Jockstrap: ‘We just need someone to make it happen for us’

Jockstrap spoke to Matt Wilkinson as part of Apple Music’s week long celebration of independent music. Matt spoke with Georgia and Taylor about signing to the famous record label, Rough Trade.

The duo also perform an exclusive Home Session for Apple Music which includes What’s It All About? (taken from their debut album, I Love You Jennifer B) and a cover of the classic Glen Campbell track, Wichita Lineman.

On signing to Roughtrade…

Taylor Skye

We didn’t go around shopping too much. And when we played some of the new songs to Rough Trade, they had quite an emotional reaction, which was a good sign for us.

And as soon as we played them, they were very interested in working with us, and it didn’t seem like they sort of questioned, you know like “Let me check these stats to make sure you’re going to be successful enough” or something. It was very trusting. So it is important. And we’ve had complete freedom in what we’ve wanted to do.

[Matt Wilkinson]

Did you know much about the history of Rough Trade?

Georgia Ellery

Well, yeah, I knew that it was been around for millennia and really some really important music, like British music. I wasn’t like a post-punk fan growing up, but came to a bit later. But obviously knew of everyone on the label. Knew that it was, from what I’d heard, a little family, it was a family business almost.

On the differences between an indie and a major label

Taylor Skye

Well, I guess if we didn’t have total freedom, we’d… Be someone who isn’t an artist would be making creative decisions for us, which doesn’t really make sense. You see artists assigned to major labels and sometimes depending on the sort of music they’re making, it can work really well, but sometimes if they’ve got of an air of creativity but it’s not been harnessed and someone else is directing them, I think it can lead them in a really tragic direction.

So I think especially early on in your career, you learn about yourself by putting stuff out. So if we’re not able to do what we want to do, we’re not going to know what we want. Maybe in the future, once we’ve established ourselves, it’s less risky, but I think early on it’s quite important to be careful with who makes your decisions and stuff.

Georgia Ellery

And we wanted to make some music videos so they were able to put the money forward to let us do that.

And that was what it sort of came down to for us at that point in our career. That’s the next thing. We wanted to elevate what we did and we had massive visions. We just need someone to… We can do it. We just need someone to make it happen for us.