Photo credit: David Nix
There was a point in early February 2025 when I stumbled on a Bluesky post from Travis Shosa that caught my eye. There was a video thumbnail with a long, curly-haired man lying amidst wheat. “C’mon people, I feel like your mom trying to tell you to eat your vegetables,” Travis said, above the music video for a song called “Making Maps”. What could I do other than hit play?
Fast forward a week. I’m struggling to get Zoom to just be normal so I can launch a meeting with Jacob Ware, the London-based singer-songwriter behind Rapt. Finally, I get it working; we’re able to connect and get started with some light banter — like where exactly is Durham in this massive country?
In less than an hour, I understood how a former bassist in death metal bands came around to creating delicate indie folk. Of course, it doesn’t take long to delve into how this new Rapt record — Until the Light Takes Us — fits a similar mood in its lamentations. But there’s a luxury to having face time, showing up curious, and getting vast reflections in response. It made for a memorable chat, to say the least.
I always love to start off by getting a sense of what folks are listening to, whether it’s something newer or the same two artists on repeat for five years.
Jacob: I’m pretty guilty of that. Lately it’s been a lot of Damien Jurado still, because he’s one of my dudes for sure. Him, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and John Martyn are in that “absolute GOAT” category for me. The best thing I’ve discovered recently is probably Amyl and the Sniffers; they are pretty badass.
Other than my usuals, Lou Reed, Joni Mitchell, Low, 21 Savage‘s first album, which I absolutely love [laughs]. I love a thuddy 808 kick. If it’s been well mixed and mastered and that 808 kick can hit you in shitty airpods, I’m gonna like it.
I’ve also been listening to Sun Kil Moon again. I had a breakup with all things Kozelek from 2020 until late October last year. I realized that I couldn’t quite live without Ghosts of the Great Highway, April and Admiral Fell Promises. Those three albums got me through some horrible shit in my teens and 20’s and still do. It’s a complicated relationship, but hard for me to deny the influence those records had on my own music and guitar playing.
What brought you to London?
Mostly economic reasons. Brighton has my heart and is a beautiful city. I miss it on a daily basis and I will go back there, but jobs within music are hard to find there. And it’s only £100 pounds or so less a month than living in London these days. Combine the lack of jobs with it basically being just as expensive and it ends up being a tricky place to live. It’s totally worth it and is significantly better, I think, for a musician than London is.
London’s hard, man. It’s a fucking brutal place to live but beautiful in its own chaotic way. It tries to eat you up and spit you out. Most of the time, it’s pretty successful in doing so. I’m feeling pretty spat out these days, I miss the sea, I’ll be reunited with it within 2-3 years I hope.
How long have you been there?
Three years, though it feels like about 30.
Is housing so wild there that you’ve had to bounce between apartments each year?
No, I’ve actually been quite lucky. I’ve only lived in two places. But I’ve yet to finish a record whilst living in the same room that I started in, ever. That’s one of my goals for the future is to not move houses in the middle of recording an album, which I’ve now done three times in a row.
The album Wayward Faith was recorded in four different apartments. I had to move a lot during COVID. I do all my own recording, mixing, mastering, and tracking. I’m quite OCD about it. And having to move that many times drove me insane, because you’re having to recreate the sound of certain rooms and stuff.
I did all the guitar tracking and some of the vocal tracking in my last flat, but I got evicted and had to move quite quickly. So I ended up re-recording two or three songs worth of vocals, just so the fucking vocals were at least recorded in one place. I actually had to lose some of the takes. I’m sure that no one would actually care, but I just couldn’t deal with that slight difference in timbre, which happens just from a different environment. So I had to start again with the vocals. That feels like a lifetime ago now.
Looking at your recent career as Rapt, who would you say are some of your biggest influences?
From a young age, up until I was about 22, I was just into metal, death metal, black metal, extreme metal. I was only in death metal bands and stuff. And then I heard Dragging a Dead Deer by Grouper. There was this weird darkness behind the most beautiful folk ever that made me realize that you can actually carry across some musical aesthetics from black metal into folk. That was really probably the turning point in my life, because that metal band was starting to break up and I wanted to make music on my own. So I thought, “fuck it, I’m actually going to lean into this.”
There’s so much black metal aesthetic in those sort of reverb drenched harrowing guitars and stuff. That might sound slightly odd, because I think I’m so far removed from Liz Harris now, but if you listen to my 2019 EP [Within Thrall], that’s very much a nod to her music. And parts of Wayward Faith and None of This Will Matter.
I grew up in a house with Joni Mitchell and John Martyn playing, and I didn’t really like it at the time. But again, that twist made me actually go back. Go back and go into my parents loft and steal their old records that were in boxes and stuff, which is what I did.
That’s an interesting re-contextualization of what you grew up with through this new lens and a new musical chapter in your life.
There’s a really cringey, overused T.S. Eliot quote: “The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” I went all the way back to my childhood, before I knew what Slayer was or Deicide or Cannibal Corpse. And I discovered that what I was being played in the car was actually what I’d end up leaning towards later in life.
Were there any other artists who helped guide your way in this new sound?
