A Conversation with Jason Reeves – HuffPost 11.15.11

Mike Ragogna: Jason, hey. Are you back home in your native Iowa City?

Jason Reeves: I am not–I wish I was. I’m in my other home, which is Nashville, Tennessee.

MR: Jason, tell me about your new seven-song EP Caged Birds Set Free.

JR: Well, it is an EP, I guess. I don’t even know what those words mean, anyway. It’s just songs put out into the world, like all albums or EPs. These songs are special to me because I put out the full-length record, The Lovesick, a couple months ago, in August. Before I ever recorded that, I had written these songs and they’d been sitting around in a pile for a couple of years, kind of trapped like caged birds. That’s why it’s called Caged Birds Set Free, because these songs are the birds. And now that I’m not on Warner Brothers records anymore, I can do whatever I want. One of the things that I’ve been wanting to do desperately, which I now can do, is actually release music. This is the first step towards a lot of that. I’m already well into recording a full-length album that will come soon after this. It’s possibly going to be the most music released by a person in the shortest amount of time that I’ve ever heard of. I’m going to keep doing that for a while because I write way too many songs for them to just sit in the dark.

MR: Do you think that’s a new paradigm for artists–to just get a song out there when it’s ready as opposed to waiting between albums because of timing and market concerns?

JR: Yeah. Now nobody’s telling me what to do and there are none of those made-up rules, like waiting a year–or three years, in my case–between albums for no reason, because you think that’s what’s good for an artists that’s trying to grow and progress. In my opinion, that’s the exact opposite of the definition of progressing and growing. For me, I have to get it out because I write so fast. I’m not one of those people that sits around wishing I had enough songs to put together to make an album. At any time, I have enough songs to record three albums. That’s not even an exaggeration. Now that the internet has made it so easy to get your music out–and not only your music, but to get the word out about it–I don’t see any reason why I should slow myself down. Although there are many problems with technology and the internet, this is one of the things that is an advantage.

MR: It definitely is. There are several collaborations on this album with people you’ve worked with for a long time, like Mikal Blue and Colbie Caillat. Colbie joins you on “Wishing Weed.”

JR: Yeah, there’s an acoustic and a full production version of “Wishing Weeds” and she sings on both of them.

MR: What is your plan for marketing now that you’re doing the independent thing? Is is basically social networking and YouTube and stuff like that?

JR: Yeah, for the most part. In a way, I feel like that’s where the world is quickly going as a whole. Now that I don’t have a gigantic team of people helping me do that, I have to do it with a few people. I think we can get a lot done that way, especially as everything goes more and more in that direction. That new model is growing so fast.

MR: What is your thought about the new model? Do you see things that are happening on the horizon that you think may kick in a bit stronger in the next year or two?

JR: I try not to look at the horizon too much, because it can tend to be a mirage–for me, at least. Part of the idea of the internet becoming more of a fixture in our lives than it is already is terrifying to me. I really can’t stand that, but the fact is that it’s going to happen no matter what, so I have to embrace it. My only goal in the face of that is using it to my advantage in an attempt to do something beautiful, because that’s really the only response I can have.

MR: You’re a very successful songwriter in addition to being your own artist. Have you been doing any writing or co-writing with others recently?

JR: Yeah, I’ve been doing a lot of writing recently. I really don’t like talking about who I’ve written for or anything like that until the music actually comes out because it’s such a mystery. You never really know what’s going to happen until it actually gets released because things change so fast. I am doing a lot of writing, and I’m also writing quite a bit of music for myself and recording it. I’m just really focused on creating music right now a lot more than promoting it or touring. That’s my goal.

MR: Is it a daily thing for you? Do you wake up in the morning and write a song? What’s your procedure?

JR: It’s not that I wake up and write a song. I usually don’t write in the morning. It just happens, somehow, throughout the day. Without me really wanting to or trying to, if I ever sit down with an instrument or even just let myself go there, I usually come up with at least part of a song. It’s kind of something I have to do. I can’t really control it and I’m not sure why. I haven’t really tried to analyze that because I think that’d be a waste of time. But I do write a lot. Not every day, but at least every other day or every few days, I’m writing a song. It’s kind of crazy, but I don’t know what else to do.

MR: Can you write about anything or do you gravitate towards, say, love songs?

JR: Well, it could be anything, I guess. But mostly, it’s just how I’m feeling at the moment. From what I’ve experienced…I don’t know if I’m the same as everybody else, but there’s an incredible array of emotions that happen in a human, even in one day. There are a whole lot of things you can feel something about, and it just depends. If something hits me particularly hard or something is too beautiful not to write about, then that’s usually what becomes the inspiration. To give you an example of something that’s different than that, last night, I started writing a song and the chords sounded in such a way that it made me want to write a song for Jack Kerouac. He’s my hero, and I’d never written a song about him for some reason, even though I probably have wanted to for a long time. And so, I just started writing a song about him. That was one of the first songs I’ve ever done that with–it was an outside influence that wasn’t the way I was feeling.

MR: Jack Kerouac. Wow. How did you get into him?

