Despite being just her first official release, when Jess DeLuca dropped ‘Lucifer’ early last month it was quickly apparent that we weren’t hearing from someone new to the game. Packed with sophistication and heart, it’s a really impressive introduction to a musician who has clearly been honing her craft for years. ‘Lucifer’ kicks off with a soulful folk-rock groove, before Jess steals the limelight with her intoxicating vocals. Her voice masterfully weaves around the bluesy instrumentation, which continually morphs and evolves as each additional layer of sound comes in. The track hits its peak with a powerful bridge, full with buzzing guitars, pounding drums and Jess’ firey voice, before things are stripped back again and ‘Lucifer’ slinks away.

To accompany the track is a beautiful clip created by Lucy Pijnenburg. Somehow feeling both stunning and eerie at the same time, the clip juxtaposes gorgeous shots of rural Victoria with the far more sinister behaviour of the cast. It’s a really immersive clip, and with the final shots of the band around a glowing fire, it works as a perfect match to the audio playing along.

To celebrate the new video, we had a chat with Jess DeLuca to find out all about ‘Lucifer’, the new clip and what’s coming up next.

TJ: Hey Jess, want to tell us a bit about yourself?

JDL: I have been in Melbourne for about five years, I moved here from Kyabram (Northern Victoria) to work on my music. I love being in Melbourne and the music culture here is really like nowhere else. I got my band together about three years ago and we have been working on the sound of my music, which I have finally agreed to the genre of folk-rock but genre is very fluid these days haha. Over the years I have taken in a lot of influences, in particular Laura Marling, John Mayer, The Staves and Arctic Monkeys. I have a love for words and wordplay and they all do it amazingly, something I really try hard to work on myself. My relationship with my songs are ever changing, sometimes I completely relate to them, sometimes they fall out of fashion with me, but what I love most is how other people receive them, how everyone gets a different story... I hope that’s a good thing?

Your debut single ‘Lucifer’ dropped in late May, and it seems like you've had a pretty great response from it so far. Want to get us up to speed?

In the last year I've been recording, mixing and getting prepared for my debut release. In late May, I put 'Lucifer' up on Triple j unearthed where it got some really lovely reviews and managed to get played on some unearthed playlists. The official release was on the 1st of June, followed by the launch show a couple of weeks ago which was an amazing night with some great supports (Connor Black-Harry, Hannah Campbell, Mcrobin). I have been really overwhelmed and happy with the response, last Monday it got its first Triple j radio play on Home & Hosed where Declan Byrne said some really nice things about the song, putting it in a blues-folk genre which I am happy with. (Quote - "Isn't that just gorgeous, really serene stuff. The vocals over that kind of bluesy folky number I just dig." - Declan Byrne)

The new clip is really cool - a great combination of blissful and weird. How'd it come about?

Through a turn of good luck and synchronicity I managed to get involved with Lucy Pijnenberg (director) who heard me play at Some Velvet Morning. She really wanted to do a music video for ‘Lucifer’ and I was looking for someone to do it! We pretty much met up and exchanged some ideas and were both certain on the symbolic elements of the song. I feel like the song is a representation of the push and pull of life and how it can hold us – ‘Lucifer’ is the good guy who turned bad and that to me is an example of how every situation can a have good and bad decision. The point being sometimes we need to take a step back and breathe and try to put things in perspective. The video shows this through peer pressure of friends in a cult sort of way (the masks and ponchos). The group of friends to me represent life and its subtle way of pulling you in to the unknown, and myself as the odd one out questioning the unknown clutching this box in my hand. The meaning of the box is a little bit of a mystery and open to interpretation - for me it’s like a box of conceived ideas, so burning it is like saying goodbye to your old ways.

We shot 'Lucifer' in Healsville on a beautiful but freezing cold day with a crew of about 15. We actually really wanted the gloomy look so the weather was on our side. We were lucky enough to have a drone camera to get the sky view and that was very cool to see, a little scary when it was flying towards us though! I'm really happy with it and Lucy has been amazing, I'm really excited to see how the response goes have a good time at the video launch at the Yarra Hotel and hang out with the amazing crew.

Rumour is you've got a debut EP on the way - any sneaky news for us?

I have had a few songs in waiting to be recorded for a while so hopefully by the end of the year I will have my full 5 track EP out. I can announce that you can expect the second single in late August, it won't be as rock heavy as 'Lucifer' but will hopefully showcase the more folk influences of my songwriting, it will have the full band though. I'm hoping to have a video for that as well 🙂

What else is next for Jess DeLuca?

I will be playing a lot over the next few months, solo and with the full band and in the summer I am looking to do a regional Victoria tour! It would be really cool to play back home and around the really beautiful parts of Victoria. Since releasing 'Lucifer' I have more drive to make more music and have written a lot in the past month, so I can't wait to get back into the studio and find out what’s next!