JJ Lovegrove: Q&A on ‘History Is The Struggle of Becoming’ – Part 1

JJ Lovegrove Main | Part 1 | Part 2

I reached out to JJ Lovegrove right as she released her latest record and asked how I could help promote the release. We decided on a Q&A article, so I sent over a substantial list of questions, assuming she would answer just a handful of them, but she returned the entire lot with thoughtful answers that tell the story of how her record was conceived, produced and released, along with some reflections on marketing and her community project on Substack. It’s a long read, so I split it into two parts. Please note – this is is a very engaging record, and I highly recommend grabbing a copy and taking a listen. Thanks to JJ for taking the time. – Scot Apathy

Recording & Creative Process

What was the first sonic or emotional idea that started shaping History Is The Struggle of Becoming?

It’s hard to pinpoint the very beginnings because it very much started out as an idea for an EP based on the work of DH Lawrence as a way of sort of nestling with books during the dark winter months. I had applied for funding for the project, and as I awaited the decision (which took weeks), the writing developed and despite the funding falling through, the EP grew into an album as I spent longer stretches of time writing in nature, much as Lawrence did himself. As a result those soundscapes and places became the sonic background of the songs and really helped develop this idea of letting myself explore the freedom of nature and giving myself the luxury of spending long expanses of time just reading, writing & mining those parts of myself to put on to the page.

How much of the record was built from initial demos versus fully rewritten in the studio?

All of the tracks were built from my demos, but I would say the feel of ‘Almost’ & ‘Lost Girl’ felt a little out of sync with the rest of the tracks when we were laying them down, so these demos were largely scrapped in terms of bpm & pre-recorded drums etc & we started again from scratch. It’s the best decision we made too I feel.

What part of the recording process felt most intuitive this time—and what felt the most difficult to finish?

I would say, surprisingly, the most intuitive part of this album was in the shared sonic language I had with Ed.

As a fully independent female solo artist for quite some time I’ve had to have a really firm idea and understanding of who I am as an artist, what I’m trying to say to the world and how I want that to feel or sound like to my audiences.

In this business you are never far away from someone telling you what they think or trying to divert your path & it’s very easy to either feel you should be making more commercial sounding music or worse, you slowly realise that you let someone else’s input on a track change your voice or songs in a way that end up sounding nothing like you’d wanted to when you have space to look back. So I was worried about not being 100% in the driving seat with a big producer in the chair, but it couldn’t have been more collaborative & quite emotional at times, if honest.

There were times when Ed would hear something he just wanted to try & he would do a take & look back at me in tears, especially on tracks like ‘The Rainbow’ & we knew we were on the right path.

The most difficult elements to finish were really just me wrestling with edits to lyrics & finding it hard to be writing & recording about things in my life as they were happening while performing them at the same time. It felt very raw, but from that I feel the most exciting work can be made.

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Production & Collaboration

Who produced History Is The Struggle of Becoming, and how would you describe their role in shaping the final sound?

Ed Harcourt produced the album with me & he not only shaped the album in terms of trusting my voice & my opinion on how I felt these songs would sound, but also helped make me braver on decisions for this record & in the future. It was a huge joy & honour to work with him, the album & me as an artist I think would not be the same if he was not involved in this project & past year of my life.

Did you have any creative disagreements in the studio, and what did they teach you about the record?

No none, which taught me that it’s good to make sure you do your research & make sure if you’re working with anyone, that you know they’ll be in the same page as you ahead of starting the project together. The only wobbles I had were about me feeling brave enough to do more poetry & spoken word elements on the album, but Ed was very generous & encouraging which gave me more confidence to step off the ledge a little more than I have in previous records.

How did you balance outside input with protecting the emotional core of the songs?

I’m very much a live performer who occasionally goes in to the studio rather than a studio performer, so I had played a few of the songs live ahead of going to the Wolf Cabin, but I truly believe that’s how you find out if a song works first before you start investing time & money into recording it, so that certainly helped in terms of understanding the emotional responses to some of the songs, but one of the most enjoyable aspects of this album was trying to unapologetically give myself time for once, to really dig in to the subject matter, into my own heart & lived experiences, to find a way to put that on to paper & to music.

Sonic Design & Artistic Intent

The album title suggests transformation and tension—how did you translate that concept into sound?

I hope I’ve done that lyrically in some ways, by outlining some of my lived experiences & some things I’m still figuring out too, not in any sort of ‘this happened & it’s now happy ever after’ sort of way, but more in a ‘I’m not sure what this is’ transitional but in no rush kind of way. Just enjoying living in those moments…good & bad.

I also hope the way I’ve really thought about the track listing & the arc of the album, helps the listener travel with me through the once coal mining landscapes & through those feelings of innocence, limerence, love, disappointment, expectation, neglect, worship, hope & every other wonderfully human things we experience in this life.

Are there recurring sonic motifs or textures you intentionally built across the record?

