You won't forget it as Jerry Williams gets serious with her first tour

Earlier this week Jerry Williams' last single Mother passed a whopping 2m plays on streaming website Spotify.
Jerry WilliamsJerry Williams
Jerry Williams

The Portsmouth-based singer-songwriter is planning to build on that with the launch of a new EP today before heading off on her first headline tour of the UK this weekend – starting with a hometown show.

The success of Mother online has left its author stunned. ‘When I think about it, it’s like, what the hell? It’s scary, but it’s so good.

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‘We were really lucky, it got playlisted by one of the biggest playlists in America – it’s called Mood Booster – and they put me on top of that above Justin Timberlake, which is really crazy, for two weeks, and I picked up lots of fans through that.

‘It’s really crazy, but I was quite lucky really.’

And it’s helped build her profile way beyond Portsmouth.

‘When I look at the Spotify statistics it tells you where people are listening to you – you’ve got so many listeners in Birmingham and so many here – it’s really nice that my music is getting out there.

‘Then someone will tell me they heard my song in a shop in Scotland – how on earth did it get there? But it’s all happening quite naturally.’

The new five-track EP, with its title track, Let’s Just Forget It, highlight a new side to Jerry as a performer.

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‘I’m excited to get some new material out there because it’s a more mature sound than the last EP. Let’s Just Forget It is my most serious song yet, so I’m quite excited to show a different side to me. All of my other songs so far have been: “Wooh!” and upbeat.

‘It’s just what came out, I wrote it back in January, it was a song that meant so much to me, so I’m glad it’s going to be the single.

‘I love playing it live as well. It’s weird, Old songs are starting to drop off the set and new ones are coming in, but it’s nice to play the new material.

‘Some of them I’m attached to, perhaps self-indulgently, I think: “Oh, I love that one”, it’s quite hard to think I’ll drop a song like Cold Beer to put a new one in.’

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With a BBC Introducing Session last week and a VEVO DSCVR session pending, things are looking bright for Jerry’s future.

But there’s no big tour bus just yet. ‘It’s just a little Mazda Bongo, with me, the band, my dad driving and all our gear,’ she laughs, ‘it’s going to be a tight squeeze.’

The Loft, Southsea

Sunday, October 2

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