Interview - JW Paris


Gemma Clarke, Danny Collins, and Aaron Forde make up JW Paris, a three-piece inspired by 90s grunge and Britpop. "Sober," "Favourite Thing," and "Royalty," their first three songs, earned national and international airplay from Jack Saunders on BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music, SiriusXM, Absolute Radio, and Radio X. To mention a few, they have backed The Amazons, Skinner Brothers, Yonaka, and Avalanche Party.

Welcome to this interview. Tell us about your latest release Electric Candle Light.
Danny Collins (vocals/guitar): Electric Candle Light (ECL) is a futuristic-analogue-nostalgia fuelled track all about those nights where you seem to fall into a time-lapse and wish for those past better days. It came out on 25th March and has been featured with nationwide radio play on Jack Saunders (BBC Radio 1), John Kennedy (Radio X), Frankie Francis and Shell Zenner (Amazing Radio UK & USA), Frank Skinner (Absolutely Radio) and has made it onto the Radio X playlist for two weeks straight. It was also featured on the “New in Rock” Apple Music Spotify playlist, was chosen as single of the day by This Feeling and has seen over 20+ indie blogger reviews. It’s been great hearing the crowds sing it back to us!

How would you describe your sound?
Danny Collins: It’s 90’s/brit-pop vibe but with heavier grungy guitars. For fans of, Nirvana, Blur and The Amazons.

What do you write about?
Danny Collins: We tend to ensure that everything we write about is real life experiences we’ve been through as individuals. Anything ranging from social commentary to some pretty dark periods of our lives. Currently we have a raft of new songs being finalised which has seen some of our most honest writing yet. It’s important to us to build a connection with our songs so when you hear us belting them out on stage, it’s authentic.

What do you listen to when you are home?
Danny Collins: We listen to everything from Northern Soul through to Seattle’s grunge. What’s currently on my Spotify is the new Fontaines DC album and Panic Shack.

Your favourite live performance so far?
Danny Collins: This is a tough question! They all have a special space in our hearts, each show is always unique. For example, a recent show a woman ran out of venue holding her ears as we were so loud. That was incredible to see. 

For us, favourite live performances really come when the crowd is buzzing, singing our songs back to us and just feeling it. We always give our best whether it’s to 1 person or 1,000 in the audience.

Tell us a funny story that happened in studio or on stage.
Danny Collins: We’ve been told, me and our lead singer Alex, we’re like Kevin and Perry with Gemma, our drummer, putting up with the absolutely shenanigans we end up in. There is not just one funny story, it’s basically our whole time being in the band. Recent example would be, we were in Stoke on a Wednesday night. An empty bar, just one person in the audience who arrived with a Playstation 3 under their arm with no leads or controllers - odd way to enter a gig, right? Anyway, we go on first and this person goes absolutely wild for our set, so wild they completely strip off all their clothes, naked dancing to our last song. They quickly left but did leave behind the lone PlayStation!

Your favourite albums?
Danny Collins: Modern Life is Rubbish or anything by The Beatles

A musician you would like to meet for a beer?
Danny Collins: Keith Richards - to see where it goes.

What would you ask for backstage, if you were the most important band on earth?
Danny Collins: Hairspray and Champagne!

What are your plans for the near future?
Danny Collins: We’ve got a whole raft of songs in the studio at the moment, hopefully a full album’s worth. But in the next few months expect our next single and then we will continue our run of the festivals this summer with Truck Festival on This Feelings stage alongside The Skinner Brothers.
Then we will be back out on tour in September/October time.

 
Giovanni Gagliano

Passionate about music I wrote my first article for "Given To Rock" in 2012, reaching now 30K global followers. I am also a musician, gigging around London.

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