1. Your music is described as sounding like every place you’ve been: Minnesota, Chamonix, Santa Teresa. How do those places show up in your songwriting

Answer

You know, it’s funny because I had never really thought about my music as sounding like a place. But when I saw that come up in the first review I ever received for the Fool’s Gold EP, it made me stop and think. That’s one of my favorite parts of the review because thinking about my music in that context has actually helped me understand what’s in it a little better

It’s easy to place Minnesota in all of this because that’s where I grew up. My love for folk, Americana, rock, and alternative music was a huge part of more or less the first 18 years of my life. It was constantly around me—from the vinyl player in our house to whatever my parents put on in the minivan during road trips or drives to hockey practice.

Of course, Minneapolis is also where I started playing guitar. My mom took me to Suzuki guitar lessons twice a week until I was 14.

Then my parents started bringing me to concerts with them. Those are still some of my most memorable concerts. I saw Bob Dylan during the Time Out of Mind and MTV Unplugged years. I saw him touring with that same band, and I loved those arrangements and his sound from that period. They brought me to see CSNY, which was incredible, Mark Knopfler a couple of times, and Arlo Guthrie at least once a year.

There was also the local Midwestern music scene and the summer outdoor concerts, where I saw bands like Soul Asylum and the BoDeans many times. I loved that whole Midwestern alternative-rock scene. My guitar teacher when I was a teenager was actually the lead guitarist for a band called the Tim Mahoney Band. They were always playing the same outdoor shows as Soul Asylum and the BoDeans. He would give me his backstage pass after they finished playing, so I would cruise around until I got kicked out. Just being able to walk around and see those guys was so cool for me.

I left Minnesota when I was 18, first for college in Montana and then for Europe. I worked at the UN in Geneva, lived in Chamonix for all those years, and eventually moved to Santa Teresa. During that journey, I think the most important thing was that I really clung to the music of my youth, even as my palette evolved. That music was simply part of my identity.

When I met my wife about 11 years ago in Chamonix, she was mostly listening to electronic music. It was a lot of fun for me to introduce her to folk music, but the deal was that I had to play it for her on my guitar.

During those years, I was also playing in a band and gigging every week. Our set list was heavily dominated by covers of Neil Young, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, and John Prine. We were the only band in town playing that kind of music in a ski town filled with people from all over the world, so it made us something of a novelty.

I must say that it took a moment, but she also got me to really appreciate a lot of electronic music. Perhaps the ambient sound that continues to evolve as I record was shaped by that. And, of course, if you listen to my lyrics, she is the hero—the anchor for me and for all the stories I tell.

2. After years of telling stories for humanitarian organizations, how did the words for your own music find you?

Answer:

That’s a good question because, until now, there hasn’t really been much direct crossover between my songwriting and the work I was doing. But during those years, I had to learn how to write in a very concise and accessible way.

It was a rewarding challenge to use 140 characters to inspire awareness and demonstrate impact while keeping the human side of the story front and center. I could be talking about achieving these larger global goals, but I needed to make sure that everything I wrote still had humanity in it.

I think the words I’m writing now found me when they needed to find me.

I’ve talked a little about the fact that we are now fighting to protect both this paradise, where we are guests, and our own home. Our proximity to a very dangerous, illegal, and environmentally disastrous development gave us no choice. But with that decision came exposure to a side of humanity I had never experienced.

The people on the other side came up with the brilliant plan that, by making our lives miserable in sometimes very scary and aggressive ways, they could force us to give up and leave. Unfortunately for them, they got much more than they bargained for with us. Unfortunately, it also came at a very high physical and emotional price for me as I held the line night after night for about two years.

I had to become a different person to deal with this—a very different version of myself and not necessarily someone I ever wanted to become. I did find a way to make that version of myself someone with an on-and-off switch. But when that switch was turned off, I still needed an outlet through which I could reconcile everything that was happening.

Perhaps I was subconsciously trying to put certain things into words, especially for my wife—things that I wanted to be here forever, whether or not I was.

3. Your father told you about John Prine playing in Chicago with a six-pack until it was finished. What did that story teach you about being a folk singer?

