Right about now, Jack Newsome is putting on the best outfit he had his wardrobe. After all, it’s quite common to spend hours trying to look your best for a huge celebration. Today’s occasion is the arrival of his new EP All Dressed Up, where he certainly brought his best musical offerings possible.
As a kid growing up in New Jersey, Jack Newsome loved entertaining his family and anyone else he was able to put on a show for. However, at the time it wasn’t exactly something he saw himself doing long term. Jack would take theater lessons and write a few songs here and there, but the pressure of having to choose what to pursue (and feeling like there has to be a definite answer) wasn’t present.
“I don’t know if I was thinking that much about it (as a kid),” Jack recalled in our conversation. “I’m very lucky because my parents were super supportive. I was able to kinda just work on making music and theater without thinking too hard about the future. My mom when I was growing up was like you only have two rules: to do your best and have fun.”
Sure enough, those were words that Jack made sure to live by. As his adolescence went on, Jack and his mother would head into New York City very often for auditions. But Jack also fell deeper and deeper in love with creating his own music. He set up his own studio in his garage, and it ended up turning into a place where he could simply be himself.
“Most of high school I wasn’t super social,” he admitted. “I would spend time all my time in the garage writing songs by myself and learning how to produce by myself. It came so naturally, I wasn’t even thinking about the future when I was. I made my first mixtape album when I was 15 or 16, and I brought in a bunch of copies to my high school. I rigged my locker so anyone could get in and take a copy. I just wanted to make music my whole life.”
Jack’s classmates soon started realizing he was determined to keep making music, and nothing would stop him from doing so. “For the most part, everybody knew that come hell or high water I was going to do it,” he said. “Whether or not they liked the music or not, they knew I was going to keep doing it.”
It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there, especially at school. “I’m sure a bunch of people talked shit behind my back,” Jack said. “But, I didn’t really get much backlash. There was one time when I took the copies to my locker – I was walking out of my school and someone had taken most of the CDs and broke all of them and scattered them. It didn’t stop there luckily.”
Jack went on to attend the Berklee College of Music, which was another step towards fulfilling his musical ambitions. But after spending some time abroad, Jack realized it was time to truly follow his heart and move to Los Angeles. A change of environment can always have its benefits, but Jack knew this specific move would be life-changing for him.
He spilled, “I had wanted to do that… basically since I learned about what LA was, and that a lot of entertainment was based out there. I knew I wanted to go. I had worked a lot in NYC, but New York is such a brutal city. I had heard a lot of no’s in New York in growing up doing auditions, being told no you’re not right for this part, no you’re not right for this project, blah blah blah. I was looking for a place to call my own, and knowing I could have a future there was really important. When I moved out to LA, I was like okay, I’m gonna do my thing out here. That’s the cool thing about music, unless someone doesn’t like your song you don’t really get told no that much. You kind of just make stuff all the time… which is kind of what I was doing in New Jersey.”
One of the things Jack made was All Dressed Up, although it was not made in one seating! Many of the songs on the EP were written during the pandemic, while others were written beforehand. During the height of the pandemic though, Jack signed a deal with 12Tone Music, which provided Jack even more fuel to complete and release this project. He felt as though the positivity and optimism his new team radiated was a huge key element of the entire process.
“It was a really really weird thing because there was no guarantee of touring anytime soon,” Jack observed. “Everything was up in the air. I’m so lucky because the whole team that I have now really loves me and believes in the music. I just feel so lucky. They never made me feel like it wasn’t going to happen or it wasn’t going to be a really awesome ride.”
Jack found himself having even more fun as the EP continued to take shape. He explained, “Finding the common thread, making the track listing, and putting it together is one of my favorite things in the world. Putting visuals to it, shooting photos and videos… I love that part because I don’t get to do it that often. I focus so much on the music, so anything besides the making the music part of it is always super fun to me. And so is the making music part.”
With each song encompassing a different mood, there’s something for everyone on All Dressed Up. Although the songs were written during different periods, there is still a huge sense of cohesion. This is one of the many reasons why Jack adores this EP, and why listeners will too. He mentioned, “The coolest part is, I love turning in a full body of work and making a bunch of songs that fit with each other even if they might have been written months apart from each other.”
In the end, Jack hopes All Dressed Up is an EP that listeners can enjoy anywhere and everywhere. There’s many ways to enjoy it, and each one will provide a unique listening experience. He spilled, “We spent so much time making the track list so that you can listen through it as a playlist. It’s a good thing to listen to individually if you want to just listen to a few songs. If you just got off work, you want to grab a glass of wine, maybe smoke a little something, or just turn on the whole thing, play it from top to bottom. It has a story line kinda. There’s a lot of songs that have to do with covid, there’s a lot of songs that don’t, and I think it’s just a good recap of the last year and kind of what I want next year to look like.”
Now THAT is a cause for celebration! Listen to All Dressed Up below.
If you enjoyed my chat with Jack, be sure to give him a huge high five on Instagram @jacknewsome and Twitter @somenewjack! ♡
