Jason Shand: A singer/songwriter's journey to finding authenticity
- Written by Jason Shand
I think every artist obviously has their own method for coming up with a good tune. Everyone has their own inspirations. So on that note - no pun intended- I guess if I were to give advice to some young up and comers trying to craft a good song, I’d say to go with your gut… to go with what you’re feeling… to go with what inspires you, because in my opinion, if you do that, it’s coming from an authentic place, and for art to be good, it’s got to be authentic.
But for me to get to that authentic place, it was quite a journey because I did not become a musician until after college. Yes, before all of this, I was a shower singer. To be fair to myself though, I always had fantasies of becoming a singer. I always thought I had potential, I just had no idea how to cultivate it.
My mom had a piano in our house which she played beautifully, but that was just a hobby for her. She was a United Nations diplomat and my stepfather was an engineer at the United Nations so throughout my childhood, I was surrounded by United Nations people. I was not surrounded by musicians or singers or songwriters - that was a world I was not part of. My only childhood memory of publicly singing was as a five or six year old when I would sing to mom’s friends when she’d entertain. That’s it. There was no choir that I was part of. Nothing. Nothing but a desire within me to one day be a singer.
But I would soak up mom’s records, my grandmother’s records, my older cousins would bring different music into the house. I was surrounded by disco, by classic rock, by new wave music, by alternative music. I would sing all of this music privately at home but when I sang, I would not hear my voice but rather, I’d hear my imitation of the artist singing the tune. This inability to hear my own voice would go on through my high school years, my college years, and even my initial years as a singer.
And as I write this, I am astounded by how lucky I am to have somehow gotten to be a member of this special club of people… this club of artists who put music and words together to tell stories. It’s a blessing. I am so honored. And I am so very very lucky, considering my very very late start at this.
So what happened? What made me become brave enough to seek this out? I remember exactly which song it was that made me say to myself - “I want to do that.” During my last year in college, someone played me an old U2 record and it was the song ‘Bad’ from their album ‘The Unforgettable Fire’. When I heard this song as well as the title track from that album, it changed my life. Bono‘s voice soaring and the music behind him was so beautiful with each band member doing their part. It was like a symphony to me. That’s when I knew I wanted to REALLY become a singer. I did not know how, but I was going to somehow try. I was ready to go out of my comfort zone and discover the artist world on my own.
When I left college and moved back to my hometown of NYC, I finally found the courage to go and audition for a rock band. I remember practicing and practicing for a week and when I finally got to the audition, I had no voice. I would try to sing high notes but my voice would break. Back then I didn’t know how to sing properly. I did not sing from my diaphragm, it was all from my throat. It was a disaster of an audition. But strangely, I felt exhilarated leaving the audition because I finally got the courage to do this. I finally went and took a chance. I was not dejected at all.
I would move to Boston and I ended up auditioning for another band. This band was a headlining band with great musicians. Some members studied at the Boston College of music, others studied at Oberlin. These guys were serious musicians. They even had a manager. Their singer was the guitarist and principal songwriter. It was decided that he should step down from singing and get a more powerful voice to lead the band. I think I auditioned with some 150 other people, it came down to two of us, and then the band asked me to do a show with them.
My first show ever was a headlining show at one of Boston‘s top clubs. I remember having diarrhea for a couple weeks before this show. But the show went great, and afterwards the band formally asked me to be their lead singer with one condition - they insisted that I get voice lessons. They recognized the raw talent in me and they also recognized that it needed honing.
My manager set up a meeting with a vocal coach named David Testa, Steven Tyler‘s vocal coach at one point in time. I got David to work with me which would end up being for five years. This was so instrumental in my development as a singer… a for real singer.
OK… so let’s get to how luck played a part in my evolution of becoming an artist and finding my authentic self… my authentic voice. Firstly, as mentioned before, this band I was in was a band of serious musicians. They taught me work ethic.
Secondly, the voice coach mistakenly thought I was another Jason. He took me thinking I was this other Jason but then, after realizing I wasn’t that Jason, he decided to keep me anyway. He saw my potential, but I was lucky that this mistake was made because he probably wouldn’t have initially seen me.
But probably most importantly, or maybe on par with my development as a real singer, my real luck was that the songwriter of the band was top notch excellent. I don’t think I’d be where I am now without learning from him. I would see up close what it took to create a song, a hook. Unknown to me, over the years, I would be soaking all of this up.
So my first experience in a band and I was headlining, I was learning how to sing properly from someone great, I was learning how to be a front man, and unknowingly, I was learning how to write a good song. I got lucky… but I was also making the most of my luck.
I would also go through my rites of passage. One of which was when the manager of the band called me out for being a poser and not being worthy of this band of excellent musicians. He would tell me this hours before I’d be going on stage to perform. He lit a fire under me and I gave the performance of what was then my life. He never questioned me again. It was intentional. He knew I had something in me and wanted to draw it out. So another lucky thing for me was having a manager who saw something in me. And he was right that I was posing up until that point. I’m glad he called me out. I needed to step it up.
