It’s clearly a busy time for Jessie J. Her gig at the Harbourside on June 27 will be her 43rd this year after touring most of the planet for her third album Sweet Talker. And it seems especially hectic right now. When the What’s On gets five minutes with her over the phone ahead of her Bristol gig, it sounds like a potential airport nightmare has just been averted.
“We lost a bag at the airport,” says Jessie – who has just arrived in Copenhagan. “It had shoes and toiletries – a lot of toiletries, I’m a toiletry fiend. Basically, I would have been really dirty, and had no makeup,” she laughs.
But apart from this, all seems to be going well with the tour and the singer is clearly in her element. Over the last week she has played in Barcelona and Lisbon – where she actually managed to have a few days off. Before the current Europe tour, she was in Australia, Asia and the USA – which means she’s been on the move pretty much constantly for the last seven months.
But it sees like the relentless touring comes with the territory for the singer. In the last few years she has made the leap from being essentially a very successful UK performer to a full-blown global star, thanks to growing support in the US and Australia.
The latest album features appearances from American megastars Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj and De La Soul, and was made with the help of big-name producers The-Dream, Diplo and Tricky Stewart. Meanwhile, she is set to appear as a judge in The Voice Australia, due to be broadcast later this year. So it’s not surprising to hear she sees this latest phase as an upwards step in her career.
“If you want something, you just do it – you know?” she says. “You get a job, and you get a promotion. This feels like I am getting a promotion. This tour is a bit longer and a bit harder. You learn what you need and what you don’t need. I have been doing this for seven years now. It’s what I do.”
Since starting touring in January, she has had a couple of chances to spend the odd day off in Los Angeles – where she recorded the album – and her London hometown. But these spells of down time are clearly few and far between.
What does she do when she actually does get time to herself?
“I catch up on my sleep, see family and friends, go bowling,” she says. “I love being outside – I get to see the random places in the world when I’m touring.”
It seems the last time she came to Bristol was way back in 2011 – the year her first album Who You Are came out and things really started to take off for her. Back then, she played at the O2 Academy. The city has probably been left off the touring schedule since then simply because – until we get the new Arena – there’s nowhere in town quite big enough to do the multi-million seller justice.
But as it happens, Jessie has fond memories from another visit to the city.
“I used to visit Bristol – mum and dad would take us over for the day. I thought you had to be clever to live there – I don’t know why. It’s one of those weird things. I was really, really young,” says Jessie, who grew up in Redbridge, London and went to the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology.
The singer is very easy to get along with, and is generous with her answers. So it’s a shame when the interview takes a slightly awkward turn near the end of the five minutes. It’s clearly a mistake to ask whether things have settled down now following a Twitter storm last month. Fans had taken it personally when the singer unfollowed everyone she had been following on the site. Jessie received some furious tweets, and took to the site to defend herself.
Cue several hundred blog posts around the internet.
On the one hand, it is obviously not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But it does seem like an interesting insight into how stars relate to fans online in 2015 – and seems like a good talking point. But bring it up today and she immediately changes the subject, asking pointedly: “What do you think of my new single Flashlight?”
This reporter had to own up to not having heard the song yet. So there’s a bit of a tense pause, and the chat gets swiftly wound up by her assistants.
It feels like a shame to leave it on that note. But happily it won’t impact on a great coup for the city when she comes to play on Saturday.
