Jayme Morpeth

21 year old Pōneke Wellington artist Jayme Morpeth is carving out her place in the capital’s indie-pop landscape. A recent graduate of Massey University, where she completed a Bachelor of Commercial Music majoring in Practice, Morpeth has grown up with music woven into her life from an early age. She began singing at nine, was uploading original songs to YouTube by 12, and comes from a musical family that nurtured that creative spark. Primarily a vocalist who also plays guitar and piano, she first stepped onto a stage in Year 9 at a school performing arts night — a moment that marked the beginning of a steady evolution from bedroom GarageBand demos to fully realised collaborative productions. With her upcoming five-track EP Good Grief, Morpeth reflects on a rollercoaster few years of overthinking, relationships, and emotional growth; themes that now define her sound.

In your own words, what genre do you see yourself fitting into?

Uh, I would say it's like a fusion, I guess, because it's kind of changed a little bit. Definitely used to be indie pop, but I feel like I've always been inspired by folk. So I've got some folk elements in there, and then Some alternative pop. Also some folk indie, so its really like a bunch of stuff.

So which other musicians then would be the biggest influences on your work?

Mazzy Star, Lana Del Rey, um, Harry Styles. Clairo. Beabadoobee. But definitely. Lana Del Rey. She's like the top.

When you’re creating music what influences and inspires the music that you're creating? Where do you pull from?

Um, I definitely pull from experiences. I guess not directly from what's happened, but I guess like the over-analysation of the situation. Yeah. Like I'm picking every little different thing of the situation and kind of diving into it. It's kind of therapeutic actually. A lot of the time actually, I write songs when the situations happens, like I'll write the first verse and then the chorus and then I will come back to it later and it's cool, 'cause I now have a different perspective on the situations because it's not affecting me as much, or I've learned different things so I can kind of have a different perspective and write from that.

So it kind of changes the song in some ways, which I like. But. Yeah, I think mostly feelings, and sometimes I write about my friends' situations. Sometimes I get inspired by a movie or something and I write about that. But it can come from a lot of things.

Did your time at university change the way you approach making music?

Yeah, definitely became more collaborative, which is good. I started working with other musicians who played other instruments. So I feel like I could create more feeling with the instruments. It could be like a great guitar riff, and now I can feel like there is more feeling to it. 

When I was in high school, I would just do little Garagebrand productions and I feel like I was more focused on the melody, but [now] I feel like the whole composition working with more instruments has helped me create more feelings within my lyrics as well, which is good.

Do you have a favourite song to perform live?

Probably Gone For Good, which is the one that just came out. It's definitely my favourite and I feel like I put a lot of emotion into it. When I was playing my songs at gigs to figure out which ones people would want me to release in the early days, a lot of people would be like “you need to release that one!” 

If someone was hearing you for the first time, which song would you recommend that they start with?

Yeah. I would say Gone For Good because it represents who I am now as an artist. I would say the other songs are kind of like, “we don't need to talk about them as much.” I feel like I’ve changed a lot. Oh, “meet you again” is pretty good. Yeah, I like that one. It's more fun. So I guess if you're looking for a fun song then “Meet you again”, but if you're looking for more of an emotional one, “Gone For Good”.

So when you're performing live, what kind of vibe do you go for with the audience? Like more intimate or more of a big energy sing along.

I would say definitely intimate. When I am doing it by myself, sometimes I can go into my own world, but also I guess because I started playing bigger gigs with bands, I feel like the band hypes up the energy a lot. So it's like I can be more fun and dancey. [Compared to] When I'm doing it by myself, I feel like it can be harder to connect with the audience. I'll tell a story about what the song is about, but I guess it's hard to get them interactive in the same way as when there is a band bringing all the energy.

Your EP Good Grief is coming out soon. What's the story behind the name?

There were a few things actually. So Gone for Good, it had "good" in it. And then there's another one of the songs that has “good” in a lot of the lyrics, but also it just came as I was listening back to my EP and especially, 'cause I've written the songs across a year and it was like a rollercoaster of a year.

So listening back on some of the earlier songs I wrote. It honestly is me being like, good grief. "What were you thinking when you were writing that? Why were you feeling those feelings? You're being dramatic." But also it's kind of a play on words. It is good grief. Like I went through some rollercoasters and emotions and I grieved, but it's good 'cause it's good to let it out. It has that double meaning, which is pretty cool.

Is there a narrative through-line throughout the EP or does each song kind of stand on its own?

I would say overthinking would probably be the overall theme, but each song, yeah, it's, yeah. I feel like each song is about something different.

But yeah, just me overthinking. And its about relationships, whether it's with friends or boyfriends or exes, ex friendships, anything. There's just a bunch of like how I deal with different relationships. Overthinking and relationships are definitely the themes.

Was there a certain moment when you were working on your different songs where you kind of thought “this is gonna be my project; I'm putting all of these together into one EP”?

Well, at Massey our project was to make an EP, so that kind of helped put it together. I already had these three songs that I was like, “I want to put these all together into a project” which I was writing, not last year, but the year before. I had them in my catalog and that's when I was doing a lot of solo gigs, and I played them at CubaDupa.

So I was playing these three songs a lot, which are gonna be my three singles [from the EP]. And I definitely knew then and there that I wanted to create a project with those three songs in it [...] but then it definitely helped that at Massey the major project was to actually make an EP.

Is there one specific track on the EP that feels more personal to you?

They’re all pretty personal, but maybe I would say Just To Feel It, which is the one that's coming out on Friday. It’s kind of about growing up and also just going through it and partying and getting lost in. Getting drunk, I guess, and fighting with people and having that be an outlet for you. I feel like I definitely felt that in second year of uni and definitely in parts of high school. So I think because it's something that, you know, as an ongoing thing in my life, that's become more personal to me.

Is there anything that you want listeners to take away from the EP?

Maybe that it's okay to overthink and to feel. To have emotions and not to just suppress everything. And it's okay to show your side of the story even if you do have a lot of emotions and might think that people will think that you're crazy for it.

Is there any sort of dream venue or festival that you'd love to play?

Laneway would be so fun. I feel like that would be the one. And even though I've been to Laneway [not performing], I feel like I'm not a festival person. I think that a one day festival is good for me.

So playing there would be so cool. And  I've seen soo many awesome artists play there. So that would be a dream.

And what about a dream collaboration?

Ooh, I feel like, I mean, I have a lot. I feel like a fun one would be Pinkpantheress because her music is so different, but I love her sound. Yeah. So I feel like that would be fun to mix genres. 

Do you have anything else coming up that you wanna plug?

My EP will be coming out soon and also I'm playing at CubaDupa again this year. That’s my solo gig, but I'm hoping that I can start playing more gigs after that. I'll focus on that once I'm done with writing and with releasing songs.

Jayme Morpeth will be playing CubaDupa and her new song Just To Feel It comes out 27th February. You can find her on Instagram @jayme.morpeth