Nigerian-born English singer-songwriter Jacob Banks has been supplying the soundtrack to our lives for 10 years now. Releasing his first two EPs – The Monologue and The Paradox – as an independent artist, Banks would drop his later material under the major label Interscope. Four years after putting out his debut album – Village – Banks has had a full circle moment and returned as an independent artist. For the very first time, however, he’s releasing his sophomore record – Lies About The War – under his own label, Nobody Records. Scheduled for summer release, Banks sat down with EQUATE to discuss the process behind the LP.

“It was relatively easy because it’s always kind of been like that,” he says about his decision to go down the independent route again. “Even when I worked with labels, it has always been just a small team of friends that always put everything together for me, so it didn’t feel foreign to me.” Banks explains he’s satisfied with his journey and the space he had previously occupied on a major, admitting he doesn’t believe it would be fair on other artists for him to continue in a position he no longer wishes to be a part of. “I felt like I was occupying a space that could go to someone who actually really wanted to be on the radio and cared about monetary value,” he continues.

Banks didn’t go into the studio knowing this was going to be the situation, however. His choice to become an indie act again came about once the record was completed. Created during the pandemic, Lies About The War would take about a year to get finalised. “COVID happened and everything that I thought I needed to make music, all the water machines, it turned out that I could do it from my bedroom and be ok with the process,” he says. Having been a part of a record label situation for nearly a decade, Banks recognises he is in a privileged situation where he is able to step away and establish new standards for his future. “I was just like, ah, that’s just not necessary anymore, for me. I’m always careful when I say ‘for me’ as I’m also speaking from a very fortunate place,” Banks continues.

Banks would kickstart the era with “Just When I Thought” in March of this year to welcome listeners with a little taste of what they can expect from the rest of the record. Having written the first half of the song alongside his good friends Sillkey and Dyo, the latter of who he considers “one of the greatest songwriters of our time,” he finished the second half at home. “I wanted to open up what would pretty much be the album’s sound. It’s very soulful and leans into a more mature side of my writing,” Banks says. “I was always afraid of sounding old school so to speak because it never felt like I was. I grew up a lot with soul music and I still do but always been hard to really settle into that genre because I was probably six when I first started listening.”

Now a more grown 30, Banks states he has enough stories to share where being soulful feels authentic rather than forced. “The second part of that song really celebrates the most soulful side of me, which kind of hints towards a really soulful album,” he continues. “I just wanted to pay homage to both sides of myself. There’s a side of me that loves synths and drums, and a side of me that loves just vocals, organs, and choirs. I really want to throw both sides of the coin.”

The album’s second single, “By Design [Evil Knievel],” arrived on June 10 with lyrics that paint a cinematic visual. Inspired by people giving credit to others for doing “the most normal things,” Banks insists we are meant to be “wonderful” humans at all times. “I really just wanted to make a song about that feeling,” he says. “We are meant to be kind, we’re meant to be loving, we’re meant to have peace. Unfortunately, things happen where we have to forego peace for freedom, money, or whatever, but that’s not normal.”

As for deciding on an album title, Lies About The War came about after hearing the phrase from a good friend. “He was talking about one of our friends who had come back from, I think, a date. He told his version of events and made himself sound more successful than how actually went. And he said, ‘He’s telling lies about the war,’ because the whole concept is whoever comes back from the war is the one who gets to tell how the will went,” Banks explains. “So, that’s where it comes from. You have to survive the war ticket to tell your version of events. And if you lose the war, no one will ever hear your side of the story.”

““I’m a citizen of earth and I go wherever the love is. People are people, wherever I go, it feels relatively the same”

- Jacob Banks

Lies About The War will drop a little over a year after Banks’ most recent EP – For My Friends – and final project on a major label. Instead of feeling like a continuation from where he left off, Banks declares his songwriting is in a whole different space this time around. “I think I lean more into being soulful and being ok with that in this record, which I’ve kind of tapped into in hints but I was never okay with putting our whole body of work behind a soul artist. I would always try to show a separation in my body of work but with this one, it’s fully committed to being soulful and telling stories,” he says. “It’s not about pacing, it’s not trying to be cinematic, which is something that I’ve always been conscious of. If it ends up being cinematic, it would just be a bonus.”

What has changed, however, is the operation behind Banks’ songwriting and creative process. “I only write when I feel something,” he says before mentioning that’s likely down to COVID. “I think before I used to go into sessions like five, six times a week, but now I don’t go into sessions unless I’m finishing a record,” Banks continues. Now choosing to write the majority of his music in the luxury of his home, Banks is only willing to step into the studio if it’s with an old friend. “My process is a lot more low-key now than it ever was. I don’t find the whole rat race of going from studio to studio empowering anymore, which is kind of sad. I wish I did because I was able to have meaningful connections. It’s just hard for me to be convinced that that matters now.”

The topic surrounding the UK R&B and soul scene and its disconnect between the mainstream audience has come up several times throughout the years. When asked for his own take on the subject, Banks believes there isn’t one with soul music, crediting Lianne La Havas and Michael Kiwanuka as artists representing the genre well. “I don’t think the soul scene really competes. We’re happy to go wherever, wherever the people are,” he says. On the other hand, Banks agrees there is a detachment with the R&B scene.”The issue with R&B is that it’s not traditionally a UK sound. A lot of the comparisons seem to be with the US side, which is unfair because we’ve got artists like J Warner who have been so far ahead of their time and people like Ella Mai have gone on to do amazing things overseas.”

Banks notes UK artists are “too accessible,” using the example that you could run into your favourite artist in Shoreditch. “We’re kind of more humanised here, which is good,” he adds. “I think that that plays a role. I just think it’s a genre that we kind of attribute to American culture. I’m sure other people in other parts of the world make grime and they probably struggle just as much as do UK struggles with R&B.”

Banks has had his fair share of success overseas, especially Stateside where he has secured himself television performances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live! For the most part, does Banks feel more celebrated outside of the UK? “I’m a citizen of earth and I go wherever the love is. People are people, wherever I go, it feels relatively the same,” he says about his international triumph. With that being said, Banks vows that nothing beats performing back at home. “It’s always more special when I’m in London or Birmingham. Every show I played in London has been a sold-out show,” he continues.

“It just depends on how you measure it. Like radio success? No, I don’t get played on the radio, but I also don’t think I positioned myself in a space where radio would consider me for a long time,” he says. “It bothered me that they were playing this person and that person, but then it’s like, I actually don’t position myself in a way where I would be considered for these things. I can’t get mad about not being invited to something I wouldn’t want to go to anyway.”

With just a little over two months until Lies About The War is unleashed into the world, Banks is aiming for listeners to find comfort within the record when they finally get to hear it. “I hope people are reminded that nothing’s new under the sun and that we’re all in this together, like my good friends at High School Musical once expressed,” he shares. With that being said, fans might not have to wait too long until Banks shares even more of his stories. “As soon as I finish a project, I start writing the next one. I’m always kind of looking forward to being able to be done with a project because it allows my mind to have a clean slate,” he says.

The forthcoming album ‘Lies About The War‘ from Jacob Banks will be due August 26th via his own Independent Label-Nobody Records.

Listen to latest single ‘By Design (Evel Knievel)’

Credits:

Photographer: Eva Pentel

Art Design: Lazy Goat Club

Words: Fabio Magnocavallo