New York-based country crossover Jessica Lynn — crowned “The New Queen of Country Rock” by Ramblin’ Man Fair — has had a productive and busy 2023. With a relentless international touring schedule of 14+ countries, a pair of Top 40/Top 50 singles on country radio, and three full-length concert television specials airing nationwide in the USA, the New York singer-songwriter has been becoming a household name. Her music does indeed appeal to fans of Country, Country Rock and Americana, yet it reaches beyond those genres to wider Rock-loving audiences.
She has been featured on the covers of Maverick Magazine & Guitar Girl Magazine and shared stages with some of the most iconic names in the business (such as Brad Paisley, Keith Urban, Loretta Lynn, ZZ Top, Richard Marx, Lonestar, Montgomery Gentry, and others). Her dynamic, high-energy performances — which showcase her powerful voice and multiple instrumental talents, playing piano, guitar, harmonica, and drums — have garnered rave reviews from critics worldwide and built a huge, loyal, global fanbase that can be seen in her social media presence, reaching over one million people a month on Facebook alone.
After the success of her 2022 debut album ‘Lone Rider’ and a string of singles in 2023, The Rockpit thought it about time we had a chat with Jessica to find out how she finds time to fit some much in, all the while striving to continue on to the next chapter, whatever that may be. We tracked Jessica down to her studio, where she was preparing content for her forthcoming US Christmas shows to discuss touring, ‘Lone Rider’, her passion for music and of course, her dinner guests.
Sean: Hi Jessica, it’s Sean from the Rockpit over in Perth. It’s wonderful to finally get to talk to you. It’s been great to get your music coming down here to Australia, and we hope we’ll get to see you down here at some point as well, because I know you’ve been frantically touring this year.
Jessica: Thanks Sean, you too. Australia’s on my list of places to see and visit, I would absolutely love to, and my streaming numbers are so high in Australia, so I have my fingers crossed for a trip soon.
Sean: Well we’ve got some wonderful country festivals here now, it’s really becoming a massive genre down here in Australia, with that country/rock element crossing over, it’s fantastic stuff. We first heard about you on the Rockpit when we got to see the press release about ‘Lone Rider’, which was out last year. How was the reception for the album?
Jessica: That album exceeded any of my expectations – it was a pandemic project, a true passion project, because it was during the pandemic, and I’m an independent artist, I wasn’t able to get on the road and really put the money behind a record release that I needed to, so it was just something I really wanted to do, and when it came out, I was absolutely shocked that it went number one in multiple countries, and on multiple platforms, and it’s continuing still to chart around the world, so it’s been an incredible adventure, and one I will remember forever.
Sean: Fantastic, so when you put the songs together, did it take long and was there a lot of collective work on getting all those songs together. Did it take a while?
Jessica: So, because my touring schedule is so crazy, I usually take the first month or so of every new year, it’s my goal to just sit down and do nothing but write, no other distractions, I just want to sit with my guitar every single day. So, in 2020, that’s what I did, and that’s where that collection of songs wound up coming from. It was only supposed to be a six-song EP called ‘Lone Rider’ that we were taking on the road with us when we did our huge European-UK tour, and when everything got cancelled due to COVID, I was like, you know, let’s do something with this time, let’s make it a full-length record, because now we’re home. So, we recorded the entire thing right here in my home studio, and it was just an incredible adventure that followed.
Sean: Well, we heard a couple of singles come off that, ‘Mixed Singles’ was one that I absolutely loved, but then of course you just touched on it, you went off and did the UK tour, which, being from the UK originally myself, country music never ever seemed to be that massive but it now has a real sort of influence that’s around the world – it’s just growing everywhere.
Jessica: It is, it’s been amazing to see, even though I grew up as a New Yorker where country music was not popular, I always loved it, I always felt so connected to it because of the song writing and it’s real music, you know, it’s real singers with real instruments playing, and I grew up as a rock and roller, so for me it was like, wow, this is cool, this is like a little bit more of storytelling, still with that kind of rock element and instrumentation under it, so I always was in love with country music, and I knew it was only a matter of time before the rest of the world followed suit.
