Jack Williams’ Open Your Mouth! Do you find happy music depressing? Sad music uplifting? We’ll play both.
Jack Williams is a pianist and composer who values surprise, adventure and playfulness, but also tenderness. He thinks of himself at times as a musical laboratorian. He has excavated a niche. In this music, seemingly remote worlds are combined into a curious universe. Jazz, Prog Rock, Djent, Classical. Sophisticated harmony, intense rhythms, heavy riffs, heartfelt melody. Jack Williams recently played in support of legendary Jazz guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel, and was featured as composer and soloist in Phil Meadows’ Future Movers project at Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club.
Jack Williams runs a project with in demand UK Jazz veteran Mike Outram. He graduated with a Master’s Degree from Trinity Laban Conservatoire, awarded with Distinction. His music has received positive feedback from Gary Husband (John Mclaughlin, Allan Holdsworth). In his original brand of Jazz, Jack Williams and his band of miscreants juxtapose heavy grooving polyrhythmic riffs with curious speech samples, ear-twisting harmonies and brooding ballads, in a programme featuring adventurous original compositions, some of his favourite tunes by his heroes and daredevil improvising. Humour is often involved.
With the titular debut EP, Open Your Mouth!, out now, we took some time to hear from Open Your Mouth! Read below to learn more about Open Your Mouth!, the story behind Open Your Mouth!, and what’s to come.
Hi! Let’s start with how did you get your artist name?
The song came first. When I had the first idea for the tune, the character of the music and also the (seemingly) random things being said over the top of it, ‘Open Your Mouth!’ came to mind and seemed to suit the cheeky and bad*ss nature of it (a bit like the opposite of ‘shut your mouth!’). Then when I made some band name suggestions to my bandmates Benjamin Crane and Filippo Galli, this was the only one that got a reaction. I thought it might catch a few eyes. It can have various meanings. 🙂
What city are you from and where are you based now?
I’m from a little village outside Truro, in the beautiful Celtic countryside of Cornwall. It’s known for its dramatic coastline, mining and farmers. I now live in London. Came here for the music and work/learning opportunities.
At what point in your life did you decide to pursue a career in music? How did you get started?
At the age of two, I set up pots and pans and hit them like drums and cymbals along to records that were on in my house…two or three years later my parents bought me a small drum kit…I thought about pursuing a more ‘responsible’ career in my teens, studying Maths, Physics, Chemistry and French A-Levels (no music then). But then realised what I wanted to do was pursue music, so I studied a degree in Jazz.
How would you describe your sound to readers who may not be familiar with you?
Emotionally: Adventurous, surprising, playful, at times silly. But also tender and thoughtful. I like to include and juxtapose tunes with energetic humour and brooding ballads.
Genre wise: Some kind of mix of Jazz, Prog Rock, Djent and Classical music. I like compositional development, so sometimes my tunes have long forms and people say they’re very hard to play, haha.
Intense (poly) rhythms, heavy riffs, heartfelt melody. Rich sound: I’m really interested in and relate emotionally to sophisticated harmony.
Do you have any hobbies outside of music? What do you do to stay creative?
I like exercise, coffee, beer, good food, learning about other languages and culture, philosophical discussions.
Who are some of your main musical influences?
Tigran Hamasyan, Allan Holdsworth, Knower, Keith Jarrett, Wayne Shorter, Henri Dutilleux, Shostakovich, Peep Show.
What’s one of the proudest moments of your music career so far?
Actually releasing some of my bloody music! I’ve composed so much over the years.
What would you say are the greatest lessons that you’ve learned so far?
That I’m not as good as I thought I would be growing up…
Now onto your release, Open Your Mouth! Why did you decide to make your EP’s name the same as your artist name?
Because the distribution company messed up…But, I thought that the artist name may stand out enough that having the artist and EP name one might make for a bold and direct statement. The title was actually meant to be Open Your Mouth! EP to distinguish it from the single release of the eponymous track (which is actually an extended, more live style version of the track on the EP).
Then, the distribution company changed the name to simply Open Your Mouth! and refused to change it back. Then, it got classified as a single according to Spotify’s classifications (apparently if a release has less than four tracks, it’s a single, even though this release lasts twenty-four minutes!).
What inspired this EP? What is the overall theme of Open Your Mouth!?
It’s about being actively aggressive! None of this passive aggressive bilge. Be kindly and unabashedly yourself!
What was the creative process like when making this project? How long did it take to complete Open Your Mouth!?
It took a long time actually. As a composer, I have a lot of specific ideas and often have ideas for long-form development. Sometimes I let that unfold (or consider it very carefully), or I try to turn it into a more manageable form for jazz musicians.
I started composing the first track, ‘IV,’ in Autumn 2018, finished composing it in Spring 2019, performed it, then abridged it a year later to its current version for this band. It originally had about ten different sections, including an intense vamp for synth solo and a very tranquil aftermath.
The initial riff for ‘Open Your Mouth!’ sprung out of my brain in 2020 while I was busy studying and composing for my research project right at the end of my master’s degree, alas it got left and revisited in 2021, when the other sections then got composed in a short space of time. Both of these moments were during COVID while I was plonked at home a lot making my own deliciously lonely mad scientist musical experiments. Then, I started choosing my bandmates and rehearsing my music. We played the music for the first time live in 2022, then recorded in 2023, with ‘IV’ being recorded in 2024.
The recordings were all done DIY at band members’ rehearsal space and home. I did initial production and mixing myself, then enlisted friends knowledgeable in production Laurence Wilkins and Alex Shaw for finishing help and mastering. Since I did a lot of this myself and was learning as I went, some of these production processes took a very long time. For ‘Open Your Mouth!’ and ‘(Understand),’ the snare microphone fell onto the snare during recording and it sounded like a piece of cardboard being slapped. So, we had to do funny things like mix the mic sound with a triggered sampled snare in order to save it, whilst keeping it sounding natural enough.
I have written many other tunes between ‘IV’ and the release of the recent EP, we play many of them live. But, only these three have been recorded properly…so far!
What do you hope fans take away from your music and from Open Your Mouth!?
To summarise simply, I hope people think it’s got some sort of unique quality and it has a somewhat unique emotional effect on people, whether it intrigues, excites, amuses, tearjerks or other! I’d love to be able to make music that gives others something that they can’t get exactly from another piece of music.
What’s next for you? Are you working on any upcoming projects, or do you have any upcoming shows that we should be on the lookout for?
I’m currently booking some more shows, but none confirmed yet. I’m composing more music, including a type of suite in two or three parts with a mixture of heartfelt tender balladry and heavy rhythmic riff-melodies.
Where can we follow you on social media?
https://www.instagram.com/jackof1trade/
https://www.youtube.com/@jackwilliamsopenyourmouth
Streaming:
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4M107YQ9f3emg4BynI9qaG
https://jackwilliamsopenyourmouth.bandcamp.com/album/open-your-mouth
https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KmpJCBaCJpbSa4EdZdw9g
Thank you for the great interview; wish you much continued success!
