radionotes podcast episodes

Jessica Braithwaite feels this way

by | May 23, 2021 | episodes | 0 comments

Jessica Braithwaite feels this way

Feel This Way is the debut Single from the award winning journalist turned highly respected TV News Weather Presenter Jessica Braithwaite. They’re also the feature guest for our 100th episode.

Braithwaite has worked on the new music under her name with Juno Award nominated Producer Stuart Brawley, One Direction live drummer Josh Devine and many more as described in this chat with John Murch of radionotes…

To listen, click ‘play’… may take few seconds to load: 

IMAGE CREDIT: Carolyn Do

Recorded at Whipped Bar Cafe in Semaphore, that since the chat has changed it’s name to High Tide and has a new mural from the same artist – Alex Bellas – that painted the mural on the new radionotes’ studio.

SHOW NOTES: Jessica Braithwaite on Feels This Way

Hear the debut Single here:

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Feel This Way:

Feature Guest: Jessica Braithwaite

Introducing the new Single – Who You Know

Hayley Mary:

Next Feature Guest: Andrew Shapiro

 

If you’ve not already ‘following’ radionotes Podcast – we can be found on Spotify, Apple and Google Podcast, Overcast, Stitcher, PocketCasts, iHeart Radio and more…

CREDITS

Theme/Music: Martin Kennedy and All India Radio   

Web-design/tech: Steve Davis

Voice: Tammy Weller  

You can make direct contact with the podcast – on the Contact Page

TRANSCRIPT: Jessica Braithwaite

First version provided by REV team member Andrew John H – check to audio before quoting wider

Tammy Weller:
Jessica Braithwaite grew up in Mount Gambier, the birthplace of Dave Graney and the home of the Blue Lake. Known as the weather presenter for 9 News Adelaide, Jessica is also a talented singer-songwriter, who after many years in bands, released in 2020, their solo debut single Feel This Way. Produced by Juno award nominated Stuart Brawley, who’s worked on recordings for Celine Dion, Michael Jackson, Lenka, Don Henley, Cher, and many others. The music they made together also includes a member of One Direction on the drums. With her second child cradled in her arms, Jessica spoke to radionotes at the Whipped Bake Bar Cafe in Semaphore, by the sea, about the journey to releasing new music, and how it feels.

John Murch:
Welcome to radionotes.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Thank you for having me.

John Murch:
We’re going to have a chat about you and music. And I guess, what people may not know by the quality of the single Feel This Way, is that you really started music at college. But what was it about being in college and playing the guitar?

Jessica Braithwaite:
It’s really funny, because yeah, I didn’t play guitar as a kid growing up or anything, but I’d always just loved music. And what happened is my first boyfriend gave me a guitar for Christmas. And it was one of those things that up until that point, I’d always sort of said, “I’d love to play guitar.” In the same way that you might say, “Oh, I’d love to Italian, or I’d love to learn how to cook French food.” Never really thinking that it would actually happen. But then I had this guitar in my hands, and I started to just start picking away at it, and I never had lessons. So it was funny, me and my brother would just sit there with this guitar and we would look at the picture of what a chord shape would be, and we would play the chord. And we had this list of the chords, and we would circle the ones that we liked the sounds of.

Jessica Braithwaite:
And it’s so basic, but really once you have two or three chords under your belt, as a songwriter, you’re often away, you only need three chords to write a song. So, it was just a really quick, “Oh, I have this guitar. Okay. I can play some chords now. Oh my God. That means I can start writing songs.”

John Murch:
Back then.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
We are looking at someone who may have been going through some angsty times.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
How much has that guitar and do you still have it?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
Formed part of the therapy of you as an individual who looks inward a lot?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Oh my God. I’ve never been asked that before, and it’s a really great question. I still have the guitar. My brother unfortunately, broke the neck of the guitar. I think he dropped it. And my mum was like, “Oh, can I throw this out now?” And I’m like, “You can never, ever, ever throw out… Do not ever throw out this guitar. I don’t care that the neck is broken.” I’m sentimental, and it’s so important to me. And it’s funny that you use the word therapy in terms of songwriting, because it is. And I notice that more so now, because when I don’t play for a while, because I have two kids, it’s like a buildup of energy, and not good energy in me. And then I pick up the guitar. I did it yesterday. I picked up the guitar for the first time in a while, and it was, it was like therapy.

