Jem

It's taken a while for Jem to get to this position of mass media coverage. She's certainly no overnight success and being older now at 29, must help to cope with the pressures of understanding the business?

"I've always felt quite confident generally on that side of things because otherwise I would not have got anywhere. You have to have a certain amount of self-belief, but definitely again those times in Brighton helped. The law degree, even though I didn't want to be a lawyer, that's pretty huge. Just learning a certain way of thinking is really important - that helped me with my record deal. That I think is a really good tool. Basically it's just about having a brain and my head screwed on because if you have that and then you know what you want, then you can stand up to people. I think at the end of the day it's not meant to sound like a bad thing but people like to control you and I think that's the same in the music industry and it makes it harder to get a deal if you are trying to do something different. If you stick to your guns and your convictions then you will last longer. All that stuff has helped me appreciate what other people are doing for me because I understand the record label stuff."

Did she use these law skills when reading through her record contract then?

"I did, I went through every single line, every single word and it was like 60 pages and then my publishing contract was about 80," admits Jem. Though in the midst of the excitement of getting a deal, you have to be careful right?

"Yeah, there will be things in your new contract that your not happy with but you kind of weigh them up against other things so I made sure I had approval over things that were important for me. Also they came in with great royalties and so that was really nice. I can negotiate to a degree but at some point you got to sign the deal. You're in a lucky position because you are starting out. At least I haven't got a shit deal." >>

pg1 :: pg2 :: pg3 :: pg4 :: pg5 :: pg6 :: pg7 :: pg8 :: pg9 :: pg10 :: pg11
More interviews
There's more great interviews from the vaults here and much more that you may have missed recentely...
_links_
official site

jem microsite