2018 is a very special year for Axel Jansson. He released his new single a few months ago and surprised his fans with his collaboration with Paralympian Cassie Cava on his music video. We had a quick chat with this amazing guy and has some really interesting news to share with us.
1) Hi Axel. How have you been?
Hi! I’ve been good thanks, enjoying a busy year of touring and releasing singles.
2) You come from Sweden. Was it hard for you to adapt to the new circumstances? What about your music?
Of course, I had visited London many times before moving here so It was a good and a very exciting challenge for me. It made sense for my style of music and what I wanted to do. When you first come to a place like London you immediately notice how different the pulse is. There’s nowhere else quite like it for an independent Musician. It’s also crazy thinking about how many more people you reach out to when you’re gigging around the circuit, Musicians and bands here are quite supportive of each other, so there’s always an optimistic air of excitement, I love it here.
3) You recently released your new single ‘Everything I Crave’. What is the story behind this song?
It’s about courage, determination and the admiration we feel for those that look for the positives in life, and strive to succeed no matter how hard the journey is. I like my songs to have a meaning that people can relate to in their own way. What it means to me and what it means to them maybe two completely different things. The concept of ‘Everything I crave’ as a lyric is very interesting – it’s that constant challenge and sometimes struggle to reach for something and that, ‘something’ is different for each and every one of us. So, I hope that people can relate to it as a concept – it can be about hardships faced, a relationship, career or anything else that affects a person. It’s an emotion we all carry with us and in the end, it’s the craving that drives us to never give up.
Listen to 'Everything I Crave' HERE
4) How were the recording and writing process?
It's funny with writing and recording music. Some songs come straight to you and you wonder where they came from, whilst others can take months to finish. The basic melody and chord progression for ‘Everything I Crave’, came fairly quickly to me and felt right straight away – but we went through a few different variations in the studio until it made sense and felt like a finished product. I think we got there in the end. It’s a timing thing.
5) Paralympian Cassie Cava joined on the music video of ‘Everything I Crave’, an interesting collaboration and a real surprise for your fans. Let us know more about this collaboration, the concept of the video, some behind the scenes stories and how you made Cassie take the decision to join on this video.
We had this concept that we wanted to portray the lead character in the video as someone who had been through a lot to get where they were today. I’m a bit of a sports fan and I’ve often been in awe of some the Paralympians you see putting us all to shame. We thought the search for the right person to portray this character was going to be hard but it all seemed to fall into place quite easily. Once we’d outlined the story we put out a brief starting with VisABLE people, an agency my Manager found. Cassie was one of the first to apply through them, saying she loved the concept and really wanted to do it – she was just perfect, bringing her own life experience as an athlete to the role. In the original concept, our lead character had a boyfriend pushing her on but Director, Dan French dumped him before he even got cast! I’d like to say that I knew her before but sadly we met for the first time on the shoot. We would have met earlier only Cassie was out in Australia in the weeks running right up to our shoot, competing in the Australian Para-Triathalon and winning the Bronze Medal for Ireland. I think most people would still be struggling to get out of bed, never mind doing a full day filming 3 days after returning from Australia – but not Cassie.
We were all a bit nervous in the days leading up to filming as the majority of the filming was taking place outside and the weather forecast was getting worse and worse – there’s so many people and things to organise so you can’t just cancel because it might rain– not on an independent budget, anyway! Then the evening before the shoot the original lighting cameraman fell ill and we had about 2 hours to find someone else – that was a bit stressful!. On the day it was pouring with rain when we started in the morning but the sun came out at lunchtime and we ended up with a beautiful sunset. In the end, the whole thing worked in our favour – the story was meant to be one set over time not just one day and the weather helped achieve that.
6) Cassie says for the song and the music video: ‘’It was a privilege to be involved in telling the story behind this song. It’s a beautiful song and I loved the idea of it of overcoming adversity, which is definitely something that’s a constant work in progress for me!” She is so excited about this collaboration. Axel, how are you feeling about it?
Great! It was a privilege to have Cassie onboard. The whole band loved meeting and working with her, we were all totally in awe of her energy. She just takes everything in her stride – literally! We only had 1 day to shoot the entire video and despite telling us running wasn’t really her thing - she did a lot of running! She’s given reality, strength and depth to the story of the song and it definitely wouldn’t have been the same if she wasn’t a part of it.
7) What do you find inspiring when you are writing your songs?
Generally everyday life around me, things I see or read about that touch me in some way. To me, the trick is not to think about the writing process too much. When I pick up a guitar what I really want to do is, ‘’feel’ – I think that’s when I come up with the best ideas and melodies. Sometimes a melody or line might pop into my head whilst I’m out and about and don’t have a guitar with me – thank goodness for my phone – I’m often slipping off somewhere quiet and quickly humming into it or jotting something down. Ideas can leave as fast as they come and should never be ignored! A bit like people, lol.
8) Who are your favourite artists, bands and songwriters? How do you incorporate their work into your sound?
I’ve got such a long list of Artists and Bands that I like and that have had an impact on my music and sound. If I had to name a few I would say, Jason Isbell, John Mayer, Ryan Adams, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Neil Young and Bob Dylan. For me, it comes down to honesty in the end and all of those artists are true to their music and sound. When you master that the music will live forever.
9) What's next? Any plans for a new single or a tour? I’m really excited to be in the studio right now, working on the recordings for my first album release. I can’t wait for next year!
Yes, finally there’s an album coming out in the New Year. At the moment we’re spending a lot of time in the studio recording a whole batch of new songs, they'll be none of the previous singles on it. I can’t wait to let you guys hear it! We’ll go full on this time with a tour and a single connected with the album so stay tuned!
10) Do you have a special message for your fans?
I do. I want to thank everyone who takes the time to give independent Artists and Bands a fair chance. We live in such a quick and stressed world where we get constantly fed with so many things. So thank you to all those who are supporting us by coming to our gigs, downloading or streaming our new songs and videos and giving us feedback. All this gives us the hope and courage to go on.
11) Axel thank you very much for the interview.
Thanks so much for having me, it’s a privilege!