JesseMelancholy Is Still Figuring It Out, and That’s the Point

JesseMelancholy isn’t afraid to dig deep. The Adelaide-based artist’s projects have drawn from emo rap, indie rock, and even hyperpop. Jesse is no stranger to distorted vocals, raw lyrics, and fluorescent visuals, bringing a unique type of much needed catharsis in Australia’s scene. With a new project on the horizon and a growing fanbase behind him, JesseMelancholy seems to be primed to be next up out of Adelaide. Kade recently caught up with him to talk vulnerability, live shows, and the beauty of still figuring it out.

★

Kade: I guess we should start at the beginning: who is JesseMelancholy and how did the project kind of come to life?

Jesse: JesseMelancholy is me. I'm 21 and I'm based in Adelaide right now. I started making music at roughly 15, but I didn't get serious until about 18 or 19. By serious, I mean, doing the whole rollout thing and learning about the ins and outs of more of the industry side.

The JesseMelancholy project started like at 18 or 19. I can't really remember. I think my first single as JesseMelancholy came out in December of 2022. So, yeah, I think if I had to label myself as an artist, which I hate doing, I would say I'm an alternative pop artist, but it just depends on who you ask and what sort of people you're talking to, I suppose.

Kade: Going from there, when we're talking about your music, so much of it is very personal. A lot of your lyrics relate to introspection and a lot of emotional vulnerability. So, with that vulnerability, how do you balance it with the pressure of putting your personal deep emotions out into the world for everyone to see?

Jesse: That's a very good question. Honestly, it's not something I've thought of so much because I feel like from the very start of making music, it was all about emotion and it was all about having an outlet for my own emotions. I guess as someone who's struggled with like a lot of mental health issues, I think it's always been an outlet more than anything. You know, I never started out singing about, you know, fucking; it was never like a Happy by Pharrell Williams situation, you know?

It was more so going off of like emo artists, like Lil Peep and like Juice WRLD and all that stuff when I was like 15 and then, you know, it kind of delved into like more internet artists as time went on, obviously like Brakence and Eden and Glave and things like that. So I think it's always been written from a very introspective place only because the artists that I sort of looked up to were also writing from that place and it was what felt right.

Definitely the most introspective thing I've ever written was my EP that came out last year, “does the skin i wear define me?, and I think I definitely did struggle a lot with writing a lot of it because it was almost a little scarily introspective. Songs like “blisters”, and stuff [like that] was really hard for me to kind of write and translate into something I was proud of and something that felt real and genuine. And I still like look back and I flicker a lot. Like sometimes I'm like, it's corny and then sometimes I'm like, oh, actually, no, never mind it came across and I was doing my thing. But I think, honestly, it's something that just is a part of it. And I don't think I struggle with it as much because at the end of the day, I'm confident about my music for the most part and I think if I'm not using it as a tool to like, therapise a lot of the parts of myself that I can't outside of music, then I'm not really doing anything interesting at all, you know?

Kade: Do you think there's ever been a time where the music you're writing has gotten a little too introspective and you didn't really want to put those emotions out into the world?

Jesse: Somewhere during the start of the JesseMelancholy project, I was basing a lot of my songwriting off of, really, really emo artists even going back to sort of emo rap and people who descend from that. Like, you had Lil Lotus and Nothing,Nowhere. And I think when I started, like I said, I don't think it was a matter of being scared of the amount of introspection. I think it was just the way that I sort of wrote about it. I think some of the lyrics were a bit too on the nose and I think subtlety does go a long way when it comes to songwriting and I think alluding to a feeling or alluding to something that you're going through or something that you want to say is a lot stronger than just saying it. And I think with the EP, I did that better, but before then, I kind of caught myself writing some kind of corny lyrics about what I was going through that weren't really all that novel and didn't really feel as true to myself as maybe something like the EP did.

Kade: Speaking of your influences, you’ve mentioned emo rap, like Lil Peep and Juice WRLD, to the internet artists like Brakence and Glaive from that early 2020s hyperpop bubble to, you’ve mentioned in interviews before, Phil Elverum for his emotional capacity and LCD Soundsystem for his electronic style. Between all of these influences, who do you find is influencing your music the most in what you're making at the moment?

Jesse: It's always very hard to say. I feel like everybody on the Earth who's remotely into music says it, but I find myself to have a very wide taste of music. I'm always listening to the most random assortment on my drives home or drives to work. You know, it could be something folky, like Adrianne Lenker, got the poster behind me here, or Gregory and the Hawk, or Elliott Smith. And then it could go to like, really abrasive pop, you know, James Ivy and like Ryan Hall and all those sort of acts, but then it could go even weirder. I could even put on some 2010s pop bangers, you know? It's hard to say. I think a lot of my songwriting style feels very internet pop, I would say. And some artists like James Ivy, Roy Blair, Brakence and all that sort of thing feels pretty close to home in that regard. But I'd like to think sonically that there's a lot more going on, that is a lot deeper beneath the surface, so I don't know. It's hard to say. My favourite artist of all time is Roy Blair; I think he's always going to be the biggest inspiration to me. Sonically, I think that's like the one artist I could probably point to and be like, okay, I low-key am ripping them off a little bit. But I think that's just what happens when you like fall in love with media, you know? And I think, yeah, I'd like to think that all of my music is tastefully done and a mix of everything's in there. But, yeah, I don't know. It's hard to say, to be honest. I just love music so much. And that's just the one thing I know is that I love music.

