Jess Glynne

Jess Glynne is back feeling better than ever. Following a hiatus prioritising her health and the back of the COVID-19 Pandemic, it was a well-deserved break after 9 years of nonstop writing, touring and being in the public eye. For Jess this period of rest has set a green light when moving into a new era of music, a self-confessed moment to breathe. With an accolade of awards to her name being a Grammy Award winning singer with two studio albums under her belt Jess is ready to talk about everything in between from loss, love and boundaries to her new self-titled album, Jess.


ALICE: You're bringing out new music, you've had a couple of years hiatus. What was important about taking that time for you? Has it felt good to reset?

JESS: Sometimes with writing, there's always that block and I find that I can't write if I don't know what's going on or where I'm at. The plan was never to have such a long break, it just kind of happened that way. I came off the road in 2019, and I needed a break, I was just so exhausted from touring, from performing, from the studio, from everything, and it had been seven years of nonstop. Then COVID happened and I changed my teams. I can't even believe it's been that much time at this stage. I think I needed a break at the beginning, but then I would obviously be invigorated and inspired but there were loads of obstacles. Being on the road and everything going on was super exciting, everything took off super quick, and then I was hitting everywhere. It was incredible. I had all this success, and I had a toe in around the world. It catches up with you at a certain point, and then not finding structure and balance and all those kinds of things is what is difficult. For me it just got to that point where it's been so long that I hadn't had a light moment for myself, so at the end of that world tour in 2019, it wasn't that I was sick of any of it in a negative way. It was more like I needed a moment for myself to breathe.

ALICE: It must have been strange, coming off it all and then going to the polar opposite. - you went into the polar opposite with everything shutting down during lockdown.

JESS: Having that moment to be, I don't have anyone calling on me for work and they couldn't call on me for it, so I didn't feel guilty. For me saying no to work or not turning up is my hardest thing. I think that's what I struggled with massively, not being able to avoid or not do work.

ALICE: We cover culture, mental health, and we talk a lot about it. I think we forget about all the contributing factors that goes into those things, and environmental things, being one of them, let alone pressures of the industry. Did you find that in your time off?

JESS: I think I didn't feel pressured to be creative; I knew that I was going to be taking that time anyway, so I think for me, I didn't, at the beginning, feel that way. I think I enjoyed actually making my house a home just doing me- cooking and actually just living normally, the only thing I could do was walk, and be a little homebody, which I really enjoyed. It wasn't until the end of a lot of downtime; I started to feel inspired again and wanted to start creating. I started to try to teach myself how to produce.

ALICE: Having so many eyes on you, being in the public eye- how do you manage the pressures of people always having an input, the eyes constantly on you?

JESS: It's a really complex question. There are so many elements, there's such an incredible part to it, the excitement, the payoff, living and breathing and doing, what it is you've always dreamt of doing. The fame side of it, for me, has always been the hardest part especially being a woman with all eyes on you, judging. There are all these aspects of it at the beginning, that I didn't necessarily notice so much. It wasn't until I started to burn out and I was ill and people were just treating me like a product, and then all of a sudden, my voice was gone, and I couldn't sing. It's those moments where it's okay I really need to re-evaluate how I'm working. It takes its toll. The pressures of the press and being criticised for every little thing. I've been quite fortunate in my career. I've had some moments, early on and then, I guess, towards taking a break, there were a few moments that 100% set me back. You can't make a mistake without the whole world jumping down your throat. But then those moments that are really tough to teach you. How do I want to be in the public eye? How do I want to present myself, and how do I want to interact with my fans and the world? There's been so many elements that I've had to juggle with. I think I'm actually in the best place I've been now but that's after doing a lot of therapy and having a lot of changes put in place. I had a really tragic loss in my life that sent me back again. But from that loss, I've done a lot of work. There are so many different elements. But the public eye and being in the spotlight constantly definitely make it harder to find the balance but then again, it's a beautiful thing, at the same time, when people are celebrating you.

ALICE: Grief in itself isn't really talked about a lot and there's this idea that it's very linear, and it just passes, and I don't think that's the case. I think when you have so many eyes on you and opinions of input on how you should do things and deal with things -I can imagine as much as it's wonderful for people to have input and be excited, you must hit a point where boundaries have to be put in place.