INTERVIEW: Joy Crookes on her upcoming Australian tour and latest album 'Juniper': "Like everything I make it immortalises that time in my life, and everything I experienced during that time"
Britain’s Joy Crookes became one of the most important voices of her generation in 2021 when her breakthrough album Skin became a critical and commercial hit, earning her a Mercury Prize nomination as well as two Brit Award nominations. After first releasing music at age 18 in 2016, Skin was the culmination of five years of steadilygrowing acclaim.
And then Crookes fell in love. Instead of triggering a period of happiness and contentment, Crookes saw her mental health spiral and she became ill for two years. “I’ve never been this scared to fall in love,” Crookes says. “I felt really traumatised. It made me realise how little trust I had in people at that time.”
Finding creativity an escape from the pain - “I just couldn’t be left alone in my thoughts. I needed to be in the studio,” she says - her second album Juniper, released in September, was born out of her trauma. “What you hear was what was going on.”
Created with long time collaborators Blue May (Kano, Jorja Smith), Tev’n (Stormzy) and Harvey Grant, Crookes started writing the album in 2022 at the height of Skin’s success, finally completing it two years later. The 12 tracks build on her trademark sound of R&B-pop-neo soul, with the addition of slices of trip hop, old school jazz and disco-funk. With her emotions and inner feelings laid bare, Crookes is perhaps more vulnerable and raw than on Skin, with a resignation and weariness creeping into her voice as she battles the anxieties that swirl around her head.
Opening track ‘Brave’ symbolises her state of mind while creating the album - ‘I'm so sick, I'm so tired / I can't keep losing my mind ’ - with the song starting with a vintage soul sound and stylised, reverbed vocals because the song comes to a screeching halt with Crookes voice taking on a more emotive, real tone.
‘Pass The Salt’, featuring Vince Staples, brings a heavier, almost oppressive beat that matches Crookes tone as she disses someone spreading rumours about her.
Interpolating the Elton John classic ‘Bennie and the Jets’, ‘Carmen’ is a smooth, languid R&B track as Crookes examines society’s obsession with a certain type of beauty.
‘Perfect Crime’ is a breezy, pop track that explores the the headiness of throwing yourself back into the dating scene after heartbreak, while ‘House With a Pool’ is almost the polar opposite. reflecting on Crookes’ time with an abusive ex-partner: ‘I could be drowning, you don't wanna get wet’. With a shuffling beat, Crookes’ airy, light delivery and gospel like backing vocals, it is a perky delight sonically which perhaps heightens the pain the in the lyrics.
Juniper takes a delicious sonic swerve on ‘First Last Dance’ with its disco-funk-pop sound, so different from everything else on the album yet pulled off perfectly by Crookes. It’s upbeat feel reflects the celebration in the lyrics which Crookes has said it is a goodbye letter to her anxiety: ‘Came together but we're leaving alone’.
‘Somebody to You’, with uncredited vocals from Sam Fender, is a gorgeous pop-R&B track with a hint of country, while following track ‘Forever’ is a simple, pared back ballad with an unusual take on a broken relationship with no rancour or bitterness - no matter what happened, always remember we loved: ‘Whether you’re with me or not / Remember that we traded love, and that's forever’.
The album ends on the epic, six minute track ‘Paris’. A pop-R&B track with an off kilter beat, it looks at queer love through Crookes’ own experiences: “Kind of wanted you to be my girlfriend….When it comes to pride / I'd raise my heart to a girl or a guy / But I believed I was a sinner.’ It closes the album how it began, with an brutally honest and open track, but also with an unexpected twist on the album’s themes of relationship turmoil and anxiety..
To celebrate the release of Juniper Crookes will be touring Australia in January, performing in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. A genuinely thrilling artist who has an almost preternatural ability to pull you into her stories, Crookes’ will remain lodged in your heart after just one listen. We recently sat down with her to chat about the creation of Juniper and her upcoming Australian tour.
Hi Joy it is so great to chat with you, I am just loving your music and Juniper, it is an incredible album.
That's so kind, and thanks for giving a fuck about my music!
‘Carmen’ is an incredible track. It's a beautifully witty burn on modern day beauty standards, which often exclude people of colour. For you growing up, how important was it for you to have representation?
