Jade Bird: ‘If we can’t get a festival bill right, how can we do something about men abusing women?’

The British singer-songwriter loved by America has left behind folky cynicism for Britpop guitars and choruses on her second album. She talks to Sam Moore about misogyny, getting out of a ‘down’ headspace, and why Brandi Carlile scared her to death

(Colin Lane/Jade Bird/Glassnote)

An enforced fortnight of quarantine in a Mexico City hotel room with her partner, a guitar and a notepad proved to be the perfect creative environment for Jade Bird to write her eclectic, Britpop-inspired second album, Different Kinds of Light. Heading to Nashville via Mexico thanks to US-UK travel restrictions, she knew the self-isolation was necessary to avoid the record being compromised.

“I could not risk the recording of my album at all [by catching Covid],” says the 23-year-old, as she recalls the October weeks she spent in the shade out of the Mexican sun, with street musicians providing the soundtrack to her creative process.

The Northumberland-born singer-songwriter had a precocious start to her music career, releasing her self-titled debut album at 19 and making the BBC’s 2018 Sound Of… poll. Distilling aspects of country, folk, pop, Americana and blues into fiery vignettes of disappointing relationships, Bird has shades of Alanis Morissette and Patti Smith, her voice gravelly and intense. Listen to “Flowers in December” and “Nightbird” and you’ll detect traces, too, of Mazzy Star and Stevie Nicks.

With so many American influences, it’s not surprising that Bird soon found her way stateside. She lives in Austin, Texas, where – some 5,000 miles from home – she found a nurturing, creative environment in the city’s female-centric music scene. American luminaries Brandi Carlile and Sheryl Crow are collaborators – and friends. “Especially for a young, female artist, knowing that you can be happy and do your job is really underrated,” Bird says.

Being in such esteemed company has its drawbacks, though. After watching Carlile rehearsing a duet backstage, Bird “became scared to death” of the Grammy winner. “She’s so good – pitch-perfect on first take.”

It’s easy to assume that being around such accomplished musicians has pushed Bird in more challenging musical directions. While Bird’s debut was an unsparing, introspective slice of pop-Americana, rooted in teenage emotions and dealing mainly with male abandonment, Different Kinds of Light is warmer and less solipsistic, reawakening memories of Britpop-era Blur and Pulp. It didn’t start out that way, though.

“I was quite down when I started writing the record. I was like, man, I’ve got to get out of this headspace,” she says, describing how the positive outlook of the music naturally sprouted up later in the creative process: “I was writing new songs for other people – this time around it was my partner, and I was writing in bed, locked up in an apartment, and I was directly imagining him and what he would need to have this motivation and this optimism to deal with life. It’s just weird that I wrote it in the middle of the pandemic, with that level of optimism, because the first album was quite cynical.”

‘Different Kinds of Light’ is a clear-throated message of feminist defiance (Getty/Americana Music)

Different Kinds of Light has found her exploring new territory – such as on standout track “Rely On”, which is about the closest thing you’ll ever get to a straight-up love song from the self-confessed cynic. “If you need me to rely on/ I’m there for you” is a long way from her normally acerbic standards.

Though Bird says “Rely On” is the only song on the LP for which she cannot pinpoint the inspiration, she is in a happy relationship with her guitarist, and her personal life is very much in symbiosis with her creative process. “[My personal and professional lives] are very much together. The best and worst of everything – he’s there through it all. I think there’s a lot to be said for being in this crazy world and having that person that is absolutely essential, whether it’s a friend or a partner, someone that can really help you mentally, that understands what you’re going through.”

Different Kinds of Light is also a clear-throated message of feminist defiance. Songs such as “Candidate” and “I’m Getting Lost” are simultaneously anthems of solidarity and snapping jabs of anguish at the men who leer at, abuse, and diminish women. “If I take a second to clear my head/ I’ll come back and you’ll be screwing her in our bed” is a particularly scathing retort to careless, adulterous men.

When she sings “Candidate”, Bird says, “I’m singing it for all my friends who have gone through something from people who just think they can walk all over them.”

“I’m Getting Lost” also comes from a similar place. Written before Sarah Everard was murdered by an off-duty police officer while walking home in South London in March, but now taking on an unwanted resonance, the song features the staggeringly dark couplet: “Don’t go away too far on your own at night/ You never know what kinda people you could find.”

Bird says she wrote those lyrics after being out alone in the dark in Trafalgar Square, finding it completely abandoned: “My favourite thing in the world is a city at night and I just couldn’t do that. I could never go out at night because I literally didn’t feel safe as a woman. I found that so depressing and upsetting and frustrating. ‘I’m Getting Lost’ is all my frustration at that scenario.”

On misogyny in the music industry, Bird is pretty pessimistic. “I get frustrated at basic things like a festival bill. If we can’t get that right, how can we do something about men who are abusing women?”

Bird is also clear on what feminism means to her, especially in a political climate that sees transgender and non-binary people come under attack from high-profile figures: “Feminism to me is support. Supporting women in their healthcare, their choices in life, and non-binary people too. None of this strange, prejudiced feminism; I believe in inclusive feminism.”

Different Kinds of Light has had a Covid-lengthened road to the shelves, with the pandemic pushing the release back an entire year. Despite that extra time to add to and alter the record, Bird has suppressed the urge, calling the album her “baby” and a “snapshot in time”.

She is thankful for the creative freedom being on an independent record label grants her, in terms of both her music and her image. There’s no pressure to conform to something she isn’t, and she would refuse to anyway.

“I would literally not be doing this if I didn’t retain my belief in myself, which comes from my ability in songwriting. If I lose that I lose everything,” she explains. “And I mean that in a very serious sense of the word. Because all I’ve ever had is my identity and therefore my music. So, yeah, you won’t be seeing me on pop collabs.”

‘Different Kinds of Light’ is out today