Jade Helliwell is quickly becoming a familiar name amongst UK country fans. Her EP, ‘Woman’, released in 2022, set her apart with her soulful voice and beautiful lyrics. Now, ahead of her new album and headline tour, ‘How Love Goes’, Helliwell has taken some time out to get married – well, a day, she was back performing at the Tile Yard and Buckle and Boots a few days later!

Jade Helliwell sat down to chat to me about her wedding, her upcoming album and tour and who’s going to be in the next country music Spice Girls…

First and foremost, new single with Kezia Gill – when does that come out?

Yes! That comes out on Friday 31st May. We wrote it in lockdown 2020 and we’ve performed it for years, pulling each other up on stage at festivals and on tour wherever we’re appearing. It’s become a fan favourite without ever being recorded and everyone’s asking, ‘when are you going to do it, when are you going to do it?’ so we’ve finally done it! It’s finally coming out.

There must be such a high anticipation from everyone to be like, god, I need that song.

Yea…I hope we get it right! (she laughs) That would be really awkward.

That’s really cool, so what else are you guys doing around that, are you getting together at all?

I’ve been lucky, I’ve had Kezia with me all week this week, so we’ve got some little bits to share. We both played at the Live in the Yard festival on Friday in Wakefield, so we got some little bits there as well chatting about the song. We’ve performed it for four years, so we’ve got multiple clips of us performing that at different stages so it’s going to be really fun to like, get the song out there and share that sort of stuff.

Will there be a music video to go with it?

No, we haven’t got any plans to do a music video, but I say that now, you know, we’ve all got an iPhone we can all film something so who knows. Might just film something on the ground at Buckle and Boots!

So how long have you and Kezia known each other? You guys are like the powerhouses of women in country in the UK at the moment.

We have many gal pals, we’re just trying to be like the Spice Girls of country so there’s loads of just joining forces – Demi Marriner, Jess Thristan, Emilia Quinn, SJ Mortimer, yeah just hanging out trying to be the next Spice Girls of country music!

I love that! And I love how it’s ‘lift as you climb’ you know, I’m on this ride, come with me.

Yeah, I think that’s very typical of the country music scene that’s one thing that I love about it. Everyone wants to help each other, you know, if I’ve got a contact well now they’re your contact, if I’ve got in at this place, now you’re in at this place.

We love girls that stick together.

Yes. Always.

So, this October you go out on your How Love Goes Tour – tell us about that.

So, How Love Goes is a song I wrote with Alyssa Bonagura last year and just completely loved it, it’s all about falling in love when you least expect it, which is my little story of Luke. I’m very lucky – she recorded me a version and I actually walked down the aisle to it last week, so it’s really special. It’s the title track of the EP that I’ve just recorded which was a completely different way to record, I did it like all live in the room with a full band so it’s like an acoustic EP. It was so fun to record it in a completely different way and I’m so excited to share that. That will be out for the tour and then the tour is an acoustic tour, so we’re playing all that music for the first time as well as stuff that’s already out there.

Now, your wedding…was that kind of like a little country community? I feel like everyone is just so close knit in the UK. What was the wedding like?

It was so good, like, I woke up and stood at these doors (she points to the cabin we’re sat by) and saw the rain and was like oh god, oh no. But the rain actually didn’t dampen the day at all. It was wonderful. As you say like we had so many friends that we’ve met over the years throughout the country music community. We had Kezia Gill, Laura Oakes and Dan Smalley perform for us during the ceremony, so we were very lucky to have that and we had a bit of a jam sesh at night and we had a band on. It was such good fun.

So this year – festivals – we’ve got SpeedFest, Black Deer and then back out to Denmark?

Yes, I am in love with Denmark. This will be my sixth visit, I think. I literally got back last week from being over there on the Spring tour. There’s a company called Nashville Nights Denmark and they do a Spring tour every year where you go all around Denmark and then every September they do a festival. It’s all different venues, loads of like songwriters rounds and live band shows. It’s incredible to be a part of and I’m very lucky to be going. It’s going to be my third year at the festival in September. So, I’m going out there, got a bunch of shows to play and I’m literally just in love, if anyone can get to Denmark, I would highly encourage that you go.

Is there a big country scene in Denmark?

Yeah! It’s definitely growing, and I think the Nashville Nights Denmark guys have played a hand in that, it’s fantastic. All the shows sell out and they sit in silence and listen to you play your songs in a writers round and they cheer when they need to cheer and they join in clapping and singing when you want them to. They love the merch. They’re lovely, wonderful people. It’s a great country to go over and see how the scene is growing.

