Jaden joined Zane Lowe on Apple Music to run through his ‘At Home With’ playlist. He tells Apple Music his new song “Cabin Fever”, his forthcoming “summery” project ‘Cool Tapes Volume 3’ which he hopes to drop before the end of summer, his approach to mixtapes versus albums, and the challenges of recording during lockdown. He also chats about The Beatles and calls ’Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ his favourite album of all time, spending time with his influences, coping with anxiety, shortening his name and what he loves about Joey Bada$$, Dominic Fike, Khruangbin and more.
On The Beatles…
I'm blown away by the Beatles. Every day, like I get up and I'm just like, "Wow, the Beatles. Actually, that happened." I don't know, I'm at a loss for words, with everything that they've ever done and every album that they've ever made. And Sergeant Pepper is my favourite album of all time.
On Spending Time With His Influences (Pharrell, Rocky, Tyler) and Being Himself...
And especially with the people that you mentioned, Pharrell, Rocky, Tyler. Getting around them and being like, Oh man, I have to catch my own vibe. You know what I mean? It's one of those things where it's like, I would hang out with Tyler all the time and be like, Oh man, yeah, I'm cool. I'm going to skateboard with you guys. I'm cool. I'm going to catch this vibe with you guys. But then I would realise like, oh snap, I can't Treflip. They're out here doing the craziest stuff. I can't even, I can't keep up. And then that's when I realise where I'm like, yo, I love skateboarding so much, I always will. And it's because of Tyler, but regardless I'll always love it. But if I wanted to like really be myself, I would go surfing.
On Shortening His Name to Jaden & David Bowie…
I realised that Willow changed her name to Willow at some point in time. And that she was no longer Willow Smith. Yeah, it took me a while. It took me a while. Because if you look Willow Smith up, it'll still come up. But then it took me a while to see that it was just Willow. And I was like, "Yo. That's so strong." Willow. You feel like you don't have to say your last name. You're just Willow. I create different characters for myself and that's why also one of the reasons I love Bowie so much, but I create different characters for myself and it's like, Jaden that's music and Jaden Smith, that's 501(c)(3), that's acting in movies. I wanted to just make that little distinction there, just a little bit, so that I could just...different things are happening.
On Dealing With Anxiety…
It's funny, before this, I was on the phone with my friend and they were just like, "I'm so anxious all the time, and I'm worried about this, and I'm worried about that." And I'm like, "Oh, duh, duh, duh. This, that, and the third." And all of these questions is about life, but then also just about normal things, too. It did make me realise the anxiety is going through the roof for everybody, and it's crazy. And I never really knew what anxiety was until recently, either, where I'm just like, "Man, I'm just worried about..." I don't even know. I'm just stressed about everything, and it's really crazy. It's really crazy. And it doesn't happen to me too much, but when it does, it happens. It's very strong.
I definitely do discuss it with my sister, with my friends, and talk to people about it. Like, "Yo, we're stressed about this, or we're stressed about that." Sometimes it's work-related, and then sometimes, you can really see what it's that true, genuine anxiety, where it's just like anything and everything. And I feel like talking about it with people is the best way to get over it. I feel like we're all being aware of the different mental health issues in the world right now, because we're all being isolated with ourselves, so we are very much so being confronted with our thoughts. And some people are okay with that, and some people aren’t.
It's a day-to-day basis thing. Sometimes I wake up and I'm going to be like, "Hey, I'm going to wake up and get to talk to Zane today. It's going to be a good day. We're going to get into it. It's going to be fun." And sometimes I'm like, "Man, I don't know what I'm doing today. I'm just going to go back to the gym, and I'm going to go back into the editing this, and I'm going to go back into the studio, and then I'm going to go back to sleep. And then I'm going to do the same thing tomorrow.”
On New Song “Cabin Fever”…
I'm just trying to make the kids happy right now, man. That's it. I'm just trying to give them a little something something. You know I care so much, you know? I really just have to give props and a big shout out to Burns right now for producing the record and he's just so amazing. He really just locked into what I was looking for musically at the time, and I'm just so happy. I'm so happy with how it turned out, and I just really hope people can enjoy it.
On Forthcoming Project ‘Cool Tapes Volume 3’...
I'm bringing it inside and I'm making it more of a world that other people can participate in and actually, this is great for me to let you know because this album is going on... It's an album called Cool Tape Volume 3, right? So, I did Cool Tape Volume 1, Cool Tape Volume 2, and then Fire. So this is Cool Tape Volume 3, and it's kind of bringing all my fans who have been with me from the beginning, since before "Icon,", before SYRE, and kind of updating them onto everything that's been happening. But with that being said, this is also a prequel before SYRE, you know? So it's kind of taking place when I'm like 15, going all the way up until 17 and how did SYRE get trapped in the sunset? How did all that happen? Why did it happen? Where's your friends? Where's everybody else? Tell us the story before you get trapped in this Inception purgatory.
On Aiming To Release The Project Before The End of Summer…
It's going to be soon. Once again, I don't want to get anyone's hopes up of when and say, "Oh, it's coming out of this time," and then missing the deadlines, but I'm going to try to release it while it's still summer. I'm going to try to release the album within the summertime. It'll fit there really nicely. So I don't know exactly when it's going to come out. I was in the studio last night. We're really finishing it all up and just making it sound like butter. Hopefully, it'll be done soon. I have a date in my head, but I can't say it because I just need to make sure that I'll be of it.
On The Challenges of Making an Album During Lockdown…
It's really hard. it's really hard, because you can't get into the studio with anybody, and you can't even get into the studio at all. So I have to record being inside of my house, and then engineer has to engineer me from his house, and he'll use this app to control my computer, da, da, da. So it's like I'm recording the whole album by myself. So it's funny because it's like, I recorded SYRE with people around and that was more of like, I'm by myself album. And this one is the, "Yo, I'm actually... This is the story before I went into that kind of place where I'm like, 'I'm just going to be by myself.'" And I'm being forced to record it by myself. So that's really interesting. But it's happening, and we're figuring it out and we're just rolling with it in whatever it is, just to make happen.
On Finding Inspiration and Learning The Guitar…
I just wanted to be able to really listen into different types of style of music, and pull in different inspirations that I could use for my own music, whether that be vocal harmonies, whether that be different types of pedals on guitar, whether that be playing guitar in general, you know? It's like, I came and we did an interview for Iris, and I played that one song on guitar a little bit, that was me messing around. And now I'm just, through this quarantine I'm just trying to get better and better and better. I'm still nowhere where I want to be, being able to play guitar. But the fact that I can play a few songs and I can do this, and I can practice singing on guitar, that's what I really care about. Because now, I can have a personal connection with the instrument, where it helps me to express emotions, you know?