Sean: It’s great. I’ll be honest, it’s a genre I never really listened a lot to, but the last couple of years that has changed. We’ve had a couple of great singer-songwriters that are very famous here, a guy called Andrew Farris from INXS, who has completely left that rock world and moved into country. He goes over to Nashville, he song writes out there as well as here, he lives out quite remote here at Tamworth, which is renowned for its country music here in Australia here, and it’s just, it was what turned me on to listening to a bit more of it, it’s fantastic.
Jessica: You know, I think with country music, you have to find one song or one artist that really piques your interest, and then you kind of go down a rabbit hole, where you’re like, wow, this is really great. For me, there were a few that did that, one was Shania Twain, two was Phil Vassar, he’s kind of like a Billy Joel of country music, so for me, it crossed genres, and was like, oh wow, this is interesting, this isn’t what I thought country was. And I think that’s the problem with a lot of people that don’t want to give it a chance, they just think it’s that old style, which is fabulous, you know, if you love real country music, but the genre has come a very long way, and I think people are starting to realise that, and realise it’s actually quite cool.
Sean: I’ll have to check him out, because I’m a massive Billy Joel fan.
Jessica: You will love Phil Vassar, he’s an incredible songwriter, and one of my biggest country music influences, and I actually got to play with him, and share the stage with him, which was a very, very cool moment, thinking back to little old me listening to his records in the car.
Sean: Wow, how fantastic. I’m a massive fan of Kenny Wayne Shepard, and as a guitar playing rock and roller, I love his country influences that flow into his music sometimes, which is great.
Jessica: Yeah, we got to share a bill with him twice, once in England at Ramblin’ Man Fair, and we did Bethel Woods here in New York, I opened the Backroads Blues Festival that he was part of.
Sean: I got to meet Kenny when he was here last time, I’ve interviewed him a couple of times, such an absolutely incredible guy, very humble, and what an amazing story he has. But let’s get back to you. You’re new single ‘Not Your Woman’ has just been out, which is great, but you’ve revamped, revisited a track, I saw it was a fan favourite, and there is a little bit of a story about the recording process with it as well, out at Sweetwater Sessions, studio sessions there, what happened? Because I hear you had a little bit of a special something with the process.
Jessica: Yeah, so Sweetwater is one of the most notable names in music gear distribution, and they have a huge facility in Fort Wayne, Indiana. So not only do they hold educational seminars, they have Sweetwater Studios, which every A-list celebrity has gone and done something there at one point or another. So ‘Not Your Woman’ was my very first single when my career first started back in 2016. And since we first released it, the song has come so far, my voice has come so far, and matured so much, and the instrumentation and the attack, the way we play the song, it’s all changed over the years and years of touring, and it’s become a fan favourite. I mean, everywhere we go, people want to hear ‘Not Your Woman’. And it’s one of my favourite songs to play live too, because it has a lot of energy. So Sweetwater, before our tour this year, invited us to come to Sweetwater Studios, and they wanted to do a recording workshop around a recording session with us. So there were about 15 or 16 students of all ages and experience levels in the studio with us while we recorded the track, learning from the master engineer and producer that did the song for us. So they were like, this is going to be a very interesting process, “Choose a song that’s special. Choose something that means something.” So I was like, you know what? What a cool way to put a new spin on this favourite that we’ve been wanting to do for so many years. So we got to record it in a top-notch studio and have the input of literally 15, 16 people while we did it.
Sean: Wow. That’s incredible.
Jessica: It was a very cool experience. I mean, the guys and the girls, they were all so nice. You know, I would sing something, I’d be like, what do you guys think about that one in there? And it was just, it was really cool to have all these friends, you know, be a part of this process and to work with Sean Dealey, the producer. He’s worked with so many different, amazing artists. To get his new take on an old song was also very exciting for us.
