tour which was great fun, and I was really happy with the response that it got. We are actually doing another one in three weeks and we’ll be going all over the country meeting lots of students who aspire to be in the music industry. We do three or four performances with different year groups and I will usually do a song writing workshop with them as there are a lot of kids who are interested in song writing. I think that’s due to a lot of people like Ed Sheeran and Adele putting the focus back on song writing. So I will be doing that in June. Also, I will be confirming festivals dates for over the summer and continue gigging.
To get more information on what Jonathan is up to visit his own personal website.