Jessica Braithwaite:
And then, sometimes I’ll write a song, and this is even when I was back in college. I don’t really even necessarily know what the song is about, and that might sound really stupid, but the words just tumble out and you write them down. And it might not been until months later when I’ve been able to really have the perspective of knowing what I was going through at the time, or just have a bit more hindsight. And I’ll be like, “Oh, that’s what that song was about. I get it now.” It’s just sometimes it’s a stream of consciousness, but it is, its therapeutic and picking up the guitar is like seeing an old friend.

John Murch:
I’ve heard that years later even, whilst on the surface is that chorus is about the beach. Yeah, we went to the beach.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
We had ice cream. But there’s something in the verse.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
Maybe a line or something that really speaks to you, obviously.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Absolutely. And it might not mean the same thing to someone who’s listening to the song, might think it’s about something totally different. But inwardly you kind of know, oh yeah, that line is really getting to the core of who I am or what I was going through.

John Murch:
Debut single, Feel This Way. Jump forward now.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. Yeah.

John Murch:
To talk about, Feel This Way. My understanding is that it was a couple of years before you decide to release it.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
So let’s go back to the writing process of Feel This Way.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
What was that catalyst?

Jessica Braithwaite:
This is a great example of a song that, it not only takes on different meanings for different people, but it has even had different meanings for me over the time. But when I wrote that song, I had just landed in LA. I had been invited out there to record with this amazing producer that I still couldn’t believe that it was actually happening.

John Murch:
We need to stop there, because I actually thought you may have already had it in your suitcase.

Jessica Braithwaite:
No.

John Murch:
Oh, right.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
So let’s go back and talk about this story.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Okay.

John Murch:
We will get back to this very bookmark.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Okay.

John Murch:
So, what’s happened is, Stuart Brawley. Stuart Brawley, by the way, is the Juno award nominated producer based in LA. He’s worked alongside of Celine Dion, people like Michael Jackson. He’s had a twig get Seal. He’s worked with Darren Hayes. Stuart has contacted you.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Well, so yeah. It’s a funny story. I contacted Stuart.

John Murch:
All right.

Jessica Braithwaite:
And-

John Murch:
Why did you contact Stuart?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Well, this is the thing.

John Murch:
Juno award nominated Stuart-

Jessica Braithwaite:
I know. This is ridiculous.

John Murch:
Had you had a few wines Jessica?

Jessica Braithwaite:
At least two.

John Murch:
Right.

Jessica Braithwaite:
It’s so funny how this… Okay. And there’s someone that I can blame for this. His name is Tony Robbins. Have you heard of Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker?

John Murch:
So that was the motivational book you were reading at the time.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Two things coincided. Number one, I read some advice that was, if you want to record some music, have a listen around to some artists whose music you like, and look to see who produced it. And so, I was listening to some songs that I like, and I really like Lenka, this song that she has called The Show, which I really like. And I had assumed that she, being an Australian artist and kind of a bit of an indie kind of a chick, that, that song would’ve been produced by an Australian producer who might at a long shot, want to work with me. And so I Googled it. Okay. It’s produced by a bloke called Stuart Brawley. Okay. Who’s Stuart Brawley? Oh crap, Stuart Brawley is this mega star music producer. He’s based in Hollywood. And so, I’m looking at that and I’m going, “Oh my God, of course this bloke’s never going to want to work with me.”

Jessica Braithwaite:
And now this is where Tony Robbins comes into it, because at the same time I was reading this book by Tony Robbins. And he has this mantra, I guess, or a piece of advice where he recommends, easier sometimes to achieve the impossible than it is to achieve the mediocre. Because most people look at the impossible and go, “Well, obviously I’ll never be able to do that, so I’ll aim for the next bracket below. I’ll just aim for this middle ground.”

John Murch:
Yeah.

Jessica Braithwaite:
And as a result, sometimes it’s easier to just try and do something impossible.

John Murch:
You had a few wines, and you thought?

Jessica Braithwaite:
I thought F it. I’ll just email him because, well, I mean, what will obviously happen, the email won’t go to him, it’ll go to a secretary. I had had my demos. He’ll never hear them. He’ll never listen to them, but I’ll know that I’ve tried. And whatever, I’ll email him. And I emailed him, and nothing happened, and I didn’t hear back, until about three or four months later. And I’m sitting at work and this email just drops into my inbox, and it’s like one sentence. And it’s just like, “Hey Jessica, I listen to your demos, loving what you’re up to. Do you want to come out and record?” And I’m like, “All right. This has got to be a scam or there’s some mistake has happened here.”

