FEATURE:
Spotlight
PHOTO CREDIT: Brantley Gutierrez
but I really love her new E.P., LED Moon. Jordan Joy is an Irish-born, London-based artist. She is the eldest daughter of U2’s Bono (Paul Hewson). It is hard to avoid though, when talking about artists with parents who are also artists, there is that temptation to talk only about that. Jordan Joy is an amazing and singular artist who, no doubt, was exposed to so much incredible music growing up. She spent her formative adult years in New York studying poetry, and she is inspired by artists such as New Order, and LCD Soundsystem. It must have been wonderful and oddly romantic in New York reading poetry from the likes of Frank O’Hara and spending amazing nights immersed in the Brooklyn music scene. She brings so much of her travels, previous life, loves and multiple gifts to her debut E.P. I did want to cover off some interviews, as we get to know more about Jordan Joy. Many interviews naming her as ‘Jordan Joy Hewson’, but as she is ‘Jordan Joy’ for her music, that is the name I am using. On 12th November, she performs as part of The Great Escape’s First Fifty showcase (with Esmeralda Road, Xanadu, and Pack of Animals). You can get tickets here. I will end with a review of LED Moon, but there are four interviews to spotlight before that. The first two take us back to the summer. Let’s start off with NYLON and their conversation from earlier this year. They caught Jordan Joy at a moment when she was experience passport issues. Unable to enter the U.S. Painful, as NYLON point out, as she “wouldn’t even have a music career if she hadn’t left New York City during the pandemic six years ago”. Chatting around the release of the single, Don’t Kill the Vibe, we get a little window and insight into the now-released E.P. It is up there with the best of the year:
“You obviously come from a very musical family, but I'd love to hear more about your relationship to music. Were you taking lessons growing up? Who were you listening to as a child? Who are some of your biggest inspirations?
I have a really eclectic taste in music. As a really young kid, I was listening to The Spice Girls. I was really obsessed with Vanessa May, who was a classical violinist. I loved piano. I did think about going to music college for piano, and ultimately didn't. There was a lot of music going on in our house, a lot of different sounds and things.
The first record my godfather gave me was David Bowie's Hunky Dory, and it was the most amazing music I'd ever heard. Then I got really into Pearl Jam. Yeah, I love guitar music. I'm learning the guitar now.
How have your friends and family reacted to the music so far?
Initially nobody knew I was writing songs, so there was definitely some shock there. But then they were like, "Oh, this makes sense. You actually make more sense as a person now that we see you in this way." That's been really cool. I've felt really supported and encouraged in terms of putting it out there, because it takes a lot to do that. I don't think I could be doing it without my friends backing me.
Has your father offered you any advice or guidance as you navigate the music industry?
He has his own experience, which is so unique. Any [other] artist will never have that experience. But he's good on the reality checks. That has been helpful. But I try to not take any advice, really. They're different experiences and it's coming from a different place. I watched Eli really chart his own course and make his own decisions, and that has worked out for him. The same with my sister [Eve]. I'm doing that for myself now as well. And the industry has changed so much. I don't even know that the industry he was in is the same that it is today. But he comes in with the reality checks, that's for sure. They could be heavy.
What do you hope fans take away from these songs and the EP?
Whether it's this EP or the next one, I really want it to be about breaking free from expectation, doing your own thing, and taking a leap of faith. If people are listening to that on the getaway drive from something they've walked away from or something they're walking towards, that would make me feel really proud of the work. That's the story that I hope to share. I hope that fans might find just a little bit of rebellion maybe in it, too”.
