Exclusive: July Jones comes to grips with break-ups and betrayal in fierce new ‘Loner’ video
The rising queer star continues to make a mark with her latest track.
By Will Stroude
Words: Will Stroude; Image: YouTube / July Jones
Despite her distinctly summery name, July Jones is serving snow, ice, and angst in the edgy new music video for her latest single ‘Loner’.
The queer Slovene-British singer, who was in the running the represent Slovenia at Eurovision this year, has premiered the fiercely frosty visual exclusively with Attitude as she releases her debut mixtape Silly Little Dream Pt 1.
Rising star July, who boasts songwriting credits for the likes of BTS, Girli, 99 Souls, Nasty Cherry and Zolita, is injecting a fiesty new energy into the pop music landscape with filter-free lyrics about relationships, queerness and mental health.
New single ‘Loner’ is a cathartic slice of electro-pop that sees July process a painful break-up over booming synths as she declares: “And now I know / that I’m better on my own.”
“I wrote the song ‘Loner’ when I was in a really bad place”, July says. “I was at a point in my relationship where I didn’t really know where things are gonna go, I felt betrayed by the person I was with.
‘Loner’ actually started with a scream, so the scream that you hear at the start and the end of the song was actually the scream that started the whole writing process. The production is very heavily guitar-based which is not my usual go-to, I’m always an 808s kind of gal but it definitely felt appropriate.”
Still on the ascendency, July – who is set to support fellow queer singer Slayyyter on her UK and European tour dates this summer – is set to make more noise with the release of her first mixtape.
“Silly Little Dream is a conceptual mixtape, my first piece of work which I am very proud of,” she explains. I am a writer and producer first, and I think my main strength is creating art.
There is so many things I want to say – it wasn’t possible to put it in a normal eight album track so we decided to split Silly Little Dream in three parts. The first part being my birth, introduction of my sound. Second part being the middle stage and last part my full final moment where I fully develop.”
Watch the video for July Jones’ ‘Loner’ and check out her upcoming UK and European performance dates below:
13 May – The Great Escape, Revenge, Brighton, UK
25 May – Limelight 2, Belfast, UK*
26 May – The Academy, Dublin, Ireland*
22 June – Santeria Toscana 31, Milan, Italy^
26 – June Praga Centrum, Warsaw, Poland^
27 – June Gretchen, Berlin, Germany^
29 – June LUXOR, Cologne, Germany^
6 July – Gorilla, Manchester, UK^
7 July – Heaven, London, UK^
8 July – The Academy, Dublin, Ireland^
9 July – FVTVR, Paris, France^
*Supporting Yonaka
^Supporting Slayyyter