Jake Houlsby

It’s been a while since I wrote anything so thought I better give you an update…

What a funny week it’s been. I’d been agonising over what to do about the album since around September and had semi-made my mind up in October to scrap the whole thing, only to realise I probably only need to scrap about a third and make adjustments to the remains. I’ve spent this week doing nothing but recording at home and it’s been sheer bliss now I have the time to fully immerse myself. I’m hearing in my head better than ever how the songs should sound and I’ve woken up every morning excited for the day ahead. I haven’t actually announced it on this page but Ford are using Howl in an advert so I’ve been able to quit work and focus all my efforts on my music. This is my full time job now. I’m over the moon and I couldn’t have done it without you beautiful people. Thank you thank you thank you. It couldn’t have came at a better time.

To give you a little backstory on this year, I’ve been pretty lost and incredibly unhappy but I struggle to be vulnerable (I prefer to just crack jokes) so I hid it from my family and friends and only confided in a very, very select few number of people who were like angels. I hated my life and who I was becoming but I couldn’t see an escape without having to make compromises with music so I just carried on as normal but got high morning, noon, and night to take the edge off everything. Luckily, just as I’d spent late September self-destructing and really struggling to get a grip, I got a call and was told Ford were going to use Howl in an advert meaning I could change everything and not have to make any compromises. I can’t tell you how I felt that week. It was like it had all been set up somehow, like there was a God or I was living in some kind of simulation.

I drove through to my mam’s house a couple of days after getting the news and it was one of the best evenings of my life, just chilling with her and my sister, chatting shit. I properly opened up and told them everything and it was then that the Ford news actually sunk in and I realised a lot of my current troubles and worries were over for a little while.

Since then, I’ve made healthy changes and can feel myself returning to the person I think I am and should be. I want to immerse myself in music and books and let everything I learn influence what I do. It’s hard at times because I am an antisocial bastard and like to be alone 99.9% of the time but you do need people in your life. I’m such a bad replier though I sometimes worry everyone thinks I’m dead ignorant. Do you ever leave a reply so long it gets to that point where you wonder if you can even reply anymore or if that window’s closed? That’s my constant dilemma.

I kind of think of myself in the bigger picture now and that’s changed a lot of things too. I’m aware I’m going to die one day so I just want to work hard and realise my musical potential and leave behind a body of work that simply says who I am and where and when it all happened. It’s easy to get caught up doing what you think you should do but I still believe that if you make good music that’s true to you and immerse yourself in it, stay focussed, and believe in it, people will listen to it and it’ll eventually spread. The world’s changing right now, rapidly. I think the future of music and art is probably not in major labels and what not but in lone wolves like Sufjan and Stormzy (and even Casey Neistat), doing things themselves initially (or forever) and allowing their curiosity and passion to guide them. It’s funny getting older cause you realise all the cliches are cliches for a reason. Life is a journey.

I’ve been messing around with music for 15 years now, first writing terrible classical music on the piano, then writing terrible blues music on the acoustic guitar, and it’s not something I’ll ever be able to stop doing. I love music in most, if not all, of it’s forms and I want to be a student of it for life. I guess knowing that now gives me a certain confidence I’ve lacked this year. At times it felt like this album would be my first and last. I know that’s not the case now. I don’t want to be perfect or make perfect music, I just want to make music that captures and reflects part of me. It’s absolutely unreal seeing how many people are enjoying the music and how many messages I’ve had recently from people saying they’ve connected to the songs on another level or that it’s helped them in some way. As corny as it sounds, I feel like we’ve connected and it’s almost like I understand some of you and you understand some of me. It’s weird but nice and it’s something that’s very new to me. I could certainly get used to it though. All of a sudden what I’m doing doesn’t feel like such a selfish pursuit.

Right, I’m gonna go. It feels a bit weird posting something so personal but I wanted to let you in. I wish I wasn’t so bloody intense like but it’s just who I am. There’s more I wanted to say (I plan these posts in my head when I’m out on a run or on my bike) but I’m going to leave it there and get back to work. Can’t wait to share new music with you. Those who have caught me live this year and know the new songs, I’m thinking Golden Age is gonna be the first single of 2018. Really excited. Speak soon x

You know what? I feel like writing so I’m gonna write. I’ve become utterly bored with life this year and it’s taken me until now to realise it. I’m working way more than I should be and I’ve become stuck in a routine. All for money that I don’t need and money which I then have to spend on something big like a piano or a trip to Japan to make me feel better for working so hard to pay for the things that make me feel better for working so hard to pay for the… you get the point.

I’m 25 and I go on like I’m 40 with a wife and kids. I want to start taking more time to explore and enjoy the things that intrigue me. Work less, make less money, but have more fun trying new things and going where my curiosity takes me.

I wanna worry less too. I’ve become so obsessed with being a nice person that I overcompensate and rarely show my true colours. Everyone is kind of a dick and I need to accept that I’m kind of a dick too and that’s ok. I can’t help but feel I’m not the only person like this. Everyone seems to be talking about having a quarter life crisis and everyone is depressed. I think I’m scared of finality. We keep our options open and think something spectacular and decisive will happen tomorrow but it never does and we just keep dicking around. You have to be your own person and make your own decisions and accept and deal with the good and bad consequences of your own actions. I’m not too good at that. My fear of the bad keeps me from the good sometimes. That kind of makes me a coward. I don’t want to be a coward.

I don’t actually think I want a career either. I think I’d be better suited doing lots of different jobs that make me enough money to live but enough freedom to explore. These days you can’t really do anything seriously but part time though, can you? I’d love to live in Copenhagen for a few years and study physics or maths at uni. Maybe I should do that. I think my a-levels have expired though. Can a-levels expire? I’ll have to google it.

