Today we’d like to introduce you to Jackson Weippert
Hi Jackson, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My name is Jackson and I was born in Long Valley, NJ. I started playing the guitar when I was 12 years old, and at 15 began singing, writing songs, and playing for my church. As I got older, I was playing shows around New Jersey and New York, continuing to write, and decided to leave my university in order to pursue music. I recorded my first album “Maybe Everything” in my bedroom at home, despite not really knowing what I was doing, and once that 25-song project was complete, I packed up and moved to Nashville in 2018.
When I first got to Nashville I continued to play shows, mostly open mics and with some friend’s bands, and soon decided to record my next album, “Concurrent Patterns”, in a local studio. The process of making that album made me fall in love with the entire recording process, so I decided to attend Dark Horse Institute for Audio Engineering in 2021. Gaining that knowledge allowed me to unlock a whole new realm of creative and technical possibilities and with that I began working on my latest album “Less Familiar”, which releases on October 4th of this year.
Once it’s released, I look forward to restarting the process once again of writing more songs and sharing them with the world.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The challenges in my personal life are what inspire me to create and write, so in a way I’m grateful for them. I believe the obstacles we face, and our response to them, are what shape our character and define us as resilient human beings.
As an artist specifically, aside from the standard writer’s block, my main challenge has been marketing myself. I find it hard to devote time to being present on social media, making content, and promoting my work, when I could be focusing on what I’m creating instead. However, I do recognize that it’s a necessary part of the process, and a legitimate way for my voice to be heard. Living in Nashville surrounded by so many talented artists is both intimidating, and motivating, and that’s multiplied tenfold when you include the whole internet. To combat getting discouraged, I continue to focus on making the music I want to make, trusting God’s plan for my life, and facing any challenge head-on with an open mind, knowing that there’s always room to grow.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I classify myself as an indie folk-rock artist and multi-genre music engineer and producer. As a self-taught multi-instrumentalist, I blend a folk lyrical style with indie rock elements and strive to create honest and transparent music to communicate my emotions and appeal to my listeners. As I said before, I started playing guitar at 12, but over the years I’ve picked up bass, piano, ukulele, mandolin, synthesizers, harmonica, percussion and anything else I can get my hands on. I love experimenting to discover new and unique sounds, melodies, and rhythms that support the lyrical content of a song and vice versa, and then using those elements to bring the song to life.
The project I’m currently most proud of is my upcoming album “Less Familiar” that I’ve been working on since 2020. Aside from the drums, piano, violin and background vocals, I performed every aspect of it myself and it is completely self recorded, produced and mixed. It is truly the culmination of all the engineering techniques I’ve learned so far. The overall theme of the album represents a difficult time for my family and I, and I believe I was able to perfectly capture my feelings and translate them through music to hopefully relate to others who might have similar experiences.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
Recently, my dad gave me about a dozen cassette tapes to convert to digital. The tapes were a memoir recorded by my great-grandfather, addressed to his grandson, my dad. In the recordings, he talks about his life: growing up, working different jobs, and starting a family. He divulges some simple, yet powerful life lessons and offers some advice to my dad who at the time was about to get married. Listening through the tapes was a surreal experience for me, to hear my great-grandfather’s voice and hear about his life from his own perspective. It gave me a new appreciation, sense of pride, and enthusiasm for the art that I’m creating. One day, my children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and so on, will be able to listen to something I created, and that’s pretty neat.
The thought experiment “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” reminds me that art cannot exist in a vacuum, it is meant to be shared. It’s important for me to create so that other people can listen and hopefully connect to what my music elicits.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jackson231music.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jackson231music/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jackson231music
- Twitter: https://x.com/jackson231music
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jackson231music
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/jackson231music
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7tJSxaldV9XxDhOS0uFXDf?si=b5ZoK-R9TEqD7p3xckJp0Q
