This time last year 24-year-old Liverpudlian Jetta was cooking up some serious chart-busting pop tarts in the studio with Pharrell. He’s the ultimate head chef, surely? “Oh yeah,” she coos. “It’s second nature. The way he moves around the studio, he’s so quick.”
After just two sessions the pair had ‘Crescendo’. The title track from her debut EP, it’s an unavoidable grin-slapper. Skippy beats, summer-sunshine guitars, a chorus that flips up into a sing-along, “yeah, yeaaahhhh.” Catchy stuff. “He’s just so good at writing those positive, vibey songs,” she beams. “And he brought that out in me. I’m much more minor, more melancholy.”
Indeed, the songs that caused Williams to pick up the phone and fly her over to Miami are soaring soul-rock affairs gliding towards monster choruses. There’s more than a touch of Emeli Sandé’s stadium gloss running through lighter-in-the-air piano ballad ‘Feels Like Coming Home’, while ‘Start A Riot’, which cemented a Universal deal on both sides of the Atlantic, is awash with larger than life vocal echoes and zooming shards of electric guitar.
Two years on the road as Paloma Faith’s backing singer, a stint in Cee Lo Green’s band, plus musical parents - a singing mum and record engineer dad – have left Jetta unafraid to shoot for the big time, certain she knows what it entails. Major-label pop stardom. Wow. Her desires to conquer charts and hearts are recounted with such bold, matter of fact tones, Clash pauses before asking, “Why?”
“Why not?” she laughs. “It’s a great thing! It would be mad to say you don’t think it’s great. I know what I want and I know who I am. I write all my own songs and that’s super personal, but it’s a business and I love having a team. It’s about making sure there’s a balance there, between the machine and you.
“I feel comfortable going into the studio and saying, ‘I want to write a really great song, I want it to be successful.’ I’ve been with friends who are afraid to say they wanna write a hit, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. That’s what gets me going.”
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WHERE: London via Liverpool
WHAT: Stadium-sighted pop
GET 3 SONGS:‘Crescendo’, ‘Feels Like Home’ (video above), ‘Start A Riot’
FACT: Obsessed with the stars, Jetta always paints three dots on her cheek to represent Orion’s Belt, a part of her sign.
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Words: Kim Hillyard
Photo: Alastair Strong
Fashion: Ian Luka
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