10 Questions With Cosmo Jarvis

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For a 22-year-old, Cosmo Jarvis has a lot going on. Firstly, he released his new and third album Think Bigger on July 17th, via 25th Frame/ The End Records. If that wasn’t enough, Jarvis has just finished his first full-length feature film, entitled Naughty Room. That’s right, a multi-faceted threat.

Born in New Jersey to an Armenian-American artist mother and an English sea captain father, the family moved to the UK when he was young and Cosmo spent his formative years with his mother in Totnes, Devon after his parents split under acrimonious circumstances. His teens were spent sparring with her and getting up to all manner of small town trouble. He also developed a sideline in writing songs and making films and we recently caught up with the talent Jarvis, and here’s what happened.

DK: Congratulations on your album. What was the hardest part about making it?

Cosmo Jarvis: Probably mixing the drums, always found that hard because of the physical space of the instrument that you sonically need to re-arrange and present in a cohesive way to the listener. Also playing the double bass high on ‘think Bigger’ because I busted my cello.

DK: Why did you decide to go with The End Records?

CJ: Because they told me if I didn’t they’d kill my family.

DK: How do you think that video media has helped build you a following?

CJ: I think that being able to make and release videos myself has helped things a lot as if gives the audience something a little more meaningful/consequential than a piece of promotional material in the form of a moving image. Many local fans started out recognizing places they knew of in the videos and shared them which was great. After it became about using the opportunity to make a music video as an opportunity to create a new piece of work, equal to the music that inspired its creation in sincerity and execution, that helped convey a songs message or an entirely new message.

DK: What are the pluses and minuses of having to outdo yourself with every video you do?

CJ: There are only minuses but it means I am more conscious of which ideas are sub-standard and which ideas are wholesome enough to gain peoples waning attention and not make them resent the fact that their attention has been gained.

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DK: How was being an American who grew up in the UK help shape who you are and your sound? Did kids give you a lot of shit because you were an American?

CJ: I spent very little time in he U.S so UK was always my home. But, and perhaps this was naive, American culture raised my English friends and I anyway through music, film and pop culture. My allegiance to American art would have manifested itself even without my duel citizenship because there was always so much good shit coming out of there (or I had heard or seen so much good shit that came out of there). But yes I got shit about Americans being dumb and my moms a teacher in the UK and she gets shit from students all the time.

DK: With such a unique sound, how and where did you draw your influences from?

CJ: Everything. Not the work of good artists. but the artists good work. Just wholesome songs that speak for them selves, everything from The Bronx, Noisia, Zappa, Beatles, Toots and the Maytalls, Souls of mischief, Corrine Bailey Rae, Kill Switch Engage, John Williams, Randy Newman, Tom Waits… Then I just tried to make the ideas for the songs incapable of living without an equally thorough and communicative melody and then genre.

DK: What artist, living or dead, would you want to collaborate with?

CJ: Quentin Tarantino or Roman Gavras.

DK: What was the last movie you saw? Did it suck or rock?

CJ: Last movie was a French movie called ‘Our Day Will come’. Directed by Roman Gavras and starring Vincent Cassel and Olivier Barthelemy. It kicked so much ass and was like a dream that turned real. Awesome idea.

DK: How did you come up with the concept for “Naughty Room”? Can we expect anything else like that from you in the future?

CJ: I made a short film called the naughty room about a boy who was locked in a bathroom. It sucked so I deleted it. On coming to the realization that making a feature length movie using the resources and people that I had available to me and that the short sucked because It wasn’t detailed enough and was a bit of a gimmick, I decided to write the rest of the story and do my damnedest to get it done. I have just finished a first draft of my next film A Band On Hope and hope to get things moving on that as soon as fucking possible. I wont say too much about it because I’ll be accused of not using this interview to talk about present areas of interest, but I will say that I think it’s going to be interesting at the very least.

DK: What does the rest of 2012 have in store for you?

CJ: I’m on tour in the U.K with a band local to me called Mad Dog Mcrea though November – they are a cool band man. I have some promo stuff to do in Australia in July and some gigs there in December. Got some songs to record – I am not as frivolous now as I was when recording ideas, I write em on guitar now and fuck with them like that until their solid so have a bit of catching up to do. Try to promote Think Bigger and The Naughty Room. Most of the songs for the next album are done – just need some fixes and re mixes so got to sort that. Work on the next film and so worth – do some acting improvisations with some of the actors so I can finalize the script – have certain conversations about the feasibility of certain shots.