BRADLEY JAGO

With Bradley’s new EP ‘Girl Problems’ coming out on the 9th of February I wanted to celebrate his journey so far from playing small gigs in Portsmouth to now selling out headline shows in London and creating visual intention that aligns with music creation. Mixing R&B and Soul through lyrics that everyone relates to in their own way, building a positive community around ‘queer soul from a queer soul’.

Starting out in the music industry can be daunting. How did you build the confidence to put your music out there for the first time?

So, I’ve kind of always been performing but nothing major, little shows in school, and then I finished college and pretty much everyone there was either going to study something academic. I thought I might do musical theatre, which allows me to sing, I guess I’ll do that. I never felt there was a pathway into the music industry.

Especially if you’re not coming from a big city, you don’t see that many opportunities.

Exactly, so I took a gap year travelling and I started busking, which made me realise this is what I want to do I just need a way into it. So, I started singing in pubs in Portsmouth with like small crowds. A lot of time it was my mum a few friends and the staff. I still have a lot of doubt but what gives me confidence is there’s nothing else I want to do as much. Of course, I am in a privileged position to think like this but for other people that also are, I don’t want to be one of those people that gives up on their dreams. It’s scary as well when you start saying that to people, especially because I don’t necessarily have a perception of what I sound like, when the only people I’ve ever shown my work too is my family of friends. Of course, they’re going to be supportive so when you start showing it to other people, is it actually good or not? So, the confidence mainly comes from faking it and that there is nothing else I really want to do.

Specifically, when social media is so prevalent today in an artist’s success. How do you navigate the challenges and opportunities that come with promoting your music on platforms like Instagram, or TikTok?

I feel like I am boring people a lot of the time, it’s such a weird concept. Everyone is thinking about growth but then you need to nurture the people who already enjoy what you are doing. It’s a very fine line, which is something I am struggling with. A lot of the time the content I would like to be making is like, a breakdown on lyrics but deciding if people care about that enough right now is difficult.

Something I’ve noticed is your aesthetic is very clear and concise, for someone in the earlier stages of their career. As someone who connects with creativity visually, I love it. Was that something you build from the start, did your music. come with a visual intention or was it something that fell in place?

Firstly, thank you that’s so lovely. I remember at uni they would say it’s really important to have the music to match the visuals or do something polar opposite otherwise people can get confused. I hadn’t really thought about how my music translates visually up until then. I started looking at some of my favourite artists and how they are doing it, the preparation is crazy. The whole orange look I had been using for a while before, so I knew in advance it could flow into that. The EP is going to be mainly black and white, so I’ve started using a lot of that. It’s now one of the things I get most excited about. Having that vision from the start has become important to me.

Do you think from that it’s important to be completely vulnerable in your art, highlighting real life experience, does that add another layer of pressure to understand your own personal direction?

The music I listen to is all very personal, for me it is important. That everything I say is true. I might think of such a good line but if I don’t relate to it, I know it’s going to show. I can see how I maybe have suppressed my feelings until the writing stage, a little situation can become such a big song.

From that how important do you feel building a community is within the music space, further connecting with people who have gone through similar experiences and emotions?

My only intention with my music is to write about what I have been through and write songs that I like, and just hope’s that whoever likes it joins along the way. People say you need to know your target audience and to be honest I don’t. Even looking at data it’s very split, different ages etc. I do see certain parts of the world come to my shows and I can see who listens to my music. It makes me really happy to see people connecting over it. It’s never something I set out intentionally to do but it is slowly happening. Obviously, I say queer souls for queer souls but it’s for everyone.

It’s funny because I bet a lot of people connect in a totally different way to the personal experience you portray in a song for example.

Someone explained how they hear Rejection and that they know that’s not why I wrote it, but it is what it meant to them. It was funny because their experience was also something I had been through, which I feel has been carried into the EP. Experience like that often travels with you I feel in these ways.

Follow Bradley on:

Instagram: @bradleyjago

TikTok: @bradleyjago