While being a passenger in a car, have you ever looked out the window and pretended to be the main character in a music video? Phoebe Metcalfe chats with Cory Jones, whose new single ‘Like A Movie’ provides the perfect soundtrack for your music video debut.

Novocastrain and regular to UON’s music scene, Cory Jones, released his latest single ‘Like A Movie’ last Friday (24th September 2021). This is the fourth installment in his 2021 single releases, and sets the bar very high for any future releases.

If we were on campus you’d probably recognise him from being the frontman of Sunday Avenue, the boy band known to frequent events at UON. Unfortunately, the band took an indefinite hiatus in October last year, but this lit something in Cory and he has been incredibly busy writing, recording, producing, mixing and mastering all his music alone in his bedroom during the lockdowns this year.

His new song ‘Like A Movie’ is a huge retro-dancy-synth-rock song that makes you feel like you’re in the courtyard at school and you’ve just seen the person who you’ll crush on (for the next 6 years) for the first time. With home influences like The Rubens, Winston Surfshirt, and Sticky Fingers, and very obvious international influences like The Weekend, Michael Jackson, and The1975, it’s hard not to create a killer track like this.

I messaged Cory the day of the release and thankfully he was able to take time out of the day receiving well-deserved praise, to chat with me.

You’ve had such a busy year with four songs coming out for your solo career which is very exciting! You’ve described your music as genre-fluid, can you tell me a little bit more about that?

I like to take anything I can from any style to tell the story the best, of whatever I’m trying to say in a song. When I’m designing the sound of a song I always think of a psychological element, and I purposefully leave things out to leave it up to your imagination to fill the gaps in. It makes it more fun, too.

You’ve said that you’ve been getting a lot of your inspirations from online, since you’re not able to go to concerts and things like that. Is there anything that’s unexpectedly inspired you that’s you’ve found on, like, a 4 am deep dive online?

A lot of the music I listen to actually comes from YouTube playlists of like weird genres. You’ll have a DJ, or something, on YouTube and they’ll make a two-hour-long video that’s a mix of genres that you don’t ever hear on the radio. Synthwave is always one of the big ones I listen to. I just let it autoplay and eventually, things start playing and I’m just like, “oh this is kinda cool”.

How different is the creative process without [Sunday Avenue] because you’re writing, recording, producing, mixing, and mastering solo?

When you’re in a band it’s awesome because you get so many different perspectives from all these different people. I definitely churn songs out quickest when I’m by myself I kind of try and not be subjective or think about it too much. I’ll just write a song, “do I like it? No”, move on, write another one “do I like it? Nah”, and I kind of just keep doing that until I find something good. It’s not quite the same but in a way it’s also a completely separate thing that has it’s own positives.

Tell me about ‘Like A Movie’, tell me everything!

I think the vibe of it came from this teen-esk, angsty, movie in my head, I can’t even name what the movie is. But, there’s this young, and very passionate, almost sporadic interest in a person, you sort of see that in a lot of young teen romance type of movies. It’s got sections in [the song] that are very powerful and BANG, like, here’s all the emotion hitting you. But then, it has other parts that feels like an internal dialogue of what you wish would happen. Actually, I wrote it about my partner Maya, who I’m with now. It was written about her, about a year ago when I was first meeting her and starting to get to know her. I just never really showed anyone the song until now, I finished it and I thought, “yeah, I’ll put it out.”

You can listen to ‘Like A Movie’ on Spotify, or follow Cory Jones on Instagram and Facebook to keep in the loop of his new music.

Watch the full interview below!

Feature Image courtesy of Cory Jones, ‘Like A Movie’.