After releasing a breadth of bold and impressive releases throughout last year, New York-based artist Jackfruit has now returned with his latest laid-back swoon 'I had gay sex with god (it could've gone better)'
Lifted from his upcoming new EP 'when they find your body', which is set to land later this month, 'I had gay sex with god (it could've gone better)' makes for a wonderfully smooth listen. Using little more than a lightly-played piano and his own sweeping vocals, this new gem is a rich and captivating comeback for the young troubadour.
So with the new single out and about, we sat down with him to find out more about his background and what has inspired him most over the years.
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What was the first instrument you fell in love with?
Definitely the piano. It’s the instrument I feel most comfortable on--my parents have videos of me banging around on a keyboard dating back to when I was around 4 or 5. I was never trained classically (and still can’t really read sheet music all that well), but I feel really comfortable playing by ear.
What was the first song that inspired you to make your own music?
Similarly to piano, I don’t really remember when my love of music started. I’ve been singing for as long as I remember. And when I say ‘singing’ I mean, like, I would just start singing randomly throughout the day. (I have OCD, and that definitely played into my impulse to sing at random. But my mom also bursts into song a lot, so maybe that’s a genetic thing.) Before I developed my own music taste, I’d just shuffle through the songs on my parents’ old iPod. Lots of Billy Joel, James Taylor, The Beatles, U2, Elvis Costello, and other 70s & 80s music groups. I don’t think those artists necessarily had a huge impact on my own music, but growing up in an apartment where music was always playing had a big impact on my life, and as soon as I associated music with happiness and family, I wanted to make my own. I actually have some really embarrassing GarageBand originals that 8 year old me wrote on an old computer somewhere, I think. On a side note, the first song I remember learning all of the lyrics to was I Want It That Way by the Backstreet Boys.
What kind of music did you love as a teenager?
I’m still only 19, so I guess my current taste sort of still counts. I started my teenage years in a sloppy emo phase. I wasn’t totally committed to the act, but I did listen to bands like Panic! At The Disco, All Time Low, and Twenty One Pilots. I had a really short pop phase, which ended quickly after I fell into an indie music hole. Some all time favorite artists of mine include Briston Maroney, Donna Missal, Jake Wesley Rogers, and Joy Oladokun.
What do you find is the best environment to find inspiration for your music?
I find car rides very meditative. Honestly, anywhere I can just zone out for a bit and fall into my mind ends up being a good creative space for me. And it’s very easy for me to zone out, so I write often. I guess my bedroom is also good for that--or my dorm room. Every song on the EP was written in my dorm room at college with the exception of the first track, which was written in an attic at midnight. I think late night songwriting sessions are the most productive for me.
Who are your favourite artists you have found yourself listening to at the moment?
I’m currently on a huge Phoebe Bridgers run. Also Love You Later--I’m obsessed with her new EP. I try to find new artists every couple of weeks, though, and I feel like my music taste is always changing, so my answer might change by the time this is published.
How many of your songs have you written about people in your life?
All of my songs are written about someone in my life--I have a hard time writing music about experiences I can’t relate to--but I pretty much always slip in some lines that just seem right, so no one track is 100% about a real experience. I think for the most part it’s like 60% real, 40% stuff I either wish had happened or stuff that happened with someone else. That being said, I don’t think the people I write about know that I’m writing about them. Unless they just haven’t reached out to me about that yet. (I try not to write about people I hate, though. Those songs never end up with positive energy for me.)
What has been the most unusual moment in your career so far?
I guess the most unusual moment in my music career so far has been its beginning. I only started seriously working on and releasing music in February of 2020, right before the first quarantine hit. I know a lot of artists have sprung up in the past year, but there’s definitely a weird feeling of, like, will I still be as passionate about this when the world consumes me again? I guess besides that kind of vague answer, I didn’t think my music would be getting as many streams as it has. Or at least I was a bit cautiously optimistic about it. I know it isn’t ‘unusual’ for an artist to get thousands of streams, but I just had one of my songs, “blacknailpolish”, hit 10 thousand streams on Spotify, which felt super surreal to me. Like, hello?? I never thought that would happen, especially less than 3 months after its release. The fact that people choose to listen to my music out of the hundreds of thousands of artists out there is just mind blowing.
If you could open a show for anyone in the world, who would it be?
Definitely Briston Maroney. I saw him live in the fall of 2019, and it was just such a magical and otherworldly experience. I know our music doesn’t quite fall into the same genre, but I think we could make it work. We’ve also talked a bit over Instagram and he’s the sweetest person. I’d love to play “I had gay sex with god” before “St. Augustine.” That would be crazy. Briston, if you see this, please hit me up.
If you weren’t a musician, what other path do you think you might have taken?
I think that, in some ways, I’m a writer before I’m a musician. I put a heavy focus on lyricism in part because I’ve been writing a lot longer than I’ve been making music for. I hope music works out as a career and all, but in case it doesn’t, I planned on focusing mainly on creative writing as a career path up until the end of 2019. I just never thought of myself as a musician, and I don’t even know if I do now. I think I’m just an artist who happens to make music.
And what is the best piece of advice you have received as a musician?
Oh, man. I don’t think I’ve actually received much music oriented advice. Zach Benson, who produced all of the tracks on the EP, has helped me so much in just understanding basic production skills, so that’s definitely a big one. In terms of songwriting itself--I took a songwriting class for a year, and I think one of the most valuable exercises we did was one where we discussed the most prominent themes in our music, and the most common words we used in our lyrics (I’m big on ‘love’ and the phrase ‘I wish/hope you…’, for example). Then we were challenged to write a song without using those words. I didn’t love the song that came out of that, but it definitely still has an impact on my writing, and ever since then I more consciously try to diversify a song’s vocabulary depending on its mood.
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Jackfruit's new single 'I had gay sex with god (it could've gone better)' is available to stream and download now. Have a listen to it in the player below.