And is it mostly Danish people or people travelling over there?

Yeah, mostly Danish. You’ll get a few people travelling over from Germany, but majority are Danish people.

So, let’s go back to the EP. You’ve recorded your new one, talk to me about that.

Yeah, so as I said it’s very different from my last EP. The Woman EP was very highly pop country produced, I’m still obviously staying sort of pop country stuff like the songs I’ve written by myself or in cowrites, but we recorded it all in a day in a studio live together so yeah, it was a really cool experience. It’s more of an organic sounding EP but hopefully people still like it.

So, Buckle and Boots – you’re performing this weekend?

Yes! I’m just doing some guest performing so I was very lucky I got up with SJ and Kieran from Morganway yesterday and Kezia’s up there too, so we got up to do a song together and then I’m going to be appearing in the orchestra tonight.

When was the first time you performed at Buckle and Boots?

I performed at Buckle and Boots the first year it happened so 2016! I was in The Paddock which was over in the other field. I did the Sunday afternoon set there just myself and my guitar and then in 2017 I came back and did the BCMA stage on the Main Stage, 2018 I moved to Friday evening, 2019 I was on the Saturday evening I think and then 2020 obviously it didn’t happen and then 2021 I headlined the Friday night and in 2022 I headlined the Saturday night.

I love that you can see the progression each year. This is my first year at Buckle, but I feel like it’s very much homegrown – support the homegrown and give them a platform.

Definitely, yes.

Have you spied anyone this weekend that you’ve listened to that you maybe didn’t know about?

Yes! I mean, I basically just force myself into everybody’s life, so I know most of the people who are playing now because I just fan girl them so much. I watched Jake O’Neill yesterday and I’ve only seen him acoustic in writers rounds so it was cool to see him full band. Katie Rigby as well, love her. I’ve seen her on her own not like – she was in a trio today – so that was really nice to see. I’m excited about quite a few people that are playing today. I watched Taylor Moss yesterday actually she was great I’ve never seen her before.

What is your favourite song to perform?

Can I be greedy and have two answers? If it’s acoustic or a writers round, I love to perform ‘Telephone’ because that’s a really emotional song and everyone sits and really listens to it. Full band, I probably love to perform ‘Nothing But the Radio On’ because I can just get a bit sassy – it’s got some guitar solos in there, a bit heavy. So those are my two favourites, depending on where I’m playing.

What was your hardest song to write?

Probably again would be ‘Telephone’. I started writing it when I lost my grandma and then six months later, I lost my grandad and I went back to the song and carried on writing it. I originally only wrote it for myself, just like grieving, bit of therapy to try and get through what I was feeling and get it out. It’s really difficult to put that to music but really therapeutic as well. And then I ended up recording it and releasing it and as I say now it’s one of my favourite songs to sing, but that was definitely the hardest to write you know, to just be really vulnerable.

How do you protect yourself against that vulnerability when you’re performing it and going back there?

Um…oftentimes, I can’t and I just cry, other times I think just kind of switching out and just…it’s just really nice to see how other people receive that song and connect to it so it’s not my song anymore, it’s our song at a show and it’s really nice to see that so my mind kind of switches from my personal experience into giving someone else a song to sing along to that means something to them.

Pass on the therapy.

Exactly – and it’s cheaper than therapy to stream a song!

What is your career moment so far that you will never forget?

I probably would say headlining Buckle and Boots. It was packed and I was so nervous, and I’d spent months prepping for it. It was just amazing to get on that Main Stage. When you’re backstage and the sun’s setting you don’t know how many people are gathering in the barn, so when you walk out and see everyone – that was such an amazing feeling. And it was just so fun and I would do that again…and again…and again.

What are you doing backstage before you’re going out?

Hair, make up, vocal warmups and more occasionally than not, a shot.

What’s your got to shot?

I like a Tequila Rose but the dairy doesn’t really approve, so I’ll do a Jägermeister if I have to.

What is a career moment you would really rather forget?

Oooh, so many…I would probably go way back when…I was about 17 and I went to play a festival somewhere in North Yorkshire. I got there and went to the stage, and they were like, ‘no, no, you’re over here,’ and it was basically a tent and when I got in, it was a kid’s tent with only teenagers performing. It was very awkward, we shouldn’t have made the drive but here we are! It was fine in the end, but it was very awkward.

Jade Helliwell is on tour across the UK this October with support from Katie Rigby tickets here. Her new song, ‘How Long Have You Known,’ with Kezia Gill is out now.