Interview: Jazmine Mary 'Dog' Album Release Tour

Unleashing their second solo album Dog upon the world on 2nd June, Jazmine Mary is soon embarking on a six date release tour of Aotearoa with band, starting at Tāmaki Makaurau's opulent Hollywood Avondale in early July. Winner of the Best Independent Debut Award for their 2021 album The Licking of A Tangerine, the Australian-born artist sat down with co-directorial video collaborator Annabel Kean (Sports Team), revealing nothing and everything in their freewheeling, no holds barred chat — joined on occasion by 95bFM Breakfast host Rachel Ashby. Read below and don't miss Jazmine Mary with band at the following dates...

Jazmine Mary - Dog - Album Release Tour

Saturday 8th July - Hollywood Cinema, Auckland*
Thursday 13th July - San Fran, Wellington [new venue]*
Saturday 15th July - Wunderbar, Lyttelton*
Thursday 20th July - Yours, Dunedin*
Friday 28th July - The Yard Cafe & Venue, Raglan*
Saturday 29th July - Jam Factory, Tauranga

*Tickets available HERE via UTR

Annabel Kean: The thing is, with the UnderTheRadar interviews, is that usually at the top, before the transcribed interview, Chris will write something really nice and incredibly informative, so I thought we could just have a bit of fun.

Jazmine Mary: Ew Annabel.

Just a bit of fun.

I'm just saying, you can't pressure me to have fun in a thing. [Speaking to Rachel Ashby who has arrived at the café] Hello Rachel.

Rachel Ashby: How are you guys?

Good, how are you? Do you have any interview questions for Jazmine for UnderTheRadar?

Rachel: No.

Annabel's told me I have to have fun.

I said we're gonna do a fun one.

Rachel: I won't interrupt your interview, I'm just gonna get some food and eat it.

Wait, do I have to have fun?

No you don't.

Well I am.

I'm just giving you a warning about my questions.

You motherfucker. Alright, well. Alright let's go. Yeah you can quote all this. On the record. You motherfucker.

Who is your favourite famous dog?

Annabel. I swear to god I'm not doing that. Don't do this to me.

Do you have one?

No!

Pluto?

Who's Pluto?

You don't know Pluto?

The planet?

No, the dog! Mickey Mouse's dog.

Oh yeah, cos a mouse has a dog. You crazy crazy asshole.

I'm sorry that you can't stretch your imagination.

You tried to ask me a similar question the last time and I said I won't be doing that.

This one's different. Last time I asked you who's your favourite dog. This one is favourite famous dog.

Ok. I don't know.

Snoopy?

Annabel I'm not doing it.

Okay I'm sorry.

You would not do this to anyone else? Dingoes.

Rachel: Can I sit at this table? I'll sit next to you and pretend I'm not here.

So far Jazmine's hating this.

I'm refusing. Go, give me the next one.

I'm pretty nervous.

You are not nervous.

I promise that after this question I'll ask a more serious one. Which Friends character are you?

Oh that's fucking easy.

Rachel: Chandler.

Wow. I am hurt. This is just becoming a big old awful time. It's like, I want to be Phoebe but let's face it I'm Monica.

Woah!

Let's not fuck around. Let's not kid ourselves.

I'm avoiding asking you about your album because I know you don't like to tell people too much about it. Can you perhaps give us a fun fact?

I'll tell you one thing for sure Annabel. You don't know anything about me and I don't have any fun facts. There's nothing fun about this. Okay, I'll tell you some things about the album. It's got music on it, lyrics on it. No, what I can tell you about this album is that half of it was written after a death, so has a lot of grief. And then the other half was written some time after that, and that moves into hope. So it's always the same things. It's always love and grief and hope and maybe addiction and destruction and seeing things and falling in love.

Beautiful. I love that. Was that the plan before you started writing it?

No. There's never a plan. It's true. Not for the music writing.

How would you recommend people listen to Dog? On a train, in a tree, or in a box?

