Jade Bird: The upbeat tone of my album is weird

Jade Bird thinks the optimistic tone of her new album is “weird”.

The 23-year-old singer started writing her new record amid the coronavirus pandemic, and even she was surprised by the upbeat tone of ‘Different Kinds of Light’.

Jade – who released her self-titled debut album in 2019 – shared: “I was quite down when I started writing the record. I was like, man, I’ve got to get out of this headspace.

“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.”

Jade admits that her mu is closely linked to what’s happening in her personal life.

She told The Independent: “[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.”

Jade enjoys the creative freedom that comes with being on an independent record label.

And she admits that having her own identity is central to her career.

She explained: “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.

“And I mean that in a very serious sense of the word. Because all I’ve ever had is my identity and therefore my mu. So, yeah, you won’t be seeing me on pop collabs.”