Features
Jessica Says: ‘I Feel Genre-Less’
By Craig Mathieson
Almost a year on from a tragic fall, Jessica Venables (aka Jessica Says) tells CRAIG MATHIESON she’s returned with a new outlook on love, life and indie-rock. Photo by HANA DAVIES.
[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Three separate feelings came to Jessica Venables when she fell four metres out a first floor window and onto a Sydney footpath in February last year: the first was she didn’t want to die, the second was a strong life force that made her momentarily happy, and the third was extraordinary, enduring pain.
The 23-year-old Melbourne singer-songwriter, who performs as Jessica Says, has since recovered physically, but the changes emanating from the accident and her rehabilitation continue to be felt in her songwriting and approach to performing. The Jessica Says of her sinuous, exotic new single, ‘World Without Men’, is a vastly different artist to the one who recorded 2009’s sparsely intimate We Need to Talk. Venables once described that record as “a rehearsal for my life”, but it would appear that now she is improvising her performance.
How did the accident occur?
It was 40 degrees and it had been a long day. I’d been out the night before trying to help my friend talk to this pretty girl, then I had a 6am flight to Sydney and I rehearsed with Sally Seltmann all day and I had some friends in town – I was meant to play a show with Darren Sylvester the next night. It was one of those nights that had a beautiful atmosphere, and after we saw My Disco at the Oxford Art Factory, a couple of people came back to my hotel room on King St in Newtown. The room had a low window and it was above this awning and I recognised the material from over my parents’ verandah. I like climbing on roofs and tree climbing, so I thought it would hold my weight. If it had been in good condition it probably would have, but it wasn’t and I fell through four metres to the footpath.
In what position did you land?
My left foot impacted on the ground first, so all the damage was on the left side of my body. I came onto my side, so I fractured my spine and pelvis. I was completely conscious the whole time. My friends came down and helped me and some bikies came over and laid their jackets out for me. The ambulance came and the paramedic was a really handsome guy.
You noticed?
I noticed everything. I don’t know why, but I can give you a blow-by- blow account of the whole night.
How long were you in hospital?
Two months – three weeks in Sydney, because I wasn’t well enough to be moved, then I was flown back to Melbourne.
Is the change in your music connected to this time?
I had demoed ‘World Without Men’ earlier on, but it sounded different. I went and saw Lady Gaga when I was still in my wheelchair – I spent a month in one. [The accident] has completely changed my attitude to performance because I used to have so many hang-ups about being on stage and feeling scared, but now I know that not knowing if you’ll walk again is scary.
Was the change in your outlook on performing a conscious one or was it just something you realised once you started playing live again?
I felt at peace when I was in hospital. I felt like I could grasp what was important – the essence – and I saw that I had this strength and I realised that I didn’t have to be scared anymore because my concept of pain and experience had suddenly changed completely. Also, for the first time in ages I didn’t have a boyfriend or girlfriend when I fell, so it became the longest period I’d been alone.
What else did you realise was essential?
I was in a rehab centre in Caulfield where I had the best situation of anyone there. There was a lovely lady opposite me who had broken both ankles and couldn’t be with her one-year-old twins; there was an amputee ward. It gave me a very strong sense that people are either loving and giving, or they’re not.
How was Lady Gaga?
It was amazing. I love her. There are so few women in pop music who are writing their songs – a Rihanna will have a great single like ‘Umbrella’, but then do a bad collaboration with Maroon 5. There’s no sustained idea of what she’s about, but there is with Lady Gaga.
Are you interested in pop stars because they’re from another world or because you could imagine that being your world?
Because I didn’t have that much access to pop music at an impressionable age – the age Miley Cyrus fans are now – I’m a little underdeveloped in that sense. I’m a little bit more vulnerable to that stuff than the average 23-year-old. I like it when people create their own world. Gaga has that sense that anything is possible: wear a dress made out of meat, be a millionaire who talks about how you can’t get a boyfriend.
“Lady Gaga talks about having a huge cock on stage in front of 10-year-olds at Rod Laver Arena … but the indie female is meant to wear a knee-length floral dress and strum her acoustic guitar.”
Did you think you’d started a sustained career with the first album?
I did nothing with We Have to Talk. When you don’t have a strong sense of yourself you can be protective of what you think you are. I just wanted to play all the instruments I could – I would say to Geoff [O’Connor, the producer], now we’re doing this, now we’re doing that. This happens in personal and creative relationships and once you grow up a bit you feel that you can share parts of yourself and have this exchange of ideas without detracting from who you are. With ‘World Without Men’ I really liked World’s End Press and my friend is going out with Rhys [Richards], who made the beat, and that was the person I wanted to do that. You have to be open to ideas from people you feel get your sensibility, but can take it beyond the vocabulary you have. I can play cello, some keyboards badly, sing a little and write – but I have no ear for drum sounds. That’s why there are none on the first album, but now I’m obsessed with bassy, industrial percussion sounds.
Apart from rehabilitation, what else gave you a sense of your life?
Relationships. Bad ones. I had an emotionally difficult time around the release of the first album and it feels ridiculous saying this stuff, because it’s such a little record, but even on that tiny scale of getting in The Age I was achieving something. But I was a mess personally.
Was the fall a circuit-breaker for your life?
