Artist and musician Jessica Leia chatted about Season 4 of “Me and My Song” and being a part of the digital age.
How did “Me and My Song” come about?
As a live performer for many years, I found that I was burning my candle at both ends, trying to get “somewhere” with the live performance thing. After all, all of the “experts” tell you that live performance is how you “build your fanbase.”
Ultimately, I, however, found that when you’re on your own, it’s almost impossible to “build” anything. Of course, I spent plenty of time, (sometimes exclusively focused on), attempting to gain assistance from the “right people,” in order that I might build said fanbase and to try and get “seen” on the radar. But ultimately, I received no assistance from high places.
As I studied and watched and looked into others who were having “success” in such matters, I seemed to find, over and over again, that they always had one or both of the following: money and/or connections.
Even if it was simply a supporting spouse or parents that supported them while they did their thing. I just have never had these things. I’m not saying I don’t have people who helped as they can along the way, I am certainly blessed with much love in my life. I simply just never have had the ‘money and connections’ thing going on in the izzy-nizzy.
I never wanted to see things this way, you understand – believing that money and connections were necessary for “success”. I have always very much been the “believer of dreams”, the “manifest your destiny in spite of circumstances” kind of person. Still, the world is what it is and works how it works and I wasn’t going to be in denial about what I was discovering in this regard.
Again, I did spend plenty of time and resources on endeavoring to get connections (and to generate revenue, of course), in order to have some success, but I simply was continually met with dead ends.
Such a situation, in and of itself, would be one thing if I could have found that at the end of the of the day, I had something to show for it.
All I ever ended up with was this Groundhog Day kind of vicious circle of me killing myself trying to get “somewhere” and ending up nowhere with nothing to show for it.
Given that I am, ultimately a songwriter and really was and am always motivated by the desire to bring the music into this world in a tangible form, I realized that I needed to seriously shift gears if I was going to, in fact, make my music tangible in this world.
I figured, every unit of energy I spent on banging my head against some brick wall could, instead, be spent on making albums of the music I write. So, I decided to make THAT my focus.
Now, naturally, in this day and age, there are a million people recording their music. Consequently, I wanted to find an interesting way to platform any music I ultimately recorded – not just to record it and then drop it onto some streaming platform in a sea of internet music.
This is when “Me and My Song” was born. Even though I had no idea what I was getting into, I figured that I had enough experience with performing, tweaking video and even some studio recording experience such that, I could, myself, make my own albums, document the experience therein and then share that experience, as well as the stories behind the songs themselves, with everyone who might care to join in on the fun.
The format I chose for the show (although slightly different in Season One because, again, I had no idea what I was getting into and had bitten off more than I could chew), was inspired by my experience with live performance and the things I noticed that people commented on, asked about and wanted to know about when they would hear my original songs.
What inspires your music and songwriting?
As I always say, the inspiration comes from life, itself. Like a photographer who can point and shoot in any direction and find something fascinating to capture on film; songwriting for me, is like capturing snapshots of moments, feelings, experiences, energies. And there’s no end to what can be captured and placed in a song.
If I had the means and miraculously were freed from having to struggle to survive in the matrix, I swear I could write all day, every day… Well, probably more at night really. I’m more of a night owl, personally.
How does it feel to be an artist and creative in the digital age? (Now with streaming, technology and social media being so prevalent)
Like anything, it is a mixed bag. On the one hand, because there are so many means available for a random artist like myself to get their work out there, it affords opportunities that simply have not been available historically and that’s pretty awesome.
On the other hand, because everybody can do it, almost everybody does. That creates a lot of noise and a whole other list of challenges in regards to how you can make it so that your art can rise above the noise and actually reach people.
Still, as challenging and expensive and grueling as it is to produce you own music albums and to produce a video series about that production/creation, the fact of the matter is, is that it is possible to do. That wasn’t the case not too many years ago.
I suppose, if given the choice between doing the work that I do and never having it blip on any radars, verses never being able to do it at all because the record companies and video production companies were the only ones who had access to the means required to produce, market, I’d rather have it be how it is now.
Even if my work only ever ends up being here for posterity, I do very firmly feel it is important work.
As the world changes more drastically and more quickly every day, the work that people such as myself create – work that makes physical, the expressions of the soul – is going to become more and more important.
Humanity can then always refer to such expressions, should they need to get back in contact with and to remember their own soul.
Further, I feel like the music written in this era (by actual homo sapiens), captures experiences and mind sets and emotional dynamics that simply won’t be part of humanity’s palette of personal experiences in the future.
In this way, to have these impressions captured through song is like having a time capsule for future generations who will want to understand what it was like for us during these times and under the circumstances in which we now live.
What do your plans for the future include?
In regards to my present body of work, I always plan to continue writing and recording. Unfortunately, if “Me and My Song” doesn’t get any traction, I will be forced to discontinue its production.
It costs me everything I earn at my day job just to keep it going and at some point, I have to actually consider how I am going to support myself in my advanced years – not that I plan on getting old!
Still, you can only do something for so long when it dries you of all your resources and brings no returns.
In this regard, if I am forced to stop producing my show, I, none-the-less, plan to turn my focus on to just writing and recording the music, itself and then pitching it to publishers.
