Cortes & Jackson are something of a dichotomy. Meet them for the first time and you’ll see four unassuming friends from Buckinghamshire, brought together by a love of music. Put them on a stage together, however, and you’ll immediately be struck by the high-energy, theatrical swagger of their live performance. Imagine the searing vocal flair of Matt Bellamy and Scissor Sisters, blended with a dramatic style of piano and guitar-based rock akin to a modern day Queen. Add to that, perhaps their greatest strength - enormous, sing-along choruses.
You can hear a likeness to bands such as We Are Scientists and Panic At The Disco. Drawing on an outrageously diverse pool of influences from Vulfpeck and Ripe all the way through to Sleep Token and Tool, they have crafted a sound which is uniquely their own: songs like Forever Fall - ‘a harrowing tale of despair and self-torment with an epic musical journey exhibiting all the ambition of a modern Bohemian Rhapsody’ and Monster - ‘A more lyrically sombre offering, building on a hypnotic guitar hook through to their signature big chorus’. Both of these excellently demonstrate their emotional and musical range.
Despite Cortes & Jackson officially forming in late 2019, the band’s roots stretch back as far as 2012, when Elliot ‘Cortes’ Smith (vocals/piano) and Callum Mangold-Jackson (guitar/vocals) met at university and immediately struck up a musical rapport. The pair would continue to write and perform together acoustically in the intervening years and although bearing scant resemblance to their current sound, many of their songs have their origins in this era.
It took the additions of Josh Green (drums) and later Nick Smith (bass) to finally fulfil the creative vision all four members had been longing for. All four have enjoyed a large amount of experience playing in various bands over the years, sometimes even in varying combinations with each other, before finally coming full circle to utilise that experience to create the perfect outlet for each of them to express their musicianship. Even given the talents of leading songwriter Elliot, the creation of new songs is very much a team exercise. In a band full of multi-instrumentalists, everybody’s input is crucial to creating the Cortes & Jackson sound.
So far Cortes & Jackson have released three singles, achieving BBC Introducing airplay with their first, Molotov Heart Throb. This was followed up by their first music video for second single Forever Fall, an epic and theatrical journey filmed by Chris Brooker (BrookerFilms) at The Lancaster Grand Theatre.
Third single Monster provided the perfect opportunity for the band’s very own Elliot to display his artistic talents by drawing and animating the heartfelt accompanying story video. Frame by frame, he eventually completed it after hundreds of hours work.
It is this D.I.Y element which separates Cortes & Jackson from their peers. Working from their own studio space, all three singles have been self produced and mixed by Callum, whilst the band’s signature artwork has also been hand drawn by Elliot.
2022 marked a breakout year for Cortes & Jackson; which in addition to the single releases also included performances at Beacon Festival, The Venue, in store at HMV, and a headline show at hometown venue MK11. The band have big plans for the future, hoping to bring their live experience to festivals and venues across even more towns and cities.
With new single Requital, an exploration into the bands angsty side, freshly released, and production already underway on five more tracks, now is the time to strap in and join them for a wild ride.