Meet Jade Bird, The 21-Year-Old With A Voice Like A Turbine Engine

Mention you've just come across U.K. Singer-songwriter Jade Bird's pop-rock confection "Lottery." You're feeling the mellow melodies on the verse. You're grooving. And then suddenly, once that chorus hits, her voice reveals itself like a turbine engine turning on. Right now you're awake. And you're all in.


It's a neat little trick Bird does — delaying then deploying her raw vocal power at the best moment — on songs like the roaring "I Get No Joy" and the beloved, rambunctious "Uh Huh." The skeletons underneath these big bursts, though, are usually very simple: songs written with only a handful of chords, some of these penned in a shed near Woodstock, New York, leaving plenty of room for Bird, MTV's PUSH artist for the month of March, to express herself.


whenever you're not worried about the chords, you begin saying your true feelings," she told MTV recently.


At freshly 21, Bird is poised to share those true feelings on a forthcoming debut album. It's a long time coming. She began out on piano in a musical family member with a mom who blasted Shakira, Shania Twain, and the Chemical Brothers any time if she was young. Eventually, she hopped on guitar began working on songs at age 12. Her first live gig came immediately after, at 13, in a tavern. She was wearing a leopard-print dress.


"It was scary also it was daunting," she mentioned, "and then I did it again and again and again again, plus it was far less scary." Not even a decade later, she's already looking ahead to her second album, continuing to sharpen her toolkit, and keeping her ears open for new music to listen to and get inspired by.


"I think I'm eclectic and I'm never afraid to not know an artist or a musical group or an album because I'd like to hear it," Bird mentioned. "I routinely find if you are a music lover — which I am, I'm a music fan first — if you're in a conversation, they go, 'Have you heard this album?' I'll go residence and I'll check it out. I think that's what separates you from growing your taste."


Get to know Jade Bird in the whole interview below, and watch her bellow her fantastic and playful song "I Get No Joy" above.