Answer:

Yeah, that really—sorry, I’m laughing—shaped my idea of who and what a folk singer was.

It was someone down-to-earth enough to make me feel, at least as a kid hearing those stories, that these guys were almost like uncles I had never met. It also showed me that music is supposed to be fun and an extension of who you are as a person.

It wasn’t only about being a musical and lyrical genius who was serious enough to write and make this incredible music. You could also be a human being with a smile on your face and a laugh while doing it.

4. Your mission is to write honestly enough to earn the right to call yourself a folk singer. What does “earning it” mean to you?

Answer:

That’s a very personal question for me. I hope this aspiration doesn’t come across as egotistical, as though I believe I need to hold myself to a higher standard than anyone else.

I do believe I am further along that path now than I was when I first stated that ambition. I’m learning how to tell truths—real truths—through stories without actually telling the truth at all.

I’m finding ways to talk about my own experiences as honestly as possible while still writing in a way that other people can hopefully connect with. Maybe they can find their own defiance or perspective within their stories of going through difficult times or within their own love stories. Maybe they can use memories as a treasure map back to the shit that actually matters and leave their fears and self-doubt behind.

5. “Heart On My Sleeve” marks a shift from looking back to defiance and swagger. What changed in your life to bring that on?

Answer:

The last year or two took a lot from me. I had to learn to accept that I don’t know how things will turn out. Once you stop fighting that, there’s real freedom in it.

At the same time, my wife and I are fighting to protect this little piece of paradise we inherited. I can’t say exactly why I felt the need to write this song at that particular moment, but that’s the best part of this whole thing: the words find you when you need them.

They found me at a moment when I needed to stop looking backward for

perspective and searching through memories for the joy of easier times. I needed to look forward and make sure that my defiance and swagger would be the heart on my sleeve, no matter what happens.

6. The song draws on the crossroads myth and the idea of shaking hands with the devil. Why did that old image feel right for this story?

Answer:

Again, it brings me back to the miracle of songwriting. When these words come to you, it’s absolutely insane to experience them moving from your head to your hands, through a pen, and onto a piece of paper.

What found me that evening began as a very quick internal dialogue. It was raining outside, and I thought to myself, “It sucks that peaceful, rainy nights here aren’t what they used to be.”

I found myself looking down at my knees, which bear scars from ACL surgeries from my days of skiing in the bigger mountains. That was certainly a life of peace. But then my internal dialogue said, “Stop it. No more looking backward for perspective.”

I wasn’t going to feel sorry for myself for having to become this different person I’ve talked about—the person I needed to become.

For whatever reason, I found myself thinking about the idea of the crossroads. In an instant, I thought, “Well, I don’t need to go to any damn crossroads to make a deal with anyone.” For better or worse—and I hesitate even to say “better”—those crossroads had to become part of me and live inside me. The music is part of what emerged from them, and that is the silver lining in all of this.

It felt empowering to find the strength and make the internal bargain required to keep going. I accepted that the damn crossroads weren’t a place at all. They were something that had to become part of who I am now.

And as part of those crossroads living inside me, this story has its own version of someone who I think has earned the title of “the devil.” That person is very real. For now, I’ll leave the reason I needed to shake hands with them up to the imagination. But I did so with an actual ace up my sleeve.

7. You’ve said the song has “an audience of one,” yet you hope it gives others swagger. Who is that one listener, and what do you hope everyone else takes from it?

Answer:

Let’s just say that I think I’ve explained as much as I will—or as much as I will for now—about who that audience of one is.

It certainly isn’t me. It’s someone to whom I wanted to send a message: “Keep coming. Keep trying. But I am a person I’m proud to be, and that’s something you will never be able to say about yourself.”

8. How does “Heart On My Sleeve” differ, sonically and emotionally, from “Pinch

It’s all an evolution, you know. Like I said, this songwriting journey is part of a story that is still unfolding and doesn’t yet have an ending.

The beginning of this story required me, in a very therapeutic way, to find perspective by looking into the past. I love “Pinch Me Darlin’” because, while we were going through a difficult moment with this whole situation, I allowed myself to relive our journey together.

