New Interview!
Jeremy was interviewed recently by Daryl Smith of Saving The Setlist. The conversation focuses on his new music, community and insights into the creative process.Part One.Part Two.
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Feb
15th 2010 Sep
30th 2008 Jun
4th 2008 Miscellaneous thoughts in bullet form.
• I am really excited about the new Coldplay album. I love how serious they are about what they do. Also Brian Eno produced it which means a feast for the ears. • I bought new running shoes yesterday. New Balance– $50. It was time. My old shoes were shot. Yay for new shoes! • Op is back! What!? You don’t remember Op!? Well let me refresh your memory…the year is 1989. The style of dress in the summer (at least in my small universe growing up in Pittsburgh, PA) for folks my age consists of two things: Ocean Pacific shirts and Jams shorts. (It was awesome and why oh why did we ever change?) Well like all great ideas…Op eventually got bought out by the “man.” And now the man sells Op shirts at Wal-Mart for $13. So I picked myself up a sweet striped Op shirt and beamed with pride as I wore it last night. Long live Op! I might try to find some Jams now so I can thoroughly embarrass my wife with my retro wardrobe. • I’m kicking around the idea of launching my own podcast later this month. It would be about 20 mins long and run twice a month throughout the summer. It would consist of conversations with folks I know (a lot of them are very interesting artists, producers, engineers, theologians, musicians, poets and thinkers) so I thought it would make for a great listen. What do you think? Would that be interesting to you or not? Just fishin’. • Kierstin and I visited the Frist Museum to see the exhibit Monet-Dali. It was wonderful. They had works by Renoir, Picasso, Van Gogh and others. We stood close to them and studied the canvasses. You get close enough and you can see the craft– the math of things. You stand back and the sum is magical. I want to read up on Renoir and Van Gogh to get a sense of what their lives were like and what made them tick. Having Kierstin there with me helped a lot because she knows so much about the works overall. Very inspiring. • I’ve been writing and working on new songs. They are focused in on themes of true freedom, beauty and a whole lot of joy. I love how they make me feel. Joy is something I’m really trying to wrap my mind around and inject into the veins of my music. There’s an electricity to it that is undeniable and impossible to fabricate. It’s either there or it’s not. Or maybe I am the elusive one. There are so many colors out there that I’m seeing now and writing songs feels like painting these days. I feel the total freedom to jump and trust the process. Faith is the parachute. May
29th 2008 Post singer/songwriter laptop rock.That’s how I would describe the new songs I’ve been working on. Pushing hard, at once electronic and organic, beauty and joy pulsing through the veins of young melodies and hooks. frenetic vocals bumping up against the grain of indifference. shooting for excellence. swinging for the fences! it’s almost 2 am. time for bed. May
23rd 2008 Busy being born.
I was up late last night working on new music. My mind has been taken over by couple of new riffs that keep ringing in my ears. Playing over and over. That’s usually a good sign that something wants to come out. I’ve been listening to a cool band I recently discovered. An Indie-Electronic outfit from Los Angeles called Philippians. I found them on myspace and really like their stuff. It’s mostly instrumental and has all sorts of textures and beats that I love. I’ve been doing some production work too. Actually that’s most of what I’ve been doing…helping folks record EP’s and working on a few album tracks for other artists. It’s a good season and I’m thankful to just work and be home with my family. I am out on the road a bit here and there although I haven’t posted the dates. There’s a reason for that– I am still trying to figure out how to perform the new material in a live setting. (maybe that’s bad but it’s just sort of happened) It needs to be more than just my guitar and voice (at least part of the time) and growing it up (reforming) my live animal is just taking time. I’ll get there I think. When it comes time to give it a go (most likely Fall 08) it will really be something worth seeing instead of the typical me and a guitar thing. Can you tell I’m conflicted? There’s a whole long post I could write about here but it wouldn’t do any good at this point. I leave for Atlanta around lunch-time today. I’ll be playing there this weekend at a couple of churches with some dear friends of mine. This morning I’m going to meet up with Derek Webb for coffee which I’m looking forward to. Then I think I may try and visit my best friend Cason after that. Then I’ll skip town until Sunday night. Grace & Peace. Apr
