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Jack Peñate returns: "It stopped at a time that everyone was thinking, where's this going to go?"

Jack Peñate may once have been the buzziest name on the block, but as he prepares to drop his much-anticipated third album, he finally knows who he wants to be.

Things that have happened since Jack Peñate last released an album include: The 1975 appeared and released (almost) all of their music to date; Dork started these excellent pages; and My Chemical Romance broke up, went on hiatus for several years, and got back together again.

While this may seem like a long time, the road Jack's been travelling to this very moment - including Dork meeting him in a lovely posh-looking room in his management's offices - has been in search of who he wants to be as an artist.

Popping up during the great indie-wave of the mid-late noughties, Jack released his debut 'Matinée' in 2007, spending a fair while touring it and enjoying being a young musician running around town with his best pal and XL Recordings labelmate, Adele.

He released the follow-up, 'Everything Is New', in 2009, and after that supporting tour - well, that was it.

A feeling had taken hold of Jack after he left the stage for the last time all those years ago. He was wary of the classic "arrested development" that arises in the music industry once you're on that pathway.

"You release a record, and you're twenty-one or whatever age, and you carry on, and you pretty much stay there," he says poignantly. "Not much changes. That was my biggest fear; of the no progression - in personality, in the ability to write.

"I wasn't like a normal teenager. I didn't drink or go out, I literally wrote songs, and practised" Jack Peñate To the outside world, it looked like he was popping off for a bit to do The Cycle, but those on the inside knew different.

Being a solo artist made the call a little easier to make, but still, Jack was walking away from something he'd planned out for almost all of his young adult life, having spent his formative teen years trying to achieve what he'd always dreamt of.

"'I'm gonna be a musician. That's it. I'm going to be signed by My 21st birthday by this exact label'. I wasn't like a normal teenager. I didn't drink or go out, I literally wrote songs, and practised. I was really quite studious.

He also wanted to be bloody good at what he does. Honing in on just what he wanted out of the crazy machine that is the music industry, it was simply to be happy - and to be able to crack out a bop in twenty minutes, as he did with one his returning singles, 'Murder'.

This journey saw him undertaking a lot of reflective thinking, but none of it was ever planned out. Nor on dry land.

Which is how this second coming of Jack Peñate came to be. Finally, with his third album, 'After You', in tow, he's arrived once more.

But bowing to that pressure would've undone the work Jack had put into re-discovering himself, and the entire journey he'd been aiming for, which is why you won't find him sporting any designer goods, or leaning into whatever fad appears in the charts.

His comeback album is a walk through the influences deep in his subconscious, those that resonated from his childhood, but perhaps more importantly, it's Jack telling his truth.

Which is what he dips into across the musical spectrum he's bringing with him. But beyond the exploration of his sonic-self, and a deeper understanding, he also accrued a new mate in dog Bobby.

"I don't want to be crude here, but I think picking up a shit every morning is like literally like, this is as good as it's gonna get," he says with a chuckle. But there's more depth to this new relationship than walks and picking up dog mess.

But venturing outside with Bobby means that Jack Peñate of 2019 is someone who sees the world with a more driven, organic purpose.

'After You' has been entirely crafted and presented with the help of his friends and family. He took a giant leap of faith within himself, walked away from something he'd built up, and is letting the world reconnect to just who Jack wants to be.

Taken from the December 2019 / January 2020 issue of Dork. Jack Peñate's album 'After You' is out 29th November.

Words: Steven Loftin

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