Paris Jackson on Her New Sound: ‘Instead of Making the Audience Cry, I’m Gonna Make Them Jump’

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Her new "louder" music is inspired by Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins and Interpol.

 

 

Paris Jackson hit SXSW in Austin to play a few shows with her band before officially kicking off her tour in West Hollywood at the Roxy Theatre on March 23, and the 23-year-old artist took a minute to sit down with Billboard‘s Jason Lipshutz and explain her new, much louder music.

“It’s all gonna be new stuff,” Jackson says of the songs she’s bringing to the stage these days. “There’s always gonna be folk roots because I start the song out as a folk song on a guitar but it’s definitely a lot louder and more fun. Instead of making the audience cry I’m gonna make them jump, which is fun.”

Billboard Explains: South by Southwest
03/17/2022

 

Citing bands such as Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana and Interpol as inspirations, Jackson says her “friend and hero” Butch Walker has been helping out with the new music.

“I’ve always wanted to make this kind of music,” she says. “I’m just now learning how to project and play electric guitar and how to go louder with it. It’s new but I’m starting to get the hang of it.”

Previously, Jackson performed in the acoustic duo The Soundflowers. But folk isn’t far from her brain, even as she turns up the volume on stage. Jackson shared with Billboard that Bright Eyes and early ’00s “alternative folk is what I’ve mainly been listening to.”

Jackson, the daughter of the late King of Pop Michael Jackson, was recently in Paris for Vivienne Westwood’s Paris Fashion Week show on March 5.

Samsung + Billboard present THE STAGE at SXSW will feature performances from Young Thug and Gunna on March 17, Kygo on March 18 and separate sets from Sebastián Yatra and Shawn Mendes on March 19.

PMC is the largest shareholder of SXSW and its brands are official media partners of SXSW.