The Rockpit’s Stephanie Jewell sat down with Jimmy J Watson from alternative pop-punk band ColourMind recently to discuss their new upcoming single that he wrote, Love Is Blind, and to talk about all things song writing and the future. Jimmy spoke candidly about his early days, learning to sing while driving around and throwing himself into the band.
Jimmy: “In the early days, I joined the band shortly after a job as a courier driver. I didn’t have very many stops on my routes, and I was listening to music and singing in the car while working. I actually worked out how to do screams in singing on a random trip to Lancelin while working. One of the reasons I left that job was because they changed the system so we couldn’t play music in the car anymore. It was like I had an outlet while I was working.”
Jimmy: “I had tried switching lanes with my life a few times, jobs that only lasted a few months here and there. ColourMind has been the longest that I have spent going in one lane or direction. I joined ColourMind and then a few months after that I had an injury. We were playing gigs, so I still played the gigs. I played Amplifier Bar in a wheelchair, first gig sitting down and then crutches after that to get around.”
We spoke about Jimmy’s goals with ColourMind in those early days, of getting songs recorded and getting air play on the radio.
Jimmy: “To get a song the radio, that was our first initial goal, and we achieved that, so we didn’t really expect much more to happen after that. But things happened fast and we ended up getting more radio play on Triple J, and also on Triple M, and started getting international recognition. It was great. After that, we released Sweet Surrender, Too Young To Live, all the way through, really. It was around the time that we were recording Neglect that Tristan, our bass player, left the band and we got Reg King in. As soon as we got Reg in, we finished recording the bass and finished some songs on the album. Tristan and Reg both have their own bass parts on it, which is really cool.”
Jimmy spoke in depth about his song writing, opening up and getting vulnerable about the processes and the struggles behind writing ColourMind’s latest single, Love Is Blind.
Jimmy: “I had a lot of song writing chemistry with Jonny (Essiech) during that time. Especially 2022 to 2023, a lot of those songs became an album. I had a lot of time to work on the demos previously sent to me, and I would record and send him demos all the time too. Because I was off work, I essentially worked on the band full time. I treated the band like it was my job at the time, I had a job because, you know, I was off work and the band was my job, not just a task. It became more than just a job and more than just a passion project, sort of like a ‘passion job’, because when you love what you do, that’s what it becomes. When it was a job and a hobby at the same time, it’s a passion, to work on the record full time. But then I had to, you know, get a job and make money, so I could afford to keep pushing it forward and that was a bit of a struggle around that time.”
Jimmy: “Love Is Blind started as a demo I wrote called False Promises. Jonny liked the chord progression with the sweeping octave guitar. But False Promises wasn’t really turning into a proper song. After going through a recent break up, I felt that I had something to write about where I felt like I could say most of what I wanted to. I had not written many sets of lyrics after writing the album because I had gotten everything off my chest with the album.”
Jimmy: “I went a little while, struggling with writers’ block, not knowing what to write about. Lyrically, we had been working on all these songs for so long and I kind of felt like I had already put everything into them. But then with Love Is Blind, we wanted something faster which is why the guitar thrashing is fast paced in the verses. And so, I had a demo, and then Jonny came over and we worked on it a bit more and added the bridge to it. Jonny added his personal flair to it too. Love Is Blind is a really cool song, I hope it reaches a lot of people when the streaming services algorithm gods decide to show it to people when its released.”
Jimmy: “With writing songs, sometimes you have a bit of the music first, and then you put the lyrics over the top of that, and then figure out how to either continue the song or reverse engineer it. If you’ve got something that works well as an ending or a climax, or if it is something distinct and with some substance to build on, you build the rest of the song out from there. I think for this stuff, for punk, you want to be kind of codifying emotions. Not necessarily angry, but kind of just really confident with handling the negative things that you’re experiencing. And with pop punk it’s like a happier style of punk. With all those songs, like Too Young To Live and all the rest, I was trying to make a positive thing from a bad thing, from a negative thing. It was kind of validating, to have put your feelings and your emotions into a song and get them out. That’s the major key, – and happy sounding, that goes down well with people.”
Jimmy: “Before I was in ColourMind, all I could do was either rant to people and make myself look bad because I am ranting, or write down where I am at. Kind of like typing a message to someone. Instead I’m like, ‘you know what, I’ll just write this down’ and then then that’s kind of how I got into deeper songwriting. I thought, what if I turned that into lyrics and make it rhyme, so that people can relate? They can’t validate it by relating to it, unless I structured it well”.
Jimmy spoke briefly about leaving ColourMind. Love Is Blind will be a bittersweet release as Jimmy’s last song with the band. We spoke about Jimmy’s plans for the future and what is next on the horizon for the young and talented musician.
Jimmy: “I am leaving the band because I have some life stuff going on and some figuring out to do. I am going to just focus on that for the next few months as my priority. I wouldn’t mind being just a guitarist. I liked being a front man and singing and playing guitar, and I still like punk and pop punk but I’d like to explore some other styles. I don’t want to pigeonhole myself but I really like metal and grunge. I’ve got a demo that’s just me and a guitar and I haven’t put any drums or bass on it. I think it would be cool to try something different and I’ve got a lot of ideas in mind.”
Thank you to Jimmy J Watson of ColourMind for being so gracious with giving me his time for this interview, and to The Rockpit and Raging Bear Artist Management for the access. Jimmy, we wish you all the best in your future adventures and can’t wait to see what your next chapter holds.
ColourMind release ‘Love is Blind’ on July 5 and you can pre-save it HERE
