The Pack Horse pub in Hyde Park, Leeds, is host to the Cloth Cat open mic night every Thursday evening from 8:30pm until late. It was there, on the 24th of August 2023, that I met Jack to interview him about his music, his songwriting, singing, and drumming. There’s a function room upstairs adjacent to the open mic, and we used this room to conduct the interview.
The room is sparsely decorated, with a few leather sofas, some paintings on the walls, and a lick of dark green paint. It’s sometimes used as a meeting space for other groups but on this occasion it was empty. I waited in the room while Jack turned up. I goofed around, taking selfies, and generally acting like an overgrown kid.
When he turned up we ended up going outside into the beer garden while he had a smoke. His girlfriend was there and so was Shelley, the organiser of the Cloth Cat open mic. They talked about politics, which usually goes right over my head, so I just listened, occasionally throwing in my two cents worth on the issue but clearly having no clue what my opinion on the political situation really is.
Finally, we wrapped up in the beer garden and made our way back into the function room upstairs to conduct the short interview. The following is my attempt to tell Jack’s story as truthfully and accurately as possible. I hope I have done it justice.
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Early Years and Background
Jack is 23 years old, which to me seems crazy. When he was born, I was already 20 and going through the throes of gender dysphoria, drink and drug problems, and trying to hold a job down. But such is life! There’s always someone younger or older than you. It’s not that big a mystery really. Still, he feels incredibly young compared to me and yet, I don’t have any difficulty communicating with him.
He has a charming and sweet demeanour which makes it easy to like him and he talks openly about his life and music with humility and warmth; qualities which can be hard to find in young people, who are often more concerned with their image and small circle of friends than really branching out into any kind of diverse groups. So, whether younger or older, he has the sort of personality that transcends.
Jack grew up around the Whinmoor and Swarcliffe area of Seacroft, Leeds, which is roughly Northeast of the city. It has a reputation for being a rough part of Leeds, though just like anywhere, you find good and bad parts. He recalls growing up in his mum’s house and listening to the records she would play, while he would jump up and down on the bed.
The first song I heard, that actually blew my mind was Michael Jackson, Billie Jean.
One of his first musical revelations was when he heard the song Billie Jean, by Michael Jackson. He said it was the first song that “actually blew my mind” and it was from that moment that his love of music began to blossom. He had the benefit of hearing both his parent’s musical tastes, which broadened his appreciation of music. From an early age, he was listening to bands like ABBA, Madness, The Smiths, and Oasis.
But it was while watching a Television show with his mum, in which Karen Carpenter showcased her phenomenal drumming skills, that he was inspired to start learning the drums and he supposedly shouted out “Mum! I wanna be like her!”. After that, he also discovered drummers like Phil Collins and Keith Moon, who further deepened his interest.
A Natural Gift
He grew up in a tight-knit circle of family and he often visited his cousins who lived next door to him. He told me how he’d gone round one day and started playing some beats on his cousin’s “little kiddy drum kit”. After his uncle heard him playing, he apparently went downstairs where Jack’s parents were sitting in the living room and exclaimed “Oh my god, he’s gifted”.
From there, the family took an interest in his abilities and his mother paid for drumming lessons for him as an extra curricular activity at school. Jack told me that he spent about half his time at school in the music room. He also started learning the guitar at the age of 10 after his dad bought him a cheap guitar for his birthday. He was supposed to learn the guitar at school but said he struggled to understand what the teacher was trying to teach him and preferred to teach himself using YouTube tutorials.
A Blossoming Talent
Jack is a talented songwriter and for someone so young, he has remarkable maturity in his lyrics. He wrote his first song when he was 15 years old and, in his own words, it was an “old cringey love song about my ex-girlfriend”. At the time, Jack attended a youth group called “First Floor” which he describes as a real-life version of Glee, an American musical comedy-drama series which aired on Fox TV from 2009 to 2015.
At the end of one of these First Floor sessions, Jack was invited to do a solo performance and he chose to sing his own song. At the end of the song, his teacher was so impressed that he invited him to sing it at a concert they were organising. He ended up singing the song at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in front of 750 people. His teacher had arranged a backing choir to harmonise with him and all his family turned out to hear the 15 year old Jack perform for the first time in front of a large audience.
