Jessica Says greets us with a wide grin, a signature gap her in smile. We’re meeting to talk about the artist’s sophomore album, Do With Me What U Will, a release that feels especially significant for the local music community. Jessica’s fans have waited near on a decade for the record since a fall from a first-floor hotel window, shortly after the release of her debut album, fractured her spine and pelvis.
Then in her early twenties, Jessica paused her career to slowly recover from the injury, and eventually enrolled to study nursing. After graduating she began working in mental health — it was here she met the teenage patients that inspired her to begin writing again; their love for their chosen pop heroes reminding Jessica of how much she too was moved by music in her youth. Last month Jessica celebrated her thirtieth birthday, and over the weekend she performed songs from Do With Me What U Will live, capping off a month of milestones.
Jessica’s voice invokes inevitable Kate Bush comparisons, but the similarities don’t go much further. She makes languid music for some impossible hotel bar up in the clouds. Some of the songs on Do With Me What U Will are awfully sad, frankly discussing prescription drugs and predatory men, others are soaring ballads celebrating beauty, youth, and fantasy. Here, we discuss all those things, and the virtues of her chosen instrument, the cello.
To begin, I’m really interested in your work. How long have you been a mental health nurse?
Three and a half years. In my first year out of school I was working with adults, then I spent two years in a ward for teenagers, and now I go to people’s houses, which is more community-based, longer-term kind of work. If you told me I’d be doing this five years ago I never would’ve believed you, but I had the most wonderful mental health lecturer at uni. I was like, “I want to be like you.” You surprise yourself.
You do.
Before I worked as a mental health nurse, I spent so much time just by myself writing songs. It’s nice to be out in the world now, trying to be open. I like the intensity of it. All those big issues, all those really big emotions — which most of the music I’m drawn to is about — I work with people who go through that every single day. I feel comfortable with strong emotions, and I love working with people, really.
Congratulations on Do With Me What U Will. Have you read a review yet that’s made you think, they really got it?
There was one about Xanax Baby where someone wrote, “It was a tale as old as time, boy-meets-girl but girl’s already in love with her prescription medication.” I thought that was really good.
Are there any songs on this album from the period around your injury, that you’ve loved and saved, or did you start anew?
Since my first album I’ve written at least 30 songs that didn’t make it on to Do With Me What U Will, but there are some I wrote between 2010 and 2012 that have made it. In particular Oliver, that would be the oldest one. I was playing it live before the first album even came out. I actually have this vision of myself at The Empress — which is now a gastropub with no gigs, just babies in strollers in the courtyard — playing on a Casio keyboard. I can remember being 21 and walking my keyboard home to my North Carlton sharehouse, which would’ve only been $80 a week in rent.
I love the song Fairest Of Them All, about 30-something men dating 18-year-old women. I like that you’re telling the other side of those Don’t Stand So Close to Me sort of love stories that have existed in rock for so long.
Well, when I was 18 I really was dating those 30-year-old guys in bands, and it’s so interesting to now be the age of those men and watch it play out from here. I have an ex who once tried to explain it to me by saying, “A girl my age isn’t going to date me. She’s going to question why the house is such a mess and why I’m still in bed until 1PM.” And then, you know, a 19-year-old’s going to come along and say, “Wow, my boyfriend’s in a band and 50 people showed up to the show on a Tuesday night!”
Ha! Of all the songs on Do With Me What U Will, were there any you particularly impressed yourself with?
I think the song I like best is Rosemary, the last on the album. Because I’m a cellist before anything else, when I can use the cello on a song in a way that’s thoughtful and not just ornamental, it means a lot to me. The instrumental part of that song is my favourite moment on the album.
When did you start learning to play the cello?
When I was five or six, in grade one. My mum’s a violin teacher. She tells this story over and over again about me as a teenager — it used to be so humiliating! I had to walk home past these two private boys’ schools to go home everyday, and of course everyone I was trying to get with went to those schools. I carried this instrument, that was the size of me, on my back right by them! “Hello everyone, I’m a nerd. I’m a goody-goody.” But I was so lucky, music was priority number one for me and my parents.
It’s a beautiful instrument.
There’s some beautiful classical music, and it’s a privilege to have gotten to play some of that. When I was younger, I played with an orchestra, though I never practised like crazy. We did Stravinsky ballets, and the Rachmaninoff piano concerto with David Helfgott. To be in this orchestra with 100 people and just surrounded by that sound, it’s a very special experience.
I wanted to talk about visuals, music videos; are those things you’re thinking of as you’re writing a song?
I’m always thinking about visuals, and themes. I guess we all do it in a way from when we were young: when you were listening to your music on a disc in 1999, on a tram to school, or in your boring bedroom, you were visualising things or probably fantasising about the lead singer. I guess with any music I’m listening to I’m always thinking about visuals. I do that when I write as well. Like most people, I’ve always really loved movies. The mood of certain films will often inspire me to write a song. I guess that’s an influence too.
Would you call your music pop?
I think so, definitely. I certainly aspire to be making pop music. And it’s a wonderful time to be doing it. Even locally, it’s really fantastic to look at lineups and be so excited by who I’m playing with, and to feel nurtured and inspired by people that I’m going to be sharing those spaces with. When I was younger I’d often just be supporting a folk guy and I’d be the only girl around. It’s a great time for music isn’t it? It’s a very good year.
Credits
Text Isabelle Hellyer
Photography courtesy Chapter Music