Today we’d like to introduce you to Jesse W. Johnson.
Originally from Springfield, IL, Jesse grew up listening to his parent’s cassette tapes of Genesis and Don Henley while dancing around the dining room table in his underwear. After falling in love with the idea of songwriting through the Beatles, he decided to pick up a guitar after seeing a CSNY concert in 2001. Locking himself in the basement for a few years with his axe in hand, he then cut his teeth playing open mic nights around Champaign, IL before forming the band ‘Post Historic’ with Chicago songwriter/producer Yoo Soo Kim in 2005. They released the album ‘Memory Banks of Blue’ in 2007.
In 2008, Jesse formed the band ‘Jet W. Lee’ with multi-instrumentalist Patrick Mangan and the pair relocated to Chicago. Jet W. Lee released the album ‘Who Shall Remain Shameless?’ in 2009 and Jesse also released his first solo record, ‘Home to Roast’ the same year with Clint Dodson playing drums and bass. Jet W. Lee teamed up with Ayo Kdoe Productions to make a music video for the song ‘Anticipation High’ as a result of a zombie masquerade party they threw for the album release.
Over the next 4 years, Jet W. Lee toured and played shows in over 40 states around the U.S. with Pierre Achille and Mickey Mangan both joining in on bass guitar. The band released their 2nd album, ‘Western Nightmare’ in 2012 to local acclaim and set off on a year-long tour around the country to support it.
Jesse released a solo acoustic EP called ‘Cannon Rows’ in 2014, including a cover of the obscure Neil Young song ‘Without Rings’, only available on CD. Soon after, Jet W. Lee recorded a full 3rd album just prior to Patrick Mangan moving to NYC and the band going on indefinite hiatus. Due to unhappiness with the overall cohesiveness and sound of the record, it was ultimately scrapped and many songs still remain unreleased.
That same year, Jesse formed a new band for his solo project with Yoo Soo Kim (viola, keys), Paul Doerr (bass) and Zach Benkowski (drums). The full-band EP and 7” vinyl ‘Primal Scream’ followed in 2015 and saw Jesse teaming up with RMG Artists to promote the record. The EP saw widespread coverage around the country, as well as an extensive radio play in the U.K. while he toured both solo and with the band that year.
As the result of a chance meeting at his rehearsal space, Jesse teamed up with Vinyl for a Cause in 2016 and contributed music to VFAC #002 as a split 7” covering songs by his friends ‘Coed Pageant’. In turn, they covered his song ‘Cannon Rows’ and Jet W. Lee song ‘Down for the Bounty’ on the release. Jesse joined the board of directors at VFAC and currently works with them as an advisor on upcoming projects and opportunities.
On his 2nd full-length album, ‘American Dumpster’, Jesse once again teamed up with Yoo Soo Kim to record and co-produce with the band from the ‘Primal Scream’ EP. The record is a thorough examination of the journey from disillusionment to optimism and is the most lyrically intense and personal record for Johnson to date. Released in July 2017, the album is available on transparent red vinyl and digital download. Jesse teamed up with Jon Burns on the music video for ‘American Dumpster’ and is working on another video for ‘Through the Light of the Stars’ with Sadie Rogers (RPG, Alien Brides) as director and Eon Mora (Joe’s Swanberg’s EASY and WIN IT ALL) as cinematographer.
The current band, Jesse W. Johnson & Coyote Scream, consists of Dane Marcussen (drums), Yoo Soo Kim (viola, synth), and Matt McGuire / Timothy Cap (bass). They just finished a tour in support of ‘American Dumpster’ and are currently promoting the record and working on new music for an upcoming album.
Has it been a smooth road?
Being an independent musician is great in a lot of ways. I can make and perform the music I want to make, with the people I want to make it with. Having a full-time day job makes it hard to have time to do everything I’d like to do, but it does give me some money to do it, which I’m thankful for.
It’s all about the dream really, Ever since I picked up a guitar and wrote my first song, I knew that’s what I wanted to do. It felt right, more than anything else in my life before or since. Once you get that feeling, it’s hard to think about anything else. Some people have no idea what they want to do with their lives. Not me, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt. BUT… it’s really hard to make a living being an original songwriter and musician. It’s a stupid thing to get into really.