In a box? Was that the last one? Oh yes in a box. Under a sheet. Like by yourself in a bed under the sheets with headphones on. Or laying on kitchen tiles with it playing quite loudly at nighttime. Or in a field with a lover that you're willing to lose, with one headphone in each ear. Sonically I wouldn't recommend that, but heartbreak-wise yes. Like you're about to part ways. That's how you're going to do the movie break-up.

So you've agreed 'we're going to start listening to this album and by the end of it'-

Well I think one of you knows that and the other one doesn't. We're seeking suffering at this point.

If Dog was a Friends character which one would it be?

Annabel I swear to god. Next.

Okay.

You had fun writing these didn't you? And knowing it's going to annoy me?

Yep.

Such a dick.

Did you do any unusual production techniques on the record? For example: teaching a dog to sing backing vocals or playing a guitar upside-down.

Annabel I could murder you. There was a dog in the studio for some of the recording of this. Not intentionally. There was this little Choof. Choof pup. You will see in one of the music videos that isn't out yet. And they were around being cute.

Were they on the recording?

Their energy was definitely there. They didn't play instruments or anything. As for unusual production techniques involving dogs no I'm sorry,

No, no maybe it didn't involve a dog. Any fun production techniques.

Fun production techniques... oh really cheeky pitch shifting, like octave shifting of the vocals on some things. Like some of those little sneaky things you might do in hip-hop, I like doing those things in folk music but very very subtly.

Like using the vocal takes as an instrument that you can mess with?

Yeah but really subtle. You might not know unless you listen to it six times and I've pointed it out. It just adds a bunch of something, like a 'DEH'. I don't know how you'll write that word out.

In 'Wet Mouth' you say you're from a small town. Can you tell me a bit about that small town?

It's not true.

Okay.

I'm from New York City. I made it up.

Okay. That's going to really affect my questions.

No, no. I'm from a town Trafalgar in Gippslands. It is not big enough to be good and not small enough to be quaint. It is a town that consists of all the bad things about the world like logging and mining. I don't want to shit on my town too much, but it's not like anyone from there's actually gonna read this. What to tell you about it... it is in a beautiful area. It's by the bush and I grew up camping a lot by creeks and dams and paddocks and shit. Small town shit. Used to ride our horses to the fish and chip shop on the weekends. Me and my friends once tried to ride the horses from Trafalgar to the next town Moe to go through a takeaway drive thru. So we held hands and tried to go on the horses together but they wouldn't have us and that was devastating actually.

You'd gone all that way.

A lot of the grief you'll hear on the album is from that experience. The horse takeaways refusal incident.

That's heavy.

Yeah.

I was gonna ask 'what does a young musician do for fun in your small town' but-

I wasn't a musician when I lived there.
...
...

Or were you??

Oh I mean sure. Sure.

You know, a young artist.

I didn't really start playing music until quite a bit later in my teen years.

But I hear that what you did for fun was get on the horses.

What I did for fun was rode motorbikes and rode horses to the fish and chip shop and ran around the bush and-

Playing in the stream?

Yeah. Yeah, go looking for kangaroos. Not even kidding.

How does Trafalgar influence your music now, if at all?

Nostalgia and romanticism and memories. I think I talked about this before but this very strange thing of — it's very strange for me living here because all the people I know and love and who know me are missing 20 years of my life. I guess that's the same when you meet anyone, but you never see where I'm from or those places or those people and that's a very interesting thing, and it means that to me. It's kind of a displaced feeling, being in a place where you're completely new. It's a strange thing only having existed here in other people's realities for like five years. It's a strange thing.

Alright last question. Which Friends character am I?

Annabel.

I don't think that's one of them.

You want me to answer don't you?

Well it was a theme throughout — I had this theme of my questions-

I'll tell you what Friends character you are you little shit. Who would you be... A bit of a Chandler right now actually.

Oh absolutely. I'm a jokester.

I'm gonna get another coffee.

Is there anything else you'd like to say about the album?

I dunno. I'm sorry I refused half the interview because they were dog / Friends related questions, but I feel you would have seen that coming right?

I wasn't sure.

Oh come on. You've tried it before.