JJ Draper CLOSEUP Artist Spotlight

This week, London singer-songwriter JJ Draper speaks with CLOSEUP for our Artist Spotlight feature ahead of his headline show in London on February 13.

JJ it’s great to have a chat! We love your music as you well know. This month you take on one a huge London headline show, what should we expect!?!

Thank you! So I’m joined on stage by my band and they are incredible musicians, which means often I can gratefully let them do their thing and really perform. They’ve all got something unique that they bring to the arrangements, and the show can be very dynamic – lots of highs and lows – because of that.

You can expect moments of really intimate stuff – me on my own or with little bits of atmospheric lead guitar – to full on five-piece band noise and drama. I love preparing our setlist, and there’s lots of new material alongside some stuff people have heard on Spotify etc. Also, The Pylons in support put on an amazing show.

What’s your favourite live show you’ve done, and of course, why?

It was by no means my best performance personally but it’s hard to forget standing on the stage at KOKO when Bobek (my bassist) and I supported Rhye there. I was honestly very upset about the news of the recent fire and I hope it can get back up and running, because ever since the show I vowed I’d be back there headlining.

It’s an epic room, the sound was amazing and everybody working there really professional and warm. I’ve also made some friendships from the show, like with Jens Kuross who was second support on the night and a great artist and person. But yeah, beautiful view from the stage.

Your tunes have been listened to hundreds of thousands of times across the world as Spotify informs us, Spotify is now such a big player in the industry, how important do you think it is for acts?

It’s vital. It’s strange for me because the playlist culture that has enabled tracks like Zero-Sum to do well on the platform is something that’s quite alien to me. I listen to a few bands/artists obsessively, rather than lots of songs by different artists on “mood playlists”. But Spotify is a powerful platform for alternative artists to reach a wider audience particularly.

Artists not deemed “radio-friendly” can find themselves getting millions of fans worldwide and being able to tour off the back of strong playlist support, which is awesome.

If you created a JJ Draper Festival, and could pick three headliners, who would you go for?!

Currently playing/alive or all time?! If it’s people still going today – Wilco, Big Thief and Sufjan Stevens probably. Wilco are just legends, Jeff Tweedy’s my hero! Big Thief are making the best new music around, in my opinion.

Of all time, I always thought Bob Marley would be the most incredible show and possibly Jimi Hendrix at some of those iconic performances would be hard to beat.

With 2020 on the horizon, tell us what your plans are for this year?

So I’ve got a lot of new music to release, starting next month. Like, an album’s worth of songs but split up, basically. Meanwhile, I’ll be back in Natural Habitat studio every week making my debut album to follow on from that. It’s already underway and I’m so excited. Everything is written and I’ve got arrangements in mind, it’s just needing to be recorded. There’ll be shows, too, of course.