After that, Jack said he took a break from music for a while but joined his first ever band two years later, taking the role of drummer. The band were called Mascara, and they were a grunge-rock covers band that did songs by Nirvana. It was while playing with Mascara that Jack met his long-time friend and band member, James, who still plays with him to this day.
A few moths after joining Mascara, the band split up and they joined a new band called Jane Doe. The band was doing pretty well until the COVID-19 pandemic hit and they split up in lockdown around 2019. It was during this time that Jack started writing his own songs again and listening to different musicians who inspired his writing style. He quotes ABBA, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and various Motown artists as being highly influential in forming his musical style.
Transitioning
At this point, it may be worth mentioning that Jack was born female and came out as transgender at the age of 15 though he knew he’d been gay since age 11. It was during LGBTQ history month at school that Jack realised he was gay and came out to his friends and family in floods of tears. He says that he’d always been boyish and preferred to wear boys clothes rather than dresses or anything particularly “feminine”.
His gender has had some influence on his songwriting and he wrote a song called The Man of the World, which is a song that questions why the world deems it “wrong” to be gay. As well as this, his female biology has some affect on his vocal range though I would say his voice is somewhere in the high tenor range, meaning he can easily sing songs by Kurt Cobain, ABBA, The Cranberries, and Freddie Mercury.
I myself have performed with Jack on a number of occasions in the past and I always liked the songs in his repertoire which included a healthy number of “old classics” and more modern songs like Teenage Dirtbag. He was generally a hit with the public and people liked his singing style, which seems easy and natural and carries well.
Overcoming Obstacles
Jack is also an incredibly small little fellow but what he lacks in physical stature, he makes up for in musical talent and vocal range. Indeed, when he holds a guitar, the guitar often looks bigger than he does and I sometimes wonder if he should try an electric guitar or something with a slightly smaller body than the huge Fender he normally plays.
I was bullied horrendously at school!
As a result of these things, Jack has often had to dig deep to find self worth and he told me that he was “bullied horrendously” at school. He told me about some of the tattoos on his arms, one of which reads “In Bloom” which I thought was a reference to Nirvana but it turns out it was a Welsh band called Neck Deep that inspired the tattoo. He told me that it’s a very powerful song about self love and he had it done at a time when he was going through a lot of changes.
Despite what he went through, he can still smile and joke about it now, though I know he still struggles sometimes with depression and his mood ranges from happy and optimistic to gloomy and negative. It’s not easy being transgender, something I have first-hand experience of. People can be incredibly mean and rude but it’s always nice to sit back and luxuriate in the knowledge that we’re blessed creative beings, and they’re just morons with no more than two brains cells to rub together.
Moving on up
Recently, Jack has been playing in a backing band for Ceejay, a singer songwriter whom I interviewed back in August of this year. The band is called The Misfits, and is made up of two other musicians: my friend and ex-bandmate Katie Gittins on viola, and Shaneen Mooney, a talented bass player and vocalist. I had the pleasure of hearing them play at the Pack Horse a few weeks before my interview with Jack. It was the first time I’d heard him play drums and I was pleasantly surprised.
He’s also the lead vocalist of a band called Amonyte, which is named after fossils of extinct marine molluscs that look something like a snail shell and reflects Jack’s interest in fossils, dinosaurs, skeletons, and all things gothic. The band is currently working on an EP which they hope to release next year. They are recording it at Studio 12, which is located in Leeds Library, where they offer free recording sessions to people between the ages of 16 and 30 (damn, I’m too old!).
The band currently don’t have any gigs, and are still looking for other members to join but he’s hoping to be more productive in the coming year and tells me that he’s not interested in the fame or fortune but just wants to perform in front of people as it’s something he loves doing. Whatever happens, he’s got plenty of years ahead to develop his craft and become the best musician he can be. He certainly has a good head start, he’s a great songwriter and musician with a lot to offer.
Hopefully, we’ll be able to hear some of his songs in the coming year. Keep your eyes and your ears open for this up-and-coming talent.