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Cosmo Jarvis returns to our shores with his Love Police tour. Though it's only been a matter of months since his last visit, it seems Australia is welcoming of the British artist. I was fortunate enough to chat to him while he was on the road.
Australia is indeed lucky to have Cosmo back, and the feeling is reciprocated. He remarked how it's the place he is “embraced the most by the most number of people. Either that or it’s the country where people don’t know what the fuck to do on gig nights so they come into the gig.” Loving our “no bullshit” attitude towards gigs and our “good weather and good females”, it's no wonder he is touring for the second time this year.
It’s this relationship that has led his fans to such extreme displays of dedication as getting Cosmo’s lyrics tattooed on them. “I feel bad for their parents," he admitted. "Maybe... I know it's strange but it's good that they take something from it and they feel they deem worthy to stay with them for such a long time.”
It's these messages that have made Cosmo's short career all the more profound for his loyal fans. He recalls, “A couple of guys said that the 'Gay Pirates' thing helped them a lot when they were trying to come out to their parents.” With his music and message, he “helped them [his fans] see a new way, and it was good for them to find out there was somebody else who was fucked up and cutting themselves and writing music about it – that kind of thing.”
Those like-minded fans can look forward to new music soon. A new album will soon “be recorded, the sound is gonna be a lot more like, live. Like believable as a live situation. It’s gonna sound a lot more plausible sonically, other than me recording a bunch of shit and trying to make it fit in a sequencing environment. It’ll be a lot more representative of something that was actually possible and actually could have been played in a room.” Reflecting his dedication to live performance, which for anyone who has been to a Cosmo Jarvis gig can attest, is one of his strongest suits.
With social media being such a driving force behind the success of indie musicians, “Sometimes you’re in a situation where you just have to make a video because it’s so necessary now. That’s pretty much what happened, for example with 'They Don’t Build Hearts [Like They Used To]' – it was kinda like “needed a video, had no money, had no time, just used 40 pounds to make the video that you saw.” The music clip, which Cosmo wrote, directed and edited, shows another of his many talents through his filmmaking.
On such a tight budget, it's no wonder Cosmo runs a pretty tight ship (excuse the pirate pun). “There is that whole argument: if you can get it for free why waste money that you don’t have on it? And then shorten the possibility of when money does run out, well and truly, and tours just stop and they stop breaking even. Then it would be good to prolong that doomsday, if you know what I mean, for as long as possible. So in the meantime, we didn’t have a merch man on this tour so fucking ask for it, that’s what Facebook’s for."
The Fame Machine of the Biebers and One Directioners feels like an alternate reality to Cosmo. “I dunno what to think about any of that really, it’s not music, it shouldn’t even be considered the music industry really. The music Industry are the guys that are going out and gigging and playing. Everyone else, those guys, its not the same thing... I kinda feel bad because I kinda feel like it cheapens the rest of music, to the point where the people that aren’t at that level and don’t have that are viewed by that massive audience that goes to see the Biebers. They think that if a band isn’t at that level then they’re not doing so well. But to be honest you shouldn’t measure them with the same units. It's, I don't know, I mean, its terribly sad."
Loving our “no bullshit” attitude towards gigs and our “good weather and good females”, it's no wonder Cosmo is touring for the second time this year.
But if Cosmo were to audition for X-Factor, would he rise to such dizzying heights? “Oh God no. They’d tell me to leave in the first five minutes. I can’t sing for toffee...” And as for the chart topping hits - “It would be easy to release a mainstream-sounding song with a juvenile content with no real subject matter, a song that sits on the fence so it can be related to by many of thousands and millions of people or whatever. It would be too easy to go do that and then have tonnes of people get into that song, but then when they found out what I actually care about in music, they would end up hating me... I would hate for that to happen.'
Cosmo is a man who lives for his art, regardless of its form, with countless films written, acted and directed on YouTube, alongside his music. It's any wonder he fits a social life. “I guess I don’t do a lot else,” he admits. “I don’t really socialise. I have got a very limited number of friends or people I would consider to be friends. I don’t feel the need to go out and mindlessly socialise and listen to shitty music that I wouldn’t want to listen to and pay extortionate prices for drinks or anything like that. I’m not part of any real social scene, which is good because it does allow a hell of a lot of time to do everything else."
If you get the chance to get to one of Cosmo Jarvis' remaining Australian gigs, it's definitely worth the experience. It's rare to find a voice of youth with such social conscience, energy and dedication – not to mention an absolute humbleness and dedication to his fans. There is no doubt Cosmo will continue to have a profound effect on his followers for years to come and “that’s probably the most profound difference I might make in my life. So that’s good.”