We recently connected with Jaye Jones and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jaye, thanks for joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

To be honest, I’ve always wanted to be in the music scene ever since I was around seven years old. I think the specific moment that I really thought about becoming a singer was when I was seven I was on the school bus and we were doing the routes to drop everybody off and I used to get bored just sitting there not really talking to anybody when my friends got dropped off so my mom had got me headphones and a MP3 player that works had radio on it. And listening to all the music while staring outside on a sunny day living in California, it felt like at that time the music just made everything brighter and really made me happy and excited for the bus rides home. And my mom has always played R&B or jazz or soul music ever since I could remember whether it be on CDs or on the radio we always listening to a lot of female R&B music. And my Dad was a huge R&B fan too but also a giant John Legend fan. He used to always love when I sang his favorite songs and just bob his head and snap every time. So, every time I was on the bus I would get so excited to just hear R&B songs that I’ve heard in the car with my mom or sang with or in front of my dad and just experienced them and digest the music by myself and sing all the time, and that’s when I really wanted to become R&B singer. Ever since I was a kid music has been not only a way to cope as it is for most people, but an expression of myself and what brought a lot of playful times and good memories in my life. Whether it would be hanging out with my dad and us sharing a specific song or hanging out with my friends and a certain song comes on and encapsulates the whole experience itself it’s always been something that really stuck with me and I’ve never gotten tired of it.

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?

Well, apart from being a singer/songwriter I am also a producer and audio engineer. How I got into my line of work was by chance honestly, as weird as it may sound being a producer and engineer wasn’t in my wheelhouse for a while. When I was in high school, my physics teacher was given a promotion and no longer stayed with the class, but luckily for me on a random iceberg introduction, my substitute teacher, Mr. Avalos (Mr.A) had seen that I had a creative side and he really wanted to flourish it. So the next three years he worked with me and some of my friends to broaden our horizons on the music industry, and what we want to do and what we can do besides being artist, and I never had any money to get studio time so I thought well why don’t I just make the music myself . Mr. A gave me access to his FL studio and I used that for most of my time learning how to produce. And after that, I studied at Sacramento City Community College in various recording techniques, mic placements and mixing and mastering tips and tricks for a couple years. Recently, I interned at a recording studio in my city, called Rosa Mortem and used a lot of my techniques and knowledge in real world situations and learned along the way how to work with people in different types of techniques, I could use outside of what I already learned. Now my mentor; Ash, is also my boss and friend of the studio but usually I work from home as well. As a producer and engineer, I mainly provide solutions to problems that most artists such as singers, bands, and other forms of the medium, a solution or space for them to get the desired recording or desired feeling for their music that they may want. I really feel like I’m in tune with the emotions of my artist or the song while we are working on it. In normal circumstances, feelings are not something, I necessarily understand most of the time but I feel as though that I shine exponentially when I am working with a client or myself expressing or encapsulating the feelings that need to be conveyed in this moment. I think the thing that I most proud of in all of this is that I get to just be me every time I make something or every time I feel like I can work with somebody on something as long as I am being myself and being true to myself, I can let me shine through and reach people in a whole different way than I could and any normal conversation. If there is one thing I would want people to know about me is that I always try to make you feel like the music is a part of you, as if someone knew what you were talking about and you could express it to them within that 2 to 4 minute window for a song.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

To be honest, there weren’t a lot of people that believed in what I wanted to do. My family wasn’t too happy about it when I started to express that I wanted to go into the music field just because it came from a place of worry. I also had a lot of people who thought I had no talent whatsoever to start this journey. For a very long time there weren’t a lot of people in my corner and for some people they thought this was just a result of me being young and naïve or just a hobby. But even on my worst days even when I felt like the world was just targeting me I used to just turn on my computer and look up YouTube videos or work on the next song that I might wanna make or try different exercises to broaden my horizons. To be honest in this field, there will be a lot of people who have their doubts, but as long as you get up every time, you’ll find a way to make what you want to do something great. Because of that now I have a lot of people that want to see me succeed and go far and can see the vision I have for the future.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I think as a society, we should stop gatekeeping a lot of resources and really open up to other artists. Though there can be some people you just can’t get along with or not find a point where you guys can collaborate, giving access to certain tools and certain resources can make or break somebody’s whole career. I feel as though we all know this, but we still go and all of our resources to ourselves, which isn’t fair to most people. Other people hadn’t reached out to me when I needed it the most, I wouldn’t even be close to where I need to be now and I can only imagine how that is for somebody who is as in the dark as I was when I was younger.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/groovy.jsj/
• Twitter: https://x.com/JonesIsGroovy
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/groovyjsj