JR: Well, I started reading a lot of stuff in high school and I got really interested in the ’50s and the ’60s in particular. I had also become a really big fan of Bob Dylan and–well, most of the music from the ’60s. And I started realizing how much they were all influenced by Jack, and if not Jack, then that whole movement that we was a part of. I started reading his books, and there’s just something about the way he writes and communicates his thoughts and feelings that’s so unique and so free. You can tell he doesn’t try to edit it down or water it down, for that matter. He’s just a madman going wild on the page. I love him. He’s one of my top three favorite writers.

MR: What other writers are you akin with?

JR: My other favorite right now is Ray Bradbury. That guy is mind blowing to me. Sometimes I can only read his writing a couple pages at a time because I just have to stop and laugh–I don’t mean because it’s funny, but I laugh at how brilliant he is and how violently beautiful his writing is. It’s kind of paralyzing sometimes.

MR: I was a huge fan of Bradbury’s as a kid and into my young adulthood. A Medicine For Melancholy is one of my favorite anthologies ever. He’s one of those writers. I don’t think there’s anybody like him. Most of the other sci-fi writers leave me feeling real icy.

JR: Yeah, I agree.

MR: So, is the rumor true that you’re secretly engaged to Colbie?

JR: (laughs) No, I’m not.

MR: (laughs) I know we talked about this last time you were here at The Huffington Post, but how did you future finances meet?

JR: We met through Mikal. I went out to L.A. from Iowa to record music for the first time, and I was working with Mikal Blue and he’d been working with Colbie a little bit and had been friends with her family. So, he introduced us and we became friends immediately. It was one of those weird things.

MR: You’ve had a lot of hit singles with this Colbie Caillat person, like “Bubbly,” “Realize,” and “I Never Told You.” How shocking was that when that happened?

JR: Well, it’s always crazy when a song becomes a hit. We had three really big hits together–“Bubbly” and “Realize” off the first record, and “I Never Told You” off the second. I don’t write songs for them to become a hit on the radio and I know it’s the same for her. We write songs because we have to and because we want to express the way we feel. Whenever something like that happens and people love them or they become successful, it’s kind of a shock–a good one, I guess. It’s an honor that people love what we did, but other than that, I’m not sure.

MR: Love is good. So, what’s the story behind “Wishing Weed.”

JR: How that song got written is an interesting story. I was out on a lake in Iowa with one of my best friends, this guy named Makana Rowan, who has written a bunch of music with me. We were just sitting out there, and I had a guitar and was playing that part that the song comes from. There was really nobody out there. It was just this empty, expansive wilderness, and I was playing this guitar part and he said the first line of the song, which is “I picked the wishing weed beneath your mother’s tree.” I didn’t even know what a wishing weed was at that moment. That’s what he calls dandelions–not when they’re yellow and alive but when they’re white and you can blow the seeds off. It just kind of struck me. I’d never heard it called that, and it sounded so much better that way. And I’m such a big fan of Dandelion Wine that I immediately wanted to write a song about it. It just turned into a fairytale kind of, after that. Once you blow the seeds of the dandelion, where they go and if they could take your message of love to the person that you’re missing that’s no longer with you. It’s kind of a mystical song, in a way.

MR: What’s the story behind “Rescue?”

JR: “Rescue” is a special one because it’s one of the very first few songs I wrote when I came to Nashville for the first time. I met this guy named Jordan Lawhead, who became one of my best friends. We’ve also written a lot of music together. I have a handful of people in my life that I write many songs with, and he’s one of them. I think that was one of the very first songs we wrote together. It was for this girl that I had just met that I was infatuated with or whatever you want to call it. I was struck by her. So, it’s a special song to me because of all those things.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

JR: Wow. I mean, I feel like giving advice is a really intense undertaking. There’s a lot of weight attached to that word. It’s hard to give advice to people when you’re still learning. And I feel like everybody’s still learning, especially now, because of the way it’s changing so quickly. I’d say just stay true to your music. Write what you feel, not what you think people will want to hear. Don’t do it to become famous or to get your songs on the radio. That’s not the way music is made–at least real good music, in my opinion. Other than that, it’s going to be a hell of a ride. It’s not easy or fun most of the time.

MR: I think everybody’s a “new artist” until they’re done.

JR: Yeah, I would hope so. If you aren’t, then I don’t know how you’d be inspired.

MR: Are you playing around at any clubs or doing any tours right now?

JR: Not right now. I’m doing random shows. I’ve been flying around and playing with Colbie every once in a while. I just did a show in Dallas with her a couple days ago. I’ll probably get back out to at least New York and L.A. coming up here pretty soon, I’m just not sure when.

MR: Caged Birds Set Free. Who came up with the cover art?

JR: I did it. It’s a picture I took, and then I drew little cartoon birds flying out of the giant crow’s mouth. (laughs) I don’t know, it’s kind of morbid.

MR: And what does the crow mean?

JR: The crow is the prison, I guess…the music industry, possibly.

MR: That’s exactly what I was thinking. (laughs) Take care, Jason, keep in touch.

JR: Thank you, I appreciate it.

Transcribed by Claire Wellin