On the Rise
Jack Curley

The most striking thing about Jack Curley is his voice. Hailing from the cultural capital of the north, he speaks with a broad accent which carries a warmth that translates seamlessly to his music.

It’s hard to imagine a world in which it wasn’t committed to record. It’s not a stretch of imagination for Curley himself: no less than twelve months ago, he was working as a barman in a hotel having dropped out of his vocal course at music school – “- I got kicked out”, he’s quick to correct.

“Music is a creative thing, and I just don’t think sitting in a classroom, being taught how to do things, is necessarily a good way of music,” Curley says. “It felt quite formulaic to me, and really wasn’t my thing.” Despite finding his love for guitar in his GCSE Music classes at secondary school, wiling away the hours in the music rooms, it was when he left that environment, in his bedroom at home, that he really started to explore song-writing.

"One of the things I love about writing music is there’s no right or wrong; there’s no yes or no."

Falling from parties into the lecture room, being given a song to sing on the Monday and performing it on the Friday, the attitude at music school was hands-off. In a class of women, he was given an Adele song but was told he couldn’t change the key: “It made me sound shit,” he shrugs, “They said ‘If you don’t like it, don’t come back’, so I said, ‘Alright. Sound. I won’t.” This streak of defiance left Curley sure of little besides the fact he wouldn’t tell his parents. It was in this limbo, bridging the gaps in his life with bar work, that he met ‘Alice’.

“It’s a lot easier to write from personal experience,” he explains. Writing with his heart masted to his sleeve, Curley champions empathy; confession over pride. “Alice”, his debut single released only last year, is a lovelorn ballad, with careful observations of himself, his past and his relationship, curving like ivy around his towering vocal delivery. His signature rasp carries a warmth and honesty about coming to terms with love lost.

When I ask how essential writing “Alice” was to get over her, Curley’s response is immediate: “100%, definitely. I think if you’re ever in a bad mood, or you’re angry – or even happy – you can just sit there and get it out. One of the things I love about writing music is there’s no right or wrong; there’s no yes or no.”

Drawing so closely from personal experience and the people around you can be an awkward territory to navigate, but Curley jokes, “It’s quite good flirting technique, actually. It works with the girls quite well!” He continues, “But no, the girl who I wrote “Alice” about, we didn’t end on bad terms. We laugh about it now – she asks for royalties and stuff! So with her, it was quite easy, but in any other circumstance I would say it’s quite risky. I don’t think I’d call another song after someone again. It’s nerve-wracking – you do get scared.”

“When I released “Alice”, I had no expectations,” Curley says. He couldn’t have foreseen that his first shot would work such a charm, drawing in millions of streams from around the world. “I remember arguing with my family about how many streams I’d get by the end of the year – I only thought I’d get a couple thousand streams at most. When it started to blow up, I couldn’t believe it.”

Despite only being released a year ago, Curley already feels like he’s made some leaps as an evolving artist. “When you’re writing songs now, I think about how people will receive it and how it will appeal to a certain audience, rather than writing for myself. I think in general I’ve become more professional and mature. Not a lot of people see the work you put in behind the scenes when it comes to releasing music. There are all sorts of little things you do, like being in the studio for days and days trying to pick one song out of hundreds.” He emphasises, “I think the worth ethic in this kind of game has got to be there. It’s a rare opportunity to get this far, so you’ve got to take it by the horns and just run with it.”

"There’s always something you can take from one session and bring to another to work on. I feel like you’re improving every time you write a song."

After being invited to song-writing sessions across Europe in the wake of signing to Parlophone Records, Curley had been working alongside the likes of Ivor Novello award-winning songwriter Steve Booker and Goldsmiths alumnus Jamie N Commons. Taking the song-writing process from something he did alone in his bedroom to sharing it with people he’d never met before, he explains, was difficult at first. “If someone you’ve not worked with before, you might just spend an hour, two hours, three hours getting to know each other. Especially with my type of music, as well: most of the time it’s about love. Steve, for example – he’s great. He’s someone I got on with straight away. We’re dead comfortable with each other.”

In breaking the barriers of his comfort zone, Curley has been able to stretch his arms out wider and let his music absorb more influences. “When I started doing song-writing sessions, one thing I’ve learned is that even when the song isn’t the best you’ve done, or it’s not that good, you can still take something from the session: experience. There’s always something you can take from one session and bring to another to work on. I feel like you’re improving every time you write a song – I think it shows in the music, as well. The songs we’ve got in the catalogue really show a more mature way of making music.”

With the four-track EP Tomorrow Curley faces the perennial question of whether the successors of “Alice” will be able to match its incredible success. He’s quietly confident in this, with the infectious “Wait For Me” earning a reception that hot on the trail of his debut single. “When I released “Wait For Me”,” he says, “it felt like there was a bit more pressure on me to try and meet the same standards I’d set with “Alice”. But I think it’s doing a bit better, so far. We’re on the right track, and I hope the EP as a whole will thrive.”

The universality of his themes, as seen with “Tomorrow”, a track that carries the weight of being able to bring yourself to let someone go, gives Curley an instant appeal. His soulful voice promises catharsis, a reflection of a childhood spent caught between his dad who worshipped the Rolling Stones and The Who, and his mother who showed him the world of Stevie Wonder. Now, Curley boasts several tattoos in honour of him. “I had quite a varied upbringing when it comes to music,” he acknowledges. “But as far as coming from a musical family, I don’t at all. I don’t know if my mum’s listening at my bedroom door right now, but my mum’s tone deaf and so is my dad!”

If you find Curley’s Instagram account, you’ll discover that he has the unusual distinction of it being private. His bio reads: “You’ll see soon enough…”. It’s perfectly captures his essence, of an artist just getting started, holding an enormous promise.