Formula Indie Sessions _ Interview with Joss Henry
What is your earliest memory connected to music?
I think my earliest memory connected to music goes back to when I was very little, probably between two and four years old. My mother used to make me sing children’s songs during bath time or while getting ready in the bathroom. I honestly think it played a huge role in helping me sing in tune today. I believe it helped me a lot.
How did your passion for creating music begin?
I think my mother definitely played a part in it. Then, for several years, music became a bit less important in my life. Later on, I went through some difficult experiences. My mother passed away when I was a young adult, for example, and that was obviously very hard. Music really helped me express things that I still struggled to put into words at the time. I think that’s one of the reasons why this passion truly grew.
What’s the story behind your current music project?
My current project is really about becoming more and more visible as an artist. I’m trying different approaches by staying active on social media, making covers, and also translating songs into French or English. I love covering music from movies, series, and anime, and I also enjoy taking video game music and writing original lyrics for it in French or English.
On top of that, a little over a year ago, I started writing, composing, and arranging my own songs. For now, they’re all in French, though maybe one day I’ll also write in English. It’s a difficult and long process, but I find it absolutely fascinating. And often, when people hear my original songs, they enjoy them even more than the covers.
How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard your music before?
I would describe my music as alternative pop rock. My songs are deeply connected to real experiences, emotions, and moments from my life. They reflect things I’ve lived through, things I’ve felt, and things that matter to me. That’s really how I would describe both my music and my lyrics.
What is the one thing you’ve learned that completely changed the way you make music?
That’s a good question. I took singing lessons more than ten years ago, and they helped me improve a lot technically. I also attended one-week courses at Cours Florent Musique in Paris focused on interpretation and songwriting. Those experiences helped me enormously.
The interpretation course especially taught me the importance of finding meaning in a song and truly telling a story to the audience. I think that’s absolutely fundamental. It also gave me some ideas and tools for songwriting.
What role do instruments and technology play in your creative process?
I play a bit of piano and guitar, but when it comes to songwriting and searching for chords and melodies, the piano is absolutely essential for me. I find it very intuitive and inspiring.
Then I use Logic Pro on Mac, which gives me access to a huge library of instruments and allows me to create melodies and arrangements that I really enjoy working on.
Which artists inspire you the most?
I’m not entirely sure who can officially be considered an indie artist, so I’ll simply mention some of the artists I truly love. I really enjoy Twenty One Pilots, Muse, and Benson Boone. I also really love Kaleo. They all have melodies, voices, and technical abilities that deeply move me.
What experiences influence your songwriting the most?
The experiences I’ve had throughout my life definitely influence my songwriting the most: losing loved ones, meeting people I care deeply about, things I experienced during childhood, and many personal moments that shaped who I am today. Those are the things I try to express through my songs.
What message or emotion do you hope people take away from your music?
What matters most to me is that people feel something when they listen to my music. I want to transmit emotion. Depending on the song, that emotion can be sadness, joy, nostalgia, or something else entirely. There isn’t one single message behind all my songs, but overall, if there’s one important value I’d like to share, it would simply be respecting one another and loving one another. I think that’s fundamental.
What has been the biggest challenge of your musical journey so far?
The biggest challenge is definitely how difficult it is to succeed and gain visibility. Even if you have talent, and I say this humbly, because many people, including musicians, have told me so, getting noticed is incredibly hard, especially when you come from a rural area like the Swiss Jura, where opportunities are more limited. It takes a lot of work, and unfortunately hard work does not always guarantee success.
Is there a festival or stage you dream of performing on one day?
Honestly, any festival would already be incredible for me. But my absolute dream would be to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest. That would truly be the dream of a lifetime. Of course, I know how incredibly difficult that goal is. So many artists apply every year, and only one person gets to represent Switzerland, so the competition is extremely tough.
If you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be and why?
Probably the same artists I mentioned earlier: Twenty One Pilots, Muse, Benson Boone, or Kaleo. I think they are absolutely exceptional artists.
Where can our listeners follow and support your music?
People can find me pretty much everywhere by searching for “Joss Henry” or “Joss Henry Music.” I’m active on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X. My original songs are also available on all streaming platforms like Spotify, Deezer, Amazon Music, and many others I didn’t even know before releasing my music!
Looking toward the future, what’s your dream for the next chapter of your musical journey?
My biggest dream would simply be to make a living from music and be able to do what I truly love. Right now, I work as a primary school teacher, and I also give private singing and English lessons. But teaching has become a very difficult job honestly, and if I could fully dedicate myself to music, I absolutely would.
So if there’s one thing I could wish for the future, it would be to gain enough visibility to perform more concerts, connect with more people through my music, and eventually make a living from it.
What do you hope listeners will discover about you along the way?
I hope listeners will discover that I’m someone genuine. I simply try to share my work and my emotions honestly. What matters most to me is that people can truly feel the emotions I want to share with them, in a sincere and humble way, without pretending to be anything I’m not.
For me, music is really about sharing something meaningful: an emotion, a piece of my life, my story, or the way I experience things. If people can connect with that and feel something real through my songs, then that’s the most important thing for me.
