‘People Might Think I’m a Closed Book’: On Her Debut Album, Jazzy Is Opening Up
Billboard ·
Upon the release of Peace & Patience , the Irish dance-pop hitmaker talks about the project and the time she knocked Calvin Harris off a No. 1 chart position.
Jazzy had made a lot of music for her debut album — and when it came time to decide which songs would make it onto the project, she selected tracks around two related themes.
These concepts were so crucial to the music and the experiences that informed it that she ultimately made them the name of the album. This 13-song set, Peace & Patience , is out today (Oct. 23) via Chaos Records. A tight 36 minutes of sumptuous house-leaning dance pop, the album is centered around Jazzy’s gorgeously textured voice and cements her as a crucial next-gen dance pop hitmaker.
She’s developed this reputation in her native Ireland and nearby U.K. over the last half-decade with a series of chart hits, including 2023’s “Giving Me” — her first solo single, which reached No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart and hit No. 1 on the Official Irish Singles Chart, knocking “Miracle” by Calvin Harris and Ellie Goulding into the No. 2 position.
Harris noticed, which led to him and Jazzy pairing up for May’s “Satisfy,” which itself hit No. 1 on Billboard ‘s Dance Airplay chart this past June.
All in, the Dublin-born DJ/producer has made these successes look pretty easy — and in fact, she makes her journey from Dublin child violinist to chart-topping dance star sound pretty breezy too. Meeting with Billboard in a sunny office in the Capitol Records building in Los Angeles on a recent Friday morning, Jazzy — dressed in athleisure — is cheerful and warm. Tonight (Oct. 23), she’ll play a set at the nearby nightclub Sound, the second to last date on an American club tour around Peace & Patience .
The album’s release party will find her back in her native Dublin, where she plans celebrate at the pub with a handful of friends before joining many thousand more the next evening for a show at the city’s 3Arena that will mark her biggest headlining performance to date.
Here, Jazzy talks about her origins, her album and being in the studio with Harris.
You’ve said you had a lot of music to choose from for the album, some of it a few years old. Were you selecting songs around a theme in terms of what ultimately made it on?
Yeah, I wanted them to be cohesive, and I wanted to pick ones that meant the most to me — ones with stories I wanted to tell. I feel like people might think I’m a closed book sometimes, a woman of not a lot of words. So I just wanted to open up a little about experiences I’ve had in life and stuff I go through now.
Tell me about how the title track relates to that desire to open up.
“Peace and Patience” is a big one for me. The lyrics are quite uplifting — they give people a push. With everything going on in the world right now, and especially at home in Ireland, I think people need that.
In terms of Ireland, you’ve talked about how if you “lose the run of yourself” there, people will bring you back down to earth. What does that mean?
It’s just an Irish thing. It’s important not to forget where you came from. It baffles me when I hear stories of people carrying on the way they do because they have success. If anything, you should be happier. You should be kinder. I don’t see why you can’t have success and be a normal person.
Tell me about your musical origins. You didn’t start with electronic music.
No, my first experience with music was classical. My school had a violin project, every child got a lesson every week, and I ended up studying violin for years. I was actually going toward being a violin teacher. Then as I got older I started singing, and eventually started listening to electronic music around 18. I started going to underground clubs in Dublin — tech house, minimal. I just dove in and got really curious, and that led to wanting to learn to DJ.
How did you learn?
My partner Ross was a resident DJ at one of the clubs in Dublin, so I approached him for lessons. I had a controller at home and practiced for about a year before I felt ready to perform.
What was it about dance music that made you want to be part of it as an artist, rather than just a fan?
I just absolutely loved it. When I first started going out I was out Monday, Wednesday and Friday — there were so many club nights in Ireland back then. Looking at the people on the decks just gave me the curiosity to want to learn. I was curious for a long time before I took the leap to ask for lessons.
Your Calvin Harris collaboration “Satisfy” came out in May. How did that collaboration come to be?
It had been on the hit list for quite a while. It was actually a running joke with my A&R that we’d get a Calvin collab one of these days. The first time I actually spoke to him was after I released “ Giving Me ,” because we were in the charts against each other. He had a No. 1, and when “Giving Me” went to No. 1 I’d knocked him off. He sent me a message on Instagram saying how much he loved the track, which was lovely.
Then a couple of years later, I work with a songwriter called Theo Hutchcraft from The Hurts quite a lot, and he’s a close friend of Calvin’s. He came to me in a session one day and said Calvin had this track and would I want to try something on it. I flew to London in December and we got in the studio — me, Theo and Calvin — and it was so fun. Calvin was very down to earth and he really knew what he wanted for the song.
You’ve had enormous chart success. Do you pay attention to those numbers?
Not really, no. It’s nice, but it’s not the reason I do it. I try to focus on the music — because I think if you do focus on the numbers, it takes the focus away from creating what’s supposed to come naturally. You see it quite a lot — people going into the studio trying to make a song that’ll make big numbers. I think that’s not the way to do it. You have to go in strictly to create, and not subconsciously be trying to make a hit.
And yet you keep making hits.
I think if you create from a pure place, people can feel that.
You’re just finishing up a U.S. club tour. How have American audiences been?
Amazing. Every year I come back the reception gets better and better. People in the crowd ask for my deep cuts, songs I made so long ago that I didn’t think people would be interested in over here. It just goes to show how much they share the love so far away from home.
What does success for Peace & Patience look like to you?
For people to feel joy when they listen to it.
How will you celebrate on release day?
I’ll be in Dublin, so I’ll probably go to the pub with my friends. Then the next day I have my biggest headline show yet in Dublin — 7,000 capacity — so it’ll be quite the celebration.