Kade: I guess while we're on the topic of influences, you have always not just been very sonically interesting as an artist, but also quite visually interesting. Between music videos, album covers, photos, outfits, and everything in between, is there anyone in particular that has been a large inspiration on the visual side of things? Anything from the direction you like to take your music videos, the clothes you wear, or the way you design your album covers?

Jesse: That's another great question. I honestly think it's harder to point to a person or an artist than it is to point to movies. I think, looking at movies and even video games, weirdly enough, I think, that’s what is the driving factor to a lot of those things in terms of the way I present myself. I guess visually, I've always gone for a coming of age kind of look. I'd say especially within the last like two years, and especially with what I'm starting to roll out now, everything is very coming of age and very youthful and young. I think that translates from a lot of the movies that I like that have that visual style and express that a lot. You know your coming of age movies like Stand by Me, [The] Perks of Being a Wallflower, and I Saw the TV Glow, things like that.

Kade: Shout out I Saw the TV Glow!

Jesse: Shout out. I got a poster here too, another, look [pointing to posters behind on the wall]. We've mentioned Lil Lotus as well, so we've got all three things behind me have been mentioned. Anyways, but I think movies and video games are a lot to do with that. I think, as well you know, there's so many artists. Like when you're talking about outfits and stuff, there's so many music artists that I've always looked up to. I mean, if we're going like really way back when I was younger, I obsessed over Blink-182 and the way that they presented themselves, you know, Tom DeLonge, with his piercings and things like that I was always into. More recently, it’s been someone like Porter Robinson or someone who presents themselves [that way] and the way that they're not afraid to present unorthodox looks and make it their own. Things like that, I think are really inspiring to me and make up the way that I present. But yeah, looking at a visual style, it's always been movies and video games as opposed to other musicians, which is kind of weird, but I wouldn't have it any other way, and I'm excited to hone in on that visual stuff more with what's coming next.

Kade: Speaking of what's coming next, your music has always covered, as we spoke about before, a wide range of influencers leading to a really wide array of different sounds. From emo pop to emo rap, then even to indie rock and that more modern kind of wall of sound, shoegaze type of music. What direction do you see yourself going in in the foreseeable future? Do you think it'll continue to evolve, or do you think you'll continue to hone what you've already released?

Jesse: I think I think a mix of both, weirdly enough. I think that there's a lot of fundamentals in my music that will always be there and will always stay the same. Like, for example, I guess a lot of the weird vocal bendy stuff that I do, whether it's pitching my vocals, creating something from my vocals that sounds like an instrument, or something abstract, foreign or alien. Those sort of things, I think will always be fundamental to my music and will always stay there because those things are fundamentally a part of who I am, I think, those tastes and palates are from my interest in like video games, like Pokémon. So, I think they're always going to be there, but looking a bit further than that, the substance of the music, I think, could go anywhere. For the foreseeable future, I know what I'm doing. I've been working on a lot of stuff in a very similar vein. It's very coming of age, like I said before. Very, very pop, I would say, and fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals

After that, I have no idea where I'm going, but I'm just excited to see where I land. I'm always doing new things and I think trying everything as an artist is important. Something that I've been always pretty big on is experimenting. I think this goes without saying, but a thing a lot of people don't realise is like what music artists drop and what they make is completely different. You know for every, one JesseMelancholy pop song, there was like, 20 different, weird things in there, you know? So it's… I don't know. It's weird. Music is weird.

Kade: Do you think there are any genres that you're yet to tie into your music that you would like to in the future?

Jesse: I think a brostep, JesseMelancholy song is overdue. Just kidding. I don't know. I think honestly, especially looking at the EP “does the skin i wear define me?”, [that] came out last year, I think a lot of different styles and genres have at least been flirted with. 

Kade: Kind of partially involved.

Jesse: Yeah, exactly. Like, even if they were just subtly [included]; if you hear them, you hear them. Hard to say though, I think I'll always experiment. That's just my answer to that question. I'll always experiment.

Kade: While we're on the topic of experimentation, you did have, around the time of the EP release, a couple of different live shows. During those live shows, did you find yourself experimenting with the way songs played out or did you find yourself staying true to them and playing them as they are?

Jesse: I think there was a lot of variation to be honest. I honestly don't really like when people perform the songs one to one. I think there is a time and place for songs to not deviate too much, but something I absolutely love doing when building a live set is making the songs tie into each other. By extending songs or cut cutting them down, making the set feel like its own universe.

