Jason Reeves – HuffPost 2.23.11

Mike Ragogna: What advice do you have for new artists?

Jason Reeves: I think giving advice is a very intense thing to get into. I’m not sure that I have the authority or deserve to give advice to people. I think the only thing that I really know to be true is that, to do what I do and what all musicians do to get to this place is to have insane amounts of patience. It takes so much longer than you want it to or ever expect it to. To me, that is easily the hardest part, knowing something can’t happen as fast as I want it to. You have to really believe in what you’re doing enough to give all of yourself into it. You can’t just go half-heartedly at something like this. You have to dive all the way in.

MR: What got you into music?

JR: Well, I had always played music. When I was five, my mom started making me take piano lessons, which I completely despised being a five-year-old boy wanting to run around in the mud. So, I played piano for about five years and got sick of it, so I started playing drums. I’ve always played instruments, but it wasn’t until I turned 17 that I wanted to play the guitar. I think the main reason why was because I discovered Bob Dylan and James Taylor and old ’60s music in general. When I heard their music for the first time, I hadn’t realized that people could express themselves so powerfully using just a guitar and a voice. I got really inspired by that, and I already really loved writing. I didn’t have a specific format that I loved, I just loved doing it. It came really natural to start putting those words to songs. It’s been about 9 years that I’ve been writing, I would say besides that, Iowa City happens to be a really inspiring musical town. There are a lot of good folk musicians there–it’s pretty much constantly happening out in the streets of that town. It was just a good atmosphere to grow up in.

MR: What inspires you when you sit down to write?

JR: For me, when I write, it’s coming directly out of my life and my emotions. Falling in and out of love plays a really big part in it. I’ve written songs from other people’s perspective before. For me, it’s just easier when it’s coming from me and my direct experiences. I kind of try to keep the barriers between the truth and what really happens and what gets written down in the song minimized. I want it to be as honest as it possibly can be.