I don't think you're aware of that kind of complexity as a child, it becomes apparent when you're older and your points of references are different, you single out people more niche than maybe some of your friends. I don't even think it’s necessarily just people of colour, it’s anything that makes you stand out. It is going to be enough for you to be like, ‘Okay, that's not a majority’. But you're just not conscious of that as a child.I don't meet someone who is Bangladeshi-Irish every day, and even if I did, it doesn't mean that we would have loads in common, because it's a complex mix, and we're all so complex, right? So it probably was important, but I don't know if I was conscious of it at the time.
Did your parents heritage influence your music tastes at all?
Maybe, but I think it's just like everything - where I grew up, my friends, my personality, lots of other things were probably at play as well. And heritage is so complex, again, it's hard to grasp heritage when you're so young and you're just picking up a guitar.
I read somewhere you're a big Laura Marling fan.
I love Laura Marling. That's the thing, even if Laura Marling didn't look like me, I felt like she saw me by the way that she wrote music.
It's been four years, since the release of your last album Skin. How important has it been for you as an artist to take the time off to cultivate new music?
I don't know if I wanted to take that long, and the new music wasn't that difficult to write. I'm always writing, but I just had a couple trials and tribulations along the way. That meant that I had to take some time, and maybe when I thought I was ready, I wasn't ready. There were lots of reasons why the album took as long as it did, and honestly, I wish it didn't, but such is life, really!
The album wouldn't be what it is then I guess
No, and I don't know if I would be what I am now too, and be able to support it in the way that I can now than I would have before.
Where does Juniper find you now as an artist and a woman, in comparison to where it did when you released Skin?
I think about this a lot and I just feel like I don't know what Juniper is yet, because it's not been out for long enough. I know what it means to me in terms of a body of work and what I was experiencing at the time, but I haven't got the power of hindsight just yet. Even with Skin, it took me a long time to realise how I felt about it, which sounds counterintuitive, because you're releasing that and you're standing behind it, but it just has so many layers. I feel like you only really know the power of something when you've moved along from it, and I think that I'm on the embers of Juniper instead of far enough away to be ‘hey, that was that thing.’
Like everything I make it immortalises that time in my life, and everything I experienced during that time, the highs and the lows and the really, really difficult periods. It does it beautifully right now, but I'm sure I'll have other opinions later down the line.
You have a few standout collaborations on this album. I was wondering how do you come to make the decisions of who you collaborate with, to let them in on your work?
It's always really individual. For example, the album starts with Junior Williams singing on ‘Brave’, and that song wasn't even meant for me, that was meant for a different artist, they didn't want to use the song, and I was obsessed with the beat. The emotion that it evoked in me was so strong, when I first heard it, I was absolutely beside myself. I hadn't written anything to it. I just heard the beat, and I was like, oh my God, what is this? I need it, but also I'm scared of it because it does so much to me emotionally. I don't even know if I'm going to be able to convert that into a song. It was so powerful it was really scary. Junior Williams was just a coincidence because he happened to be on that song anyway.
Kano was actually a surprise. We've never collaborated, but he's a music friend and someone I really look up to. He came in to listen to everything, and he was singing ‘Mathematics’ and humming it in the studio but I never heard him on that song, I wanted him on something else. He was just so obsessed with it that he went behind my back in a really cute way. I didn't even know that that song could have another layer, so that was a shock.
And then Vince Staples, we just reached out to him because we're fans of his and I know his lyricism and his ability as a rapper, is just insane. So to have him was an honour, but I didn't know if it would actually happen, and it did. So it's really sick.
You're a super emotive writer, you have a lot of very personal topics in your music. Have you ever felt like you're putting too much of your heart on your sleeve, or have you ever been in a position where you've held back a track because it's too personal?
I haven't done that, but I sometimes perform the songs and I'm like, why have I done this to myself? But as a person, I'm really open and quite confronting, not intentionally and not in a mean way, I'm just quite an open, direct person. So that can be a pain in the arse, even for me sometimes, and I'm sure to people that have had to be on the other side of that, or people that I've had to write songs about. But it's just what I do. I think it would make me feel weirder if I held back, because that's not my nature, you know? I definitely wish I was more coy at times, but it's absolutely impossible for me, and all my mates take the piss out of me for it!
it's almost like music's therapy, right? But not everyone wants to be a therapist.
I’ve just got a big mouth. I can't help it. Maybe this is a cultural thing, I do feel like Irish people just say it as it is, and I've definitely inherited that. For better or worse.
Your vocals are incredible, you've obviously been singing from an early age. Who were your early influences, and who is it that you're admiring today?