John Murch:
And you were pregnant at this point, weren’t you?

Jessica Braithwaite:
I was pregnant at this point, but no one knew. It was really weird, because I was thinking, obviously it’s a mistake, because why would this amazing producer want to work with me? And B, I’m pregnant. And I feel like I’m going to vomit in the bin at any minute right now. So the last thing I feel like doing is getting on a plane and going to L.A. I don’t even know if I’m capable of getting on a plane at the moment. But I don’t know, when you get an email from mega star Hollywood music producer asking you to go on record with them, it’s not the kind of thing that you say, “Oh, I’m going to say no this time.” Because opportunities like that don’t really come around twice. I don’t think so.

John Murch:
I’m going to speed up a little for you. So you now in L.A. You’re in the kitchen. Now, the Grammy Awards were just in the last few days here in the world at the time of record, all that kind of stuff.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
Post Malone had a song called Circles, which was up for record of the year. You had a cup of tea with the producer of Post Malone’s, Circles.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Isn’t it just the weirdest thing in the world? This guy, Manny Marroquin. I mean, he has produced, I think I’ve read a stat. I don’t know, maybe you can fact check it. Something along the lines of this guy, this studio, Manny Marroquin.

John Murch:
Yeah.

Jessica Braithwaite:
About 30% of the music that you hear on the radio, comes out of that studio.

John Murch:
Eight to nine Grammy Awards.

Jessica Braithwaite:
He’s just the king. And then there’s a guy that sits in the studio next door and does about the other 30%. He does all the hiphop stuff. And so it’s like you’re sitting in this recording studio and you’re like, “How did I even get here?” And then he walks in, and oh my God, he’s an actual normal person that you just chat to about the weather or whatever.

John Murch:
Yeah. What kind of tea does he drink?

Jessica Braithwaite:
I should have taken note.

John Murch:
Should have.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
But one thing we took note of is, well, I took note of, is that last minute, the live drummer.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
For One Direction.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
They ended up on this very recording.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. Doesn’t this story just keep getting more crazy? It’s so weird. Honestly, it just feels like, even you telling me that to me now, it still sounds unreal. His name’s Josh Devine. He’s got millions of followers on Instagram, and he walks into the room and-

John Murch:
Wasn’t afraid to tell everyone about your new song as well.

Jessica Braithwaite:
He was great. He was really nice. And that was one of the things that surprised me about working with all these people. Because I think you assume that these people are some of the biggest names in the world in their industry. And I don’t know, maybe you think they might be a bit stuck up, or a bit on a different level that you wouldn’t be able to have anything to talk with them about.

John Murch:
You’ve done entertainment reporting. You’ve been in and around in a way, these kind of people. You’ve asked questions of them.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
You have an idea of what they’re really like, you would’ve thought.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
But then to actually be somewhat of a peer.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s true. And also there were no cameras. When you’re interviewing people, there’s a camera and they can kind of perform for that interview.

John Murch:
Yeah.

Jessica Braithwaite:
But this is more of a behind the scenes thing. But it was funny, because we worked out that Josh Divine, the One Direction drummer, our paths had crossed once before, because he actually toured with One Direction when they came to Australia. And at the time I was the entertainment reporter for Channel 10. And we worked out that at the time that they were in these bands with tinted windows and ducking and weaving. And they were out at the Barossa and there were these reporters who were trying to get photos of them. And I was one of those reporters. So it was funny that our paths had once crossed in a different way. I mean, I never spoke to him. No one really got close enough to actually interview them at the time. So it was funny to be sitting in the room with him.

John Murch:
Are there other songs to come from those sessions, or in and around from those sessions?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah, we actually recorded five songs at the time. Three of them I had had already written before I left. And two of them we wrote when I was there.

John Murch:
So this one, Feel This Way, was written while you were there?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. Yeah.

John Murch:
But there’s a few others coming.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
That were before.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
Talk to us about that transformation process from in the suitcase so to speak, to actually being in the L.A studio, as the song and you working together.

