Q: “Smile” is an empowering pop song you wrote. Tell me what the journey was like from writing to releasing it?
J.A.S: Writing “Smile” was probably the easiest song I’ve ever written as right from writing the very first line, the rest of the song flowed and it was all done within an hour! When the writing process is like that, I know it’s going to be a good song. I wanted to do the song justice by getting top quality artwork and sending it out to lots of blogs/playlists as I knew it was a song people would like.
Q: You wrote this song to lift everyone’s spirits, but what has this song done for you, emotionally?
J.A.S: The song shows a shift in my mindset from last year to this year. Last year was tough for me and I think that reflected in the type of songs I was writing and listening to, whereas this year my outlook is much more positive. Part of my therapy and healing comes in writing songs and “Smile” definitely played a part in helping me bring all the positive vibes!
Q: What is one lesson you took from “Smile”?
J.A.S: “Smile” is all about embracing yourself and even though you may have flaws, learn to love them because that makes you you. So, I think I definitely took that lesson myself.
Q: Who are your biggest influences?
J.A.S: I definitely take influence from the artists in my surrounding area. There are loads of amazing up and coming artists from Manchester and our city definitely has its own sound now, which is cool. Yeah, just people that are newer artists, whenever I see someone up and coming achieve something or make a really good song then it influences me to go and write some music.
Q: You’re in a record store and they allow you to take one album for free, what album would that be?
J.A.S: That’s a hard one! The one album I used to listen to non stop was John Legend “Get Lifted,” I used to sit in my room and play it over and over. Every song on that is a banger.
Q: If you could use three words to describe yourself, what would those words be?
J.A.S: Deep thinker, creative and funny.
Interviewed by Taylor Berry
