How would you describe you music?
"That's a really hard question... I suppose it combines lots of things really, it's a little bit country, a bit of soul in there, indie probably. I'm hoping that it's celebratory of being young and British." How long have you been playing? "I've always been in bands, I used to play bass in bands at school, stand at the back and hope nobody would notice I was there. But then when I came to uni I was all on my own so I picked up the acoustic guitar, learned more than three chords and started writing songs. "It felt a lot more me than playing bass in a band. I've always wanted to stand there and get my message across with no frills, as simple as possible." Would you join a band again? "I don't know, people keep getting in touch and saying 'we should put a band around your songs'. Although it's really nice for them to take an interest, I just like being by myself and doing it the way I do it." Where do you take your influences from? | "I've always wanted to stand there and get my message across with no frills, as simple as possible" | |
"I don't always write about my own feelings and what I'm doing in my life, otherwise my songs could be quite boring. For the song Saturday I was thinking of the sort of people I went to school and college with, maybe people who didn't come to university or dropped out. And I just wanted to write a successful story about that kind of person and the thrills of their life. "I haven't bought a CD in three years because I haven't got any money, and there's so much music already around that I'm just getting stuck into. And I can't let go of all the music I was brought up on. From the scary depths of Whitesnake (it's scary when you're five) to the melodic stuff like Del Amitri." Since you came out of hiding from the back behind a bass guitar, how have you developed as a songwriter? "Well, I think I can play guitar a bit better. So that's quite a big step. But the acoustic guitar really frees you up. It's so powerful, there's so much you can do with it." So what makes a Jess Morgan song? "Real imagery. I tend not to use a lot of metaphors, I tend to use real objects. They're usually songs that are about characters but I always address them to 'me' and 'you'. I once heard Katy Tunstall refer to that as a kitchen table song... but I'm not entirely sure what that means." "I think you can relate better to an audience if it's about me and you." | 