I admire so many artists for different reasons. I only realised this recently that I'm massively influenced by Van Morrison's singing. I love how he sings and where his singing comes from. My dad was always obsessed with the pain in people's voices and would tell me to listen to that, and I always did that because I wanted to impress my dad, so I tapped into that. Now, there's so many people. I really like the new Geese record. I like Toro y Moi I like, I like my friend Raveena when she does really hypnotic, trance, almost meditative type of music.
For me, the biggest influence is just the divine and artists that feel like they're completely in touch with something much larger than them. I just find that I'm most attracted to music where it feels like they have completely let go of whatever is holding us back here, and they're more interested in a wider connection with something much larger than us. I've heard Cameron Winter talk about that with his writing, and I've heard D'Angelo, I had the privilege of being alive while he was, and that man was just inherently connected to something much larger than us. I think that is the biggest influence for me, and that's why I like pain in voices, because it feels like there is something deeper going on.
You're about to come to Australia. You have three shows, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. It's a quick one, but a big one. Have you been to Australia before?
I have I did a tour in Australia and New Zealand after Skin.. I'm really sad that I'm not going to New Zealand. It's actually really upset me. I love that side of the world, and everyone's just really grateful that you're there. You've travelled across the world to perform and you can feel it. I think that was one of my favourite tours I've ever been on, so I'm really excited to do it again.
Is there anything different about the Australian audiences?
It’s just the gratefulness. I just get the impression that people are genuinely happy that you're there. Other audiences can be a bit spoiled, you know. Even me as a Londoner, there’s so many gigs I miss because I didn't pay attention or I completely forgot, whereas it feels like in Australia it's a real point that someone's heading over that far to perform, and that's my favourite part of it all.
Was there ever another alternate career path for you? Is there something else that you thought about doing, or was it always singing and songwriting?
I didn't really think that music was a job, to be honest. I feel like I've fallen into something that I didn't know existed. I was pretty academic, so I really liked school, which is weird. I hated kids, but I liked school! I just think kids are assholes, they're some of the most unique people in the world, and I was big into the wallflowers. Secondary school was an absolute fucking nightmare socially for me, until I met my best friend. I just love nerds, people that are just so into what they do. So I knew that I always wanted to be in a job that involved other people and the betterment of other people, and challenging morals and ethics. I just always had a bit of a justice complex, I don't know why, people say it's a Libra thing, but I always knew I wanted to work in job that helped others. I thought that academics were good for that, and I loved history, because I felt there were so many lessons learned in history that could inform why we are the way we are now, especially right now.
So I didn't have a specific job I wanted, but I knew I wanted to go into something that made me enough to have a roof over my head and food, and was for the betterment of other people. And I think that's what music does, to be honest with you, at least for me. Growing up music gave such solidarity and feeling like I wasn't alone in loads of situations. We all know that feeling as music lovers when we put on a song and it feels like it was written for us. The fact that I know I can provide that for other people now, there's times where people come over and you can tell that something has really moved them or shaken them to the core, or just been important in a certain time of their life. It makes me feel absolutely insane in a great way, and it's a reminder always of why I do this. So for me, I'm doing the job I always wanted to do, but I didn't know what the format would look like. I wouldn't even mind working in an office. I hate offices, but I wouldn't mind working in an office if it meant that I was doing something that contributed to a wider community.
On Juniper, what's that song for you? The one that resonates with you the most, that you connect with the most?
Probably ‘Brave’, if I'm honest. But I also have the same for ‘Paris’, so probably one of those two. Also ‘Forever’, I think that is one of the maddest songs I've ever written.
‘Forever’ is probably my one on that level, but I could also listen to ‘Perfect Crime’ all day, all night.
Yeah, same. They all sit in really funny places for me, because I could sing ‘I'm a killer, I'm a killer’ all day, but if I needed something to cradle me, I have all these others. So it's really nice because it like lots of different outfits, but they really fit the perfect event. It's really hard to choose.
JUNIPER TOUR 2026
Tickets on sale now
1 January 2026 - Sidney Myer Music Bowl, Melbourne
2 January 2026 - Enmore Theatre, Sydney
3 January 2026 - Fortitude Music Hall, Brisbane
Juniper is out now via Sony Music Australia. You can buy, download and stream here
Follow Joy Crookes on Instagram and Facebook
Read our six page interview with Joy Crookes in issue 11 of Women In Pop magazine.
