8 December, 2017 8 December, 2017

Jeremy Loops on Waves

Jeremy Loops has had a stratospheric rise from his Deep South Kom Skom roots to headlining festivals all over Europe, sold out shows in the US not to mention regularly packing out botanical gardens all over SA. And now he’s thrown a bone to the humble Zag, with the golden opportunity to launch the video for his new single, “Waves”. Which features, Loops, Mozambique, waves, palm trees, vibes and soul. Watch it now!

In between breaking legs and packing out venues, we caught up with Mr Loops to shoot the breeze and chat about the distinctive nautical direction of his latest album.

Zigzag: You grew up surfing, but this is the first time the subject has made such an overt appearance in your music. Tell us more about that?

Jeremy Loops: I’ve made mention of my love of the ocean in my music before, but yes, I’d say this is the first time surfing and water in general have featured so strongly in my material. My music’s always really been a time capsule of what I was going through when I wrote it, and I just remember spending every second I could get in the ocean over the last 18 months. At first I thought I was just running away from the pressure of making this album, but the water and surfing helped me focus and relax, and only once I began making time to be back out there did writing the music start becoming more natural. Soon water just became this theme that kept re-appearing in the music and it sounded good and felt good, so here we are.

Are we going to see a stronger Loops and surfing connection going forward like Jack Johnson and Ben Howard?

It depends how deliberate Jack Johnson and Ben Howard are about that stuff, you know? Surfing’s been in my life and important to me before even music became a thing. I’d probably hold them with equal importance in that regard. And in the same way surfers use music to be the soundtrack to their surf adventures, I use the ocean as inspiration to my music. So, yeah, I think where surfing lends itself to the themes very well, you’ll see it for sure, but I’m not going to force feed people some surfer muso image or idea. I don’t take surfing seriously like that. For me it’s just about being in the ocean.

Jeremy Loops in his happy place. Image @ Ben Brown

Is there no sticker on your board for a reason? Looking for a sponsor and who would you choose to sticker that nose?!

If I told you who I’d choose to sticker my board, that would undermine why I have no stickers on my board, right? Hahaha. I mean, I’m certainly open to having surf sponsors, but hardly feel my surfing warrants it.

Was that shot in Mozambique? We won’t mention the location because it’s wild and secret, so no worries. But tell us how the shoot was? Did you score good waves? Were the palm flies brutal? Did you get a chance to chill in a hammock and jam the sunset?

Yeah, shooting in Mozam was amazing. The Waves were fun, but they weren’t what we’d hoped for. The swell we were chasing never really arrived, and the direction was slightly off for the swell we did get. But we were in the water all day, every day. Diving, fishing, exploring. And that’s what surfing is about a lot of the time. The search. Being out in nature. And the palm flies definitely had their way with us, yes! But that’s the small price you pay for paradise. We actually got lots of time to chill. The last 18 months have been flat out, and I treated this music video shoot like a work retreat. Yes, we worked super hard on it when we were in production, but downtime was the order of the day on this trip.

You know lots of pros like BG, Dave Richards, Dooma from the old Skom, how come there were no pro surfer cameos bro?! Got to hook the brothers up! SA surfing needs you man.

Bro, pro surfers are busy people too! Haha. The production scheduling for the music vid was quite tight as we were between touring and recording the album, so we decided against the logistical challenge of getting pros to come along, and, as I wanted it to be work/holiday, I just invited a really good friend to come and surf with me. I would still love to do a proper surf trip with a bunch of the Kom Skom and create the soundtrack for it. That needs to be on the cards for sure.

Next time Zag is definitely coming on location with you.

The Loops/Zag trip has to happen. Amped!

Image @ Taahir Matthews

1 Comment

  1. Liezl
    7 February, 2018 at 8:36 pm · Reply

    I need this paradise in my life! That location is amazing

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