We recently connected with Jake Cassman and have shared our conversation below.
Jake, 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?
My parents say I used to crawl over to their stereo speakers and press my ear against them since I was an infant, so I may have been destined for it. I think the real epiphany for me was my first concert though: Flogging Molly and Jimmy Eat World opening for Green Day on the American Idiot tour. The show was in San Francisco, in front of 47,000 people, and Green Day was returning the Bay after a year of being the biggest band on Earth. That atmosphere was so thrilling and intoxicating, and I remember thinking that no one could possibly be having more fun in that moment than Billie Joe Armstrong, as he mooned the audience and strutted the stage like a pop punk Freddie Mercury. I was hooked right then.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I wrote my first musical composition when I was in elementary school, and really started songwriting in high school. I was always a good student, and ended up going to the University of Pennsylvania, where I thought I could have my cake and eat it too — I’d start a band and study political science. But I quickly realized that music was where my heart really was, and that I’d need to be more serious about it to turn it into a career. So I applied and eventually transferred to Berklee College of Music, where I founded my indie rock project, Drunken Logic. I like to think we sound like Counting Crows, the Hold Steady, Gang of Youths, and bands like that.
DL has three albums and two EPs out to date, and we’re currently recording our fourth album. We’ve been fortunate enough to play all over the country as well. Along the way, I’ve worked to support myself as a street performer, dueling piano player, wedding band leader, improv comedy music director, musical theater composer, actor, comedian, concert booking agent, and more. I currently work full-time as a school music teacher, and do some podcast production on the side as well. But I’m more focused than ever on making my music the main thrust of my career.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
The pandemic brought about a pivot point for just about every creative I know. I had been making my living up until that point as a full-time freelance performer, and all of a sudden the money and opportunity dried up overnight. To be honest though, I’d been wanting to break out of that cycle for awhile by that point — I’d played “Don’t Stop Believin'” enough times for one life, and I felt the exhaustion of living paycheck to paycheck and the pressure to fill up every hole in my calendar with a paying gig. I’d applied for a few jobs, and had been accepted into a master’s program in community music education at USC, but nothing had felt right up until that point.
I was fortunate enough that I could turn lockdown into an opportunity — I’d deferred my acceptance at USC, and started the program in August of 2020. It changed my life, giving me clarity on my creative vision, and helping me realize my passion for philosophy of music education. I had the chance to collaborate with one of my favorite podcasts (Switched On Pop), to study a music program for justice-involved young adults, and to meet some incredible friends and musicians. And it led directly to my position as a music educator at the Geffen Academy @ UCLA, where I’m about to start my second year. I love teaching middle and high school students to create their own music in a way that I never had access to when I was their age, and it’s a true privilege to work with the staff at this school.
I think there’s something to be said for the freelance lifestyle, especially in your 20’s — it’s liberating and exciting. But it’s also exhausting and unstable, and it can be hard to work forward and push your career upward when you feel you have to say yes to things you don’t like just to pay rent that month. There are of course drawbacks to having a day job, but for me, having the stability of knowing where the money is coming from and what your schedule will be has really allowed me to take care of myself and reset my priorities.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
I think there are a few. The first is to make art that is at once comforting and familiar, but also subversive and challenging. Music is supposed to be a balm for the soul, and someone else once said it’s how we decorate time — it should absolutely give the listener what they want. But it should also give the audience what they DON’T REAlIZE they want. And that’s why I always try to have one WTF moment in every song — a lyric that requires thought, a change in time signature or song form, a sound they haven’t heard before. And hopefully all of that comes together conceptually in a way that takes on something the audience knows or expects, but puts a different spin on it in that verse, that song, that album.
The other part of it is to make my art in a way that allows me to support myself. I’d be making this music regardless of whether or not people were going to hear it, or if I’d decided to go into journalism or something instead of doing this full-time. But I think my work is good enough that I can make a living doing it. We can talk about the evils of capitalism and the trap you’re walking into by measuring your worth by what people pay you for, but I don’t think aspiring to that is entirely without merit. And the desire to be an artist who is sustained spiritually and financially by his art is definitely an ambition of mine.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.drunkenlogicmusic.com/
- Instagram: http://instagram.com/drunkenlogics
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrunkenLogic
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-cassman/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrunkenLogics
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DrunkenLogicMusic
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drunkenlogics
- Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/artist/0lYxpGZFM1qtlLg6fgilA6