British musician Jose Vanders

London-based, fresh out of high school, and appreciated even by Perez Hilton, Jose Vanders is a brilliant musician... but one is often at a loss as to what to call her. Is acousticky a genre? Whatever the case, although she writes her own songs, do not describe her as a singer-songwriter, since she hates the term; nevertheless, her songs are her own, and they are some of the most beautifully-written (and criminally underplayed) songs around. We discuss herein high heels, the lost physicality of CDs and EPs, and Laura Marling... enjoy and please listen to this breath of fresh air.

Hi, Jose, this is Keely. It’s nice to meet you. Oh, hello! You alright?

I’m good, how are you? I’m not bad, thank you! Oh, I completely forgot you were ringing, but obviously it’s a quarter to two. Is it morning over there?

Oh, yeah, it’s 8:45. How’s the weather? Over here it’s really sunny.

Well, I’m in New York, so it’s pretty chilly but— Oh, you’re in New York! I’d literally give my leg to be in New York right now. [laughs] Oh, man, I’m really jealous.

Where are you now? I’m in London, just at home. I just got a pair of heels, so I’m walking around in my room trying to practice walking in them, because they’re literally about three inches high and I can’t walk in them.

Three inches? Psh. I have a pair that’s four inches. I wear ‘em every day. Really! How big is an inch? Wait, one, two, three—do you measure from the end of the heel to where your heel goes?

Yeah. If you use the middle joint in your pinky finger that’s about an inch. Oh, okay, they are about three inches, then. Oh my god, and you wear four inches every day?

Well, okay, not every day, and in all fairness my mom yells at me whenever I ask if I can wear them. But I’ve always liked heels. [laughs] Right. This is my first proper pair, so I’m trying to get some good use out of them. I just need to walk in them. I had them out the other day and I actually fell over in the street on top of a man in the middle of everybody, which was pretty embarrassing.

Oh, goodness! Time to practice, I guess. Mm, exactly. Which is why I’m walking around my room and acting like a twat in heels. Anyway!

O-kay. So, you just finished high school, right? Yeah. Just finished [in 2008], yeah.

So you’re on your gap year. Indeed. I am applying to university, and—well, I applied already. So, yes, I’m on my gap year trying to do the music thing, but it’s sort of ended up being me working full time. [laughs] And then trying to apply to uni, and planning to go traveling, which is just completely not the plan, but there you go.

Wait, you’ve not been working on your music, or—? No, no, no, well, I’ve kind of put that aside. I put that aside in like September, but now I’m back on the road! Doing lots of gigs, I’m still rehearsing, and now I’m back in the studio with some really good producers and writers and stuff. So, no, I am working on it this year, yeah.

That’s exciting! Yeah! Very exciting. It’s pretty cool, yeah, it is.

You had an EP out… recently, I guess? Transactional Language. Ah, yeah. That one was… last summer, I guess. That was the first one, and then I’ve just done another one this summer, Red Black Blue and the Tortoise, and we toured around in the UK and played all the songs on that.

Okay, tell me more about that EP. Well, the first one was just me and a piano. It was recorded literally in a few hours in a living room, just me singing and playing, and then for some reason people really loved it so I thought, “Okay, on the next one” —this previous one— “I’m going to spend a bit more time on it, put some more thought into it,” and I sort of recorded it in a few weeks in a proper studio with a big band and stuff. And then some people were like, “Oh, I prefer the other one!” [laughs] It just goes to show that you can try and do something else that doesn’t often work. But, no, some people liked it. I need to find a balance between the two, I guess.

You’ve got space and time to experiment and figure out your music, I guess. Exactly. That’s what this year is for. I’ve got this management company, and they’ve really got nice people and they’re really good at what they do but they’re just like, “You need to sit at home and find a sound, and once you’ve got the sound then we can work with you!” [laughs] So, okay, how do I find a sound? So this whole year is for, just as you said, experimenting and trying stuff out and seeing what works, I guess.

And your EPs have been self-released, right? Yeah, both of them, although there’s this record label, and they’ve got two—maybe one, just one. They’ve got this independent little record shop in London, and they’ve also got a little label running and they released it on that, so they’ve been doing another thousand or so copies on that and they’ve put it in their shop, which is quite cool. Very exciting. But, yes, they’re definitely self-released.

They sold out! Yeah, the first one did. I made, like, 500 copies and they sort of went really quickly, which is really bizarre. [laughs] I don’t know. I suppose that Perez Hilton guy helped them out and shifted a couple hundred, and then I sort of printed more, and more of the new one, and it’s really exciting, I guess. I’m just really lucky that people are still buying CDs. [laughs]

Oh, yeah, the CDs are kind of dying out now. It’s so sad! It’s so, so sad. I just got a job in Rough Trade, which is another shop—you might know this one. It’s a label as well. They’ve got two independent record shops in London, and I work in the one on Brick Lane, and it’s, it’s… augh! And just now, since I’ve been working there, I’m so… what’s the word? Not passionate, because that sounds a bit corny, but do you know what I mean? People should buy CDs and support people. Even if they’re massive, they’ve still taken the time to think about it and produce a really good record and they should, you know, deserve recognition through paying for CDs! It disturbs me so much when people illegally download stuff. But that’s the world, isn’t it?