Jessica Braithwaite:
It’s weird to hear the songs come to life in that way. And it’s also really amazing to hear what people like that can do with your songs. I was really open minded about how the songs were going to sound. I didn’t want to be restricted. And I think in Australia there’s a bit of a thing, particularly basically everyone wants to be played on Triple J. People can be influenced by that, and feel that they need to write a certain type of music, or even just music that will fit into a certain spot in the Australian market or whatever. But when you’re in LA, they haven’t even heard of Triple J. So there’s no restrictions. I felt completely free. So when they were saying… I wrote, we did some really poppy stuff over there, and I didn’t feel embarrassed to attempt doing some poppy sounds. Whereas I think, if I was in Australia, I might have felt a bit like, oh, that’s not my main, but over there I was like, “God, let’s just see what happens, and we really let it flow creatively.”

John Murch:
How honest did these songs become for you during that recording process, from both how they were recorded to the content and the lyrical emphasis of them?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Well, they definitely became more honest, because one of the things that I learned when I was there and I was working with the songwriters, is something that I’ll never forget. They’re like, you don’t really have… Some of the lyrics that I used to write, they were a bit cryptic. I might have known what they meant, but the listener might not have. And I learned over there, the value of just actually saying exactly what you mean, and saying it in the most simple way possible. And it makes sense, because if you think about it, someone’s listening to a song on the radio. They might be doing other things, and driving along or whatever. And if you can hit them with your message in the most clear way possible, it can be more impactful.

Jessica Braithwaite:
So I learned to be more honest and more explicit and direct with what we’re saying. We don’t have to Feel This Way, is probably a good example of that. It’s just a really simple sentence that hopefully just sort of… And I think it did, it had an impact on people, because people felt that message when they heard it, as opposed to writing something more cryptic.

John Murch:
What could have been challenging for you, the song, and getting the message out there, from the video point of view was actually smashed by actually breaking down the barriers of what the reality of reality is.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
So talk to me about the joys of doing the video for Feel This Way. Apart from obviously hanging out with your friends, and sharing the artistic aspect of it.

Jessica Braithwaite:
It was really cool, because it was one of those things where I made the video because I wanted to express what I was thinking. And for people who haven’t seen the video, it’s a bit of a piss take really on social media. And the fact that a lot of what we see on social media is fake, and the pretences that people feel like they have to live up to, or everyone’s pretending they live these perfect lives on social media. And it was something that was bugging me. I knew that personally it was bugging me, but I didn’t know if anyone else was going to relate to it or not, or even get what I was and say with this clip. And I didn’t want it to be preachy, so we decided to do it in a really funny way. I think you can use comedy to make a point much more effectively than preaching to people.

Jessica Braithwaite:
But on the day that we put the video out, I was like, 10 people might watch this. I don’t know. And I don’t know if anyone’s going to get it. And so when it came out, I saw it as a little video mention on the sort of, if you scrolled right down to the bottom of the Adelaide Now website, bottom right hand corner or wherever they put cringey kinds of stories. And I thought, well, that’s great. And then I checked back in like later in the day, and it was like the main story.

John Murch:
It was the main story.

Jessica Braithwaite:
And I thought-

John Murch:
And it wasn’t even the entertainment. It was the main story.

Jessica Braithwaite:
It was just the main story. And I thought, God, I think that means that lots of people must be clicking on it. Later in the day, oh my God, I’m getting messages. It was on the Herald Sun. It had hit Sydney, it hit Melbourne, it went Queensland, it went national. And I’m like, oh my goodness, this is pardon the music pun, this is striking a chord. And people are starting, women are starting to send me photos of themselves in their pyjamas, at home with their babies, because this is, if you watch the clip, this will make more sense.

John Murch:
Yeah.

Jessica Braithwaite:
But people were like, “Thank you for making this clip. Oh my goodness, thank you. This is liberating. This is life changing.” I’m starting to get this feedback. And then I get a message from The Sun, which is the biggest tabloid newspaper in the UK. And they’re going, “We’ve seen your clip. We’ve seen your article. We want to run it here.” And I’m going, “This is insane.” And then of course, overnight I woke up and I saw it was in the UK tabloids. It was in the US tabloids. It was in the Scottish tabloids.

John Murch:
And once something in Australia gets big overseas, then we think about looking at it.

Jessica Braithwaite:
I know, I know. It’s like, is that the Keith Urban thing? Got to be big overseas before we take it seriously.

John Murch:
So obviously, speaking about that, striking a chord. Particularly looking more within yourself. Can you talk to us about that realisation for you? Because your day job is very much about presenting, literally your job is a TV presenter.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
So how have you, Jessica, over the years, defined who you are while still being one of the most glamorous people on TV?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Well, I don’t know that I’m glamorous. I’ve never been a glamorous person. We have good makeup artists at Channel 9. I think it’s really important. I think even more so now, because I’ve got a daughter now, and I don’t want her to grow up thinking that, we see this perfection on TV and on social media and everything feels a bit fake now. And so I’ve always been really conscious of just wanting to keep it real. And that it can be everything from the way that I talk to my audience when I’m on TV, I don’t use scripts. I try to talk just in the way that I might talk to you about what’s happening with the weather.

