Le’Keisha Sims catches up with Jessie of Jessie and the Toyboys! 

Le’Keisha: So how has the tour with Britney Spears been?

Jessie: The Femme Fatale tour has absolutely been the highlight of my career! They’re aren’t enough adjectives to tell you how insanely awesome it was. I’m the biggest Britney fan, a huge Nicki fan and getting to perform on stage and open, as a performer was amazing and then later sneaking into the audience to “become a fan’ and see such great performers perform was just amazing. 

L: Your sound is super pop, mixed with a little bit of Euro Electro and LA Steeze pop how did you go about creating your sound for J&TB and seeing what works for you?

J: Yes I always try to mix up some Euro in my music. I grew up a So Cal kid, and always try to incorporate some Cali Swag into my music. I actually moved to Europe for two years, and was exposed to a lot of different sounds I probably wouldn’t have in the states such as Dupstep and Grime and so as I began making records I experimented and drew from those life experiences and influences, while still keeping my roots.

L: Your first Single ‘Push It’, which is my favourite by the way; features Yelawolf, how did that come about? 

J: Yeah! Yelawolf’s dope! I met him before he signed with Em on Shady Records. And I kept hitting him up on twitter, haha Oh the power of Twitter and was  like ‘ hey you’re dope, I love your stuff we should work on something.’ and this was way before I had a lot of followers on twitter and was verified, we were kind of at the place of anticipating getting our big break. So I actually went to one of his show in L.A and met up with him like ‘ Hey its Jessie from Twitter.’ I played him ‘Push It’ and he was like ‘Yeah that’s dope, let me get on that!’ and I was just like ‘Of course’. We got in the studio, put him on the track and “Push It’ was finished.

L: You’ve been working on your debut album, can you tell us what can fans expect and around when it’ll be out?

J: Yes I’m pushing for a fall release on the album, which is titled: ‘This Is How The Rumours Start.’ It’s a little bit darker than ‘Show Me Your Tanlines’. There are a lot of new tracks; half I wrote in London and half here. It’s mainly just a lot about the different things I went through, the different Toyboys that have been and out of my life, betrayal, there’s party songs as well. It’s really well rounded.

L: Your live performances are always lively and you really get the crowd going, do you plan out your performances  or kind of go with the flow?

J: I’m always putting work into everything that I do, everything is choreographed and rehearsed I mean, we want to put on a good show. But then the artistic performing just comes second nature, We rehearse and plan but then natural instinct just kicks in and you loose yourself on stage. So I do have everything pre-planed but as soon as the lights hit I don’t think about anything. 

L: Many fans wanted to know about your personal style, do you have any brands/labels that you always go too?

J: Totally! In terms of fashion, I like to mix high end pieces with a lot of lower prices, um high street, I don’t know what we really call that here haha. But like H + M paired with Chanel. or like a funky $10 tee and my Plastic Chanel bag, or pair like cheap Ghetto Jewelry with something cool from Marc Jacobs. A lot of people would expect my closet to be pretty big but I mix and match a lot and splurge mainly on items that will get a lot of use. 

L: Totally, I know what you mean it’s like this Chanel bag cost this much but if i’m going to use it everyday for a year it’s only like $2.50 a day. Totally justifies my huge buys. 

J: Exactly! 

L: So Besides music do you have any hobbies or things you like to do in your down time?

J: I love making videos! I actually wrote and produced videos for the Toy boys ‘This is How the Rumours Start’ which I’ll be releasing soon as well, I write screen plays. I really like to write, and pretty much be apart of anything dealing with dance, anything from taking ballet classes to just classic dance. 

L: So your working on your album and wrapping up the Femme Fatale tour, what can fans look forward to until the album release? 

J: I’m actually going back on tour. I leave for the Identity festival in 2 days, and again i’ll be surrounded by people I’m such a major fan of such as Skrillex, Caskade, Calvin Harris! Its going to be like one giant summer long party, my album in the fall and just a lot of cool visuals. I’m actually launching the visuals for my song ‘Naughty’ Its not a single or anything but on the Femme Fatale tour I played it to sort of see the reaction to the song and I got all these tweets like “Oh my gosh we love Naughty!”, “Where can we get the studio version of Naughty?” So I thought I would debut the studio version with a video. 

Jessie & The Toyboys’ EP “Show Me Your Tan lines" is available now on Itunes.