I am moving to Flood Magazine and their incredible interview. I do think next year is going to be one where Jordan Joy is performing at a lot of music festivals. I would not bet against a Glastonbury slot. It is clear that LED Moon has been embraced by a lot of people. An artist who I feel will keep growing in stature and brilliance:
“After founding the social activist company Speakable a decade ago, which landed her on Forbes’ “30 Under 30” list shortly after, Jordan Hewson briefly released music as Tenderhooks before adopting the Jordan Joy moniker
A combination of life changes propelled her in this direction. She was living in New York when she started Speakable, which was acquired a year into the pandemic. She did some consulting, but didn’t join the new parent company. Her long-term relationship came to an end, and she moved back to Dublin to be near family during lockdown where she started writing songs. Although classically trained on the piano before abandoning the instrument to study political science at Columbia University, songwriting was new territory. “My life did a 180 in about 18 months,” she says. “I had been intentional about the life path I was on. I worked really hard to get there. To let it all go at once, I had to say goodbye to my life in a very unceremonious way. But it was an amazing moment. It needed to happen. I needed to grow in that way. I don’t love to embrace change and the instability of that, but it freed me up to explore this part of me that maybe I was running from. That rupture helped me open up to music.
Among the hardest parts of launching her music career has been adjusting to today’s norms in which artists are ripping off their skin to show everyone their insides, pouring all their trauma into their songs, leaving themselves open and vulnerable to the world. Not only that, but also reliving those painful experiences with every professional or social interaction they have. “How do you maintain authenticity doing that professionally?” Jordan queries. “I have no idea how that works. I think that’s why I kept music secret for so long when I was developing it. I didn’t know how it would change my instincts to hear my music through other people’s ears. I wanted to protect it as much as I could until I knew I was ready. It takes a lot to put your work out there, to put your emotions out there. It’s not just in front of people that it’s challenging. Even to go there privately is hard. What’s felt amazing so far is sharing it has made me more inspired.”
The shift from releasing music as Tenderhooks to her own name reflects Jordan’s growth as an artist. Musically, moving from strictly electronically produced sounds to acoustic instruments gives her versatility from a stripped-back to a filled-out presentation. She calls Tenderhooks “intimacy with sharp edges, tenderness as armor, something you could wear.” But to be her truest self, she needed to remove that protection. By that same token, she had to sing in her most honest voice. “My favorite singers are the ones where you can hear their irritation,” she says. “We’re losing character in vocals because everyone’s trying to be perfect, and I think it’s a loss for music. It’s so important to be flawed. It’s what makes it real. In many ways, I’m grateful that I didn’t go through a strict training of my voice. Intimacy is my goal as a singer”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Jessica Madavo
I am going to take quite a large chunk from an interview with The Irish Times that was published yesterday (11th October). It is clear that, although Jordan Joy is based in London, Ireland is very much in her heart and soul. It is what drives her and where she is from. It runs through her blood. Also, I guess New York has a special place in her heart too:
“At 19, Hewson went to Columbia University in New York to study political science, influenced by her early experiences touring the world. “Growing up with my parents being activists, I was exposed to really serious issues at a very young age. Even in school, we took a trip as a class to Uganda and visited schools over there. I felt inspired by people I’d met. I wanted to figure out if I could be useful.”
There was another draw in her life, however. At Columbia, she was allowed to take classes outside her direct degree. “I took an introduction to poetry class with an insanely good poet called Josh Bell. He became a mentor to me. He was like, ‘What are you doing when you graduate?’ And I was like, ‘Oh I’m going to go and work in communications.’ He was like, ‘Why? We have an MFA programme here and I’d be happy to write you a letter of recommendation.’ I was like, ‘No, it’s cool, I’m going to get a job.’
A year spent working in the non-profit and communications sector changed her mind.
‘I hope that I can put an album together soon. That would be the goal. I’m happiest making music’
“A year in, I was on the phone to him, being like, ‘Can I please get a letter of recommendation? I would love to study this.’ Studying under Tim Donnelly and the late Lucie Brock-Broido, she graduated with a master of fine arts in poetry, publishing work in Boston Review and A Public Space.
It may seem odd to some that Hewson didn’t pick up a pen in those early years to write songs as well as poetry. Did the family business have an inhibiting effect?
“I didn’t think it was possible for me to be an artist,” she says. “The industry looked intimidating. I think you have to really know who you are to be an artist. I was too young ... And it wasn’t a part of myself I was open to.”
