Electronic Pop Artist Jesse Neo Answers Our Questions

You started writing music at the age of 7. What inspired you to begin writing? How did your upbringing influence your style?

Writing music has always been part of my life. During my daily practice, not only would I play my assigned pieces but also experiment with creating my own melodies and chord progressions. As I got older and became more exposed to modern music, I began imitating that style as well. Eventually I decided to focus on commercial music as that was what most people seemed to care about, especially in school.

Of the more than 100 songs you’ve composed, which is your favorite, and why? Tell us about it.

At the time of writing, each song held special sentiment and meaning to me. Therefore, I can’t really tell you which one is my favourite. However, there was a time I created a piece titled, ‘Shooting Star Carnival’ or something like that for a music assignment in high school that caught the attention of my music teacher. He told me that it sounded like the Hungarian composer, Gábor Darvas – which at the time, I had no idea who he was. After some research, I learnt that he was one of the early composers of electronic music! So I guess that song could had been my favourite, mainly due to the story after I wrote it, not the song itself.

Please tell us all about Gemtracks.com. How are you involved? What can someone visiting the site expect?

Gemtracks is pretty much an online store that I created to sell unused beats and instrumentals that singers could purchase and put their vocals to. The idea started when several online media companies reach out to me in a bid for me to write some songs for them.

I am involved with everything on Gemtracks – from the programming, the graphic design… all the way to the marketing. I also from time to time, upload my own original beats onto the website too.

Today, Gemtracks is a public marketplace where anyone can upload their beats to sell, and artists from anywhere can purchase them. I am currently working on adding new features for buyers to also hire freelance producers and book recording studios. Ultimately, I want Gemtracks to be the one-stop destination for music production and collaboration.

If you’re curious, you can also visit Gemtracks.

If you could collaborate with one musician, living or dead, who would that be and why?

I would really like to collaborate with Lady Gaga. She is such an inspiration, having raised with classical music and then making a leap towards electro-pop. I hope one day I will actually get to collaborate with her!

How has the ongoing pandemic affected your music career? Where do you see music going in the next couple of years?

To be honest, I haven’t been recording or performing since the beginning of the year – and probably won’t until the storm is over. In the meantime, I have been concentrating on Gemtracks and trying to get it known to as many people as possible. When things get back to normal, I hope to release more tracks and even film a music video.