Jessica Braithwaite
For the people of Adelaide Jessica Braithwaite is likely most recognisable as the local weather girl. However, for the rest of Australia she is a rising pop music artist who has just released a new single which couldn’t be more timely.
The new single, Feel This Way, may have been written two years ago but with the state of the world it suddenly seems like now is “the perfect time to be releasing it” Braithwaite told City Hub.
“It is offering and alternative way of thinking and hoping that we can choose to feel happy about our lives, no matter what is going on around us.”
According to Braithwaite she first developed the concept for this song when she realised the seemingly insidious effect social media can have on mental health, “the song came about through realising that when I spent a lot of time on social media I felt like crap.” A feeling many of us can certainly attest to in this year of lockdowns and constant social media scrolling. However, with the song now out in the wild Braithwaite has been pleasantly surprised that listeners are taking new meaning from her lyrics.
“People have been writing in to say that it might be other things that have been affecting them at the moment and that this song has helped give them a little reminder that we can still be positive and still find some happiness within ourselves.”
Not only has the positive reception to this song been uplifting for Braithwaite but the recording process for this song was a truely unbelievable experience for her. For this song Braithwaite flew to Los Angeles to work alongside producer Stewart Brawley (who’s past protégés include Michael Jackson, Seal, Cher), and One Direction drummer Josh Devine.
“Even as it was happening I couldn’t believe that it was actually happening,” enthused Braithwaite. “I was standing in the room with these multi platinum songwriters and record producers thinking to myself ‘how the hell did I get here?'”
The opportunity to work alongside these multi-platinum winning artists came about when Braithwaite received an unexpected email, which she initially suspected was a “scam.”
“I thought this doesn’t happen to me, this can’t be real… I thought maybe it’s someone pretending to be Stuart Brawley or they’re going to ask me to transfer money.”
Brawley had discovered Braithwaite after she sent his company an batch on unsolicited demos in the simple hopes of putting herself and her dreams out into the universe and fully expected nothing to come from it.
“When I got the email I felt like there had been a glitch in the matrix… somewhere along the line a mistake has been made. I’m going to get there and they’re going to think I’m someone else.”
It wasn’t a mistake thankfully so now she has the music to prove that it wasn’t all a dream because even now Braithwaite says, “if you told me that all of this had happened to me I wouldn’t have believed you but I’ve got the music to prove it.”
With lockdowns and social distancing sweeping the nation Braithwaite unfortunately can’t mark the release of Feel This Way in the traditional manner with alive show tour. However, that hasn’t stopped her from coming up with an innovative and exciting experience for her fans.
“I decided I would do something true to my natural habitat, which is staying in my pyjamas and drinking tea,” explained Braithwaite. “So we’re going to do an online pyjama party. The idea is that you don’t have to get dressed up, you don’t really even need to put pants on if you don’t want to because its going to be a really chilled out event with me playing a few tunes on the piano and guitar.”
Sep 6. Live streaming on Instagram at www.instagram.com/jessica.braithwaite