Kade: Almost like remixes?

Jesse: Yeah, yeah, like remixes. Yeah, someone somewhere in the vein of remixes, and I think I do that quite a bit live. Even if it's just in subtle ways, adding another MIDI instrument that like I would be like, yeah, this is hard live, but in the final master of the song, it's like that doesn't need to be there, you know? Things like that. I think there's even more room for it. I got a drummer whose name's Devon, and in those run of shows that you're referring to, he was drumming for me the whole time. And he added a lot of cool drum fills and things like that that were not in the original song. One of the songs actually, Glitter, we added drums to that, and there's no drums in that song at all. So, yeah, I think I really enjoy spicing it up. And that doesn't mean like changing and deviating so much from the songs that are there because those are the songs that people love and you don't want to mess with them too much. But I think adding some surprises in there is great.

Another thing that comes to mind is I did like a hardstyle remix of my song Poison as an encore song for my first two headline shows. So that was pretty insane too.

Kade: Yeah, while on the topic of hardstyle remixes, shout out the Be Nice to Me hardstyle remix that Bladee's been playing.

Jesse: Yeah, that is a whole nother level. I mean, I didn't I couldn't have imagined maybe a few years ago that we'd be living in a universe where that exists, but I'm very happy it does.

Kade: On a related note, I wanted to ask about fan interactions, as you really get a lot of different people at shows, with how varied your music is. Have you had any really memorable fan interactions at any of your shows that you want to talk about?

Jesse: Yeah, there's been some cool ones. I think probably my favourite one is someone got “does the skin I wear define me?” tattooed on them, and I think seeing that in person was really cool. I think having them there and playing that title track and looking down and thinking that person right there has this song tattooed on them is a really cool thing. It's something that I don't think I can process fully, like why someone would want to do that for a piece of art that I made, you know? It feels almost wrong, but it's really cool.

Pretty much everyone I've met, is really, really cool and a lot of them are into the same things as me. So, I've talked to a lot of people who found my music and were in my Discord server and I'm able to reference things that they were talking about in my Discord, whether it was like Pokémon or something.

Kade: Shout out the JesseMelancholy Discord.

Jesse: Yeah, it's goated. It's a goated place. I think because my fanbase is very small, I , I pretty much know everyone on some, small level. So, it's really cool to be able to do that and I really pride myself in doing that because it is a community and I've met so many cool people.

Oh, another one is someone was recording my whole set on their 3DS and it was the same 3DS model that I had as a kid, but I sold it because I was so dumb. I don't know why I did it. I sold my childhood 3DS in when I was like 15 or 14 or something. And it was cool to see them just posted up with my childhood 3DS model pointed at me. It was great. Yeah, that was a cool one, too.

Kade: Then when looking forward to the future, one thing I thought might be cool to think about is if we were to have a conversation and I interviewed you again in five years, what would be something you’d want to be able to look back on and think, I'm really proud of this accomplishment?

Jesse: I think it's not as huge as maybe some people would say, but I'd just really love to proudly say that I sold out a full length tour, like Australian tour or perhaps even more than that. And to say that I've performed in America and it went well and things like that. Because I think those are the things I think about a lot. I think live shows, as much as they're not entirely my forte as someone who started on my laptop in my room, I think they are kind of an amalgamation of everything you're doing. I think it all goes back to that in some way, not all the time, but yeah, to say that I've like sold out a tour fully and to be like proud of it would be amazing.

I think as well just to have an amazing back catalogue of music would be phenomenal. I just want to build my discography up and [for it to] be all bangers, you know what I mean? And that’s what we're doing right now, you know, that's what we're in the process of. So hopefully in five years, I have a magnum opus, like a Bohemian Rhapsody or something. I don't know. Crazy.

Kade: Another thing that I wanted to ask was, as an artist, both visually and sonically, do you think you've figured out who you want to be or do you think that's still kind of an open-ended process at the moment?

Jesse: I don't think we ever know who we are to be honest with you, and I think that we all have an idea of who we are, but we're always finding new things to enjoy. We're all finding new quirks about ourselves, and we're all going through different things constantly and I think there's never a point in life where you 100% know who you are because tomorrow you'll like something new and you'll want to do something new. So I think I just want to keep learning, learn about myself, find new media to enjoy and consume and obsess over. And I think I just want to keep doing that.

Kade: One thing that I've asked a couple artists now, and I think I would like to continue to ask, is if you could look over the next year, the next 365 days, and you could name three things that you would like to accomplish in that time, what would those three things be?

Jesse: Number one, drop an awesome project entitled Bending Over Backwards.

Number two, perform more, and more frequently and epically and swagly.

Number three, Become a Pokémon master. That's it.

Kade: Fuck yeah.

Jesse: Hell, yeah.

Kade: One last thing to ask, is if there's a message you could give your fans, your listeners, what would you like to say to them?

Jesse: Stay posted.

Check out JesseMelancholy below.