PETALING JAYA, May 2 — The coming together of separate music styles is much like an arranged marriage; they’re either two beings that were destined to be together or a mismatch doomed with little hope.
Jonas Blue has experienced both ends of the spectrum.
The electronic dance music producer, down for the first time in Malaysia last month ahead of a club performance at Zouk KL, told how it took more than a decade to get his music recognised before blowing up as an “overnight sensation” in 2016.
He told Malay Mail about trying his hand as a songwriter from as early as 15 years of age while at the same time traversing London’s underground house scene, itself booming back in the mid-noughties, albeit off the radar.
Jonas saw a spark in these two distinctions, a fascination for house music combined with a love for pop hits, that would set the tone for his success in years to come.
“I come from a very dance-based background, underground house,” said the DJ, explaining the recipe behind the dance-pop concoction he has become known for.
“If you listen to DJs now like Black Coffee, I was doing that deep house sound back in 2006 before it was even known as deep house.
“But at the same time I’d stick on Rihanna or Taylor Swift songs. I just love the idea of blending these two styles.”
Jonas, born Guy Robin and raised in Essex, had a vision for his dance-pop sensibilities well before mixing up the charts with songs like Mama in 2017, a breezy pop number that lulls lyrically against a tropical house beat.
He put the mounting fame down to pop charts embracing more house sounds, a trend that has developed the world over in recent years.
“It was definitely timing because I tried doing this earlier in my career and it didn’t work back then.
“With the explosion of house and dance music, I was able to combine house and pop.
“I used to make more underground house music,” he added.
“But even then I was a songwriter. Over that underground type of music I was writing pop songs. It didn’t really work until I discovered my sound a few years later that the songs started to match the sound.
“It all clicked into place at that point.”
Jonas was at a friend’s house on New Years Eve, 2015 going into 2016, when his breakthrough moment arrived. His manager called to inform his remix of Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car, something of a viral triumph, was Christmas No. 1 in Australia.
“That was just wow, pretty crazy. For years I’d been trying to get these songs in the charts and I managed it with a track I’d made in my free time that I wasn’t particularly focused on.
“It went No 1 and changed my life.”
Jonas made the most of the honeymoon period.
Fast Car was followed in sweet vein with hit after hit, Perfect Strangers, By Your Side, Mama and We Can Go Back, which established him as a popular songwriter on a global scale.
It was proof that the musician, initially mistaken for pop star namesake Joe Jonas when he he broke out (there was no photos of Jonas online), had more substance than most.
He enjoys the perks of indulging both genres in his work.
The DJ, now 28, is a two-time Brit Award nominee, a pop-centric affair. His Spotify plays strike well above three billion streams and he’s also taken to both pop and dance music festival stages such as V in the UK and Tomorrowland in Belgium.
Jonas said that South-east Asia is a part of the world that has always accepted his music.
“The fans over here get what I’m about. They really understand the combination of dance and pop music and it feels fresh.
“Melodically, how I write my songs, it seems to connect.
“I wasn’t sure how people would react the first time I came over. I did a TV show in Indonesia in November last year and with 10 million viewers and it really clicked.”
The multi-hit maker now sets his sight on more success with single number six.
