IN: About the video “Glitters and Gold”. When I watched it I was on one hand impressed and on the other hand a little shocked by the images of the video. They looked to me like they were taken out of a child’s nightmare. Is the video a mirror of how you remember your childhood or is it more to be understood as art?
J Mello: The treatment of making a video is pretty much like this; you make the design of the video and you write down the story board. And that’s kind of what I did. I literally went to the time when I was growing up. And it was actually even worse than that. I had to take some stuff out because it was too graphic. People are looking at that video and are like, Wow! And I’m just like ok, well.
You can only imagine what I was going through at that time because I had to mix it up with a little bit of comedy. And people that don’t understand that laugh and people that do understand it go like “Wow, yeah, he’s been through this”. You know it was so vivid, you don’t forget things like this. So vivid I will never forget it.
Right now we are trying to complete the new album “Therapy Session”. It’s gonna be called “Therapy Session Volume One”. It’s the first part of Therapy – it gets there, it goes there but we are not gonna go over there yet. You figure like there is first, second and third session and it’s gonna be for sure graphic. It’s gonna be like – its graphic but it’s not that graphic. Lyrically it’s graphic but it’s not that graphic. And everything is coming from the eyes when I was a child.
IN: So do you like to watch the video or not so much?
J Mello: I can’t watch it. You know people watch it and they are like: Oh I’ve seen “Glitters and Gold” and I kind of walk away from them when they tell me they’ve seen it. It’s like oh, oh. People see it and they are like: That video was crazy! Damn and you went through all of that? – That’s the reason I play out there. I do it out there just to let people know to expect this type of songs. Songs like “Glitters and Gold” or “Torture”. Because these are the emotions I’m talking about. It’s a lot of emotions talking about family and that I was abused and molested and that I was affected by relationship problems.
IN: How is it to sing these songs over and over again? Is it getting easier?
J Mello: No it’s not, it’s not.
IN: Wow, it’s really therapy what you are doing.
J Mello: Yeah it’s actually really therapy. You know my goal is to take these therapy sessions out and to make you feel like in a therapy session. That’s my goal.
IN: Let me ask you a question about the song “Torture”. How was the feedback to it? It’s not the usual song. Normally people or let’s say rappers, sorry I’m again in this genre because “Torture” is more a rap song, they sing about strip clubs and having lots of women and you sing exactly the opposite. You sing about vulnerabilities and being the one who’s been cheated on.
J Mello: Well a good friend of mine DJ Torro, once again 92.3 now, that’s the station he got over there in New Jersey, he came back to me after he heard the song and he did a write up to that song “Torture”. He said, “my friend J Mello, I can’t believe it” and I can’t quote it but I can kind of tell this actually happened. Because when you first hear it you are like wait a minute, this isn’t just an average song. There’s something up with this song. It’s not just: Oh, she broke my heart. It is something to it. And that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying, well not trying I actually do, in all of my songs to talk about the truth. Everything I tell you I went through. So it’s gonna hit you with different levels, especially if you went through what I’m talking about.
IN: I can tell. I love the song. I actually downloaded it from iTunes (both laugh).
J Mello: So the feedback I’m getting is like: Oh my god. Wow, thank you so much for that song.
IN: You’re proving that people are open for serious topics in their music?
J Mello: Exactly!
