JAKE O'NEILL INTERVIEW {ISSUE#12}

We had the pleasure of speaking to The Voice semi-finalist Jake O’Neill. Jake started singing when he was in college, where he studied music technology. He started learning guitar at the end of his time at school, yet only started to sing in college. Throughout university he started gigging around Liverpool, he was his own inspiration when being bored throughout the summer of going from school to college so he decided to pick up his guitar up and try it out.

He may have been his own inspiration to start his music career, however his song writing is definitely inspired by a mixture of things, he tries to write songs which people can relate to not necessarily of things that have happened to him, but a main objective of music is to definitely relate to people! “There is no point in writing songs if they don’t have a meaning to them!”, but other artists definitely have a big impact on the way he writes he states. Similarly, with his music idol “now and always probably John Mayer, listen to a lot of John Mayer”. He wouldn’t say that his music is similar to his but he has definitely inspired him as he also picked up a guitar at a young age “I think he is smart lyrically and musically and he is just a great guitarist”.

The 2021 The Voice Semi-finalist told us that he applied for The Voice during lockdown, during 2020, mainly because he was bored and didn’t have any gigs. Jake didn’t think anything of it at first, but about a month later they asked him to do a Zoom interview with him, followed by a call back in London, then a blind audition. Then finally, January this year it got aired to our screens for everyone to see! He felt it was a good opportunity to get his name out there, as now a days it is hard to with a crowded industry. He would say his experience on The Voice was “phenomenal”, apart from it being in Covid and not having an audience. He states that it improved his confidence and “more telly time” as a plus!

When we asked him how it was to get to work with Sir Tom Jones, he replied with “it was mad! ". As he got the turn last second, on the studio version you don’t hear the buzzer so he didn’t really know what was happening, I just saw him turn round, “I was going of me barnet if I'm honest!”. He states that later when he spoke to Sir Tom Jones, he was a bit lost for words as you don’t really expect it. He said that working with Tom was great as he really understood and didn’t just sit there, he really tried to mold and improve your voice into something better.

We asked Jake to describe his music in five words, “easy going, melodic and.... probably quite boring to some people!” which earned a disagreeing laugh from everyone on the call. As it is definitely not and you should go see for yourself, go stream his music.

Jake’s goals for the end of this year is that he hopefully has two single releases to come out, “hopefully they all go to plan”, in the “next month or so”. He also has a collab with a Dj coming out as well so a lot to look forward to!

The biggest challenge for him has been trying to get himself out there and trying to get his songs heard is very hard in the industry. “I think people looking in from the outside think “ah you have a good song an then you release it and then it's all busy from there!” you have to know the right people, do the right things, know the right things, and catering to your audience”. He saids that finding a name for himself in the industry has defiantly been the hardest thing. It is similar to the algorithm of TikTok and other social medias, you can do everything right but if the algorithm doesn't pick it up, you can't do anything and it's out of your control. He uses artists like Mimi Webb, as an example, who has come out of TikTok from “posting a song which they didn’t think was going to do too well, ye then people have loved it and has sky rocketed them as an artist”.

If he could collaborate with one artist it would be, country singer, Luke Holmes. He just thinks it would be unreal and that would be a dream for him as well as Chris Stapleton.

Jake hopes to see himself not just doing cover gigs and weddings in five years but, hopefully performing as his own artist. And hopefully he can make a name for himself. He just wants to be able to sing his own songs and make a living from it!

He would tell his younger self to try get yourself out there more, before he lets anyone else try do it for him, as this would feel rewarding.

And to end this lovely interview we asked him what song he has been playing on repeat recently, he stated, “I have attendance to play a song and then not shut it off for weeks”, but right now, he loves seventeen going under by Sam Fender, as he went to see one of his shows last week, so it has been stuck in his head for a few weeks! Thank you for this lovely interview, Jake O’Neill and everyone should definitely go stream his music!

By CAITLIN