Naarm band Jeane’s self-confessed ‘cheeky mantra’ Emotional Baby will be the group’s debut single ahead of an upcoming EP to be released next year. Fronted by Jazz Johnston (she/her), Jeane’s magnetic team also include other musos-about-town Mitch Ansell (he/him), Luke Moseley (he/him) and Lawrence Folvig (he/him). Jazz chats with Demure writer Juliette Salom (she/her) ahead of Jeane’s single release show at Shotkickers in Thornbury on November 9th, discussing all things music, emotions, and making art with your best mates.
“To be honest, there’s a lot to be emotional about in this world,” Jazz Johnston says, speaking from her home in inner-north Naarm. “It felt good to write about that in a more tongue-in-cheek tone.” Like both an eye roll and a challenge to all the times she’s been deemed too emotional, Jazz’s band Jeane’s debut single, Emotional Baby, reappropriates the term with a kind of satirical indie rock anthem that finds power in vulnerability.
Fronted by Jazz (she/her), Jeane is made up of best mates Mitch Ansell (he/him), Luke Moseley (he/him) and Lawrence Folvig (he/him). It’s the kind of breakout song that once heard, it’ll be twisting its way through loops of your brain for the rest of your day, so simply catchy and ultimately relatable it is. The idea for the song came from experiences of Jazz and some of the femme and GNC people she knows who have felt like they are expected to carry the emotional weight of society, only to be told not to be so emotional. “I was really feeling the realities of working as a woman in a very male dominated industry,” Jazz says. “I wrote this song…to feel a sense of empowerment, a way of saying, ‘Yeah, I am emotional, baby! Deal with it!’”
Paired with a music video that splices shots of the band in a variety of Ballarat locations (including Kryal Castle) against the magnetically-sweet sounding riffs of the song, Emotional Baby achieves that perfect balance that is so hard to hit when it comes to sonic sarcasm – it’s able to make fun of something, whilst also having fun with it. Directed, shot and edited by Marcus Coblyn, the video was shot over just one day, with the help of Bonnie Gray and Romanie Assez. Decked out in a handmade denim-on-distressed-denim outfit (designed and made by Jazz herself), with bandmates overflowing from the bathtub, pale pink bathroom walls crowding the frame like a snapshot of any beloved sharehouse, the video screams through its visuals with the kind of fun that the music already sings with. “It’s a beautiful reflection of the community that I have found in Melbourne,” Jazz says, talking about the video and the people who made it happen. “And [it] was one of the most hilarious days…being silly with our closest friends!”
That silliness and closeness of mates is perhaps the secret ingredient to Jeane’s blatantly obvious winning formula. From the stylistic fluidity of the tune to the artistic cohesion of the video, not to mention the plain old absolute fun it looks and sounds like everyone’s sharing in, Jazz admits that Jeane is nothing short of a dream team. “Everything about making Emotional Baby – from the production to the film clip to the single art – has come organically from our insanely talented friends,” Jazz tells me. Having produced the single with extra engineering help from the rest of Jeane (Luke, Mitch and Lawry), Jazz also summoned other local musos to contribute to the production. With Emma Kelly (of Happy Axe) on string arrangements, Gabriella Cohen on guitar, as well as a saxophone solo at the end of the track from Jazz’s local barista, Devon, it’s then all been mixed and “[made] to sparkle” by James Seymour. “I know its corny,” Jazz says, “but being in a band with your best mates is really the dream.”
Jazz describes the origins of the band as beginning from a “series of beautiful coincidences” – like how all things that are meant to be begin. Having moved to Melbourne in 2020 independently of each other, it was – unsurprisingly – music that brought band mates Jazz and Luke together; specifically, a love of Radiohead and Unknown Mortal Orchestra. A bit of the ol’ classic Naarm sharehouse culture of random Fairyfloss housemate searching brought Mitch into the mix, while Lawry is known from originally playing in a different project with Luke and Jazz (Butternut Sweetheart). Like all the creative communities that operate around Naarm – but perhaps this one more so than any – music has been a way to not just bring these sonically-inclined emerging creatives together through their love of it, but ultimately that love also allows them to become contributors to the kind of culture that reminds us all of the fun to be found when the world outside of songs is feeling a little grim.
What’s so powerful about this beautiful bop is that Emotional Baby is both a celebration of what it is to feel everything so intensely, and a reminder of the ability to have fun for when all that intense feeling feels a little too much. Jazz – who has a self-declared “naturally cheeky personality” – seems to be carrying all these layers of knowing the exhaustion of emotional vulnerability through her soulful voice, and yet in the same breath is able to throw that all away with the slightest inflection of a sarcastic smile you can hear on her lips; it’s the kind of playful wisdom all indie-rock bangers should possess.
Playing a show at Shotkickers in Thornbury on November 9th to celebrate their debut single, Jeane is gearing up for the release of their first bundle of music in the coming year. An EP of songs that Jazz says will include “soft sad songs, trashy songs, more strings, horns, synths” and more, Jeane is a band to keep both eyes peeled for, baby!
Listen to Emotional Baby here.
Watch the Emotional Baby music video here.
Follow Jeane here.
Tickets to Jeane’s Naarm show are here.