Cosmo Jarvis
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Cosmo Jarvis

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“The first film I ever made was a big piece of shit! But the best learning comes from comparing the shit things to the good ones. If a week goes by and you look back at something you did and go ‘that was shit’, then that’s great, because you know why it was shit and you won’t do it again. They can’t teach you that in school.” And so he left. At 16, and never looked back. He signed his first management deal prior to his 18th birthday.

Gay Pirates is far from a polished turd. It became a YouTube sensation earlier this year as the first single off the new album, Is The World Strange, Or Am I Strange. It’s a story of two pirate men whose forbidden love sees them forced to walk the plank, and the video is a full costume production. “There aren’t many ‘gay songs,” he says, “and I thought there should be one. I’m glad people took something from it and didn’t make it into the gimmick it so easily could have become.” His multimedia talents make him the ideal artist for the new landscape of viral marketing. “I think unless you’re signed to a major label and have loads and loads of PR dollars, the Internet and social media is the only way to go these days to get your name out there.”

Despite his growing international profile, don’t expect him rollover on his artistic integrity for the sake of quick money. “I’m aware that by not making more compromises, I’ll extend the amount of time it takes me to get the exposure I need to consistently release albums. But I’m willing for it to take longer, or not at all, because I don’t know, there’s just so much bollocks in the music industry, and I’d rather not get caught up in that.”

Cosmo’s songs are so varied it’s difficult to put him in a genre. Luckily, it’s also just as difficult to get bored listening or watching. The latest single, My Day, varies punk, reggae and British attitude, rolled into an eight-minute track. “The song’s about looking back as an old man, criticising today’s youth’s self absorption and apathy. I think a lot of young people now don’t think for themselves, but it’s getting to the stage where they can’t really help it. They’re spoon-fed. I saw a sign at the train station warning of a staircase coming up, because some guy won a lawsuit against the train company for falling down it. Some kid’s going to grow up thinking that’s normal, whereas 20 years ago, people just walked down the bloody stairs and took responsibility for themselves!”

Once the tour is done and dusted, he’ll return to England where he hopes to put the finishing touches on his first feature film, titled The Naughty Room. He’s produced some 40 short films already but this marks a big leap forward. “I’m just waiting to hear the final word on the shape of it, from various people whose opinions I trust, and then hopefully we can get it finished and tour it to some festivals. It’s about how sometimes your friends can raise you better than your family. It’s a black comedy, it’s funny.”

I’ll go out on a limb and say the film may be somewhat autobiographical. My assumptions that Cosmo Jarvis was part of a tight knit family were shot down, and part of the reason he has had to grow into a man earlier than most.

“My younger brother is 19, and he’s a lot more organised than I am, so he produces a lot of the things that I direct and write, and we spend a lot of time together. When I left school it took my mum a long time to get used to the fact I wasn’t actively involved anymore, and that caused some tension, but my dad had already left the country, and I would have done it anyway. There wasn’t a huge amount of support there. I just try and keep out of everyone’s hair now. It’s pretty much just me and my brother.”

“I think being a man is to just get on with the shit that you think you need to do, without needing anybody else; without relying or leaning on anybody too much.”

BY MICKY RENNIE