Today we’d like to introduce you to Jess Wojo.
Hi Jess, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was gifted with early exposure to music. When I was 4, my Dad started taking me to rehearsals for Jesus Christ Superstar at the Lancaster Opera House where he was playing Jesus so I got to learn about the rehearsal and production process firsthand at a very young age.
Then when I was 8, my Dad took me to audition for a local theater’s production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and I was cast in the chorus. I continued to do musical theater productions and show choir up until my senior year of high school when I decided I wanted to start writing my own music.
I studied at Nazareth College of Rochester and earned my Bachelor’s in Music Business. While I was there, I interned at a commercial recording studio that hired me my senior year. I gained some basic editing and production knowledge by creating message-on-hold content for businesses, did some voiceover work, and even created subtitles for an episode of The Dr. Oz Show.
I also started running the social media accounts for a local Christian film company called Faithstreet Films, which hired me to continue running their social media independently after I left that company to work full-time as a bartender and server. Once I had saved up enough money I made the move from upstate New York to Nashville.
I started “beertending” as members of the craft beer community like to say at Black Abbey Brewing Company while I hit up open mics, Facebook groups, anything I could think of to try and meet people to work on music with. A few months into being here I got hired at ASCAP, which is still my “day job” so to speak.
It’s a tough job, but it’s given me a lot of hands-on experience with the business and copyright sides of the industry as well as the flexibility to pursue my own music without being a starving artist. It took me a couple of years of being here to get the ball rolling with my own music, but I’ve now released two songs and will be releasing my third in the next month or so.
My first two releases, “Betty Lou Lane” and “Stop Smelling the Roses” are both folk/folk-pop songs. They were created with dear friends in home studios and basements that I think are fitting of their sentimentality. My next song, “Gaslighter” will be a complete departure from that style.
It’s an upbeat indie pop song and a bit of a diss track. I’m working on it with Austin Cannon and a host of other incredibly talented musicians and I’m really excited to release it.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As old age goes, nothing worth having comes easy. I realized pretty soon after graduating college that my best opportunities for pursuing music professionally were going to be outside of my hometown: New York City, LA, Nashville, Austin, etc. I thought Nashville would fit me the best so I moved 14 hours away from my entire family by myself to a city I had visited once.
I had been offered a job and given a specific start date and once I was here they totally ghosted me. So on top of being 14 hours away from my entire support system I was now living in an unfamiliar city in what I quickly realized was not the best part of town in a grimy apartment with the worst roommate with no idea how I was going to pay for it!
Luckily, I only ended up being unemployed for a week or two but not having any friends or family in the city continued to be really hard for a while after that and still can be. My biggest struggle right now is learning how to market and promote myself ahead of my next release. Being an independent artist gives you complete artistic freedom, but it also means having to know how to do things beyond just creating music.
I’ve been diving into graphic design, social media management, marketing, playlist pitching, anything I can think of, and research to try and reach a wider audience. All of that involves a completely different set of skills than the creative side of making music. It can often feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do to be the musician I know I’m capable of being.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a singer/songwriter still honing in on my specific genre.
I play piano and want to get better at guitar and mandolin. I have a wide variety of musical influences but I’m hoping to land somewhere in the vocal and instrumental stylings of soul/pop/indie artists like Lake Street Dive, The Dip, Lawrence with the lyrical brilliance of pop singer/songwriters like Ben Rector and Mat Kearney.
My first two releases, “Betty Lou Lane” and “Stop Smelling the Roses” lean more towards folk/folk-pop. That wasn’t necessarily by design and just kind of what they turned into based on what I was listening to and experiencing at the time (which was Punch Brothers and bluegrass nights at American Legion Post 82).
My next release, “Gaslighter” will be indie-pop. The electric guitar has some sections reminiscent of The Band Camino that are more indie rock but I loved them so we decided to keep them rather than worry about fitting the song into a specific genre.
At this point, the thing I’m most proud of is just doing the thing! Even though I moved to Nashville specifically to pursue music, I had a really hard time getting started. When I first moved to Nashville, someone told me Nashville is a 5-year city, meaning it takes 5 years on average to feel like you know what you’re doing. I’m only in year 4 but I’d say that’s true. I definitely still don’t know what I’m doing most of the time, but I’ve found my people and I’m consistently working on music I’m excited to release.
I think the honesty and vulnerability I bring to my writing sets me apart from others. My goal has always been to create a shared experience that leads to joy and healing. “Betty Lou Lane” is a song about my late grandma. It details very specific memories I have with her from my childhood and I shed more than a couple of tears writing it.
After I released it, I received an outpouring of messages from people letting me know it reminded them of their lost loved ones and how bittersweet it was to take a pause and reminisce on those memories. “Stop Smelling the Roses” came from wishing we didn’t live in a culture that values “the grind” over health and happiness.
“Gaslighter” is a diss track about a close friendship that ended, as you may have guessed from the title, in gaslighting. Each of these songs had points where they were difficult to continue writing but I’m glad I pushed through to create songs that resonate with those who listen to them.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Growing up I had an equal amount of strong male and female influences as well as male and female friends which I think had a major influence on my childhood interests and who I grew up to be. Some might say, I was a tomboy. I’m not a fan of that term since it means a girl doing things that are typically seen as masculine.
I think I had, and still have, a wide variety of interests, and am grateful I had parents who let me explore all of them without a second thought. I spent a lot of time in the backyard with my Dad shooting BB guns, starting campfires, woodworking, and riding four-wheelers. I grew up surrounded by mostly boy cousins so I’m well versed in the art of fighting with sticks, plastic swords, lightsabers- pretty much anything that could be weaponized.
At the same time, I liked playing dress-up, had enviable beanie baby and Polly Pocket collections, and took horseback riding lessons for a couple of years. I’ve always loved to read, with the Harry Potter series being a favorite that carried over from childhood into adulthood.
I was never into sports, likely due to my complete lack of athletic ability and the conditioning to avoid them that comes when you’ve been hit in the face with a volleyball, soccer ball, basketball, football, pretty much any flying projectile. I’ve always loved animals. My parents’ first dog Jake was my best friend. I was the kid who had no qualms picking up frogs and snakes and had a full funeral for my first goldfish (RIP Jeanine).
I’ve always loved music. My parents bought me a Fisher-Price tape player for one of my first Christmases and I believe there is a VHS tape somewhere of me running around a coffee table singing “Jingle Bells” until I pass out. Several years later I would upgrade to a standing toy mic where I felt I proved I was worthy of a place as the sixth member of The Backstreet Boys.
I grew up listening to mostly country and contemporary Christian music. My Dad played guitar, my Mom played the flute, and I sang in the Church choir on Sunday mornings. Neither of them would let me take drum lessons unless I learned an instrument that would teach me how to read music and practice it consistently.
I did learn piano but I fell short of the practicing consistently requirement so no, I never learned how to play drums. Don’t tell them, but I’m glad they made me learn how to read music.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://jesswojo.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theofficialjesswojo/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theofficialjesswojo
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw1yt2H-qJDSyfcqqlr5fcQ
- Other: https://linktr.ee/theofficialjesswojo
Image Credits
Ricky Pineda
