Leeds singer-songwriter Jake Whiskin combines Northern vocal character with widescreen American rock production on The Mess I’ve Made, the final single before his Over The Edge EP arrives on 2 October 2026.
Recorded in Los Angeles with producer James Flannigan, the track draws on the melodic clarity of Full Moon Fever-era Tom Petty while keeping Whiskin’s confessional writing firmly at the centre. Whiskin explains:
The Mess I’ve Made is a song about excess, regret and the negative patterns you can carve out in your own life. This song plays out a relationship that’s struggling to stay afloat under the weight of the consequences of those patterns, but the emotional well it’s drawing from runs much deeper than just those surface issues.
That contrast between emotionally heavy material and expansive production runs throughout Over The Edge. Following ‘Sabbath Deep Cuts’, the new single continues the EP’s exploration of nostalgia, heartache, destructive habits and the different ways people try to escape themselves.
The Los Angeles sessions also allowed Whiskin to lean directly into the Americana records that shaped his musical language. He says:
It was recorded out in Los Angeles and wears its Full Moon Fever-era Tom Petty influence on its sleeve. but still with my Northern accent rearing its head occasionally in the vocal.
Raised in Leeds on a record collection spanning Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins, Neil Young and Tom Petty, Whiskin has developed a sound positioned between intimate singer-songwriter confession and melody-led alternative rock.
His previous releases have secured extensive streaming support, repeated BBC Radio 1 plays through Jack Saunders’ Future Artists, BBC Introducing backing and placements across film and television. His music has appeared in Amazon Prime’s Culpa Mia, Channel 4’s Made In Chelsea and Shudder’s Little Bites.
Saunders previously said of Whiskin:
Just like Springsteen, just like Elliot Smith, just like Sam Fender – When you are blessed with a voice that sounds as good as this, there isn’t much else you need to do…Just pick up the instrument, write the songs and your voice will do the talking. Jake Whiskin feels like he’s got something real special.
Following appearances at SXSW, Vestrock and Live at Leeds, Whiskin recently completed a sold-out European and UK support tour with Barns Courtney.
On The Mess I’ve Made, the production does more than enlarge the songwriting. Its bright Americana framework works against the regret inside the lyrics, turning that friction between euphoria and self-destruction into the track’s defining feature.