I would spend five years in this band and for those five years, I managed to compose one song. A good song. But otherwise, I just showed up and sang. And as mentioned before, I still never really heard myself singing. I always heard artists that I liked singing as opposed to my own voice. I really didn’t know what Jason sounded like. But as the years in the band passed, the artist in me started to assert himself. I was in a guitar heavy rock band and I wanted to hear my voice more. I wanted to take control of the arrangements. I wanted string sections, I wanted some dance elements.
But my opinion wasn’t respected to the same degree as everyone else’s. I wasn’t a learned musician like everyone else. And I couldn’t express myself trying to get my point across in music speak. It was frustrating. And I started to become unhappy to the point where for my last year in the band, I would just show up and sing and I was artistically in a coma. And because I wasn’t happy, I guess the band was unhappy with me. It was mutual.
After five years, we parted ways. And then it hit me – what was I going to do? This is the only band I’d ever been in. It was my security blanket. At that point in time, I had only written one song. How could I sever ties with such great musicians, a great songwriter, a great manager?!? What had I done?!? I had a massive migraine the day I left the band. And then a funny thing happened.
I had been given an acoustic guitar by the original bass player in the band, I picked it up - at the time, I could not play chords, I could only play the low E string and the high E string - and around 8 to 10 songs poured out of me that week after I left the band. And these were really good songs - two of which are on my current album, ‘The Petty Narcissist’. After this happened, the panic faded. I knew I would be fine.
I would find a producer in the Boston area and we would make an EP together. It was a really well produced piece of work. Besides one song I brought over from the band with the guitarist songwriter’s permission, the other tunes were originals. I would say during this project is when I started to hear Jason singing for the first time. I think it was a natural progression because I was now writing my own songs and yes, I had my influences, but I was starting to hear my own authentic voice, my own style.
But that - finding and hearing my own authentic voice and my own sound - was a process in of itself. I would leave Boston to move back to NYC with EP in hand, confident that I would shop it and land myself a record deal. But I would arrive in New York and it would hit me that I needed to still develop my sound. What I had arrived with from Boston wasn’t organic sounding at all. The bass and drums were all played on keyboard. So while I had my wish for dance groove and strings come true, an organic element was missing which I yearned for. It was back to the drawing board.
Having left Boston and all my music connections as well as a social life behind, I had to start from scratch in NYC. Yes, it was my hometown, but I had not been to NYC in almost a decade. I truly had to start over. I had to find musicians to work with and I had to find my voice as well as how I sonically wanted to present myself. And I had to develop as a songwriter.
I would record an EP but never release it. And after a couple years, I would record another EP that was released in 2004. But I was still trying to find my voice. I wasn’t satisfied. I would spend 10 years on the sidelines watching new found musician friends perform. I would just watch and learn… and of course yearn to be back on stage.
It’s good to now be on the other side of all that. After many years on the sidelines I released ‘Because of Zeeva’ at the end of 2015. I was so proud and happy to release my first full length album. So proud and so happy that I didn’t do much to promote it. I did gig and it was fantastic to be back on stage again, but that’s all I did in regards to promoting the album. There was very limited radio play and that’s it. I needed to just exhale and enjoy the accomplishment. ‘Because of Zeeva’ was just for me.
And now six years later, I have the right musicians around me who instinctively know what I want, and I have ‘The Petty Narcissist’ in my hands. ‘Because of Zeeva’ was a stepping stone for me, but this album is everything I’ve ever wanted. It’s my full authentic self. It’s my personal pop album. And how have I developed as a songwriter?
As a songwriter, personally, I draw from my life experiences or the life experiences of people I know, or people I may not know first hand, but may observe. I’m inspired by that slice of life, that human connection. Now for me, these slices of life most often go hand in hand with a melody, a bass line, perhaps a lyrical hook, that may evoke an emotion tied to an observation… and the next thing you know, this observation… this inspiration… has given me the tree trunk/main hook of a song, and what follows are the branches/verses that flesh themselves out. Sometimes it’s the other way around with the branches first becoming well defined, followed by the tree trunk… the main anchor of a song.
There is no real formula… except that I’m drawing from a situation… a storyline… I’m drawing from something that inspires me. It’s very rare for me to come up with anything good when I try writing for the sake of writing with no emotional impetus/connection to spark me.
I truly believe that when you go with your gut… when you go with your feel… when you go with your instinct, when you are inspired from that authentic place, tap into that and the universe will eventually give you something back. That goes for life as an artist/songwriter and I think that also goes for life in general as well.
Not all things that are good are inspiring when it comes to a great song. Extreme sadness/depression, anger, confusion, jealousy, hatred… these emotions have given me great material. Don’t run away from these negative feelings. Confront them, dissect them, and turning them into some poetic expression will probably be cathartic.
‘The Petty Narcissist’, the title track of my current album, without going into personal detail, is an example of a song about a relationship of mine and it was written from a place of enormous pain. It was an extremely cathartic experience for me to write and finish that song and I was able to let all that pain go afterwards. It was healing. And I got one of my best songs out of it!
So to wrap this all up and to bring things back full circle in regards to being an artist/songwriter - go with your gut… go with what you’re feeling… go with what inspires you, because in my opinion, if you do that, it’s coming from an authentic place, and for art to be good, it’s got to be authentic. For me it was a late start, a long journey, a lot of luck, and a lot of hard work to get to this authentic place, and I’m forever thankful.
Jason Shand
Twitter: @jasonshandmusic
