Kezar is the project of San Francisco-based Jack Mosbacher.
Jack comes from a strong soul background, which influenced his clever pop style. Kezar’s debut single “(Tell Me) It’s Not Love” has raked in over 845,000 streams, and was included in Spotify’s official Love Pop and Young & Free playlists.
The latest Kezar single “Don’t Touch The Queen” is a very empowering track, and the music video is just as awesome! Check it out below.
Directed by Sarah Wilson Thacker, the video features women from all walks of life. We see the Director of the Multicultural Engagement and Inclusion Initiative at Google, a plus-size fashion model and designer, a sexual assault survivor, and a transgender activist. Each of their stories captures the essence of the song – wxmen are marvelous, so don’t mess with them!
I got to chat with Kezar about the making of the track, the video, and about being a good ally.
Your moniker “Kezar” is very unique. Can you give us a little background behind how it came about?
Absolutely. Kezar Stadium has stood in San Francisco since the 1930s, and it was the original home of my favorite football team, the 49ers. It’s in the iconic Haight-Ashbury District, which to me feels like the soul-center of the city I call home. So many iconic things have happened there. They filmed Dirty Harry there, its hosted concerts fronted by Led Zeppelin, The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Tower of Power, and so many others. When I was looking for a name, I wanted it to be something that reflected who I am and where I come from. I couldn’t think of a better one than Kezar.
Who are some of your biggest musical influences?
Even though I feel like this is something everyone says, it’s true: my influences are really varied. My first love was Motown – I loved the harmony groups like The Temptations, The Four Tops, and Smokey Robinson & The Miracles. I did a bunch of musical theater and classical music growing up – I was in the children’s chorus for San Francisco Opera – so I am deeply impacted by songs-as-storytelling from writers like Rodgers and Hammerstein and Stephen Sondheim, and by great tenor voices like Pavarotti and Jonas Kauffman. The rest are varied pop and R&B influences like Prince, Freddie Mercury, Tom Petty, and the rest. Finally, I was in high school during the middle of the Hyphy Movement in the Bay Area, so Mac Dre, E-40, Mistah F.A.B., Keak da Sneak, and Dem Hoodstarz were a (probably surprising) soundtrack to that part of my life.
Your latest single “Don’t Touch the Queen” is an amazing, uplifting track. Can you tell us how the song came about?
It was actually the first song I ever wrote about something I witnessed in real-life and in person. I was in a bar when a woman was grabbed inappropriately. Before anyone could even notice what had happened, she sent the guy flying across the room. All she said was, “Don’t touch the queen.” It was absolutely awesome. I asked her right then and there if I could write a song about it, and she gave her blessing.
The music video for “Don’t Touch the Queen” is also very inspirational – we get to see women from all walks of life being put front and center! What were some of the coolest things about making the video?
There were two hugely awesome parts for me. The first was the decision to give the song to an all-female creative team and then remain completely hands-off. I knew early on that after writing the song, it was no longer my story to tell. My piece of it was my perspective on a single incident I witnessed; as soon as our director, Sarah Wilson Thacker, pitched her idea for what would ultimately become the video, I knew that it was no longer my story. I was simply there to do what I believe allies are called to do: listen and lend a helping hand when asked. The second was getting to meet the incredible women whose stories were the centerpiece of the video. It was embarrassingly shocking to me how grateful these women were to have a place to be celebrated and to tell their own stories. I felt like, and still believe, that they were doing me the honor of sharing their stories and talent with me – that I should be thanking them.
What is something you hope listeners can take from your music and apply to their everyday lives?
I’m not in the business of either telling people what they should get from my art or how they should live their lives. I’d say that the main lesson that I took, personally, from this experience and from seeing the finished product is this: if I want to be an ally – particularly if you are coming from a place of privilege, like I am simply by being a straight white man – then my first job is not to speak out or even to act. My first job is to listen. As someone who has always wanted to be on the side of those who have been marginalized, it was one of the most powerful lessons I’ve ever learned.
What advice can you give to any aspiring musicians and creatives?
Again, what do I know? But the biggest breakthrough for me was realizing how important it is to finish things. It is so hard to create new things, and it is so scary to put them out into the world. It takes bravery to share something as personal as your own songs with a world that is very, very good at being critical. But nothing will happen unless you finish it and put it out into the world. Beyond that, in a practical sense, I find it incredibly hard to start anything new while something isn’t done. It becomes so freeing to simply put my best effort into a project until I finish it, then to release it. I finally know that there are some things I can control – my own work ethic, the people I work with and how I treat them, and so on – and some things that I can’t – like how many people listen to my music or come to my shows, or whether a critic likes it or hates it. Finishing songs, knowing that I did everything I could, and getting it out into the world has been incredibly freeing.
Follow Kezar on Twitter and Instagram @kezarofficial!