Hewson had played piano from a young age, studying with the well-known composer and musician Dawn Kenny. “She was very inspiring to me,” she says. “She taught me a lot by ear and made sure I kept my love of piano going. We still text all the time.”
Hewson also had the virtues that come with a life less ordinary – at a joint birthday celebration for George Clooney at Cafe Habana in Malibu in 2014, Bono and Jordan (father and daughter share a May 10th birthday) sang karaoke, performing the duet Something Stupid. The best-known version had been recorded by Frank Sinatra and his daughter Nancy.
In 2023, with an early, musical project called Tenderhooks, she was trying to find both her sound and her nerve: “With Tenderhooks it was about getting comfortable with the vulnerability of being an artist.”
Her siblings all helped around the recording. “Eve has a lot of experience with putting herself out there. She’s very focused,” she says. “John is very wise and he’ll tell me if something is good or crap. He’s got a great musical sensibility. In the early days, when I was just starting to write songs, Eli [Inhaler’s Elijah] was showing me the ropes. And my cousin Duncan is the person who would help me demo my first songs to send to producers. So there’s a lot of support and interest in the family.”
The gorgeously woozy closing song on the EP came about when Eli accidentally slowed down the title track while attempting to record backing vocals, and Jordan sang over her own pitched-down vocals, with harmonies from her frequent collaborator Jackson Phillips.
Recently, Hewson went back to New York for a photo-shoot. “I had tears in my eyes,” she says. “I realised I was writing about my life in New York, and processing leaving it. But now I live in London and I love it too. A lot of my Irish friends are in London”.
I am really excited about Jordan Joy. Speaking with 1883 Magazine earlier this month, Jordan Joy guides them through her new E.P. I wanted to highlight a few parts of the interview. If you have not connected with her yet then make sure that you do. This is such an interesting artist. In terms of her background, upbringing, connection to the U.S. and where she is now. I can see her winning multiple awards as a solo artist and headlining. It is tantalising to think just what this truly wonderful songwriter can achieve and where she will go. Here, Jordan Joy speaks about an E.P. that everyone needs to hear:
“‘I’m proud of this project because in many ways I never thought I would make it. Music came to me at a time in my life when I wasn’t expecting it. My life had turned upside down and instead of looking for safety, I leaned into the unknown when I started writing music, and I am proud of choosing to do that.
I started writing songs purely as a survival mechanism—a private melodic diary. And I kept it a secret, from family and friends while I was figuring out my voice. So, to see these songs out in the world is an amazing thing.
I was really overthinking my instincts in the beginning, and I am unlearning how to do that. I’m learning how to keep the edges into everything that I make, and how important it is to leave in errors and imperfections – they’re part of the creative. You need mistakes in a piece of art.
‘Don’t Kill My Vibe’
Don’t Kill the Vibe was the last song we wrote on the record. I loved the instrumental the best, but we ran out of time in the studio, and I was going back to London the next evening. Before going to the airport, I went into Jackson’s studio and recorded a temp melody and lyric on the song but then its kind of just stuck and became the thing. It’s a domestic argument between a couple at a party in the kitchen at the end of a relationship— Wanting to go out on a high and a refusal to let the night go to waste. I think how we end relationships is sometimes more important than how we start them. How you remember the last taste someone left in your mouth, matters, and this song is making a case for that. I finished the song in London with producer Catherine Marks.
‘Indigo Girl’
“She leaves the strangest impression, but you’re kinda obsessed.” Indigo girl came out on a day when I had no lyrical inspiration whatsoever just a cool track we made in the studio. It’s not really a song, so much as a scene I imagined taking place. Maybe from the first 10 minutes of a film where a lost protagonist goes out to a bar and meets an unlikely obsession. A girl in blue shoes, dancing alone without obvious sex appeal, but with self-possession and something so characteristically weird, it’s beguiling. She’s the unexpected heroine of your night, and of your fascination. I wrote this with my friend Jackson with M83 on the radio as we were driving around Los Angeles. There’s a track called Graveyard Girl we were listening to that maybe inspired it”.
