Q&A: The Inner Workings of Jax Fleming on ‘I’ll Be Fine’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY CHLOE GONZALES ☆
“AND EVEN UP OR CLOSE TO I’LL BE FINE, I DIDN’T REALLY HAVE A BRAND OR IMAGE IN MY HEAD,”— Jax Fleming tells me. “I had a lot of ideas, but not one set in stone. But now I feel like I’m getting closer to that.” I’ll Be Fine, Fleming’s latest EP, feels like a solidification of who the artist is. Jax Fleming approaches this new era with abstract depictions of his being, questioning who he is at the heart of himself. Songs like “Macie” show his pop star side combined with “HiLo” show his breadth of what the singer can become with its synthy sounds and strong drumming. “Twilight” drones and hums with bass it collects pressure for the chorus.
These songs also showcase a unique music palette for the Midwest, which he is from. Currently in Kentucky, it's hard to miss all the country music that defines the state. The EP, released by Wally Opus, almost feels like a collection of songs that Fleming has made over the years, serving as a sonic palette for what’s more to come.
Luna had the pleasure to sit down with the singer to discuss I’ll Be Fine and the meaning surrounding it.
LUNA: How has the promotion been for this EP? I noticed a lot of abstract TikToks and social media posts. Has it been what you wanted?
JAX FLEMING: I’m doing it all on my own, so I’m able to kind of get what I want from it. I feel like it’s like with anything else, like you have this vision of what you want this video to look like and then you shoot it and then get it back. It’s been an experiment. With “Superficial” promo that we did, I hired some buddies of mine and we rented a studio and did this whole thing. But with this EP, instead of paying someone to do it I just wanted to see what I could do.
LUNA: Has it been fun trying out everything or has it been a frustrating process?
JAX FLEMING: It definitely has aspects of being fun. There’s a different creativity that I’ve never really gotten into with editing videos and coming up with ideas. I will say the bad part is it takes me away from doing everything else, like I sit and I work on one of those videos for four hours, when I could have been writing another song.
LUNA: Who helped you make the album art and how did that come about?
JAX FLEMING: Abby Hill took the photo! She’s very talented. We did a little pop up photo shoot and she was like, “I know this really cool spot!” And then my girlfriend, Anna, helped me get it positioned.
LUNA: Knowing the previous promo that you’ve done, it feels very different from this newest EP. Do you feel like you’re more yourself or into a new era almost?
JAX FLEMING: I think I am coming into myself. When I started the solo project, I had no idea what I was doing and didn’t have any sort of direction. And even up or close to I’ll Be Fine, I didn’t really have a brand or image in my head. I had a lot of ideas, but not one set in stone. But now I feel like I’m getting closer to that.
LUNA: That’s exciting! I also wanted to talk about the two new songs that were previously unreleased before this EP came out. What inspired “Macie”?
JAX FLEMING: “Macie” is an interesting one. It definitely, at least in my opinion, sounds the most different. It has more of a pop vibe to it compared to everything else. I don’t even know if there’s any guitars in that—maybe an acoustic—but it’s very synthy pop rhythmic. That’s actually the first song that Wes (Jax’s producer) and I finished. And it was kind of the first song that connected and found our rhythm because when Altas (Jax’s previous project) broke up, we started having weekly sessions and neither of us really knew what we were doing or what we were going for. Yeah, we’re just kind of throwing stuff at the wall and then one day, I came in very upset. Instead of working on music, we had this sort of therapy session before and talked for a long time and he’s (Wes) taking notes while I’m pouring my heart out about this topic. And then he’s like, “Cool, let’s make a song out of this.” We immediately just started working on this song and that’s what “Macie” ended up being. There was no plan to really release it. It was just going to be a song for me, like a therapy song, But whenever it got closer to release and I wanted to do an EP, I was listening to it and was like, “Man, I really, really love this song,” and I feel like people might connect with it, so I might as well put it on there, even though that’s such a different sound to it.
LUNA: How much did you rework it before putting it on the EP?
JAX FLEMING: Nothing. It’s exactly how it was three years ago.
LUNA: Oh my gosh, that’s like a time capsule. That’s amazing that you kept it the same with your raw emotion.
JAX FLEMING: There are probably like 50 different versions of that song on our computer and the version you’re hearing is the first final version. Then we started messing with it over the year, trying to figure out what to do with it. We ended up scrapping all those ideas and just going back to the first.
LUNA: And “HiLo”, what inspired that one?
JAX FLEMING: “HiLo” was a song that also had a lot of different versions, like way too many when we worked on that song. It’s weird because–I went into “3am” and wrote the whole song, we finished the lyrics in a day, I went into the booth and sang, one take. That’s all one take, I didn’t have to go do anything, no BS. It was the fastest song I’ve ever made. And then you have a song like “HiLo,” where it takes six months and you are still confused on what you’re doing. It took a long time and honestly I don't even remember what the original one sounded like.
At the very end of the song, it goes into this like a bigger sounding chorus. That chorus was the original chorus. The whole song originally sounded big and had a lot of guitars and I think that was one of my producers cool creations where he took the demo and really messed with it to be more of a swing type of beat. That song is a hard one to talk about because it was a journey.
LUNA: Which was your favorite song to work with then?
JAX FLEMING: “Macie” was the first time that I wrote a song that healed me. I never really had that before. And for years I was struggling with this thing, and I sat down and talked about it and wrote a song, and it kind of took all that weight off. So in a songwriting aspect, that one would be my favorite. As far as a recording, it would be “I’ll Be Fine,” just because that one was the most raw.
LUNA: Can fans be excited for a music video or anything new coming up after this latest EP?
JAX FLEMING: A music video is in the talks right now. I have this stop motion video I did with Abby (album art photographer) and I think we are going to do a whole video like that!