Jessica Braithwaite:
But I’m also really careful in interviews, articles that I write on social media to just keep it real, because everything feels like it’s getting a bit out of control, with people, everything’s curated. You look at a social media feed and we are seeing everyone’s highlight reels. And it’s hard, because we compare our own lives to that. And we think we’re coming up short. And we’re not, it’s just that we’re comparing our real lives to everyone else’s best moments online, edited, Photoshopped sometimes.

Hayley Mary:
Good day. This is Hayley Mary, a big shout out to radionotes podcast. Happy 100th episode. Keep going, keep up the good work, and thank you for the support.

Tammy Weller:
Hayley Mary’s, The Drip, seven track out now, includes the singles, Would You Throw A Diamond? And The Chain.

John Murch:
We’re joined by Jessica Braithwaite. Can we talk about aunty Sally?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Oh my goodness. My auntie Sally.

John Murch:
This is your father’s cousin, I think?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. Yeah.

John Murch:
Can you talk to me about that point in your life? It very much is about feelings.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
And that feeling of wanting more in your life, and contributing more as well.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Thank you so much for asking me about my auntie Sally. No one’s really ever asked about her before in an interview. And I’m really happy to talk about her, because she is incredible. So she is a nun. She moves to South Africa in the 80s, I want to say, to teach. They started a school, and they started teaching a primary school to teach the kids. And not long after she was there, the AIDS crisis really took hold, particularly in that part of Africa. And it doesn’t even sound real to talk about it sitting here at our cafe at Semaphore Road in Adelaide. But women started coming to my auntie Sally with their babies, with their children. The women had AIDS and the families had AIDS. And they said to my auntie Sally, “Will you look after my children, because I’m going to die. And when I die, there’s not going to be anyone here to look after my kid.”

Jessica Braithwaite:
So people started bringing her their children. And yeah, she took them in. And before she knew it, she had what I guess you could call an unofficial orphanage. But it grew over time, and other people joined in and helped and now, she never left. So she has what is now a more established facility there. It’s called the Holy Family Care Centre, and she looks after these kids. And some of them, when they get them, they’re close to death. We had a little boy who arrived there, who was just, he actually should have been dead based on his blood count. But we were able to get him the meds he needed and get him back to life, and kids who have been abandoned and babies.

Jessica Braithwaite:
And I think maybe I am more emotional about it now, because I am holding my own little baby in my arms as we do this interview. But that’s my auntie Sally, and she’s amazing. And so I went over to help out, just after I turned 30. I went over to teach music, so I took my guitar. We didn’t have many instruments, but we didn’t need them. These kids, man, they can… They don’t have toys, but they just, I’ve never seen kids have that much fun with an old tyre and a couple of plastic bags.

John Murch:
It’s the imagination.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Oh, totally. They’ll tie up old plastic bag to a stick and they have a kite. Or they’ll make skipping ropes from tying bits of rubbish together. And I’ve seen these kids have more fun with rubbish than what kids in Australia are having when they’re looking at their iPads. That is for sure. But yeah, I went to teach music and then that’s just, this is going to sound really corny, but it’s true. But you can bring so much joy with music, and their eyes, the way that their little hearts lit up when we made music together was awesome.

John Murch:
Also, even though they were orphans at that point as were saying, they were establishing their own family with those other orphans.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. And they never lost sight of trying to locate family members for these kids too. They would go to local villages, and I hate to say it, but funerals were the biggest gatherings.

Jessica Braithwaite:
So anytime there was a funeral, they would travel to these local villages and say, “We have these children.” Try to locate, maybe there’s an uncle or an auntie or someone who might be able to reconnect them back into the community. But yeah, it’s a different world.

John Murch:
You bring that back to Australia. You then become an ambassador for Save the Children.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. Once I got home, there was a real disconnect. I was going to work every day. So I’ve come from that environment that I’ve just been talking about. And then I came back here to take up my job at Channel 9 as a weather presenter. So I’m sitting in a makeup studio every day getting my hair and makeup done, and I’m getting clothes sent to me. And you couldn’t really pick two more different worlds.