I am going to finish off with a review of LED Moon from Off the Record Press. I just adore her voice and her lyrics. In terms of the images she paints and her way with words. It is magnificent. The role of synths and how big and bright they are. So many different colours and emotions come through them. There is this mix of Synth-Pop and Indie-Pop. I am based in London, so I shall try and get down to see her play in Hackney next month. If I can’t make it, then she is certainly someone I would love to interview. You just know that she is going to be this massive artist who soon will command these enormous venues. Or she may want to keep it intimate. Some low-key gigs in the U.S. and a few select venues around the U.K. She can go anywhere and do anything:
“Nostalgia is both a girl’s best friend and her worst enemy, and Irish-born singer-songwriter Jordan Joy knows this all too well. With the release of her debut single “Don’t Kill the Vibe” earlier this year, indie-pop lovers now have another emerging voice to play on repeat.
Joy followed her debut single with the release of two more singles, “Indigo Girl” and “LED Moon,” and finally her very first EP titled LED Moon. With young life in New York as the project’s cultural and emotional landscape, the five tracks come together to create a dreamy narrative exploring themes of love, change, and finding your place.
Immediately within the first few seconds of “LED Moon” you’re transported into an atmosphere similar to that of hazy late night filled with a vaguely familiar nagging in the back of your mind that something isn’t fully right: “No one falls in love tonight / But baby let me see you try / The sky in artificial light.”
The chorus is hypnotic repetition and pulsing synths that pull you in with a disorienting amount of intimacy. It almost seems as though the song is acknowledging something you refuse to: “Under the LED moon / Don’t let your soul get so lost.”
The final song on the EP, “LED Moon (Slower),” is a direct reflection of “LED Moon” that develops a more expansive atmospheric feeling within the song.
“Don’t Kill the Vibe” differs in its approach at remaining ignorant to something that isn’t working. The track resembles a seemingly endless night that you pray drags on just a little longer: “You say I’m to blame / Sulking like a king / Tonight with me / You can’t prove me wrong.”
The verses hold a confident, almost sultry, tone that makes you want to stay just a little longer: “You say you and me / The spark is gone (you can’t prove a thing) / Just hold my glass while I prove you wrong (let me prove you wrong).” Though the confidence does little to distract from the real tension that’s hidden under the pretense of this relationship: “Faking boredom, I can feel it / Pick a fight, and I’ll dismiss it / (Don’t kill the vibe) tell yourself it’s overrated / Look at me pretend you hate it.”
“One on One” finally acknowledges what she used to be so good at hiding from: “The dawn fires warnings / On something I shouldn’t say.” The upbeat soundscape tries to cover the underlying nervousness: “The flood lights adore me / Covering my mistakes.” Ultimately, confrontation comes to a head: “Have we something to hide? / Have we nothing to hide?”
“Indigo Girl” captures the freedom of letting go and embracing the things that make you different: “She leaves the strangest impression / But you’re kinda obsessed / Can’t put your finger on how / She has you possessed.”
The song itself is delivered in a way that’s comparable to spoken word poetry set to music rather than a song that’s sung: “She tangles a sentence of that night in her hair.” Considering Joy studied poetry and literature in New York, this certain style feels more than authentic: “She trips off the beat / But she’s more on than you feel.”
With sonic references to New York, a collaboration with brother and lead singer of Inhaler, Elijah Hewson, and lyrical poetry that hits you in all the right places, LED Moon marks the beginning of an exciting new era for Jordan Joy”.
I have a lot of love for the music of Jordan Joy. Even if I am a recent convert – if that is the right word?! -, she has got into my heart right away! I love LED Moon and can imagine these songs sounding spellbinding and hugely atmospheric on the stage. Next year is going to be a big one for her. I feel she will do so much and play around the world. For now, she will be gearing up for a London gig next month and, whether she is in the U.S. now or back in the U.K., I do hope that she is getting loads of messages about her E.P. and how great it is. This Irish-born artist is someone you simply…
SHOULD not live without .
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