That was the first real song I ever wrote that didn’t end up in the trash can. It was also the moment when I first felt the inexplicable, magical power of songwriting. When I wrote the words “like a shooting star out of purgatory,” talking about my wife and introducing her into the story, I simply stopped and thought, “Where did that come from?” That’s crazy, right?

The Fool’s Gold EP  has a little bit of everything in it.  “Fool’s  Gold”  itself was very much a song of acceptance. You never know what’s going to be around the corner. What matters is what we do during our own journeys, and trying to control our destiny is a waste of time.

After “Fool’s Gold,” I wrote “If You See Me Say Hello.” I showed the lyrics to my mom, and I think she started to worry about me a little. She was basically asking, “Are you so lost that you’re wandering around and saying to anyone who will listen, ‘If you see the old Jeremy out there, please say hello’?”

But it was actually this fun, time-traveling experience in which I thought about all the places and people that made me who I am. You asked at the beginning how those places shaped the music, and that song is very much an expression of that.

Then there was “Darker Still.” That arrived at a moment when things were feeling darker. When all of this began, I remember sitting down with my wife and saying, “This isn’t going to be a short thing. There’s going to be a dark cloud hanging over us for a long time.”

I guess the song was a moment of accepting that the dark cloud was still there almost two years later. But I think it also marked a transition toward defiance and a reminder that she is the reason I’m still here. She’s the love of my life. It doesn’t really matter what is happening or what dark cloud is hanging over us. As long as I’m with her, that place is just fine for me.

There are parts of that song that return to what I was saying about subconsciously putting certain things into words—things I wanted to make sure would remain here forever, just in case I wasn’t.

When I listen to the way I sing it now, I remember that I had to record many takes of certain lines because they choked me up. I found myself crying while recording it.

And here we are now with “Heart On My Sleeve.” Defiance and swagger require a little more rock and roll, and I’m stoked about that.

As I prepare for this Jam in the Van performance in Los Angeles, I’m working on new arrangements for this song and two others that I’m still deciding between. I would say the arrangements are less somber and have a much more energetic lift to them.

The words remain the same, but the music is an expression of the journey and the story as it continues to evolve.

9. You describe the sound as an Outlaw Philosophy: raw, weathered, low-mid warmth over studio sheen. How did you capture that, and what drew you to Stapleton and Isbell as touchstones?

Answer:

That’s a good question, and I’m not sure I really have a good answer for it.

I’m a big fan of people like the two you mentioned, as well as Colter Wall and Ryan Bingham—artists who blend gritty Americana with real songwriting and folk songwriting. It’s simply what comes out on the paper and what comes out of my guitar.

I can’t tell you that I plan it. But as I develop the music, every instrumental choice is intentional, whether the instrument sits very far forward in the mix or becomes part of the ambience. The choice of guitars is intentional, and so is the way I sing.

People make comments about my “unpolished” vocals, for instance. Well, there’s a lot of intention behind that, too. For me, the Outlaw Philosophy means doing things for yourself and not really having many fucks to give about what other people are going to think.

10. You’re heading to Los Angeles next month to record a Jam in the Van session with this song as the lead-off. What do you want that performance to say, and what comes next for Leave the Bones?

Answer:

Yeah, as I was saying before, I’m working a lot on the arrangements for “Heart On My Sleeve,” “If You See Me Say Hello,” and “Darker Still.”

The arrangements won’t necessarily be replicas of the recordings because the swagger, vibe, and mood of where I am now are different. It’s a really exciting place to be, so I think the sound will reflect that.

I hope I can put on a show that turns people’s heads.

And, to be completely transparent, I want all this music to become an album that I release in partnership with a label I trust and respect—like Oh Boy Records, for instance. As part of that, I want to tell this story properly because it’s a story worth telling for many reasons.

There are personal reasons, but perhaps it can also become a cautionary tale for people who think they can come to places like this and do whatever they want, with no respect for the people who were here before them, the beauty of the place, or everything else they destroy in the process.

Within that dream and that hope, I want Jam in the Van to be the first of many live performances to come, because when it comes to music, nothing makes me happier than playing live.

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