Crewel Intentions After Palma Violets broke up two years ago, Chilli Jesson
You’ve already been performing for quite a while before
was suddenly thrust into reality. Overcome with worries
releasing this one…
and feelings of anxiety about what the future would hold, the dreamboat spotlight-stealer of the former indie rockers
That was a conscious decision for all of us. I’ve seen it in
began to pour his feeling out into songs, and slowly his new
the past when somebody just jumps on it, and I wanted to
project Crewel Intentions was born.
build this band from the ground up. I’m allowed to say this - I don’t know why, but I am - but it’s the best live band out
Shaking off the sarcastic cynicism that characterised his
there. I sit back in rehearsal and listen to them and it just
former lyrics, Chilli is (slightly) older and ready to be a lot
works, they’ve made songs into something that I couldn’t
more real. We caught up with him to find out more.
even imagine them to be. We could’ve just come out straight with a single but we wanted to play around and almost
It’s been two years since Palma Violets ended, what have
wanted to integrate back into it. I missed that shit.
you been up to since then? Does it feel kind of weird to go back to the start again? Quite a lot, I suppose! It’s been some real highs and lows. I sort of foresaw that Palma Violets was going to hit a
It feels really good! A big factor was because it was so
brick wall about six months before it finished. From that
quick [with Palma Violets], I wrote about five songs in five
moment I really had to think about the future and imagine a
years, which is fucking pathetic, but there was just never
world where I’m not with the same three other people that
enough time! Also, for me, I only sang like four/five songs
I had been with for the last six years. It was a sad feeling
a set, I was like a glorified bass player. I was pretty lucky,
but there was also this enormous sense of freedom that
I got away with it. During that period of time that I was
just encapsulated me when it actually did happen. It was
talking about, it all kind of came out and I’ve got this body
just me and a guitar, and suddenly this flurry of music and
of work which is just sitting there. Everything I look back
songs just started bleeding onto the page. I started writing
on fondly, like how lucky am I? I’ve toured the fucking
personal accounts of my life which I’d never done before.
world, I’m fucking lucky. But this really feels like a natural
I’d always dressed everything in irony because I was scared
step.
of what my peers would think of me. If you dress something in irony you can always shake it off as “Well obviously that
What do you want people to take away from the new
was a fucking joke!” Anyway, I just started writing this
Crewel Intentions music?
personal stuff and really digging deep basically. Some people might get deep and relate to the lyrics, and Your debut track “Youth In Overload” has just come
then someone else just thinks they can fucking dance to it.
out. How’s the reaction been so far?
Everything is kind of relative when it comes to emotions. I think people will take different things, I just hope it’s good!
It’s been great. This song basically sums up that two year
The next single is called “Cruel Intentions”.
period, in feeling anxious and massive highs and lows, and it felt like a call to arms. I think it’s like the beginning of the story.
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Words by Elly Watson, illustration by Tjaša Cizej
