Off The Record: Joesef

Sometimes you just need a song like that after a breakup. Your confidence comes and goes. You’re like, ‘I don’t need him anymore!’ Then two minutes later you’re texting him back. I think anything that makes you feel is good fuel for a song. Heartbreak is such a viscerally uncontrollable emotion – a plethora of emotions. It’s not just one thing. You feel like you don’t need them anymore then the next day you’re on your knees in the kitchen. Having such a physical reaction to an experience like that is a terrible but amazing feeling. I think that’s why people are endlessly inspired by heartbreak. Musicians, painters, it’s got people fucked up! Your nervous system is affected by it. It’s not normal. That’s not what love is supposed to be. It’s not supposed to be chaotic and running up the street and crying outside night clubs. It’s supposed to be safe, comfortable, and content. People are like, that’s boring, but it’s not. When you find the right person it’s not boring.

One of the tracks on my album, Permanent Damage, is called “Borderline”. It’s about a guy who was so nice to me, and so unconditionally loving, and I was pure fucked up at the time. I just felt like the world was against me and I couldn’t be the version of myself that I felt he deserved. It was kind of like right person, wrong time. I’m a totally different boy now than when I made the album, I’m way more level-headed now. Cool as a cucumber.

I miss the people and I miss the humour, the patter. The slogan of Glasgow is, “people make Glasgow”. As I get older and meet new people, I’m always drawn back to the community aspect that you get in Glasgow. Aye, I miss my family, the people, and I miss talking shite with my pals.

My flatmate Caitlin’s from Glasgow. There’ve been times where we’ve met new people and we’ve turned to speak to each other while drunk and the people standing next to us have been like, “you’re talking a different language!” but no, we’re just talking shite.

Every time I go back home, I feel like my mum’s checking to make sure I’m still saying “hoose” instead of “house”. I had an interview in Berlin which was subtitled, and I said I really love the Spice Girls, but they subtitled it “Space Cadets”. I was like, ‘why didn’t somebody clear that?’

Aim high, right? That’s one of the goals. I feel like I could make a sick one. Who knows where I’ll be in a couple of years? I’d fucking love that. Big strings.

I think the internet’s a source of a lot of good but also a source of a lot of really bad things. I think it connects and disconnects people. I have my on and off days with the internet. I like social media but I fucking hate it at the same time. I think it’s changing the music industry for better and for worse. If we didn’t have the internet, I probably wouldn’t be where I am now, but if we didn’t have the internet, I wouldn’t be as mentally ill.

I’ve found a lot of artists I like on TikTok, but the industry now looks for the virality of stuff before the actual content of it which changes the dynamic of how artists make music. I think it’s a negative thing in the long term. You know, they want a minute-long song for a trend… They want singles. It makes the pushing of an album more of an archaic thing. Whereas I fucking love albums.

Probably my flatmate Caitlin. She can understand what I’m saying when I’m not saying anything. If I’m at the other end of a room, she’ll give me a look, I’ll give her a look, and we’ll just have a conversation like that.

We met at T in the Park when I was 17. It was so good. We were off our nuts for the entire weekend. We didn’t know if we fancied each other or if we were best mates, but then it was just best mates. She’s kind of like my platonic soul mate.

Tidy. Very tidy. Tidy house tidy mind. I can’t sit in a pigsty. I want my bedroom to be like a Lush shop, a wee Ambi Pur plugged into the wall does the job! You walk into my room, it’s like opening the gates to heaven, there’s not a surface that doesn’t have a wax melt on it. The kitchen smells like fresh linen. It’s like Disneyland in there.

Jamie xx had a DJ set in Glasgow. It’s one I’ll always remember. The lights were amazing, the set was amazing, I was with my best mates, absolutely off my nut. You know when you and your mates have an album that you all listen to, and it sticks? Yeah.

It’s small. Very small. People think it’s big but it’s not. Everybody knows everybody. It’s why you shouldn’t talk shit about anybody.

He would be so buzzing. I think he’d be shocked as well though. When I was a wee guy, until I was like 15, I was quite quiet. I wanted to paint and draw and sit with my mum and listen to music. I don’t know what happened to me at 15, I started drinking and going out and stuff like that.

I think what I’m doing is so far removed from the reality I grew up with. Young Joesef would be very proud. It’s hard growing up, especially when you’re in the east end of Glasgow and I liked boys, amongst other things. It was a hard time. I was a late bloomer; it affects you growing up in Glasgow. It’s such an eat or be eaten place. Being a big burly man is the law of the land.