Well, it’s also a bit of a shame that so much music is going digital. What happened to having actual hard copies of CDs and going to actual record stores instead of, you know, buying everything off of iTunes? Exactly. I mean, one of my friends is releasing an EP on iTunes, just on iTunes, and though we’re all supporting him, and I’ll probably download it anyway, I’d love more than anything to have a physical copy of the CD. All my friends that are in bands hand-make their EPs and send them out with little badges and purses and stickers and pictures and notes, and it’s just so lovely, you know, to have something physical in your hand. Oh, I love artwork, though. I’m a sucker for a bit of artwork on a CD. But, yeah, I suppose everyone’s moving toward downloads, so what can you do?

Personally, I just think it’s more enjoyable to have a hard copy and to have the booklet and to be able to play it in an actual CD player. Those are still around! [laughs] I know! They’re dying out as well. And I think it’s important some records are made to be listened to as records: proper 12 tracks in a row. They’re put in that order for a reason; you shouldn’t pick and choose which songs to listen to. And I just think it’s a shame that people illegally download. But I understand why people do. It’s tough when you haven’t got much money and you’re sort of tied up for a new dress for a night out but you don’t want to pay £12 for somebody’s CD; I can understand it, and I suppose… I don’t know. My boyfriend says, “I don’t care if I lose money so long as people are listening to my music,” and I can kind of see why; I suppose at the end of the day I’d rather be broke but have people that really like my music and listen to it than completely rolling it and, you know, not, I suppose. [laughs]

Speaking of which, I actually have a friend who lives in the same area as you and went into the Rough Trade you work at and met you! Aw, bless her! I know her. She’s really cool. I’ve seen her quite a few times.

Yeah, and she mentioned that you recommended Angus and Julia Stone. Oh, I love Angus and Julia Stone. Yeah, definitely.

I haven’t heard any of their music yet. Oh, they’re really cool. They’re not one of my favorite, favorite bands, but I saw them live quite a few years ago. I think they’re brother and sister, or something, and they’re fantastic. You should check them out.

I will! What are some other groups you like? Ah, right, okay. I love this question. [laughter] My all-time favorite is Fionn Regan. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him. He’s a singer-songwriter—I hate that term—from Dublin with a very acousticky, folky, stunning, beautiful sound. He’s amazing live. And my other favorite of all time is Polly Paulusma. Both those names are on my MySpace and I preach about them constantly. She’s a woman, I think she’s in her thirties now, she’s got kids, but she’s absolutely phenomenal. She’s an unknown treasure, you know? She’s one of those people that writes the most amazing lyrics. She went to Cambridge University, so she actually knows what she’s talking about, and she’s absolutely phenomenal, and she’s really unknown, which is quite sad. I went to see her live last year at the Brixton Windmill, and funnily enough I’ve got a gig tonight there so I’m sort of really excited just because she’s played there! You probably know Regina Spektor, as well.

Yeah, she’s great. Yeah, I think she’s cool. I don’t know, really recently I’ve just listened to anything with guitars in that’s badly recorded.

[laughs] I love Joni Mitchell. You know, the classics. Anything folky that’s nice to listen to.

You know who else I also really like, in keeping with the theme of guitar-based music? Laura Marling. Oh, she’s brilliant! She’s absolutely fantastic.

Isn’t she!? She’s phenomenal. I’ve seen her live quite a few times and she’s absolutely breathtaking. And she did this whole song box, which is sort of this massive box—see, that’s appreciating the physical side of music, you know? And have you heard of Mumford and Sons, her backing band?

Not yet, I haven’t listened to them yet. Mm! Please do, just for me! They’re sort of this four-piece, accordion, banjo, drums, guitar, all really nice instruments, and they just play this stunning closed harmony, proper, real, good live music, and they’re her backing group, and they recorded it all on her CD as well. So you should go check them out, definitely.

They sound fantastic! Mmm! Really good.

Earlier you mentioned that you hate the term “singer-songwriter”. How come? [laughs] I don’t know, I just think mainly because music is such a thing that people get pigeonholed really easily, and lumping lots of people into the term “singer-songwriter”… how do I explain it? Yes, I am a singer-songwriter because I write songs and I sing, but at the same time there’s a whole group of people I consider to be singer-songwriters and their music is so different, so personal to them, that I don’t feel it’s fair to lump people into such a—d’you know what I mean with the pigeonholing?

Yeah, yeah, it’s a descriptor but it’s treated as a genre. Mm-mm-mm, exactly, and over here, I don’t know about over in the US, the connotation is guys putting on really bad indie accents and strumming really bad guitar chords in dirty little grimy gimlet pubs. That’s the connotation I get, anyway.

I don’t know, I feel like the term over here is almost more associated with women. Like, the big grouping right now being English females who write their own songs. Really! Who’s really popular at the moment, then?

Uh… I don’t know if I— [laughs] I’m sorry. That’s like coming into a record store and saying, “What’s really popular at the moment? Can I buy the CD of it?”

[laughter] Well, there’s this one musician who’s been called a singer-songwriter a lot, and… well, I guess she is. She’s called Taylor Swift. Okay. Never heard of her.

She’s, like, this country-pop star. She’s been getting airtime on Disney, and I don’t know if you know the Jonas Brothers but she dated but she dated one of those for a while, so she’s a celebrity now and everybody’s all, “She’s a singer-songwriter!” and I’m, like, “Yeah, but…so?” [laughs] All right, I guess I’ll check her out. Country’s massive over there, isn’t it? Or it always has been.

Yeah, somewhat. My dad used to go on business trips to the States and he would come back and spend 50-quid loads on country music. Oh, it was so funny. We just took the piss out of him.

Jose is truly brilliant, and I heartily advise that time be spent on her website or her MySpace.