I was always very self-conscious about my singing voice. I stand by that because I don’t consider myself a singer at all. But I suppose the bigger thing is realizing how many amazing artists cannot sing for shit. It’s like David Berman said, “All my favorite singers couldn’t sing.” I used to be self-conscious about my singing voice and now I accept its limitations.
I see its strengths and weaknesses in a way that I work with. If you listen to the most recent record compared to the early stuff that I sing on, I can tell I’m more guarded and held back vocally. I would spend fucking days doing vocal tracking for a song. A final take would be 50 takes put together, almost like winning the lottery on every line. I would do it so many times until I was happy with it and then just reduce them down.
With this record, for the first time, I was just like, “I’m just going to record it.” They’re never, ever the first takes. But within probably five takes for this record, I had the main vocals recorded. That’s huge for me.
It reminds me of talking with my buddy Phil Smith about how Anthony Kiedis inspired him to sing because of how bad he was at it. Like if he can do it, why not me?
Some of the record is pitchy as well, but this time I just didn’t give a fuck. Particularly in the title track, there are entire passages where I don’t really hit the notes, but it captures the song. And that’s the most important thing.
I don’t really listen to my music that much, but I’ve had to listen to it a lot recently in order to rehearse for the launch show. It wouldn’t hit as hard if I was super accurate. If I sounded like a fucking vocoder, some of those lines wouldn’t hit as hard as they do. For example, the title track is all true and taken from my life, there’s nothing made up in terms of lyrics. Why wouldn’t I perform it in a way that was true?
You’re on the cusp of turning 30 and exist in an industry that glorifies this “your career ends at 30; when are you going to fall out?” mentality. How do you ignore that narrative and continue to develop as an artist?
Leonard Cohen didn’t start his music career until he was 32. Philip Glass drove a taxi until he was like 45. I did have that same mentality in my early 20s, but I don’t care anymore. I’m actually quite excited to be 30. “Are you coming out tonight? “No, I’m 30.” “Do you want to have another drink?” “No, I can’t. I’m 30.”
I think there’s way too much weight on youth in music. The most beautiful songs come from life experience and there’s only so much life you can experience. You can be the most talented 21 year old of all time, but not every 21 year old has shit to say. I do think it’s good for musicians and bands to be driven and to fear the 30. Because you’ve got to have some shit together by then to lean into by that point.
I feel pretty secure in what I have managed to put together. I’ve got a lot more I want to do. And I’m nowhere near done at all, which is a good thing. I don’t want to be done. I want to keep getting better. Every year I want to top what I’ve done before. I hope that never changes.
Ideally, how does the rest of 2025 outdo last year?
My plan this time is not to think about doing another album for a while. It took me years to finally accept that. I’m going to take that off the table this time. I’ve already got a song nearly finished and I’ve got another one that needs to be recorded. I don’t think I can disappear again for as long as I have in the past. I’m not taking a break.
At the launch show, I am going to play a brand new song. I’ve never done that before. I’ve always played songs that are either literally recorded, mixed and mastered but they just haven’t come out yet, or they’re old and they’re already out. I’ve never actually been like, “You know what? I’m going to test this.”
So much of your record speaks to human mortality, even if it sneaks past you; how has Rapt helped you process your intersection of external and internal stressors?
I don’t think it has helped me other than in hindsight when I look back on things. I tend to learn through pain and the past, my mistakes, pain and regrets are what make me change. I’m not very good at learning forwards, so to speak.
That’s quite an unhelpful answer, but I really, I don’t think it does help me. I’ve had really sincere, nice emails and messages from people. I’ve had people come up to me at shows and say, “That made me think of this,” or “This helped me through a hard time.” Obviously I take that as a big compliment and I am very moved to hear it. Still, I would say my own expression doesn’t help me at all, not until after. But it is helpful after.
It’s amazing what your subconscious can tell you when you’re not listening to it. Like there are some very dark, difficult things in the new record that I’m still processing, at the time I wrote these songs I didn’t fully know what they were really about.
To wrap up, who are some of your favorite local/DIY/independent musicians that you’d want to shout out?
My French kindred spirit is Raoul Vignal, who I played with in France in 2023. He’s a beautiful human being. He’s so talented. I ‘slid into his DMs’, we played together and hit it off. [laughs] I have fond associations with that man. He’s just such a legend. It’s quite rare to meet someone of his talent who is just as capable of such warmth and empathy.
I also need to shout out Demi Haynes, who has worked with me. I’ve never met her in the flesh, she lives in St. Louis, Missouri. She’s just an incredible musician in a shoegaze band called Seashine. I emailed them in 2017 out of the blue saying, “Hey, I love metal and shoegaze if you ever need anything!” because I was a mastering engineer back then. And she said, “No, we’re good,” but we just got talking. Since then, she’s always been the ‘female vocalist’ on my music.
Esme White is one of my openers for the album launch show, she’s an incredible artist with a blisteringly impressive loud voice. I just don’t understand how someone can project like that. I don’t know why they mic her up, to be honest. It’s the opposite of me because I’m a mouse!
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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