I like learning and I think maybe I’m one of those people who gets bored if they’re just learning about the same thing. I need to read more cause it makes me happy but I always feel reading is a commitment whereas going on your phone isn’t. I really need to stop thinking like that. It’s cause I don’t normally like to stop reading until I’ve finished the chapter but that’s stupid-I should just read until I get bored or have to do something.

I overthink absolutely everything. Sometimes I think the only way I’ll ever act naturally is if I come full circle and eventually overthink overthinking. I should approach more things casually but I’m just too goddam excitable.

I’m gonna take a new approach to music. I want to focus solely on making complete pieces of work. I want to get with the times but also do it my way. I’d like music to work more around me and me less around music. I want it to be the thing that happens as I live my life, rather than the thing that makes me live to make happen, if that makes sense? I can’t believe how free I am and yet how conservatively I choose to live. I’ll still do single releases probably but I imagine the content will be either from the cutting room floor of each album or from late night, high as a kite experiments that turned out pretty cool. Circus Child has 400,000 plays on Spotify and I recorded and produced all of that in my house in 2 days. That is so fucking cool. I’m gonna do more stuff like that for sure. I’m gonna use my piano more and experiment with the plugins on my computer too.

Honoured to have made the @glastonbury Emerging Talent longlist...

I’ve just got back from a meeting with Mick Ross who recorded Carousel and who’ll be recording the next set of songs I’ve got. We’ve narrowed the bunch down to 10 so they might make an EP and some singles or they might make an album, I’m not sure just yet. We’re just gonna unravel the songs as cleanly as possible and see what shapes they take and how they fit together.

I feel like I’ve finished a phase of my songwriting and have started another one so it’s going to be nice to document that phase of my life and get it out. Yannina was maybe the transition from adolescence into adulthood. I’m not sure what this next one is yet.

I’ve finished about 3 songs from the ‘new phase’ so far. They’re out of my comfort zone which is fun but it also means that they’re, perhaps, going to be out of the comfort zone of people who are familiar with my older stuff. I’m learning to trust myself though so I hope you can trust me too. One song is called ‘Golden Age’ and I think it could make a nice title track to an EP which could follow whatever I do next. I realise I’m getting carried away with myself planning the follow-up to the follow-up but it’s exciting!

At the minute, I well and truly feel ‘back in the zone.’ Anyone can write good songs but you’ve got to be in the right frame of mind to catch the really good ones. You’ve kind of got to remain open 24/7 which can be exhausting but pays off once the fragments start to fall.

I flip from worrying about NOTHING to worrying about EVERYTHING. I was worried Carousel would hit some imaginary ceiling and get dusty in the shadows but I just saw today, it’s been played 30000 times on Spotify since I first put it up, 8 days ago. Finding that out has really made my day actually. No joke. I know, to some artists, 30k is a mere spec but it’s a lot to someone like me. I always write in a way that feels so disconnected from reality so when the 2 worlds collide, I never know what to expect.

When I wrote Carousel I thought they were the best lyrics I would ever write. I still kind of think that. They’re very ‘me’, anyway, so I’m relieved people haven’t rejected them. A lot of the feedback I’ve had have centred on the lyrics which means the world to me. Musically, I think I’m probably a bit of a chameleon but lyrically, I think there are styles which just ‘fit’. Things are bound to change though so we’ll just have to see what tomorrow looks like when it comes. I’m looking forward to spending some more years whirling and twirling. Thanks for sticking around ❤️🎠 x

p.s. the Single Launch will be on 15th April so, if you can make it, head here for tickets... http://www.seetickets.com/event/jake-houlsby-special-guests/tynemouth-surf-cafe/961513

p.p.s. Here’s a link to stream Carousel on Spotify... https://play.spotify.com/track/1o1qJRIhk4JGr90LKgZu3u 

I've been buckling down and getting stuff done recently so it shouldn't be too long til you get to hear the new single, Carousel. Part of me is still considering doing a full album afterwards but we'll see. I always considered (and still do consider) the Yannina EP to be a complete work within itself so it would be nice to follow it up with something just as complete, as opposed to a load of tracks thrown together to make an album/EP.

When I wrote and recorded Yannina, it was as much for me as anyone else and I like to think that's the way it'll always be. At least, that's the way it always should be. Yannina felt like the dissertation you write in your final year of Uni after years of learning, getting things wrong, and discovering new things/yourself. In some ways I feel like I've proven myself to myself (whatever that means).

There are so many ideas buzzing around my head at the minute, it kind of feels like all these weird fragments of music and thought are coming together to form something that defines me and satisfies me better than ever before. Maybe these are my golden years. I certainly don’t feel like I’m in my prime yet though which is actually a nice feeling-it must be sad to know your best work is behind you. I read a quote once that said something along the lines of ‘what a wonderful thought it is to know that some of the best days of our lives are still to come.’ It made me smile.

Life, as it is, continues to surprise and entertain me. Sometimes I feel like I’m just in a big, sophisticated cinema of some kind. I don’t take very much seriously because of that. Maybe I should.

I’ve been running loads recently too. I wanted to do 100 days in a row but had a rest day yesterday after two weeks on the trot cause my legs were begging me for mercy. Oh well. I think about loads when I do go out though. I've been thinking a lot about religion and drugs recently for some reason. Both seem to make living more bearable for the believer/user. I hope that’s not offensive, it was just a weird observation.

It’s nice to be warm but everyone should feel the cold once in a while. It changes something in your head. You know you’ve crossed over from being a child to an adult when you curse the snow.

I sometimes think about what my idea of a utopia is. Would men and women work in a utopia? Or would they still work but all love their job? The funny thing is, as soon as something becomes a job, it becomes less enjoyable.