24th 2008 No thyself.Today was a better day. More hope all around. I woke at six o’clock, read the news, had some coffee and then went for a run. I’ve been stressed out and running helps me a great deal. So does prayer and reading through the psalms to know that I’m not alone in my feelings be they good, bad or just ok. I’ve been working with bookings and rehearsing for this weekend’s concerts. I’ll be up in Columbia, MO and then on to St. Louis. Really looking forward to playing and connecting with the songs and the people on the road. In the midst of the busyness I took the time to sift through some thoughts on the piano. I’ve had some melodies rolling around in my head for a couple weeks now that wanted to stretch their legs. So I let them. And then the strangest thing happened…two songs showed up today. It was just after lunch and they came pretty fast. I need to edit them and let them get a little older but lo and behold—new material! What a surprise. I wasn’t even trying. They were just sort of there. Songwriting is a strange thing indeed. The rabbit hole goes deeper the older I get. The songs on Recovery are still somewhat fresh to me but I can tell they are aging and making room for the younger songs. These new ones that showed up today. There’s a similar energy to them. Fast and not at all obvious. Nice parts and interesting lead vocal melody. Syncopated. I love how it feels. Forward moving. I think the folk thing is over for me. It threw me for a loop at first (no pun intended) but I think I wandered so far away from it on my last record that I’ll be gone from it for a while. This reality is still impacting my ever changing live show which is in the process of its gradual change brought on by the new material. Have a good night. Dec
31st 2007 Makoto Fujimura.
Acclaimed visual artist Makoto Fujimura speaks on beauty in the brokenness. This is worth your time. Check it out here. Nov
15th 2007 Speaking up.
“I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether.” I heard a sermon last weekend in which the pastor stated that the church is not a business. How true and how great it is to hear it said out loud! Even more than that though — the people who come to church are not customers. While it may be no surprise to some, it is still worth sounding the call that we’ve lost our understanding of what it means to be the church. I’m doing some reading lately to deepen my knowledge of this. Especially working in and around churches as a lone-ranger sort of musical artist guy. Sometimes I end up out on the road trying to connect with audiences from different church backgrounds and just totally feel like I’m grasping at straws in trying to relate to them. Maybe I should just play music and shut up. Let others do the talking. But what if what they are saying isn’t the Gospel? What if it turns your skin and makes you want to vomit? 12-step motivational speeches that pass for “gospel” and aren’t any different that what you’d get by watching Oprah or Dr. Phil. I’m uncomfortable with the undefined sort of role I have (or do not have) within the church. It’s too blurry and too loose of a cannon to be shot out of. Flailing out into the national landscape and hawking my merch. I don’t know about a lot of this anymore. Just confessing. And what’s funny to me is that a lot of this thought process is a logical extension of the dialog I started with myself while writing and recording Recovery. Digging deeper into the marrow of things and feeling the gravity of the Truth….and now that conversation has injected itself into the way I pursue my career and not just the way I write and make records. Feels like growth. Film at 11. Oct
28th 2007 Sola Fide.
I’ve been taking in a good deal of reading lately. Mostly rooted in a study class on The Reformation that Kierstin and I have been involved with since September. There are so many great teachers and resources here in Nashville and I don’t want to look back on wasted opportunities to learn and rub shoulders with some of these men and their satisfied minds. We were studying Martin Luther’s life and I was moved to tears several times at his insistence that we stand on the Word. Especially the scene at the end of his life. The Solas are so beautiful. Amazing to sit under the weight of it all and let it seep through me. Oh that I would be drenched! In light of my liberated imagination, I’ve learned to keep the pot full of interesting and eclectic things. Here’s a list of what I’m into lately: Books: Albums: Podcasts: Software: Oct
18th 2007 Colossians Three Sixteen interview.A new interview has been posted over at Colossians Three Sixteen. Check it out here. Great questions about applying the Gospel to all of life and unpacking some of the sources for artistic expression. Other interviews in this series feature Denton,TX singer/songwriter Doug Burr, Don Chaffer of Waterdeep and the prolific Andrew Osenga. Read those here. Thanks to Brent Thomas for the invite. |
