Rising pop star Jessica Winter: 'It can be tough doing music with a disability'

When Jessica Winter was a toddler, her legs were locked into place with iron splints.

“My mum would put me on the piano stool, because I had this back brace,” she recalls. “My legs would be poking out the sides, right? So I’d be stuck there. I couldn’t, like, fall off, and I’d just play for ages.”

Winter had been diagnosed with hip dysplasia, a condition that required multiple corrective surgeries. Recovery meant weeks of immobility – and many hours propped up at the piano. “That’s how I got into it, I guess,” she says.

By “it”, Winter means music, of course. The artist is speaking with Big Issue just hours before a major headline show at The Divine in Dalston, East London – a live performance of her debut full-length album.

Its playful title, My First Album, is a tongue-in-cheek nod to an already expansive body of work: nearly 100 songs, three EPs, collaborations with bands and tracks produced for other artists. The musician gained attention for her Sad Music EP (2020), followed by More Sad Music (2021) and again with 2023’s Limerence EP.

Multiple outlets and critics have dubbed Winter “one to watch”. The New York Times described her music as “pure pop confection”; The Guardian as “Grimes reborn as a ‘90s pop star.”

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In person, this “future pop hero” (NME) is unassuming – lugging her own amps and sipping pre-show ginger tea to soothe her throat. But onstage, she’s larger than life. The new album, she hopes, is “glitter, flamboyance, and rawness in equal measure” – think Madonna meets Kylie meets psychedelia.

“It’s chaotic in terms of sonics,” Winter says. “I love dressing things up in different sounds and textures each time… but I think there’s a clear narrative throughout.”

Thematically, Winter explains, the album is about ambition and identity – getting what you want, then realising it’s not quite what you thought.

“The message is about ‘somebody’ aspiring to be a star, wanting to fill the void deep inside herself. About wanting something, then getting it, then wondering – why do I still feel like this? At the end, she realises she needs to be herself and take care of herself. It’s a reflection on what success really is.”

Winter’s love of pop began in hospital, recovering from those childhood surgeries.

“I spent a lot of time solitary,” she recalls. “I used to sleep talk, so I wouldn’t be allowed on the ward and [couldn’t] make friends, so it’d be a lot of time alone in my little sleep hospital room.”

To pass the time, she would stare out the window or play Donkey Kong. Then – fortuitously – a family friend gave her an old Walkman.

“I would just play, like, whatever CDs that were in there. I’d just plug in and be off on another planet. I think something must have happened to my brain – my imagination is strong.”

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Jessica Winter has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder characterised by loose joints. It “can be tough doing music with a disability,” she says.

“I don’t talk about it much, because I worry people will think, ‘Let’s not book her.’ You don’t want to look like a diva, like, ‘Can you carry that for me?’ But my joints literally fall out of their sockets. My arm comes away at the elbow. I might carry something heavy and not feel it at the time – but the next day, I’m totally inflamed. So maybe it’s good to talk about it more – because that’s when things change.”

Her many hospital stays shaped not only her musical instincts, but her political beliefs. Before going full-time with music, Winter worked in children’s psychiatric care. Today, she’s a passionate advocate for the NHS and a fierce critic of the politicians who have let it fall into decline.

“I’m so sad about what’s happening. I think the NHS is the best invention the UK has ever come up with,” Winter says.

“It’s a place where it doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, or how much money you have. That’s how it started–about equality. We’re all here for one purpose: to get you well. It was such a beautiful invention, and now it’s becoming kind of increasingly corporate.”

Nearly 15 years of austerity have placed immense pressure on the NHS. The Lord Darzi report, released last year, declared the service in “critical condition”. Cancer wait times, crumbling infrastructure, preventable deaths and staff shortages were among the litany of failures detailed in the report.

“When I was working [in child psychiatric care], I saw the department slowly, over three years, getting shut down,” she recalls. “There was just no funding.”

The UK’s mental health provision, she adds, is particularly abysmal. The lack of funding for childhood services “shortsighted”. One of Winter’s family members is currently experiencing homelessness – something she attributes to missed opportunities for early intervention.

“He didn’t get any help, early on,” she says. “Support needs to come from childhood. We have one of the worst mental health funded countries in Europe, which is quite shocking, because we’re one of the most affluent.

“If we could transfer funds to children’s mental health services, that would prevent so many problems. Obviously having a very close experience to it – when the damage has been done, it’s very, very hard to reverse.”

This political interest is not separate to her music; in fact, she’s writing a musical about the NHS. But the immediate future revolves around the album.

“I’m really excited about it,’ she says. “It’s all about being broken-hearted in the summer, and then discovering yourself through that.”

My First Album by Jessica Winter is set for release on Friday 11 July.

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