John Murch:
And then the top of that show, you’re seeing all the destruction across the world and everything else while you are getting that makeup and stuff done, I would think.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah, that’s it. And so you kind of think, whoa, gosh.

John Murch:
You left to go over there to find more in life for yourself. And you still needed to find a little bit more when you got back, even though you found a lot over there.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. It was more of like, well, how can I continue to contribute even though I’m home now?

John Murch:
The momentum. Right.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. Yeah. Because you know that the situation, just because I’m home, there’s still heaps of people who need help. And that’s not just over in other countries. It’s in our own country as well. And so Save the Children was a really good fit. I mean, they do work around the world. They do really great work around climate advocacy, because obviously they want to protect the future of children.

John Murch:
What was it about meteorology that took your interest?

Jessica Braithwaite:
It was a combination of, I was working in a newsroom, and the selfish side of things is that I didn’t enjoy the type of reporting in terms of what we call hard news, which is the murders or the drug busts or the bikey and the car crashes, wasn’t my thing. I took much more of an interest in, is that plane going to?

John Murch:
It’s more the birds.

Jessica Braithwaite:
I took more of an interest in, like I’ve always been… The birds. Here I am saying, talking about nature. I’ve always been passionate about the environment and climate and our natural world, and weather is such a big part of that. And so for me, I was drawn more towards that side of things, and decided to study meteorology. I find it fascinating. I’m the kind of person that can just sit there and look at the clouds. I love looking at the clouds or watching a storm come in, and things like that. So I’ve always had an interest, and this was just a perfect way to combine my television presenting and my passion.

John Murch:
I’m not sure you can answer this, but where is the most spectacular sunset you’ve ever seen?

Jessica Braithwaite:
I think about this all the time. It’s really one of the most vivid things I’ve ever seen. So I love Adelaide’s beach sunsets, let that be on the record. But there was this time where I was on a boat, a fishing boat on the Okavango Delta, which is a river. It’s a wetlands’ river system in Botswana. The sunset, it was like someone grabbed this big paint brush and literally had painted the sky. The entire sky was the most vivid purple and orange. And it would change, and you’d look again, and it would be a different colour. And I don’t know how it was even possible to be just… You know when you see a photo and someone’s bumped up the saturation and they’ve edited it.

Jessica Braithwaite:
But this was like, just with my eyes, it was amazing. I’ll never forget it. I think about that night often.

John Murch:
How much those aspects of life, and the stars obviously, the national environment. How much does that influence you as a songwriter then?

Jessica Braithwaite:
I guess it influences me as a person. It helps me to be present. So I might just walk outside to take the clothes off the line at night, or something like that. And then I’ll be like, “Oh, I’m just going to stop and look at the moon for a minute.” And it’s like this whole thing of just re-centering yourself. And so it brings me back to, oh, this will sound really woo-woo. But it kind of brings me back to who I am.

John Murch:
Yeah.

Jessica Braithwaite:
I know we’ve been talking about the birds here. But when I wake up in the morning and I can hear birds singing, it’s like a trigger for me to be present. Anything from the natural world. And it’s harder in the city to get those triggers.

John Murch:
Which is another fun fact I want to share with people about you, if they want to give insight about Jessica Braithwaite behind these songs. Maybe not so much now with the kids, I understand that completely, but you used to be a huge cyclist.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Oh yeah. Oh my God.

John Murch:
I can imagine.

Jessica Braithwaite:
My bike is in the shed, cobwebs on it.

John Murch:
But take us back, because Adelaide cycle paths are some of the best if-

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. Yeah.

John Murch:
And where we are now, if my bike was a bit better, I know that would’ve been what I would’ve done for today. Tell us about that particular aspect in terms of the natural environment and being on the bike. I know it’s been a while.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. Oh my God, it’s been a long time. I love it. I mean, I think if you’re an environmentalist as well, then riding your bike is just a no brainer. I used to ride my bike to work. And not only is it the best way to start the day, because your blood’s pumping, you’re out, you’re exercising, you’re in nature. Obviously, not emitting all of that carbon as you drive to work every day. So it’s like the perfect form of exercise. And now I feel like a hypocrite, because now I drive around with one of those cars with a big boot so I can fit the pram and two car seats. So I’m a bit… I should get back on the bike.

John Murch:
Talk to us about your dad, seagulls and being 12 years of age.

