We were lucky to catch up with Jenna Isn’t Famous recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jenna, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I am first and foremost a storyteller. I love to weave stories in my lyrics cinematically and poetically. My melody writing sometimes feels intuitive, and I hope to create earworms that stay in your bones for a long time. My goal is to pull you in with the story, and have you press repeat for the melodies and dedicated emotion in my voice.

Music has been a part of me since I was a little kid, I was always enchanted by my mom’s piano and would bang away at it gleefully until I finally started taking lessons in 2nd grade. The first definitive song I remember writing was in 3rd grade, called “What Should We Do?” about being bored with my friends.

Over the years I’ve really worked on refining my craft and adding an editing step to my work. I really started paying attention to when other songs would get stuck in my head. I asked myself, what were the intervals most commonly used in these melodies that caused them to stick with me? I studied them and discovered that it would usually be one uncommon interval jump between a bunch of common interval jumps that caused the earworm quality.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a singer-songwriter whose mission with my music is to encourage true authenticity in others. And if you heard that statement and thought “that’s such an Aquarius thing to say” you’d be right! I am a very expressive person, both with my facial expressions and body movements. I dance every chance I get. I’m in my car and listening to a stellar song and I’m moving my arms and torso all over at the stoplight. I’m in line for coffee with my friend and a great song comes on, I’m swaying my body then as well. I don’t mind if people think I’m weird. I just don’t want to repress the outward expression in my body of what I’m feeling inside. And I want to eliminate that repression in others as well.

I encourage people to take risks. I’m a deep person, I want to have deep conversations and know what’s alive in people, not just surface level.

I’ve known since I was a kid that writing and performing songs was what I wanted to do. I finally committed to this professionally when I moved to Los Angeles in the fall of 2017. I played the open mic circuit and eventually started getting enough exposure to play my own gigs. In 2022 I played my first Sofar Sounds show, and that was a real career highlight for me.

If you haven’t heard my music, I create dramatically expressive synth pop songs. I like to say my music is a love child between Florence + The Machine and The Weeknd.

What sets me apart from others is that my subject material is very focused on living your life authentically. I’m very expressive in my performances, and I leave it all on the line. I have the best friends in the world who are beautiful writers themselves (shoutout to Katie and Arianna!), so I polled them for this question as well. They said I have a refreshingly unique way of putting words into lyrical phrases that draws in the listener and keeps them guessing at what innovative metaphor I will share next. I have raw and honest lyricism with driving beats that you can feel not just through your ears but in your soul. My music gives the listener an impetus to take real world action for your life.

Overall, I want people to listen to my music and learn how to care less about what other people think and more about being authentic to their dreams, desires, emotions and quirks.

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

I write music that I hope speaks to people who have been falsely made to believe that being polite and not causing a stir should be our priority. I used to be a huge people-pleaser, with my worst fear being that someone wouldn’t see me as “nice.” But I started to realize how small I was making myself and how much of myself I was sacrificing by trying to maintain that identity. I learned how to stand up for myself and initiated conversations that scared me and it’s defined who I am today. I want others to encourage others to believe in themselves and love themselves. With songs like “Like I Love Me” and “I Like That Shit”, I send the message that it’s important to build an independent life you love for yourself and to invest in a supportive community of friends. With my song “Broken Men,” I voice the message that I won’t allow myself to be treated badly and walked over any longer. “Figure your sh*t out before you come ‘round me” is the main thesis statement in the song. I hope listening to my songs builds a fire that inspires you to stick up for yourself, your friends, and what’s right.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Patience is a virtue. Especially in the way the internet and social media have reconditioned our brains, we want everything when we want it. It can be really frustrating to know we’ve put in the work and time but not see the results quite yet. I believe that timing is everything. If I had gotten fame quickly when I moved here 6 years ago, I would be thrown into a world where people leech onto you and use you, at a time when I didn’t know how to speak my mind. Since then I’ve gone to therapy and really developed a vocabulary for how to stick up for myself. I’ve also built a strong community of friends who are truly quality humans. They show up for me in ways that make me so awestruck and grateful. I’m lucky to know those people are friends with me for me, and not what I can do for them. My advice would be to find that community for yourself. Having that support system is just as, if not more, important than achieving your career goals. Because when you achieve those goals, you want people around you who will genuinely celebrate you. And make sure you show up for those people and celebrate them as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jennaisntfamous.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/jennaisntfamous
• Facebook: facebook.com/jennaisntfamous
• Twitter: twitter.com/jennaisntfamous
• Youtube: youtube.com/jennaisntfamous
• Other: @jennaisntfamoustho on tiktok

Image Credits
Studio Shots: Anna Azarov Live Show Shots: Corey McCrea