Exclusive: Jasmine Thompson Talks Rising Success and Debut EP

UK’s rising superstar, Jasmine Thompson, is taking the US by a storm after catching international attention.

At only 14 years old, the London-based singer/songwriter has received over 420 million views on YouTube with over 1.7 million subscribers. Her collaboration with Felix Jaehn for “Ain’t Nobody” has amassed over 100 million views alone.

Signed to Atlantic Records, Jasmine just released her debut Adore EP along with a music video. She has been writing with Jesse Shatkin (Sia, Kelly Clarkson), Amy Wadge (Ed Sheeran), Josh Grant & Scott Harris (Shawn Mendes), and Emily Warren (Jessie J). Currently, Thompson is flying between LA and New York working on new music, as well as meeting her fans. The Knockturnal had the pleasure of speaking one on one with Jasmine on her upcoming journey, read our exclusive interview below:

Can you reflect on your success on “Ain’t Nobody” with Felix Jaehn?

I’m so happy with the success so far. It’s insane because when I first recorded it, I was 12. It was incredible because I didn’t expect this much to happen, it was just a normal cover to be put on my Youtube channel and then a DJ, Felix Jaehn, found it and he remixed it and we became really good friends, that’s another thing I’m really happy about because through that song I made a really good friend. After a year of knowing Felix, we released the song as a single and I go to Germany a lot, because it was number one for like eight weeks and they were really lovely, really supportive, really kind and yeah, everything’s just been going so well.

Tell us about your “Adore” music video.

It was so fun to film because it was my first ever proper music video. We went all the way to L.A. and there was a massive crew. It was really fun, it was more like a visual interpretation of the song, there wasn’t really a storyline to the music video it was more of just beautiful shots of the house. The song is kind of my love song to music, so it didn’t really seem right to have a relationship towards it, we didn’t really want to put a boy and girl in the music video because it was just about me and music really.

Can you give us a track by track break down of your new EP?

“Adore” is about me and my relationship with music, the lyric in the chorus is “I adored you before I laid my eyes on you” and that’s how I feel about music because it was something that was always there for me before I knew it was something I could do as a full time job.

“Great Escape” is about going on this amazing journey. For me it’s music, there’s a lot of people (because my family’s based in the UK) and going and traveling all the time and spending three weeks in the states and then going over to Germany and all of this stuff. A lot of time I don’t see my family and my friends as much as I would love to but I keep in touch with them, it’s saying to someone who is depressed and not in best place to try and get better … asking them to show that they’re ok so you can take them along with you.

“Crystal Heart” is about wanting to open up to someone, telling them that you’re too shy, you want to trust them, but you’re too scared about them breaking your heart.

“Do It Now” is about not being scared of the past. In life, it’s really important to not live in the past and to not live in the future, it’s to live in the present. If you look in the past it’s like constantly looking in the rear view mirror in the car, and eventually you’re going to crash into something in front of you, it’s like you need to keep moving on from the past and get over stuff.

“Let Myself Try” is pretty explanatory, it’s about letting yourself try really. It’s about being open to new things, it’s about not being scared of failure and accepting that failure is a massive part in life, it’s how you learn from things, it’s about how you improve yourself.

Tell us about your songwriting creative process.

It was so fun. I had so much fun writing with all of these different people. Music for me is a really important thing to share with other people, especially when writing the song because it makes it that much more important because you remember it more, because you’ve made a connection with someone else. When writing the song, I’d walk in the session and say today I’m feeling slightly down about this and then they would be like I had a similar experience, and then at the end of the day, you know so much more about that person you’re writing with. The creative process of writing the EP was really fun.

You got your start on you Youtube. What’s your relationship with youtube now and your viewers/fans?

I try and upload videos as much as I can. I’m always going to try to post on Youtube because it was my home. Some of the followers on Youtube have been following me since I was 10 years old and they’ve watched me grow up and change artistically as a person. I talk to them everyday. I talk to my followers on twitter as much as I can. I have conversations – whenever I’m in Germany I’m like, “Hey! Come meet me after the shows!” I did a tour with Ella Eyre and every day after the end of the show we’d always go over to the merchandise store and I’d meet as many people as I could. I take photos and I’d hug them, I love meeting my followers, it’s like a second family really.

Who would you like to work with?

I would absolutely love to work with Ed Sheeran. I think he’s incredible. I love his voice and his music. I bumped into him backstage at a show once and he is such an amazing person. He’s so cool. He didn’t know who I was, he still treated me like he would treat anyone else. He was so loving and kind. He’s really awesome.

Who are your style icons and fashion influences?

I love Cara Delevingne, I think she’s incredible. I love Gigi Hadid, Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner, all of those people. It’s great that Kendall’s been taking a step into fashion. They’re over in Paris doing Paris Fashion Week. At the moment, I do spent a lot of time on music, I don’t have that much time to go shopping but when I do I always go to like H&M or Topshop because I live really close to Oxford Street and so it’s kind of hard to not go straight there and spend tons of money on clothes … I try and get cheap clothes as much as I can.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

I hope to be touring around the world. I haven’t done any live performances live here in the US before so I really hope to do some live performances here and hopefully an album will be out. I’ll just keep doing music for the rest of my life really, traveling around and meeting new people, singing, performing, all of this stuff … I’m experimenting with so many styles of music and I like that. I like having more than one style because it allows me to reach different people, it allows me to have a broad audience with different music and different styles and different appreciation for different paths basically.