Jack Duff
25th August 2022
Interview: Amy Bell
From the age of 11, Jack Duff has been a familiar face in the Dublin music scene, Ireland. After releasing a cover that procured 40 thousand streams, Jack took to the stage for the first time and has never looked back. Debuting on Britain's Got Talent (BGT) 2014, the duo Jack & Cormac reached the semifinals, and propelled the boys into an early career in music. Grossing 9 million views on his audition video, Jack Duff joined UK based boy band RoadTrip in 2015. Totalling 1 million subscribers on YouTube, their cover of Ed Sheeran's ‘Galway Girl’ reached over 4 million. Moreover, RoadTrip’s acoustic version of their EP 'Dynamite', knocked Taylor Swift's album ‘Lover’ from the top of the pre-order chart.
Since RoadTrip disbanded Jack has been releasing his solo EP's. We got to chat to Jack about his most recent EP 'What A Life' and life growing up in Ireland.
Hi Jack, thanks so much for talking to us, what was it like growing up in Ireland?
Growing up in Ireland was great. I feel it has been a massive factor in who I am today when I was young I used Spend my time with friends going on these mad crazy adventures to places with made-up names Just to say we went there. This was like a weekly occurrence as I lived near tonnes of farmland so there was always somewhere to wander off to.
What music did you grow up listening too and who inspired you to start creating music?
I listened to a lot of music growing up, I used to sing 3 Little Birds by Bob Marley with my Nanna when I was little so have loved Bob Marley ever since I also used to listen to a lot of bands too like Nirvana, Green Day, The Arctic Monkeys, McFly to name a few also had a massive Skrillex phase for no reason what so ever
A lot of my inspiration to make music came directly from seeing artists I liked perform. I remember one time I watched a video of matt Bellamy from muse sprinting down a stage at a concert in Rome while playing the riff to ‘plug in baby’ and thinking he had the best job ever. I thought it was mental that he could go write a song and then come out and play it to thousands of people
You were in a boyband RoadTrip, how different is it from releasing solo music instead of music in a band? Do you feel you have more creative control?
Personally going solos is one of the best choices I've made creatively i have the freedom to write about what i want to write about whereas before i wouldn't of had that chance
Releasing music solo is definitely more nerve-racking though, mainly when I'm used to have 4 other people there to release music with but I think the nerves make it more exciting at the same time.
You have a new EP ‘What A Life’, how is this release different from your previous EP release?
I think people will find it different for a few reasons. I've only released singles up until now so i think the EP would have shocked a couple of people that weren't expecting it. Also, I've written about more topics closer to home across the whole EP I think these songs have a lot of my thoughts in them than other releases in the past
What was the recording/writing process like for this new EP?
I loved writing the EP funny thing about it actually is that I had a full EP written bar 1 song so we got back in the studio to do that one song and re-wrote the entire thing every song it was crazy
When choosing songs for an EP, what do you think about it? How do you choose which songs will be featured?
Well, when I got back in the studio on the first night, Ii was having a conversation about the EP with my producer and we came to the conclusion that I could be doing some stuff that was more me so there on the spot we started the whole thing again, I Couldn't have been happier with what we got out of that week. Also Shoutout indigokxd for putting up with me that week haha
Finally, can we expect a tour in the near future?
I don't want to give anything away but it's looking likely.