Jem "Finally" Makes It

Welsh singer-songwriter Jem's debut album, Finally Woken, is just arriving in stores this week, but it has already become the unofficial soundtrack to the Fox network. The album's lead single, "They," is one of several Woken cuts tipped for the new Friday night series, Wonderfalls, while another song, "Just a Ride," will be featured both on The O.C. and the show's upcoming soundtrack. Not that the artist, whose full name is Jem Griffiths, has been an avid watcher of either show. "I've heard The O.C. is huge," she says, "[but] it's just started here."

Songs in two primetime television series is a big boost for any new artist, but Jem -- who blends pop, electronic, and hip-hop into an easy-to-digest soundscape -- isn't an overnight success. "It's been a long time coming," she says she says of the roundabout route that led her from Sussex University to club and festival promotion to the owner of breaks label Marine Parade, where she hung with the likes of drum-and-bass star Adam F, despite having written songs since she was thirteen.

When Jem decided to turn her back on the business side of the music industry and pursue her dream of making her own music, her friends were relieved that she didn't suck. "They thought it would be rubbish," she says laughing. Five years after she returned to Wales to record her demos, no one has to lie to make her feel better.

Jem admits that it took some fancy footwork to get on the biggest break of her life. Last November, she scored a gig as a featured performer at the Sounds Eclectic Evening gig, the annual concert from Los Angeles radio station KCRW, where she shared a stage with Beck, Damien Rice, Liz Phair, Shelby Lynne, Jurassic 5 and the Polyphonic Spree. It was only after a strong three-song set that she confessed to embellishing her way on to the bill by giving organizers the sense that she had more stage experience than the nine gigs she'd actually played. "For me, the performance came last," she says. "I tried to rope in some musicians, but I couldn't afford to pay them anything. So I said, 'Yeah, I've performed.'"

Though Jem admitted to plenty of pre-show jitters, she says the experience was a positive one. "I'm so happy because I really want to tour and I felt like if I could do this, I could do anything 'cause it's totally thrown me in the deep end."

Jem has taken that can-do spirit to heart. She plans to move to L.A., where she will put together a band for a tour likely to begin in June. "Before I signed I couldn't afford a band so I was having to do acoustic gigs, but that's not my music," she says.

She is also eager to show off the more playful, beat-heavy side of her music in hopes of curbing the not-infrequent comparisons to other ethereal electronic chanteuses. "It's funny, because I'm a girl and I'm from England, there are a lot of Beth Orton and Dido comparisons," she says. "Personally, I can see the vocal comparisons, but musically I'm nothing like that. I think it's important for the first single ["They"] to be . . . just different. Which I think a lot of the music is, but that song in particular is just a bit quirky and weird."

STEVE BALTIN
(March 22, 2004)