A Quick Chat with Jazzy Gold

'pinky promise' is one of your most personal songs. What inspired you to write it?

‘pinky promise’ came from watching someone I grew up with and love so much slowly become someone I barely recognised because of grief and addiction. We basically grew up side by side, so watching that happen was really fucking hard.
I wrote it the night I got home after seeing them for the first time in a while. I already knew things weren’t great, but seeing how much had changed kind of broke me. I think that was the moment I realised that no matter how badly you want to save someone, you just can’t do it for them.
So the song is really about grieving someone who is still alive, and how confusing that is because you still love them so much, but you’re also angry and scared and completely helpless.

The song looks back at the promises you made as kids. What did those promises mean to you growing up?

I think those promises were our way of convincing ourselves that we could grow up and outrun the things that scared us. The actual pinky promise came from both of our dads smoking. We hated it, so we’d promise each other that we’d never smoke when we were older.
At the time it was just this tiny, innocent thing between two kids who thought keeping a promise was enough to keep you safe. But looking back, it became a metaphor for so much more. It was all the things we swore we’d never become, all the patterns we thought we’d escape, all the ways we thought our lives would be different.

You grew up with your cousin more like a sister. How did that relationship shape the song?

She was never really just my cousin, she was basically my sister. We grew up together, so she’s been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. I think that’s why the song hurts so much, because I still see that version of her in my head all the time.
I really want people to know that this song came from love, not judgement. I wasn’t writing it to shame her or make her look bad, I was just trying to process how fucking heartbreaking it is to love someone so much and feel like there’s nothing you can do to pull them out of what they’re going through.
I just hope that one day she can hear it and understand that. I hope she sees it as me loving her in the only way I really knew how to at the time, and not as something I did against her.

'pinky promise' is the third single from WTF is WRONG with ME?. What does it add to the story of the EP?

I think “pinky promise” adds another really important part of the “WTF is WRONG with ME?” story because the EP talks a lot about my family life, broken family dynamics and just the fucked up things that happen in life and shape who you become.
A huge theme across the EP is me blaming myself for things that were never really my responsibility, and with this song that became, “why can’t I fix her?” I think for a long time I genuinely believed that if I loved someone enough, tried hard enough or said the right thing, I could somehow save them.
The whole EP has been a way for me to process all of that and heal from it. I think I’m slowly learning that sometimes there isn’t something wrong with me and there isn’t always something I can fix. Sometimes life is just really fucking unfair, and writing about it is my way of trying to accept that.

You're playing the WTF is WRONG with ME? show at Oxford Art Factory on October 15. What can people expect from the night?

I think the show is basically bringing the whole world of WTF is WRONG with ME? together in one room. It’s going to be chaotic and unhinged and a whole lot of fun, but there’s also so much vulnerability and sadness underneath all of it.
That contrast is such a huge part of the project for me. One minute you’re dancing and everything feels massive, and the next I’m singing something way too personal and the whole energy completely shifts. I kind of want people to feel like they’re being emotionally thrown around all night in the best way possible.
It’s a bit of a fucking yo-yo, which is honestly exactly what the EP feels like to me. It’s also my biggest headline show yet, and we’ve got the amazing KCH, Butterknife and Amber Scates joining us, so the whole night is going to feel really full, unpredictable and exciting from start to finish.