Genius Lessons Jackson Dean Learned Being a Country Artist
Jackson Dean and Backstage Country’s Kelly Ford talked about Dean’s inspiration behind his music, his origin story, and what life taught him about being a country artist.
Jackson Dean’s Life Lessons
Dean shared what he learned when he started at 14. Now that he’s 24, he’s learned: “Don’t expect the world to get so small on you because it will.” He also shared that having traveled, and being out in the world helped him put things in perspective. “You see so many different, more walks of life than just your hometown.”
He added, “Automatically from the start, I try to come at it with my best foot forward. I try to be humble and as good a person as I can be in all of it. But what I’ve learned is, you keep singing, keep seeing your tail off like I do and keep my nose on the grindstone, and everything should pan out.”
A Well-Rounded Country Music Artist
Ford asked Dean about the state of country music. Dean became reflective, “All of us here, all of us who sit in this chair and are doing music and our artists, all of our influences come from so many different places. And that’s showing in our industry right now. But yeah, my God, you should definitely have your influences bleeding all over you.”
He added, “You know, there’s so many different influences that influence us, as singers, as artists. There’s so many, there’s so many colors coming into to make what we are.” Ford agreed and commented that being in the country music industry now is an exciting time. “Yeah. I think it is very much. And what I’ve done so far down here at Big Machine and being in Nashville and making records is like, yeah, ‘I’m doing me.’ And all of these songs stand on their own so they can have the authority to be in those different places. I love it. I think the more well-rounded an artist can be, the more lethal you are.”
An Old Soul
One of the things Ford realized during her conversation with Dean is that he’s an old soul. Dean agreed, “I get that a lot.” He added, “I was just always around older folks and yeah, I’ve gotten that my whole life.” Ford wondered if Dean already experienced the things he had written about. “I was feeling all the emotions or watched it be like for a long time especially on records, like I wrote about my brothers, about my dad. I have two songs that are about one brother solely alone, and I love that concept of just picking the subject and going in that direction with it.”
He added, “But yeah, all of this is coming out of my mouth. My heart is from me and the things that I have experienced. And when I started this, in doing what I was doing, I was the creator, let me feel all that there is to feel in this world. And I don’t know if it was foolishly done, but so far as I have experienced a great many arrays of things that I’m truly grateful for, that’s very reflective in the music.”
Listen to Jackson Dean’s music at www.jacksondeanmusic.com.
