ayushi
John Adams is a Singer/Songwriter/Busker hailing from Aberdare in the South Wales Valleys. With a reach in his tone to match Sam Smith and James Blunt, he draws influences from the likes of honest songwriters such as James Morrison, Damien Rice, and David Gray. John’s acoustic approach and atmospheric piano accompaniment compliment his unique and impressive vocal ability as he earns the undivided attention of the listener by addressing them directly with emotive and heartfelt narratives.
Adams began his career busking on the streets, using the money to pay for his first release, fittingly entitled “The Pavement is My Stage”. After the album reached No.7 in the iTunes Singer/Songwriter charts in 2016 he took a leap of faith and left his job as a Mathematics Teacher. That gamble paid off and John has gone on to support household names such as Take That, Lemar, T’Pau and Katherine Jenkins. His hard work and impressive live performance have built a strong following of 50,000 online followers, over 6 million views on YouTube and a steady 300,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
Fast forward to 2018, the singer spent the year up and down the country performing at the UK’s largest festivals such as The Isle of Wight Festival, Great Escape, and Victorious Festival, and his headline tour sold out in just two days from release. To end the year on a high his festive hit “Lost In Christmas” became the soundtrack for “La Feltrinelli” Christmas campaign all across Europe.
Now, the artist is back with a new single. Titled “Flames”, the song is the first release from his album “No White Lies”. The album is set to release on 8th February.
“Flames” explores the heart-rending state of people who fail to save their relationship. Using the visual metaphor of “wool”, the couple in the music video can be seen trying to bond with each other by joining their hearts. But soon, the wool becomes a source of entanglement, making it difficult for both individuals to breathe. Sonically, Adams’ relaxed pace helps the listener feel the pain, the characters aim to depict in the music video.
Lyrically, Adams shows the tragic fate of the relationship using the symbolism of a burning house:
“All the usual questions flooded my mind as I strummed my guitar. How did they feel? What did they grab? Who was to blame? I eventually came to the conclusion that they’d be so concerned with survival that these questions were never answered. As dramatic as it seems I felt exactly the same about a relationship at the time and after writing the song I decided to take the same approach to the situation and leave. I centered the song around the lyric “It’s too late to argue who’s to blame, this house will burn down anyway” and pulled on a few semantics to compare the feelings of a house fire to the trapping of a relationship. I tried to mirror this concept in the video with the use of wool. In the beginning, a couple proudly exchanges thread to connect each other and enjoy the unity it brings, but over time the tangled web becomes frustrating and controlling just like a bad partnership.”
Till now, there has never been a dearth of songs about love. Be it Hindi, English, Turkish, Korean, Japanese or any other language, each era, generation, and the genre has produced different kinds of songs about love. But every time, we hear a new song, we never get bored. As long as we are looking for the connection and compassion, we will face the situations where things will either turn positively or negatively for us. Adams’ narrative depicts the emotions of the lovers using a different perspective. As a songwriter, his word play and symbolism are fascinating. “Flames” has definitely set our expectations high for the rest of the songs in the album. We definitely look forward to “No White Lies”.
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