Interview: Jake Brown
Jake Brown
Jake Brown is in the midst of his most creative period yet. The R&B singer-songwriter has fast become a regular feature on BBC Northampton’s introducing scene. After releasing his evocative cover of Sam Fischer’s ‘This City’, he is now preparing to debut his most emotive and exciting mixtape yet... ‘The King Street Tapes’. Philip Giouras caught up with Jake to find out more. Here’s five key discoveries we made.
A Focus & A Vibe
Brown’s mixtape has a central theme and vibe throughout. “The whole tape has an overarching R&B Pop vocal and vibe to it” he tells me. No more so is this evident than on lead single ‘Focus’ which tells the story of being lost in love “Basically ‘Focus’ is around the notion of being blind in love, being blind to all the things that are going wrong, you kind of skip past them all, and the idea behind it is that we need to focus on what is going on. So it’s kind of like me trying to shout to the girl that this no longer working and focus on the reality of the moment”.
2. A WILLD Collaboration
One of the strongest bonds in music is that between an Artist and their Producer. One of Brown’s closest friends is his producer, WILLD. A man that doesn’t just know how to master Brown’s music but also understands the emotions and stories behind the sound “We went to university with each other and he experienced my relationship first-hand. So, I think this tape to him means something as well because he kind of saw my strife... our relationship is really important and there’s few like it, that bond where you communicate almost through the music. It is something special, and as creative people we just bounce off each other”.
3. King Street
So why is it called the ‘King Street Tapes’ you ask? Whilst it’s fairly self-explanatory, with all four tracks on the tape being written when Brown and WILLD lived together at an address located on, you guessed it King Street. The location and the time in both the guy’s life, however, had a big impact on the collection. “Originally, I wanted to release it three years ago, back when we were living on King Street but I kind of didn’t because, in hindsight, I think I was more scared to be judged, about the songs, how they were written, maybe because of the people around me at the time. But now I’ve got all this material that I want to release, that’s still so relevant in my story, and I’m ready to share it and for people to finally hear that story.
4. The Piano Man
Lockdown at the beginning of the year allowed many of us the opportunity to try something new, for Brown, that was the Piano. “I’ve been learning piano during the lockdown, I want to be pulling out all my ballads on piano… every time I hear piano, it’s like something just triggers in my mind It is literally like a click, and I feel something straight away”. Despite a few lessons, Brown has found he works better self-taught by learning music theory, chords and persevering at a skill he admits found ‘harder than what he thought it would be”.
5. Performing In The New Normal
Sadly, the constant shifting of the government tiers and lockdown restrictions have made performing opportunities slim. Brown, however, did get to perform at the historic Northampton venue The Picturedrome back in October. When we spoke a couple of months previously that was one of his main goals, performing at the 360-capacity venue where he had helped volunteer earlier this, helping raise funds to keep the venue sustained “It was an amazing experience, something I don’t think I’ll ever experience again in my life. But it was just basically there was a donation button to save and donate to the Picturedrone so that they can continue once all this craziness is over”.