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

Alright, Jamie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

No project has been more meaningful to me than my first studio album, “God’s Problem Child”, set to release in early summer of 2024. However it would not have been infused with such meaning without the experience of recording my EP “Some Nothing” (an experimental, home-spun album recorded sporadically and aimlessly over the past four years) that drops this February.

“Some Nothing” was born of desperate attempts to tame restless thoughts, hometown boredom, and existential spirals. It is made up songs that were originally nothing more than the byproducts of songwriting therapy, self prescribed during my time at home in Florida during the Covid dark ages from 2020-2021. The process of recording these songs did for me what a Binky tries to do for an unruly baby: Pacify a meltdown.

The seeds of most of these songs were planted during fits of insomnia, then watered regularly and heavily with whiskey, wine, or black coffee. The lyrics throughout “Some Nothing” reveal the inner dialogues of an emotionally ran-through girl burdened by Covid blues, self isolation, general feelings of dread, a breakup, and her ever regressing mental fitness. Though written mostly by myself, the chords on “Your Just Dessert”, “Broken Faucets” and “Love Sick” were composed by Michael Cobbs on the guitar. I met Michael at a bar in my hometown of Naples, Florida while waiting out Covid. Finding out that he was a musician, at a time when I was surrounded by so few, I insisted that he jam with me. I wrote my address on his arm with a Sharpie and a few hours later we had finished our first song, “Your Just Dessert”. Many of these tracks were left untouched for about two years. My bandmate and boyfriend Max Satow sat down with me this past September and breathed some new life into them. Max’s incredible production skills and comprehensive music talents opened these songs up and infused them with more attitude, intrigue, and palatability than their previous incarnations. So please keep an eye out for “Some Nothing” coming out this month onto all streaming services.

Now that I have given you have the necessary backstory, we can talk about the album I’ve been waiting, I think, my whole life to make: “God’s Problem Child”. This past summer before attentions were spent on the “Some Nothing” EP, they were spent vigorously on the making of demos for “GPC”. My band and I worked for months in our home studios, friends’ studios and the make-shift studio at my father’s garage in Vermont. It was truly an emotional rollercoaster. As incredibly tortuous as it could be, it was as equally fun and exhilarating! Blood, sweat and tears (of both frustration and happiness) were spilt during the process. From working for days on one song only to scrap it entirely, to messing around and making what we think will be our album’s “hits” in a quick 2 hours, it was a summer and a recording experience that bonded us for life. As a musician who has long dreamed, wished, and prayed for not only a supremely talented band, but also a band that would feel like a second family, I could not be more grateful to have Kat Belguendouz, Jeremy Kaufmann, and Max Satow.

Recently, we’ve seen our hard work from the summer begin to pay off. An introduction to producer Gordon Raphael made by my friend, and talented musician Liam Canet, has put “GPC” into production. Gordon’s excitement towards and commitment to the project has felt like a long awaited cure for the imposter syndrome I occasionally felt this past fall.

“God’s Problem Child” has the spirit of a rebel. It’s my own “montage of heck”. A quilt constructed of fabrics including but not limited to catchy hooks, flirtatious verses, choruses of epic relief, and spiteful lullabies… all cut from the same cloth by romantic destruction and stitched together by threads of hope. Optimistically, the kind of hope that could inspire even the most hardened, skeptical, and numb civilian to dance. This album puts trance and chaos into direct conversation to find out who is the more sinister seductress.

Jamie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a singer/songwriter currently living in Brooklyn, NY. I was raised in Naples, FL but have lived in the NYC area off and on since 2016. I can’t recall exactly how I got into music but just that I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. Singing has always felt like an involuntary reflex. It is my true self’s preferred mode of expression. I would sing before knowing very little, if any, vocabulary… which luckily amused my parents enough to encourage I continue. As I did, I developed a deep and insatiable curiosity about human nature. This feeling of inquiry pivoted my attentions from the small scope and familiar horizon of my own emotional life towards those of others. I grew up privileged enough to witness my grandmother, Harriet Johnson, play the piano. Which she did, to my surprise, not only for purposes of entertaining me, but also for the entertainment of paying audiences. She inspired me to begin playing when I was 9 years old. It was not long after that would I find a succession of greater capacity for and confidence in songwriting. I would sing in school, however outside the security of a chorus was a bit too self-conscious of my singing voice to independently perform. Therefor I chose acting and photography as my public displays of self expression. For five summers in a row I performed in numerous plays and learned my way around the black room at Long Lake Camp of the Arts in upstate New York. The first year at Long Lake I met my best friend, and now roommate and business partner, Kat Belguendouz. I would later continue my acting education at New York University’s Tisch School of Drama until eventually dropping out to pursue music full-time.

In addition to music, I also participate in the creative industries of film, writing, photo and video editing, art direction, and event planning. I have a company called “Shit Show Studios” that I have been publishing my photography and music through for the past 5 years. In recent times, Kat Belguendouz and I have started a smaller production house under the Shit Show Studios LLC called “Hot Mess Haus”. We use the companies as platforms for not only freelancing our own creative skills and assets, but for providing a space to advertise and celebrate those of others as well. Since starting the company in 2019, we have directed, photographed, styled, and coordinated dozens of film and photoshoots. We have also thrown large events, or as we call them“Shit Show Fests”, that showcase a wide array of talent and the many forms it take on(i.e. painting, music performance, collection/curation, sculpture, dance, and much more).
These “fests” came from the desire to curate a space that invites people (creatives and noncreative alike) to come together and exactly as you are. To accept the inevitable ebbing and flowing of chaos and floods and droughts of inspiration as not only being signature to this industry but more importantly, seminal to the creative process. The hotter the mess, the shittier the show, the better. That is what I am truly proud of. Inspiring others towards transparency with, connection to, and compassion for ourselves and others.

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

I find it most rewarding when people tell me how my music makes them feel. Wether it’s happy, mad, empowered, or heartbroken… having someone want to share with me the feelings they have while listening to my music always feels incredibly special. For example, when someone tells me that my song made them cry, it requires me to acknowledge once again how powerful my vulnerability can be. It makes me feel like my songwriting is an alchemy that can turn past pains into future pleasures.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My mission is, no matter how exhausted I am, to always choose empathy over apathy. To be the change I want to see.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.shitshowstudios.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_dotia_/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@shitshowstudios225

Image Credits
Jamie McVicker, Kat Belguendouz, Yorg Kerasiotis, Ari Tecktiel, Dylan Cookman, David Rauch-Bautista