Rising Stars: Meet Branon Jaggers

Today we’d like to introduce you to Branon Jaggers.

Hi Branon, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Vedra all started as a solo project back in 2012 called Earnest Ernest. I happened to be playing in a coffee shop one afternoon and the booking agent for a local show headlined by Will Hoge was looking for an opening act. Assuming I had a band, I was offered the gig and I quickly assembled a few friends under the new name. The years following had the band playing locally and changing members a few times. This all led to me connecting with Trevarius Newman, an amazingly talented drummer wrapping up a contract in Tokyo Disney that sight unseen was given the gig.

When he finally got back into town, we started playing shows, went on our first tour, and eventually decided to change our name altogether to Vedra and shift genres entirely. Our songs started to make the shift organically and we found ourselves a bit sonically confused in the studio. Our engineer likened our collection of songs to all the individual ingredients of guac without the cohesiveness. The statement was for sure made in an effort to tough love us, but we took it as more of a thing to wear proudly. We finished the songs in all their non-guac glory and released our first EP under the Vedra moniker.

Over the next few years, we continued to hone that eclectic mismatch of sounds, moved to Nashville, and went full duo when performing around town. We found ourselves somewhere conformably in the indie/rock vein with a bit of flair for nonchalant bantery stand-up in-between songs. Being up on stage with your best friend really has a way of making you forget about the stress and nerves and just focus on making music.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
We’ve had our fair share of fun experiences and accolades along the way (syndication with the Oprah Winfrey Network and Discovery, playing during SXSW, and being featured on the Mars Variety Show) and plenty of obstacles as well but none were more challenging and rewarding than our time writing our most recent EP during quarantine. In December of 2019, I decided to move to NYC with the intent of traveling back to Nashville to play shows and record our next EP and then…well you know. What a change of plans that was!

We hunkered down, recorded and released a couple of singles, learned more instruments (which kept us from losing our minds and out of dark places), and taught ourselves (with the help of some talented friends) the basics of producing. Currently, we’re working on our next EP, “Dear Demons” and we’ve just released our latest single “Tired.”

Will it be the best production-wise when we’re done? No. Will it be the most rewarding shit we’ve ever done musically? Hell yes!

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
We’re an indie/rock duo based in Nashville, TN that writes music that we describe as genuine and honest Indie/Rock. The music we write doesn’t try to be something that it isn’t and lyrically, the songs we write are where we go for our therapy. We’re both super positive people by nature and I think that having music as a vessel for navigating through our darkest moments keeps us that way.

When we were getting started, we had such a hard time trying to manage our band like a business and make all the right moves. Everyone held it all close to their chest and it was all some sort of secret language we couldn’t quite grasp. From then on, we set out to be the band we needed when we started out and we’ve continued to stick with that mentality. We’re open with the people who ask and we always will be. At the end of the day, we’re all just making art to share with the world so why complicate it by acting like sharks?

Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
It’s hard to find a lot of silver linings in a year like 2020, but it really taught us what’s important. For Trevarius, I know learning bass literally saved his life while we were locked down and the daunting weight of trying to stay alive on a daily basis taught me that so much of what we think is important is totally useless. If you’re going to make art, make art, but don’t do it to see your name in lights.

Contact Info:

• Email: info@vedramusic.com
• Website: vedramusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vedramusic/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vedramusic/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/VedraMusic
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/vedramusic
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/47wwJH4Fy8kRN2FBjS1z3F?si=NqK__-c1Sz-3lru0mar7lw

Image Credits
Dan Watson Souls of a Movement