October 25, 2012
Having just released her eighth studio album Behind A Veil in April, Austin singer-songwriter and Hamilton College alumna Jess Klein ’95 returned to campus last Thursday to play an opening set for Matrimony at CAB’s Acoustic Coffeehouse series in the Barn. A few hours before her performance, Jess and her guitarist Billy Masters sat down with junior Nick Geisler in the WHCL studio to play a few songs and talk about her Hamilton experience and music career live on the air. The following are excerpts from their conversation. Stay tuned for the entire interview to be rebroadcast on WHCL soon!
When’s the last time you came back to Hamilton?
I was trying to figure that out, I think it’s been about ten years. There are a lot of buildings I’ve never seen and stuff. It looks great. There are windows everywhere!
So Behind The Veil is they eighth album you’ve put out, and I hear you learned to play guitar in Jamaica?
Yeah, I was a junior here and I went on a study abroad program to Jamaica—I was in Kingston. Actually, I first learned a couple chords when I was on campus here. My boyfriend at the time was my suitemate, and it was in one of the suites over on that side of campus [points towards Milbank]. I had a guitar and I went down to Jamaica and I was surrounded by all these musicians and I started writing. I came back and some of my first gigs were in the Barn here.
You don’t really play Jamaican music though, so if it wasn’t that you learned Reggae, what was it that you got from that experience in Jamaica that brought you to where you are now?
I think the main thing I got from it was that everyone there seemed to play guitar, and you didn’t have to be famous or special to make music—it was just part of everyday life. So i just got the idea that I might as well pick up a guitar and see what I can do, like, who knows? And it worked out.
And from there you moved to Boston, and now you’re in Austin, correct?
Yes. Austin’s great, it’s such a great town. So many great musicians, a really relaxed vibe and a lot of creative energy there.
Thinking back to your Hamilton days, what stood out for you here?
Oh man, it’s just such a beautiful place. We were driving back up here and I was thinking that I hope I appreciated how pretty it is when I was a student here, because it’s just stunning. I really liked being here—I had great friends, I learned to play guitar. When I think back to it most of what I remember is the beginnings, like beginning to write. I minored in creative writing and I’ve always loved to do creative things. Actually, the Coffeehouse series was started by my college boyfriend, so I was here for the beginning of it, and he would bring in all these songwriters. I thought ‘man, that seems like a cool life. I’m going to do that.’
How did Hamilton help foster your creativity?
I think that, thanks to the other students and some really incredible professors, both that I was taking classes from or that I just met somehow through friends, it seemed like, even though we’re kind of in an isolated place up here, for someone like me who I guess was naturally creative, I felt like I got plenty of encouragement and I could really run with it.
What advice would you have for students who want to pursue a creative life like yours and might want to come back and play at a coffeehouse ten years from now?
For me, I just tried to play as much as possible. I’d go to open mics as much as possible—they had one over in the town of Hamilton, I don’t know where else they have them right now though. I would just take any chance that I got to play—I played in my room, I played for my friends and I listened to songs I liked on cassettes and tried to learn them. Just play as much as you can. I think the important thing is to follow what feels true to you creatively, and what inspires you, because you need to stay true to yourself. When you have a professional career as a creative person, a lot of people around you are going to start telling you what you should do, and what you should change. It’s ok to listen to it, but the most important thing is that it feels true to you, because it should feed your soul.
What’s your songwriting process like?
It varies a lot. I try to journal, I try to be writing all the time. But often to get anything really good out of it I have to be focused on writing for a couple weeks straight, and then more stuff worth keeping comes out. Again, it varies. Sometimes I hear a melody first and sometimes the guitar—I almost never have lyrics first. They always seem to come after.
Do you have any plans to go back to Japan? I heard you played some huge shows over there.
Yeah, there’s a huge festival over there called Fujirock and they put me on after Foo Fighters and before Sonic Youth! I was introduced in Japanese as “the promoter’s secret weapon!”
Did you get to hang out with Sonic Youth at all after the show?
Yeah, I talked to them a little bit. And I talked to Dave Grohl, it was a cool festival. Also I was just in Ireland last month, I go over to Europe a few times a year. So yeah, I get around.
Do you have plans after this album, or are you just taking it slow and enjoying it all?
I have goals, and I’m trying to just enjoy it. I’ve been doing this now for awhile, and one thing I’ve noticed is that you might get a ton of attention for one album and not for the next one, so I’m trying to stay focused on my goals so that I never feel like I’m too far off the path. I’ve been in Austin for five years now, and I’m starting to work and play gigs and sing with a lot of artists down there, and I think
I’ll do some writing with some of those people. There are just some amazing, amazing songwriters in Austin and in Texas, so I’m trying to explore that scene a little more. We already start recording for the next album soon, and we’re actually going to start releasing a song per month starting in November. If people are interested they can check out my website at jessklein.com and see what we’re getting into.