Jawny, courtesy Alex Free.

Before East Bay native Jawny could let his last project go, he had to finish the story.

That project—October’s part-album, part-mixtape, part narrative art project For Abby—was the fictionalized story of a man who was in a relationship, blew it, regretted it and is trying to get the titular Abby back. But something was missing.

“Like three weeks after my last project went out to the public, my brain just started thinking about, like, ‘OK, yeah, I have to start thinking about the next thing,'” he said. “But the more I was thinking about it, my brain wasn’t letting me because I still had more to say that was in the universe of my last project.”

What his brain had to say was The Story of Hugo, a prequel to For Abby, from the perspective of Abby’s once-and-aspiring partner. So Jawny locked himself in a studio for about 10 days and made the EP to get it out of his system and finish the story he wanted to tell.

“It kinda sounds crazy when I say it all out loud,” he said, laughing. “I just didn’t give the dude any depth. So this is like,’ they’re in love, they go through the breakup, then he’s fuckin’ miserable.’ They’re definitely not happy Jawny songs. They’re more sad songs. And I think that’s OK.”

It’s a fictional story. He says he’s in a really good place and in a happy relationship. But in addition to telling the rest of the story, Jawny wanted to show depth so he wouldn’t get typecast as only writing happy songs. As he explained, what if someday he’s not in a good place and wants to write sad songs?

Once that was done, he said he’s become focussed on trying to get his health in check. He’s been watching what he eats and doing a lot of walking; in fact he was on a walk during this interview.

“I’m, like, a fitness person now, which I’ve never been in my entire life,” he said. “I’ve never been a sports guy, or like, a sweating guy. Mostly been a lazy piece of shit. I’ve been walking a ton, eating a lot of fish and veggies, I’ve just been on my shit. I’m almost shocked.”

He’s had a chance to get healthy because he hasn’t been doing a lot with music. He decided to take some time off, not as a vacation, but rather as part of his process to get ready for his next album.

“I kinda gave myself a little time to not think about anything music related,” he said. “I just wanted to live life again. You know; make experiences, so I can have stuff to write about when I go back in the studio. Because otherwise, what are you gonna write about? [If] you just keep writing music all the time but not living life or doing anything new, you’re gonna run out of shit to talk about. So I haven’t picked up a guitar and tried to sing words over anything in like a month and a half, and it feels pretty good.”

That’s not to say he has nothing for the next album. He has some and he’ll let fans know how the next album is going after the EP has time to stand alone. But he’s focusing on one thing at a time.

“For right now, I’m gonna focus on my boy Hugo, let him get his spotlight,” he said. “I hate most stuff that I make because I’m super insecure, but I’m pretty stoked on this little project, not gonna lie.”

Follow editor Daniel J. Willis at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.