I have spent stints of time doing this in the past and have had minor successes. I figure if I open up all of my resources that are being tied up now with the video production, and apply them towards only the music production and the marketing and pitching of said music, I might be able to actually generate some revenue from it… Maybe… Possibly.
At the end of the day, I would never be sacrificing my goal of getting the music into the world. Whether or not the world embraces or rewards me for it, has become very much beside the point.
Other than that, I do fully plan to break free from the matrix mind control grid before I “die” But no, seriously though, I do.
What is your advice for young and aspiring performers and creatives?
Personally, I am not a fan of unsolicited advice of any sort and I don’t know that I am in a position to offer anyone any advice anyhow.
None-the-less, since this is quasi-solicited by virtue of you having asked, I will say one thing. Although not a Bible thumper, I do love the book and will refer to it here and say, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.”
These words were once advice given to me, spoken to me inside of my head, (you know how that goes chuckle), when I was about 12 or so. I was already drinking at that age and I mention that because as I was sitting on my parent’s couch at the time, thinking about how much more at peace I would be once I had attained success in life, I suddenly saw a vision of my future self where I had attained “success.”
In this flash of the future, I was alone in a large house. It was raining outside and I was drinking some sort of hard liquor on the rocks. What’s more, it was quite dismal and I was no more satisfied with my Self or my life than I felt at that very moment, sitting there on my parents’ couch, wishing for a life where I would feel happy.
With the vision came those words: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God”, and I knew in that moment that no worldly success would ever bring my soul satisfaction and that whatever state I carried inside of my “self” would be the state I experienced and that seeking the “Kingdom of God” was the means by which to change, for the better, that inner experience that I would always carry with me.
Whatever God is, in my experience, It is the heart of what is real. And without what is really real, what is Truth, there is no satisfaction to be had. If one does not ground into THAT, it is more than likely that the storms of life will carry one away.
What does the word success mean to you? (My favorite question)
Well since this is your favorite question, I hope I don’t disappoint by saying that I am pretty convinced that “success” is more-or-less another carrot that this distorted reality dangles in front of our face to keep us charging the machine.
That is not a dismissal of the concept of, or the striving for “success”, by any means. It’s just that, since you asked, for me, success has less to do with the outside world and more to do with how it feels to be inside of my Self and in my own experience within the context of that outside world.
Maybe it’s a defense mechanism because this world has always felt kind of disappointing to me. But maybe it’s the best kid of defense mechanism: anything and everything in this world will come and go, after all.
But if the Self, as it were, can find its own peace within the context of those things that come and go, THAT sounds like success to me.
All this isn’t to say that I don’t hold goals and ambitions as I move forward in life. On the contrary, I am constantly doing nothing except working towards my “success”.
I am simply more content to steer the ship as best I can, trusting that the ocean upon which I sail has tides that will take me to wherever is “best”. That feels a little bit like success I suppose…
What would you like to say to our readers about “Me and My Song”? (What’s the one thing you want them to get out of it)
Frankly I would love for them to get all kinds of things out of it. “Me and My Song” is so honest. From the stories about the music, to the experiences with the bands behind the scenes, to all the shitty equipment and circumstances under which I create the show. It’s real. It’s authentic.
I should think that in a time of a lot of plastic people as well as AI: realness, authenticity and honesty would appeal to folks and might even feel a bit refreshing. If that is the case for anyone seeing this, come on over and enjoy the fun!
Technically speaking, the format of “Me and My Song” is such that each month represents an episode broken into 4 parts over the course of a month and each episode is the creation of the song for that month.
The 1st week I do a monologue on a stage about the circumstance surrounding the writing of the song. There might be animations, outtakes and odd characters that show up here and there in this segment which I call “A Song is Born”.
Many have compared it to stand-up comedy. I don’t define myself as a comedienne, but when you are talking about life, it inevitably ends up being funny.
The 2nd week of the month, I perform that month’s song SOLO. During the years of live performance I mentioned, I would have people tell me that they liked me with the band but also liked to just hear me with only my instrument, (piano or guitar).
Plus, I really wanted the audience to see how the song progresses throughout its production process.
The way it comes out of me in the segment where I perform it SOLO (which I call the “Raw Reveal” btw), sounds quite different compared to the final version the audience hears, after having had other musicians become part of the process.
The 3rd week of the month is when I take the audience into the recording studio behind the scenes. I call this “Recording the Basic Tracks” and, naturally, it’s where me and the guys record the tunes.
It’s sort of the Reality TV segment of the show. It’s always full of quirky stuff, sarcastic remarks and the inside scoop on what goes on behind the scenes during the recording of the music.
The final segment is on the 4th week of the month wherein I release the final song with a music video. I use the actual video cuts from the recording sessions, themselves, and also throw in various off-site cuts, depending on the music video.
At this point in the episode, the song has been fully mixed, mastered and produced and is out there available for download etc..
“Me and My Song” was my way of presenting my music to the world in a candid, playful and hopefully, entertaining way. Instead of just hearing a song on some streaming platform, if a listener so chooses, they can come on over to the website and hear the story behind that song, listen to it in its rawest form and even watch as it gets recorded in studio. It really is a hoot. Hope to see you there!
To learn more about Jessica Leia, check out her official website, YouTube channel, and follow her on Instagram.
