Josephine Sjelhøj
The rising artist Jack Cockrell has recently released his single ‘Fantasy’ off his upcoming EP ‘Debut’. We had a chat with the 20-year-old from Kings Lynn, Norfolk to get a better view on who he is as an artist and a person.
Jack has always been involved with performing even during his infant years being at a dance school and joining a choir. When he was seven years old, he received a guitar from his friend’s father as he saw him play and thought it was amazing. He naturally sang and played together, “It’s never been separate for me and as soon as I could string chord sequences together I would write songs – if you can call them that,” he says.
In high school, he received proper singing and guitar lessons getting a grade 8 in both. Jack has been in a few gigging bands, but his first gig was on his own. “I was within bands until recently and I found myself wanting to create the feeling of a band but on my own,” Jack tells us.
Jack started writing songs that were inspired by bands he loves like Queen, Foo Fighters, Imagine Dragons, and Slipknot. “Even though these bands are very different in terms of genre, they all have huge sounding songs and I love that,” he explains. “I want a song to feel like it’s being played at Wembley when you listen to it.”
Everything on Jack’s EP has been recorded with real drums, bass and guitar. Something that was incredibly important to him.
“The bands I respect, especially, Foo Fighters, emphasise on real music being played by real people. Not an average performance fixed. The drums have not been altered to be perfectly in time. Same with the bass, guitar, piano and synths. The vocals have not been tampered with. What you hear on the EP is what you would have heard if you stood next to me recording them.”
Jack has produced and recorded everything on the EP other than drums. “I am no drummer and I have a friend who has a great feel in his playing so I recorded him playing based on some beats I had made in demos,” he says.
