In April 2022, Cape Town’s Jeremy Loops announced his brand new album ‘Heard You Got Love’ and released the single ‘Better Together’ for which he joined forces with none other than Ed Sheeran.
Jeremy has played some of the world’s most prestigious venues, from Kirstenbosch in his hometown to a sell-out headline show at London’s famed Brixton Academy. His famed high energy shows are scored by similarly inspired music, and he’s since amassed over 234 million global streams, and growing.
‘Better Together’, an ode to the triumph of the collective, was co-written by Jeremy, Ed, and Sheeran’s frequent collaborators, Johnny McDaid and Steve Mac (the duo that wrote the mega-hit ‘Shape of You’ alongside Ed Sheeran). Ed and Jeremy first met a few years ago and instantly hit it off at the private party that followed Sheeran’s first stadium show in South Africa.
Jeremy Loops comments on meeting Ed Sheeran
“He said I was a better loop artist than he is. Very kind, but not true! But we are very similar artists, in many aspects of our jobs. We spent the night hanging out and talking shop, and he suggested we write together.”
The single release comes alongside the announcement of Jeremy’s long-awaited third album ‘Heard You Got Love’ – an album of head-bopping anthems perfect for sunny days ahead. The record also includes a very special collaboration with his childhood favourites Ladysmith Black Mambazo called ‘This Town’, which was released last year.
The music video (which was released on the 4th of May 2022) sees Loops perform at a wedding that devolves into a raucous party, with the singer-songwriter getting involved in the festivities himself.
Jeremy Loops comments on the video
“This idea that when we’re together, we’re at our most creative, our most triumphant, our most inspired, and yes, 100% our messiest, really captures the spirit of ’Better Together’. There’s a pent-up desire and need for community, it runs deep in our spirit as people, and I think our limited access to each other makes us value and celebrate one another even more when we do get together.”
Directed by Bevan Cullinan and produced by Together Films, the video is a visual, rich, colourful spectacle that uses motion to convey emotions. Shot on super high frame rate cameras, the team intelligently employs super slow-mo to dive into the minute details of our shared experiences. In a way, flipping the script on how the last few years were an unwelcome go-slow, to how every moment together moving forward is to be celebrated. Trampolines, confetti bombs, sunflowers, several spilled wine glasses, and more props capture the spirit of the wedding party, but more than that, the inherent joy in being together.
Check out the video for “Better Together” below:
Ïn my opinion “Better Together” is one of the coolest tracks of 2022. I’m predicting that we’ll be hearing this on radio stations all around South Africa and the UK (and possibly the world) in the next few months.
You can download / stream “Better Together” and pre-order the upcoming album HERE.
More info about Jeremy Loops
Jeremy is a self-taught musician that picked up his first guitar in university. As his love for writing grew, he penned melodies while working aboard superyachts, where he worked his way up from deckhand to yacht master. Obsessed with squeezing music into every day on shore and evening on deck, Jeremy’s trusty loop pedal followed him around his tour of the seas.
While working out at sea, Jeremy was shocked to see the volume of waste in the industry. It is this experience that fuelled one of his many initiatives, Greenpop, the eco-project that has filled 400 green-free spaces with over 150,000 trees.
As his career quickly developed, Jeremy has worked hard to offset any carbon emissions from touring and constantly puts social responsibility at the forefront of his movements. The long-time activist founded The Big Food Drive to deliver food supplies to some of the poorest communities in South Africa.
The crowd-funded campaign built a food distribution network with other partners that contributed towards 55,000 meals per week for 6 months for those in need.
Jeremy has carefully merged these values into each corner of the record
“This is the album I’ve always wanted to make and my hope is that some of the things I’ve written about will mean as much to others as they do to me. Every song speaks to something I care deeply about.”
‘Heard You Got Love’ allowed Jeremy Loops to explore more technical aspects of recording than he has previously. The record came to life in Jeremy’s home studio in between daily dips in the ocean. Having collaborated with world-renowned artists such as Simone Felice (The Lumineers), Jake Gosling (Shawn Mendes), Tobias Kuhn (Milky Chance) and Carey Willets (Dermot Kennedy), Jeremy brought on a fleet of high end producers for the album, including Ed Holloway (Lewis Capaldi), Eg White (Adele) and Cam Blackwood (George Ezra).
A household name in South Africa, Jeremy Loops teases a slew of massive domestic shows to welcome this next season of his musical journey before he sets sail around the globe once again this year for a 2022 world tour.
Watch this space for updates in the Music category on Running Wolf’s Rant.
