There are many things we truly enjoy in this world: good food (mostly sushi), herbal teas, video games and music marketing, especially interviews. And London based trio JW PARIS are not only one of our favourite artists ever, they are also our favourite kind of people: hard working, honest, talented and treating others with kindness. We teamed up with Gemma Clarke (drums) and Danny Collins (guitar, vocals) to discuss their newest single, upcoming music, trips abroad and plans for the next few months. Grab a cuppa and a biscuit, this piece is a long read!
“Anything” single cover design by Danny Collins
It’s been ages since we spoke to you all last time. How have you been? We hope all is well!
Danny: It’s always great to speak to you! Each time we sit down with you both, hopefully we’ve got some more JW Paris stories to share. You know us…. There is always something new. We’ve just got back from a sold out show in France, which was the most chaotic and rock ‘n’ roll show we’ve ever played – the crowds out in France really thrive off British music.
There have been a lot of changes within the band recently. Gemma became drummer for Tuggawar, Danny, you got married and Aaron moved to Margate. Are those changes having any impact on the way the band works? Did you have to come up with a new routine for meeting up, writing and rehearsing?
Danny: It’s no lie, we’ve all been extremely busy and this can start to hoover up our free time. However, for us, it’s been a really good thing for JW Paris. The more we fill our lives with new adventures the more opportunities we have to turn those experiences to inspire our music. For example, Gembo (Gemma) playing with Tuggawar has meant that at some shows we do a surprise song featuring the man himself. Who would ever think JW Paris would have a viral rapping sensation guest on a song?!
Getting together as a band isn’t as frequent as it was say 2 years ago, this means the time we do spend together is so much more creative, valuable and means a lot more. All the other fluff of us being together like the idiot chats has now moved into the wildest WhatsApp group between us three. The writing process has definitely become a hybrid approach now – I saw an interview recently with CMAT saying the most used instrument of hers is the voice notes app on her iPhone. That is so true with us, we create these “shards” of ideas, get them on voice note and share in our WhatsApp group. This means, when we do come together, we have a smorgasbord of ideas to thrash out and mould into hopefully our next singles.
You have a new single coming out! We have been waiting for it for an eternity. and “Anything” is finally being released in a couple of days. Tell us about the song. What’s the story behind it?
Danny: I promise you, we’ve waited longer than you for this track! It’s actually one that Aaron and I started back when we first moved to London in 2018. This song was the start of how it felt for us to be running into the big smoke, living together for the first time. We actually tried to record this years ago at Foel Studio. The chorus just never seemed to work then, so it sat on our metaphorical shelf until earlier this year!
We were lucky enough to have one of our tracks “Radio” get some success on a US TV show last year and for the FIRST TIME in our musical career, we actually got a decent fee! I wrote a new chorus to “Anything” and we all thought: let’s go back and get this done. So, we used our money to invest to return to Foel Studios. Foel Studios is the second oldest residential recording studio in the middle of nowhere in Wales. We have recorded a few more tracks (so watch this space) but it’s the studio where we would be up until the early morning getting creative. The perfect place to finish this type of track.
JW Paris by Taylor Conboy
“Anything” captures the energy, attitude and atmosphere of Britpop’s heyday while offering, we hope, a modern twist. It’s built on spiralling guitars and a driving rhythm. We wanted to explore different possibilities, identities and blur the lines between dreams and nightmares: “I could be anything, but everything is nothing… If dreaming was a reality, then my nightmare would look a little bit like you” and so on.
“Anything” has already received fantastic reviews from the biggest radio DJ’s in the country. Steve Lamacq from the BBC 6 called it a fantastic track and John Kennedy of Radio X considers it your best song yet. Tell us what you love about it.
Danny: Honestly, having both of those absolute legends in the music world heap praise on your single is still unbelievable. For me, I love how the song never really left us. As I mentioned, we wrote the majority of it at the start of our London journey. And like you said in your first point, life has changed for us and it feels like a celebration to us as a band. It’s got that vibe that if you’ve seen us, you’ll know what I mean. We’ve got woo’s, dirty guitars and shit hot drums – it’s the most JW Paris song I think we’ve got.
The single cover to “Anything” is different to other sleeves that JW Paris had to date. It displays the name of the song in Japanese and has a very strong aesthetic that brings to mind the overwhelming “kawaii culture” in Asian marketing and design. There is no band logo or any other information available. Who designed the cover and what was the idea behind it?
Danny: Yes, that was me who specifically designed the cover. I found this very retro old Japanese sticker in a thrift store in Tokyo, it looked quite sun faded and very 80’s. Within the band we do the lot: write the songs, create the videos, design the artwork and launch the social campaigns. For “Anything”, I wanted to take inspiration from this sticker and create our own unique one. I scanned the sticker, removed the original elements and then spelt “anything” in Japanese. I wanted it to look like stickers that had been placed on a CD case. You know the CDs you used to get free with NME or Kerrang! magazines? I wanted it to feel like that. We also have made these into real life stickers which you can grab for free at our gigs. That, or they will appear in toilets throughout London!
You mentioned online that you have a lot of new material. Are you planning to release a new EP or can we finally get a full fledged album? If yes, can we have it on vinyl?
Danny: Okay, so we would absolutely LOVE to do an album, but the reality is we can only afford as much as we can with this band. Obviously, we’ve had some fantastic help from Blaggers Records along our journey to get our heads above the water, however, the reality is this all costs a fair bit to put together. The good news is – we seem to be picking up some traction with our songs in the US for TV and Film, the more we land there, the money goes straight back into our new songs. In short, we’ve got a few more coming your way late 2025 and early 2026 – you won’t have to wait long!
