artist interviews
jack davies
twenty three, he/him
what is your art form?
music.
what do you do and why do you do it?
i make acoustic sounds on my own and with a band. it's how i connect with the world when things feel unsteady. i love playing music with friends and hope to keep doing that for the rest of my days.
who/what has inspired you in your artistic practice and why?
i'm really in love with late night dives into different music genres and exploring new artists, it teaches you what you like. i love strange noises and old songs and i want to explore those sounds in my own recording. i think that'll be the biggest change to any new songs i make. music as an art form feels like my connection to the world around me, and as i grow as a person and my tastes change that connection will change too.
i guess at first i just wanted to write folk songs with nice lyrics, because it was what i loved listening to, it's what made me feel. i think now days though i've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole falling in love all sorts of new sounds and old timey songs, and i'm learning what i like, and learning to be ok with pursuing that.
what do you think your role is as an artist? has anything stopped you from fulfilling this role?
i want to create things that are nice to listen to. i'm not a good dancer, and i'm not much of a punk, or any of the other things you could be that give a musician purpose. but i feel lots of big things listening to music and i want to create more of that.
my biggest obstacle is probably my own anxieties, a lot of times when i make things i like i never use them. or i do use them and i over refine them because i don't want to leave any mistakes in the recording. being too picky can take away some of the magic that makes them special in the first place. i'm learning to be more in the moment with writing and recording.
my other big obstacle is emailing and texting and day to day life, i hide from my phone like it's a big scary monster. that makes organising things difficult.
what have been the biggest challenges in your artistic journey?
self organisation, self criticism.
do you believe that good art comes from turmoil and suffering, or is that a romantic notion?
that's a romantic notion. good art comes from passion and impulse and dedication. i think people who are drawn to making art often have other things going on in life or with their health that causes them pain. sometimes good art is painful, i remember liking the works of stelarc and he used to do performance pieces where he hangs from hooks. that looks painful. but on a broader level i think it's a confusion of correlation and causation.
how do you feel your age impacts your experience as an artist?
i feel less optimistic as i get older, i also feel more in love with music. i'm becoming more introverted with it in a way.
what about your gender/race/sexuality/disability etc.?
i'm quite a privileged person. so my experience is quite privileged, i don't get harassed or intimidated often. but i see it. and it makes me very uncomfortable to be the beneficiary of the predispositions of what is a very traumatised and racist country. i think i sometimes make myself smaller because of this, but this is unhelpful. moving forward, really i need to be more of an advocate to those working to dismantle the structures in place. making art in an invaded country means you can never really be apolitical.
when it comes to art, what would you tell your younger self?
alcohol makes you sing worse. ginger tea makes you sing better : )