We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jade Price. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jade below.

Jade, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I love being asked this question! This was such a difficult journey for me personally as I really didn’t come to this realization until my first year in college. For the longest time I thought I wanted to be a scientist so I did what I thought was best at the time and I pursued this. I originally started my college journey as an Environmental Science major at the University of Denver before realizing that path just wasn’t for me. One day it just clicked for me and I realized that the one consistent thing in my life had been music. I grew up in my elementary, middle school and high school’s show choirs. Performing had become like second nature to me and it was the one place where I felt the most alive.

When the pandemic hit in 2020, I decided to push my musical abilities past just playing ukulele and I decided there was no harm in trying to write my own songs with my ukulele. From there I learned the very basic skills required to record, mix and master music and made an EP in my childhood bedroom. I didn’t really have any idea what I was doing but I knew it felt right and it felt comfortable even in the little knowledge I had at the time. From there, I slowly realized over time that I wanted to pursue music professionally and began looking at different music schools. I knew if I dove all in that I wanted songwriting to be an integral part of my journey and luckily for me I found the songwriting program at CU Denver.

Jade, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Jade Price is a singer, songwriter, and full-time student from Orange County, California. My non-conventional sound and strong sense of lyricism take listeners on an emotional journey as she reminisces the rollercoaster of growing up. Through the isolation of the pandemic, Jade discovered her love for songwriting and began learning guitar, piano, and ukulele. At only 18 she wrote, recorded, and produced her first EP titled When It’s All Over. The EP features five tracks, the most popular of which being Broken Hearts Club. She has since released three singles, her first full length album arcane rain (released June 2022), and her second EP titled memory lane (released December 2023).

Living in the heart of southern California, Jade was exposed to many different live music experiences from a young age. She is a frequent concertgoer enjoying live music in all different settings. While she has not been able to perform solo work in California yet due to the various covid restrictions and shutdowns of recent years, but she hopes to break into the California market soon.

Jade is currently a full-time student at the University of Colorado Denver as a Songwriter Entrepreneur Major. She frequently attends open mics on campus and Mercury Café and has previously been a part of the Denver-based band Neptune and Venus as the rhythm guitarist and background vocalist. As of 2024, Jade has performed as a solo artist at Denver’s famous Mercury Café, Lost Lake Lounge and soon to be Larimer Lounge!

Her ultimate goal as a musician is to create a safe space for others to express themselves through her music.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Personally, I feel like the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is seeing the audience’s reaction to new projects, announcements, music and especially the crowd’s energy at live shows. I love the welcoming environment that I’ve created at my shows and appreciate how warm and supportive the fans are. At my most recent show, I looked out into the crowd and saw one of my friends singing along to one of my songs and having the time of her life and that’s a feeling that really is unmatched. The fact that there are people in this world that have listened to my music enough to be able to sing the words back to me is absolutely electrifying. Another really rewarding experience at this point in my career is seeing people’s excitement at the handmade merch that I’ve started selling at shows. There’s this very palpable sense of legitimacy, belonging and almost purpose that settles in when watching people come up to the merch table, pick something out and immediately start wearing it.

Another part of this journey that has been incredibly rewarding is seeing how excited people are getting over each new song or project that I release. My most recent single “shadows”, released January 31st, feels very fresh and different compared to some of my previous work and I’m excited to see how people are reacting to it.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

Every single step of my journey up until this point has illustrated nothing short of strength, determination, and resilience. I taught myself ukulele from scratch before teaching myself guitar and then piano from scratch as well (until transferring to CU Denver where I received lessons). I’ve also had to teach myself a large part of the recording, mixing and mastering process myself mainly out of necessity while building the proper connections to partner with mixing and mastering engineers.

I would argue the portion of this story that most vibrantly highlights the grit it’s taken to get myself here is the story of how I auditioned for CU Denver itself. By the time I had discovered the music program there I had missed the in-person audition dates and was rapidly approaching the cut off date for virtual audition tapes. With approximately 72 hours left until the cut off, I rapidly pulled together two of my original songs and one cover song and practiced the daylights out of each and every one. Then, I prepped myself on the interview portion and ensured that I would feel natural enough on camera to not rely on the rapport that could be built from an in- person interview. Once I felt fairly confident in both of these portions, I began recording takes. Another challenging aspect was that the school asked that all auditions be done in one continuous take meaning the slightest mistake would result in me hitting the end recording button in a never ending spiral of frustration. Eventually, I got THE take. I didn’t stutter or stumble through the questions. I absolutely nailed the dynamic range of each and every song. Most importantly I even improvised some of my melodies to make them more interesting. Approximately 72 hours later I received the email that I had been accepted and then the real work began!

What I had forgotten about in this process was that I would also need to pass a Music Theory entrance exam and a Sight Singing entrance exam. I was fairly out of practice with all three to be quite honest but by the grace of god (and some very kind friends) I was able to squeak by with a passing grade. The relief that I felt after calculating my grades from both exams was immense but it was in those moments that I realized my fate was sealed and I was on my way to a completely new life path.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jadepricemusic.wixsite.com/mysite
• Instagram: jadeprice09
• Facebook: Jade Price
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jade-price-438256219?trk=people-guest_people_search-card
• Youtube: jadeprice09
• Soundcloud: Jade Price

Image Credits

CJ Masse