So you’ve gotta love it. And you’ve gotta really want to do it. It’s easy to get discouraged by those who don’t like what you do or believe in what you’re doing. You’ve gotta believe in what you do more than they don’t. You can get real existential and super disillusioned. Do you deserve to do this? What if you fail and never accomplish what you want or play at the venue you want or record at the studio you want? Are your songs any good? Why haven’t you made it to the next level or on a bigger tour yet?
All these questions persist and follow you around and get worse and worse as time goes by. I’ve known a lot of people who have moved on and given up and lost sight of what made them love it in the first place. And I don’t blame them, and maybe they’re happier, and maybe they’ll come back and do it in another way. I don’t see shame in that. But if you wanna be a songwriter and musician playing your own stuff, you’ve gotta keep your head up and keep moving.
So you start booking shows yourself and getting into touring. You book shows where the venue turns out to be double booked and you don’t get paid anything and no one comes out to see you. So you learn what to look out for and what venues are good and you start to be able to guess what other bands are gonna bring people out to shows so you can network and build up an audience together. It’s an adventure and it can be super fun. But when you quit your job and start touring, drive all day to get to the 2nd show in Detroit, and you get there and the local bands you booked didn’t bring anyone, and you carried all your gear up a giant flight of stairs, and the bar manager tells you the show is cancelled and you gotta hit the road right NOW… that’s a tough one.
After playing a ton of good shows, a decent amount of bad ones, putting out a few records that got a little bit of attention but didn’t really change the way we were doing things, I started getting into hiring people to book and promote the music. That was great at first, but there are a TON of people out there who don’t know what the hell they’re doing and I know of at least a few promotion “companies” out there that cruise around Facebook and Bandcamp looking for bands to sign on for a $400 fee to promote a record, but they don’t really do anything but email a few crappy blogs and unknown radio stations you could’ve done yourself. They don’t even really listen to the music, they’re just looking for naive bands to sign on and pay them.
That’s a hard pill to swallow if you’re living off of making $20-70 at shows. You can also plunge a ton more into that. I’ve spent thousands on promo campaigns that didn’t do anything but get us on a few small blogs. Promo is hard in general b/c nothing is guaranteed, but now I don’t pay for promotion unless it’s a local thing where I know I can get results through a trusted contact.
On top of all that, you’ve gotta make records to try to get exposure, but you also have to pay for those records, recording them, producing them, mastering them. It all adds up and you can sink a ton of funds into it. I don’t want to ramble about this stuff, but it is definitely a struggle to stay afloat as an independent musician writing, recording, booking, promoting, touring and selling yourself. It’s also a ton of fun if you’re into that sort of thing, which, fortunately, I am.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Jesse W. Johnson & Coyote Scream – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
I make music. It’s hooky, dark rock n roll with a little twinge of the country. The lyrics are often melancholy, but they’re different than what’s out there. I write the kinds of songs I want to hear, so it’s real honest music. You’ve just gotta listen to it, haha. My main influences are Emily Haines, Nick Cave, Neil Young & David Bazan. Mix those together and you get something like what we do.
Our instrumentation is in the rock style with guitar, bass & drums, but we also incorporate viola, harmonies, and synth now too. I like to call our genre RadSad b/c it’s sad and it sounds rad. It also sounds better than Americana or Alt-rock.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Gosh, the food is fantastic. There’s no other city in the country where you can get the best pizza, tacos, Chinese food, Indian food, Italian beef, hot dogs, fried chicken… you name it! It’s nuts. It’s a wonder we all can still stand up and walk around here. I love the resilience of Chicagoans and the compassion. We have a city that has a history of social inequality, corruption, and violence. But there’s a lot of people here trying to make it better and that’s inspiring. There’s a ton of work left to do for sure.
I can’t stand Chicago traffic. I’m originally from Springfield, and when I turned 16, driving was like my ticket to freedom. You could drive down a country road, breathe in the wide open spaces, listen to music and think and dream. Here it just stops and go, nightmare street parking and reckless, desperate driving. It’s stressful. Unfortunately I have to drive a lot to carry around musical gear, otherwise, I definitely would not.
Pricing:
- My newest record “American Dumpster” is $20 on transparent red vinyl w/ digital download and FREE shipping to the US on Bandcamp right now.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.jessewjohnson.com/
- Email: jesse@jessewjohnson.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessewjohnson/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessewjohnsonmusic/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/JWJMusic
Image Credit:
Ryan Cybul, James A. Korn, Kelli Morrison
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