Jessica Braithwaite:
That’s so cool. I love this. My dad never finished high school. So, his nickname is dizzy, I think, because one of the teachers, when he was in school called him a dizzy individual, and it just stuck. It painted a bit of a picture of the type of bloke my dad is. He’s not exactly conventional. And he went on to be a very successful businessman. And I think not having finished high school does not say anything about your intelligence, I think.

Jessica Braithwaite:
But we were sitting at the beach one day. It’s amazing what you can teach someone with a few seagulls and a bag of chips. We were throwing chips to the seagulls. You throw chips and they all scurry and flurry, and one of the seagulls just walked right up to us and came really close, and dad handed him the chip. And my dad goes, “See, that’s what life is about Jessica. You’ve got to be the brave seagull. All of the other seagulls are over there fighting over the scraps. And this seagull was brave enough to walk us and take the chip.” With this whole music thing, it’s kind of the same thing. Everyone else is scrapping. And I thought, oh well, I’m going to email the Hollywood music producer.

John Murch:
The old hometown. What experiences feed into your music from the Blue Lake?

Jessica Braithwaite:
It will always be home. And it’s funny, because sometimes I might say to my husband, “I really want to go home.” And he’d be like, “What do you mean? We are home.” And I’m like, “No, no, no. I want to go home.” I think anyone who’s from a small town might relate to this. You can move away. It will always be home no matter where I go, no matter where I’m living, it’s always home. I think it’s because it speaks to who I am. I think when you grow up in a small town, you get that real sense of community, and there’s also a no frills, no BS attitude, I think a lot of the time in small towns.

John Murch:
Jessica, just having a look over the… We’re talking about your debut single as a solo artist. This is the debut edition of something called Speckled Pup. It’s a magazine produced here in South Australia. You’re the cover girl.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
Or lady, woman, person.

Jessica Braithwaite:
My first cover.

John Murch:
You say here, it’s a quote from you. And it’s talking about finding a way to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together. Now, obviously that could speak just as a musician, but in life as general, you’ve kind of given away a little bit of that guard by not focusing so much on the perfection. But what is that key for you, keeping all those?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Oh my God. It’s so hard. To be honest, I feel like I’m failing. There’s so many pieces of the puzzle of life that you try to… But I guess what I try to do is to prioritise things that people might think are useless. I guess our society has a big emphasis on work, and always feeling like we need to tick the box, be productive, be… What is it?

John Murch:
So you’re not a listicle kind of person?

Jessica Braithwaite:
No, I am. I’m really bad at it. And this is why I say I struggle with this. But what I try to do, is to prioritise useless things. Things that people would consider useless, like play. Picking up the guitar and writing a song, well that-

John Murch:
I have a blank look, because both of those, I don’t find useless.

Jessica Braithwaite:
I think-

John Murch:
I find those very useful in terms of creativity, and creativity is important for identity.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. I agree. I agree with that 100%. I just think as a society, we tend to place more of an emphasis on things that make money. And so, you might be a like, well, why are you… Me going and picking up my guitar and just strumming away for half an hour, isn’t necessarily going to make money or advance me in my career, but I try to prioritise it anyway. There might be, I don’t know, it’s hard, because there’s so many competing factors. There’s dishes in the sink, and there’s bedtime stories that need to be read. And then there’s work and then there’s music and then there’s health and fitness and there’s all these competing things. And normally the creative side of things is going to fall to the bottom of the list, because you can get away without doing it. Does that make sense?

John Murch:
It’s your own world, Jessica. What’s number one on that priority?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Oh, I mean, well now it’s my key kids. Now it’s my kids.

John Murch:
But music was pretty high up before the kids, wasn’t it?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. But music not in a sense of a career like releasing music, but more just in a music is something that helps me to feel alive kind of a sense, like a creative. I think it’s hard, sometimes it falls to the bottom of the list, because there’s all these other competing things. So, I think that’s what I was trying to express before. I try to prioritise those kinds of things, but it’s hard.

John Murch:
This is very much a protest song you’ve said, about those aspects of demands, I guess, on people’s lives, priorities.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Pressure. I feel like everywhere you look there’s stuff is, sometimes it feels like the world is designed to make us feel like shit about ourselves. If you’re reading a magazine, it’s the models are all photoshopped. Or if you’re driving to work and there’s billboards telling you things that you need to buy to in order to have a happy life. Or you’re watching the TV and there’s ads coming up, you need to buy this in order to, to be happy. There’s this perfect ideal, whether you’re scrolling Instagram or whatever it is, of what your life is meant to look like. And none of our lives actually look like that, but the world makes us feel like they should. And so we think there’s a gap between where we are and what our life is meant to be like. And we live in that constant state of trying to fill the gap.