Absolutely. A relationship ended in December [2009] that I felt was destroying me. So spending time alone and the fall were the two big things. But also my musical taste expanded. I had a boyfriend who was into hip-hop and that’s carried over. I listen to a lot of hip-hop now – I love the new Kanye West [My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy]. I’m no expert, but I know Nas’ Illmatic, for example.
Hip-hop is rhythm-based.
I’ve always felt I had no rhythm, that I’m a melody person. The only reference point people are coming up with for me is Kate Bush, which is good, but I was trying to think more about what makes Hounds of Love sound different to the earlier stuff. I talked to Darren Sylvester about it because he really researches what he likes. I decided there are no cymbals or snares on that album, and while the drums are mainly programmed there’s some bassy sounds that combined with a high feminine singing voice creates a spooky, intense atmosphere, rather than a pretty one. When I listen to my first album it’s just so trebly. I just had my first rehearsal with a bass player and my mind exploded.
‘World Without Men’ has a heated, organic feel – it’s quite dense and can be overwhelming, whereas the first album is surreptitious and reserved.
I got a Nord Electro keyboard two years ago, so before that my awareness of sound was just so limited. We also recorded at a proper studio, with Matt Voigt, which was nice.
Some people interpret the lyric as being direct and autobiographical, others see it as a metaphor. What were you thinking?
I don’t know, as I don’t remember writing the words. It’s a fantasy I have. My room kind of looks like it belongs to a 10-year-old. I have dolls and things like that. I have a lot of friends who are gay and I have this vision of a world where it’s all girls; not girls trying to be tough, girls all being ultra-feminine with ponies and ice-cream and all that stuff. I’m into this hyper-feminine thing, but as a separate universe not a complement to masculinity.
The lyric has different refrains after the title in each chorus: the first is “only boys”, then “only girls”.
When I was younger I dated people much older, then I made a conscious decision to date people my own age. I saw a real distinction between what a boy was and what a man was. If I try and explain it, it sounds like I was trying to convey things at the time, but really I just wrote whatever I felt like.
That’s songwriting.
I know. With hindsight, and multiple interpretations of what is just a couple of words I chucked in there, the boys could also be the boys in the film clip. My friendships with gay men have been a very important part of my life.
The song also has a sense of awakening. “Where did you learn to do dance like that” has both a literal dancing and metaphorical sexual meaning to it.
There’s usually a sexual one to most things. It’s not fun if there’s not some kind of spine tingly physical feeling to affect you.
What did you want to achieve with the video, where you present a whole new persona: you dance, make strong eye contact with the camera, strike iconic images, such as holding the cello bow aloft in a triumphant pose.
If you want to get nerdy and pretentious, the pose at the end is an allusion to a Man Ray photograph. That image of a woman’s neck, looking up, is apparently phallic, and what enriches the interpretation is that her face isn’t visible, but then I thought it looks nice so why can’t I use it?
Whose idea was it to dance?
Mine. In hospital I couldn’t even go to the toilet for over a month – I had to have a tray brought to my bed. Now I think that I’ve been capable of doing all these things for so many years and I haven’t pushed myself to try them. The dancing also belongs in fantasy world of the song – I’m fascinated by ballet class. My mum never let me do ballet because she thought it was oppressive and she knew what an obsessive personality I have.
The choreography matches the songs mood in that bodies learn to move as one; they’re simpatico.
I’m really about longing and yearning instead of instant gratification. Conceptually I’m into suggestion rather than being immediately accessible. When you put two magnets together at the wrong end and they want to touch other and they can’t, you have the movement from the clip. You want what you can’t have more than what you can have. My former housemate, Jesse Shepherd [of Sir], said to me when the first album came out, “You’re at the dance now”. He meant I could stand in the corner or be myself even if it meant making a spectacle.
Do you perceive the video as a contravention of the limiting “indie” rules?
I find that frustrating. Alternative culture should be more extreme than mainstream culture, yet these international pop stars are completely outrageous. Lady Gaga talks about having a huge cock on stage in front of 10-year-olds at Rod Laver Arena and millions of people are open to that, but the indie female is meant to wear a knee-length floral dress and strum her acoustic guitar.
She has to be demure.
Unbelievably demure! I just don’t get that. The response to the clip online talked about it being overly sexual, but there are no cleavage shots and I’m wearing little shorts, but there are no shots of my legs.
The sexuality you’re describing is an established, mainstream one, whereas the clip is threatening to some people because if you’re an indie boy you probably feel threatened by the environment presented.
I didn’t think about any of this stuff, I just do what is fun. The hospital experience removed me from indie world for a while, so it’s not that I consciously decided to break the rules, it’s just that I forgot they existed. I feel genre-less.
Where’s the rest of the album at?
I’ve demoed over 20 songs, but I don’t have any money to record. The experience of making ‘World Without Men’ was so nice. I thought the pressure would be tough in a studio, but you lift your game.
Are you desperate to record an album or can you wait?
When I think it will be over two years between albums I feel depressed, but I also feel like I’m going through a period of development in terms of style, ideas and sound, so I think that if I start recording in two months, instead of two days, it will be a better record.
Have you kept the fluorescent cello bow from the clip?
I’ve got the tube in my wardrobe at home. I want to use it all the time, because I like the idea of some movement on stage. It makes my bow feels like a sword.
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