Sean: So what has the rest of the year got in hold for you? I do see there’s some Christmas dates coming up. How could it be Christmas coming up already? It’s been a crazy 2023 [laughs]
Jessica: It really has been. As you can see, my background is all Christmas coloured because I’m filming all promotional materials for that today here in the studio. But this year has flown by. We have not rested. I mean, I don’t think I’ve had a day off since like January, but it’s a very big tour this year. I started a Very Merry Country Christmas, it’s called, seven years ago. And it has turned into a full blown Christmas spectacular with special effects, snow machines, choirs, dancers, you name it. The show has it. And we’ve established it in New York. However, last year was our first mini tour. This year is a big tour. Next year will be an even bigger tour. And it’s been such an exciting experience to watch like this little baby that I had this idea of grow into something so massive. And it’s a toy drive for Toys for Tots. So we help children in need throughout the entire tour. And it’s actually become their largest fundraiser of the entire season.
Sean: That’s wonderful. We’ll make sure we get the links up about that, because we do have readers and viewers in the States as well as in the UK and Europe. We’d love to get that up to support the fundraising, charity work, anything to do with that, which is great. And you’ll have to bring it down to Australia one day because it will be completely different. You all performing with snow machines in 110 degrees [laughs].
Jessica: I know, right [laughs]. We’ve been thinking about that. You know, we’re just starting to grow it here in the States to more and more cities. We went from one show to then three to now eight. Next year, we plan to bring it into the teens. But there’s so many props and effects and things like that. We’ve been kind of brainstorming, like how could we actually bring a show of this scale overseas? We’ll have to figure it out.
Sean: Well, as I’m sure you know, us music fans are all greedy people. ‘Lone Rider’ was only out last year. Anything in store for a follow up album?
Jessica: Yeah, we’re in the studio right now recording a bunch of new singles and things like that to all come out this upcoming year. So lots of new music tour dates, everything. We’ve been very, very busy.
Sean: We’ll make sure we put your website link at the bottom of the interview just under here somewhere. Just before I lose you, because I know obviously you’ve got a busy day recording. I’ve just got a couple of general questions to finish with. My first one, my restaurant question. If you could invite three musicians dead or alive, past or present, to join you for a bit of dinner, who would you like sitting at the table with you?
Jessica: Neil Diamond. I’m a huge Neil Diamond fan. Elvis Presley, also a huge Elvis fan. And probably Shania Twain, because she’s been one of my biggest influences.
Sean: I had ‘Hot Summer Night’ on only the other night. I came home from work, fired it up as loud as I could.
Jessica: He is such an incredible songwriter and I learned so much about singing from him. The thing that really draws me to Neil Diamond is that he has so much emotion in his voice. You know, he says the word the and it’s the most emotional you’ve ever heard. And I think that’s something so special and unique to him and his music.
Sean: I remember my dad playing ‘The Jazz Singer’ around the house. That was the first time I’d heard his voice. And yeah, I said that was kind of one of my guilty pleasures growing up. All my friends were listening to Iron Maiden and Bon Jovi and my little guilty pleasure in the background was Neil Diamond.
Jessica: I don’t blame you. Mine was, too. So, judgment has passed [laughs].
Sean: What was the last album you listened to, Jessica?
Jessica: Oh, what was the last album I listened to? Probably because I was choosing songs for this year’s Christmas show, the Elvis Presley ‘Christmas Album’.
Sean: Oh, cool.
Jessica: Yes, trying to get some ideas.
Sean: Nice. And finally, the last question, as a songwriter, this should be easy for you. If you could be credited with writing any song ever written, what song would you pick?
Jessica: [laughs] Easy. ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ by Journey. It’s such a massive, I mean, mega hit. Just to write something like that that has become so legendary would be amazing. You can just hear that first piano note and you know what it is straight away, don’t you? Yep. A songwriter’s dream, really.
Sean: That’s wonderful. Jessica, I can’t thank you enough for fitting me in to your busy schedule, because I know you’re going to be flicking this camera off and turning the cameras back on that side to record more promo for your Christmas show.
Jessica: It was so nice getting to finally meet you and I appreciate you having me so, so much. Thank you so much.
Sean: Well, I know it’s only October, but we wish you a very, very Merry Christmas. We can do that as you’re prepping for your shows and we do hope we get to see you down here in Australia sometime soon and we’ll talk again when you get nearer the new album.
Jessica: I would love that, Sean. Thank you so, so much. That’s awesome.
Sean: Take care, Jessica. Thanks very much. Bye.
Jessica: See ya.
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