John Murch:
Over the years, you’ve released a number of protest songs, from marriage equality right through to this.

Jessica Braithwaite:
That’s right.

John Murch:
This latest one as well.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
Part of all those feelings that we’ve been talking about over the last little while, how much do you see the need for a protest or more importantly, shining a light on social issues within your music?

Jessica Braithwaite:
It’s hard, because you don’t want to be preachy. When I write songs that end up being protest songs, it’s because it’s about something that I’m battling with internally, or that I feel so deeply about myself, and marriage equality affected our family really deeply.

John Murch:
Yeah.

Jessica Braithwaite:
My brother, I have three brothers, two were married and the third couldn’t get married, because marriage equality wasn’t legal because he’s gay, and marriage equality wasn’t legal. And it felt so-

John Murch:
And he was in love.

Jessica Braithwaite:
He was in love.

John Murch:
He was ready.

Jessica Braithwaite:
He was ready to go. And it just was like, hang on a minute. So you’re telling me that one of my brothers love is not the same as my other two brothers? Don’t tell me that, because that’s just crap. And so that song came out of that personal experience, as opposed to, I guess it’s a little bit different than if you were to look at an issue from the outside and say, “I’m going to write a song about this or that.” It’s more like your own experience with that issue, maybe.

John Murch:
Yeah.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Shining a light on it through that way.

John Murch:
It came from a response of how society was saying you must do.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
Like this song is, and that’s-

Jessica Braithwaite:
That’s so true. I didn’t think of that. It’s like, don’t tell me how to… Don’t tell me what love is. Don’t tell me how I have to feel about myself.

John Murch:
Jessica, what’s the trajectory of your music now?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Got some songs that we recorded in L.A that I’m still going to be releasing, literally just sitting on my computer, ready to go. And I’ve got a bunch of songs that I’ve written since then that I want to record. I think in terms of my overall career, I’d like to think of myself as a bit of a hybrid, a bit of a slashy to always be sort of involved with TV presenting and incorporating the music into that. Even, other things like writing, and I’d love to write a book one day. I don’t really want to feel like I will end up just in one category, like more of a combination of all of those things.

John Murch:
South Australia gives you that chance to be a slashy a little bit more, doesn’t it? Particularly with the level of experience that you have working with Sky News, Channel 10.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah.

John Murch:
Across the board. Of course, all the experience overseas as well.

Jessica Braithwaite:
I think that now I would say that it’s true. I was nervous about it, because when I was known more so just as a weather presenter, I was really nervous about releasing this song, Feel This Way, because I thought people are going to think, hang on a minute, isn’t that the weather presenter? Oh my God, the weather presenter thinks she can sing. You know what I mean? Oh gosh, I wasn’t sure whether people would be willing, whether the audience would be willing to accept me as two things. As a TV presenter and a singer. But having done that now, and even though I was really scared about doing it, I did it. I would say that that is true, because I think people were really receptive and they really got on board with it. So yeah, I think it’s definitely possible.

John Murch:
I need to ask you also about the people you’ve worked on with this music. Well, I mentioned Stuart Brawley, obviously. Are there other people that you would like to mention that have been part of this journey of these singles?

Jessica Braithwaite:
Yeah. There’s another awesome songwriter that I worked with. Her name’s Bridget Benenate. And this will sound like I’m being a loser name droppy person. But to give you some perspective on who she is, she’s written songs, like number one hit songs for Kelly Clarkson and Delta Goodrem and people like that. And that was a really interesting, because I’m more of an indie, sit on the floor with my guitar kind of a songwriter, and she writes these big pop ballads. And so, one of the songs that I haven’t released yet, that I’m looking to release soon, is one of those. And that was a really cool experience to learn about the art of pop songwriting. It’s totally different. And that’s surreal, because you’re sitting in a room with these people that have written these. And I’m like, “How did I even get into the room with these people?” And I just was like a sponge, I wanted to soak everything up. So she was really cool. She’s probably the other main person that I was really excited to be able to work with.

John Murch:
Jessica Braithwaite, thanks very much for your time.

Jessica Braithwaite:
Thank you so much.

Tammy Weller:
Jessica Braithwaite debut single, Feel This Way. Find them online at jessicabraithwaite.com

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