If you're a keen scourer of new music every week chances are you would've come across a new artist by the name of JXN recently. JXN is the musical project of Jackson Brazier who has dropped his debut single Solitude a few months ago and today dropped his second single Red Lights, featuring A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie. The moody, R&B-influenced breakup song is an impressive start for the 25 year-old newcomer that pricked our ears up almost immediately.
Solitude was co-written in Sweden with close collaborator Johan Gustafson and comes after a few years of Brazier working on his sound. According to the artist himself, he's got plenty more in the vault but for now, we've got Red Lights on repeat.
We caught up with JXN to chat about the song, his approach to writing music and what's in store for the future.
Why did it feel right for ‘Solitude’ to be your first release?
Yeah it does. I think this one, I’ve always felt something for it and everyone else was saying the same thing. I’m happy. I think this song is a good song to come out with. It’s a breakup song and pretty much everyone has been through what that song says.
Is there a particular setting you imagine people listening to it in?
It’s a bedroom song or it’s a rainy day car song. Looking out the window with the rain, headphones on.
You’ve had heaps of success online but your goal has always been to move into music. How does it feel for it to be finally happening?
It’s pretty much crazy to be honest. I never actually thought I’d be where I am because I never knew how to get here. From the start, I was straight into basketball and it was my life until two years ago. I made a decision to split it and then I focussed on writing and realised I was not a bad writer. People were giving me really good feedback and saying I could do it. Having so many people say so many good things about the first song I wrote myself, lyrically and melodically, was so crazy. I used to write like Jack Johnson and John Mayer-style things. They were heavy influences back in the day.
It’s hard to go from starting to write on an acoustic guitar or piano and then turning that into your signature sound. The sound you’ve landed on has RnB and hip-hop influences. Was there a moment for you when you decided that was the direction you wanted to go in?
My music is heavily influenced by Post Malone’s early days. I love his story how he wrote his song in his friends garage in the outskirts of LA and just dropped it. He stuck to it and it ended up being such a massive song. I love the song. He just puts out what he really wants to make.
Do you try to have a DIY approach to creating music?
I’m just making what I want to make and I really don’t want people telling me what I want to make. It’s not going to be me and it’s not going to get me anywhere. I never write to beats that are already made. I don’t have any creative input in it so it doesn’t feel like me. If I start with scratch with producers and have an input it’s way easier to write to and it feels way more personal. I don’t want to sing anyone else's songs that aren’t mine and put my name to it.
Is there anybody’s career trajectory that you’ve watched and admired?
Troye Sivan has kept the credibility of being an artist the whole way through and that’s what I want to do. I want people to take me seriously for my music because it’s been my passion forever.
Where have you worked on your music mostly?
I’ve recorded all the good songs I’ve made in Sweden. I met a guy in Australia who was down for a writing trip. We got along very well and he loves the style of music I was making. He asked me to come to Sweden and I’ve been twice now and stayed with him.
Let’s look a year forward from now, where would you ideally be?
I want to be playing the bigger Australian festivals and hopefully I will have already done a headline tour of my own, even just a small cap room tour. I want to have done one or two of them in major cities here and then just go as global as possible. I just want everyone in the world to hear my stuff.