New songs are not the only thing that you prepared for your fans. We have seen tote bags! Where can we get them from? What new items people can find on your merch stand?
Gemma: The bags are ace aren’t they?! It was Danny’s idea and I am so here for that! Love a tote bag! We have t-shirts, stickers and badges too. We always have them on us at gigs or just DM us and we will sort out getting them to you! I’d love to go wild at with the merch, I’d print the logo on everything possible, but we gotta sell this lot first, then we can find something else fun to print
New merch, new music – it means that we will see JW Paris on tour again! Where can we catch you playing live? Any booked gigs that you can share with us?
Gemma: Yesss! We have a headline show on October 30th at The Hawley Arms in Camden for The Red Light Sessions. Tickets on sale now, they’re cheap and selling fast, so grab ’em quick ! It’s also Halloween, sooo put on ya spookiest costume and come and have a boogie with us. I am trying to organise fancy dress costumes for us, a famous trio… Unfortunately, the boys aren’t feeling us being The Powerpuff Girls, or Shrek/Donkey/Fiona but I shall continue nagging them, hahaha! So, if anyone has any ideas…
JW Paris looking posh by Marcus Clarke
Talking about touring – a few weeks ago you traveled to France to play at the Boarding Pass Festival. Your set was packed to the brim. How did you get involved with them? Is performing abroad different than in the UK?
Danny: This was a fantastic event set up by Blaggers Records and a close friend of ours Ronan Vieule in his home city of Beziers in France. Think Great Escape vibes, where on each night a different venue hosts a range of bands: half from France and half from the UK. Every night was absolutely rammed, people in France are the best crowd. Everyone is engaged to the music, even if they’ve never heard of you. We got off stage and I asked one promoter why such a good crowd, he said that rock ‘n’ roll bands from the UK are just authentic. This is the culture back there. Crowds feel that when they see a band from the UK it’s the source of indie/rock. The festival was great as we travelled with Blaggers bands and met so many inspiring French artists that we played with. I love the UK music scene, but there is an element of the artist community in Europe that maybe we do not have so much here in the UK. The British market is a bit more competitive rather than supportive, which I suppose has its benefits too.
Gemma – a question for the best drummer in the world. You are not only drumming for JW Paris now but also for Tuggawar’s new band, The Warr. Tuggawar has joined JW Paris on stage on several occasions, is there a chance for both bands to collaborate on a song together?
Gemma: Ah! Well, that was a little idea I had been brewing in my mind for a while and then Tuggy mentioned it, so I ran with it! Straight to the boys, we didn’t even rehearse the song. We just talked about it because it’s a song I play with the Warr and musically is a well known song, so I said I’d lead them through the structure with “the eyes” (wide eyes means there’s a change haha!) Having made music with all these boys for so long now, we can all feel when a change is coming and just go together! The spontaneous songs are my fave and bringing both my bands together makes me so giddy, haha! I love playing with a Tuggawar track with JW, it’s just so fun! And you never really know when Tugga’s gonna jump up with us, so I love the buzz when he does! Together we make dancehall/hiphop/britpop/grunge… whoddathunkit?! As far as actually recording something together, I’m not so sure. The Warr are busy rehearsing up the set for a tour and JW are busy with the new releases, so for now, the collaboration is a spur of the moment thing, it defo keeps me on my toes haha!
Danny – your turn. Some time ago you travelled to Japan where you had a chance to play at the iconic Ruby Room in Tokyo. Is there any video of your performance? If there is, do you plan to publish it online?
Danny: This was an absolute dream to do! Once I was in Tokyo, I went to a second hand guitar store, fell in love with a telecaster and then was like – fuck it, let’s go try and play live somewhere. Ruby Room was amazing, but the night was very singer/songwriter – so it was great to get up and sing a few of our tracks “Who Are You” and “Geeks & Freaks”. We made a reel, that’s on our Instagram page: give us a follow and search it out!
In the spirit of your new song “Anything” – if you could be anything in the world, what would you choose?
Danny: One of the retired horses that lives on Gemma’s farm – heard the grub is well good!
Gemma: Hahaha, do you?! You are sooo funny, haha! The horses here do have a wonderful life, as does the piglet I rescued, she’s the queen of this place, I’m obsessed with her! But me? I think I’d like to be in charge of booking the big festivals’ main stages, so I could give small artists and bands some seriously good gigs! Like, Reading & Leeds main stages and Glastonbury main stage. Some of these grassroots bands and artists work so hard at what they do and they just need a good break, a main stage gig would give them the exposure needed! I would book JW Paris and The Warr obviously too hahaha!
And finally: there are now less than 100 days to 2026 – any plans for the new year? What can we expect from the band in the year of the Horse?
Danny: Recording, recording, recording. We still have a number of tunes ready to release, so keep your eyes firmly locked on our social channels. We’ve got a few festivals already locked in for 2026 and some interest from more film & TV shows for our music. Hopefully, you all won’t get sick of us!
You can follow the band on socials:
https://www.facebook.com/jwparismusic
https://www.instagram.com/jwparismusic
https://www.tiktok.com/@jwparismusic
https://www.youtube.com/@JWPARIS
https://twitter.com/jwparismusic
https://soundcloud.com/jwparis-music
https://open.spotify.com/artist/7Eh8L6V40D5B70XCOucwE3
Rita and Malicia Dabrowicz
Indieterria 