Alfie Jukes
Alfie Jukes is a born storyteller. This young singer-songwriter is on the cusp of something huge, destined to share his remarkable music with the world. His songs are a much-needed balm for our troubled times; songs of love and hope, of moving away from home and coming of age, and they are always written from the heart.
Born and raised in Brighton, Jukes got his start in musical theatre – first in school plays then in a theatre job at the Royal Shakespeare Company. “My mum put me in classes because I needed a place to get rid of all my energy,” he recalls, laughing. “So for most of my childhood, I thought theatre was what I was going to do… and then covid happened and it all disappeared.”
It was during lockdowns that Jukes found time to begin nurturing his latent songwriting skills. Little by little, his confidence grew and he began uploading covers to social media, connecting with his now-manager. Not long after that, he booked a support tour with the band Only the Poets: “Being on stage and that tangible connection with the audience, that’s the most important thing for me,” he says. There have been headline tours, too, drawing bigger and bigger crowds each time. In a few short years he has built an extraordinary following, with over a quarter of a million monthly listeners on Spotify and millions of views across his three previous EPs, most recently 2025’s All Dressed Up for Nothing.
“I think I’d be lying if I didn’t say I want this to be as big as it possibly can be,” Jukes says. “I’ve always thought about everything in terms of the live show, from festivals to venues, so that’s really important to me. And I think it’s important to have ambition and to be open about what you want to achieve.” The last few years, he continues, have been about “figuring shit out, basically – when it comes to the music, I’m so proud of everything that I’ve put out, but this project feels the most ‘me’ of anything I’ve ever done.”
We get the first glimpse with his single “Edges of You”. Inspired by the hit coming-of-age musical Sing Street, Jukes set out to capture that same heady rush of infatuation:
“You spend a lot of time filling in the gaps, when you first see that person you’re going to fall in love with,” Jukes says. “Your imagination has to do a lot of the work, so you have a version of someone… and then you’re diving in and you realise that the reality is so much better than you thought.”
The coming-of-age theme becomes a relatable throughline, as Jukes explores it from myriad perspectives. “Island” was influenced by his sister’s move away from home, and his mixed emotions as he watched one of his favourite people – his best friend – prepare to leave. “I’m on an island,” he sings, “of echoing silence/ And I can’t escape, when you’re miles away.”
It’s astonishingly poignant, conjuring up the infinitesimal ways in which we can be reminded of someone we love. There’s an optimism in the buoyancy of the instrumentation: “Optimism and hope are words I keep coming back to, because it is that reassurance in knowing you’re not alone in the way you feel,” he says. “I think there’s something to be said about romanticising certain moments in life, the things that I think will resonate with a lot of people.”
“I’ve spent the last three years working out what kind of music I want to make,” he acknowledges, “and what I’m releasing now is the culmination of that. It’s coming of age, it’s change, it’s first times…It’s me, as honest as I’ve ever been.”