The brass arrangements were very important to me to have in there, as there’s a certain sadness & pride I feel when listening to those in isolation that really help place the record in the middle lands of the UK I feel. I also started the record on a cello drone in C as it was a representation of the fact that Lawrence was forever haunted & marked by his novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover (Lady C), which very much mirrored aspects of his life with Freida. When the novel was banned by the English Courts & copies were ordered to be burned, Lawrence felt it was not only a disapproval of his work & him as a writer, but it was a condemnation of their relationship & their love affair. This followed him until he died & is the first if not only thing people tend to know about Lawrence still to this day, so it seemed poignant to have this as the undercurrent for side A of the record.

Side B is more about reclaimation & defiance, so the cello drone that starts the second half & into the title track is in D for David, a representation of him determined to live his own life despite disapproval & societal expectations, something that resonated with me deeply.

Did you lean more into organic instrumentation, electronic processing, or a hybrid approach?

A hybrid I guess, I recorded parts on the piano Ed had used on his records, but also loved being able to experiment & play with all the Moogs & weird & wonderful selection of keyboards Ed had gathered in the studio over the years. Although I will say that Ed is not a fan of any sort of cut & paste methods in the studio, so all the stems you hear are recorded as full takes & we took the best take as the final stem, which I feel makes the album feel much more natural & organic in terms of the finished article & avoids it sounding over produced or unlike anything I’ve released in the past. It sounds very much like a record only I could make in that moment to me & I’m so happy that was the end result.

What role does silence or negative space play in your arrangements on this album?

It plays a huge part. It’s a really frustrating subject & often a big talking point with others in my everyday music life to be honest. I once had the pleasure of playing a festival where Lambchop were on the bill & I watched them play possibly the quietest gig I’ve ever heard & the audience were gripped. You could hear people’s breaths & the odd sniffle as someone was brought to tears, it was honestly one of the most profound & moving gigs I’ve been to.

After the show I chatted to the band & told them how in awe I was at their approach & gentleness on stage, the drummer Allen Lowrey then gave me a piece of advice that I’ve not only carried with me ever since, but also have passed on to many others over the years. He said ‘the quieter you play, the more they will listen’ & he was right!

Since then I’ve always been mindful of writing in those gaps in compositions, in the same way poets pay attention to the line breaks & breaths, I think being such a passionate lyric writer also helps, because I always write lyrics first & I like to make sure every single word earns its place in the final draft, as a result there’s not much space for just a constant one level start to finish pop/rock song. Even on the heavier tracks like ‘Hunger Codes’ there’s a push & pull to make it more intimate & confessional. I’m not a huge fan of songs that sing at you rather than with you.

Live Performance

How has History Is The Struggle of Becoming translated into your live performances compared to the studio versions?

I use a hybrid of live keys & stems from the album to recreate the sound successfully live. Plus I have the luxury of just deciding to play with just me & the keyboard to still deliver a big sound live, much to some promoters & audiences suprise it still seems. I think when people hear you’re a female keyboard player, they just expect Tori Amos, but my sound is so much bigger & expansive that it’s not until they see me perform live that they really understand what it is I do. As time has gone on I’ve seen this less as a negative to fight against & more of a secret superpower. I love watching some of their faces & opinions change after one or two songs while I’m stood on stage. It makes some of the battles to get on the bill worth it too.

Did you have to significantly rework arrangements to make the material work on stage?

No not really, as I wrote them all on keyboard & can be performed with as little as a piano & vocals, it’s more me choosing to adapt to the size of stage or audience, but even then some of the songs like ‘Signal Loss’ work better with just me & the keys no matter if it’s a 100 cap or 15.000 cap venue.

What has the audience reaction been like in early performances?

It’s been really lovely & supportive. I’ve shared the making of this in more detail as I’ve gone along with my audiences on substack, which has been a bit of a shift for me to get used to mentally & creatively. I think we as creatives get a little worried about tracks being copied or leaked before they can be released, but I felt it was important to share the process with those who had helped fund some of this project & also it oddly felt that in a time of A.I models actually being used to copy what we do anyway, I hoped that by showing the behind the scenes individual elements of how these songs were being shaped & built, it actually helped show the amount of work that goes on to get a record into peoples hands & on to those sites that give it so little value. It shows the financial & human cost of wanting to keep putting art out in to the world, but also the huge ‘why’ I was doing it in the first place too. I wanted to show I had something I thought needed to be said, that no one else was saying. If it was of no value to me then I wouldn’t expect it to be of value to anyone else.

Are there specific tracks or moments that consistently resonate more in a live setting?

‘A temporary cure for loneliness’, ‘Almost’ & ‘Signal Loss’ always feel beautiful to share with a room full of people all sharing a moment & ‘The Rainbow’ is always a lovely thing to play & hear my dad’s voice say my name on the backing track. It feels like a little nod from the heavens that I sometimes need to hear when stood all alone in the spotlight.

Has performing the material changed your own relationship with the album?

Sometimes songs feel more raw on one night than another, depending on what’s happening in my life or on the news, but overall I guess each time I perform it gives me a bit more distance from the songs, so I’m able to maybe stop feeling them as much as I did so intensely when I was writing & recording them, which is good for me in terms of writing whatever the next chapter of my songwriting might be next & not living entirely in that era forever.