Up and coming artist Jordan Fletcher has recently released a slew of new singles, including ‘Firebird’ and ‘Rather Be Broke.’ Here, we interview Jordan about the inspiration behind the different singles and what’s next.
Hi Jordan, how are you?
I’m doing well.
This has been a completely mental few months for you, so, how are you feeling after everything that’s happened?
Oh, my gosh, it has been insane. I mean, it all started about a year ago, at the beginning of 2021/December 2020. I got a bunch of people on the team – management, record, label and all that stuff – all this stuff fell into place. My head’s been spinning. We were locked inside and then suddenly it was like ‘okay, everything’s happening’. It was a lot to process.
Then, obviously you’ve released the project ‘True Stories,’ can you talk a bit about the process of putting that together and what it means to you? It’s so authentic and honest and it’s such a stunning project.
Thank you, so it is an autobiography. It’s the beginning of a full album, we’re going to finish recording the last few songs in March – so we’re buttoning that up. I mean, it kind of came out of necessity, when COVID hit and quarantine happened. I was kind of in a spot where I thought we might have to move back to Florida – that’s where my wife and I are from. Obviously, I’ve gotten to do a lot of stuff to this point, but I hadn’t had anything that was directly for my son, you know? While I was in town and with the best writers in the world, I thought ‘why don’t I try and put together something that means something to him’. My dad passed when I was young and then having my own son and – I’m not trying to be morbid – but thinking ‘if something happens to me, what is he going to want to know?’ I’m 27 but I’m still trying to learn stuff about my dad, so it came out of necessity. I’m thankful for the way the songs have come out, they’re my favourite songs that I’ve been a part of so far.
I know it’s for your son but I think there are so many stories which other people can give to their kids. There’s a lot of universal themes in there.
I didn’t know if it was going to have any mass appeal at all, because I’m so specific with everything and it’s so factual in my life – you don’t know if people are going to relate to that. The first time I realised that people might actually relate is when I did that acoustic version of Firebird. When I first did that on Instagram, I got all these messages like ‘oh, man, that reminds me of my grandma’s or uncle’s specific car.’ What I found is that people were able to insert themselves into this story, because they felt the truth in it and that was so powerful to me, because I didn’t expect it to be honest.
I think it’s also the kind of double edged thing that they can read themselves into it, but also they feel like they know you better as an artist and a human being because you’ve had that specificity in the approach to the songwriting. Can you talk a little bit about that track because it’s definitely a standout for me on the on the EP?
Yeah, I mean I said a lot of it in the song but my dad got sick when I was nine. He was sick for about two and a half years and he passed when I was 11. In that time when he was sick, he retired and one of the things that he did with his time off before he got really, really bad was he bought this old Firebird from some guy in Keystone Heights, Florida, which is south of Jacksonville. It became a project car, it had all these problems. I mean, it ran good. I mean it’s a cool car and I’m glad I have it. If you’ve ever worked on an old car, it always has problems and it’s always gonna be something you’d have to work on. It’s always breaking, something’s wrong with it all the time. The song came out of the humour of the fact that I thought, if my dad was around, he wasn’t the kind of guy that would hold on to this money pit – if he was still around, he would have sold it. I’m never gonna get rid of it, no matter if it’s a pain in the butt or not – that’s what the song’s about. It’s all the memories that I had with him. It’s bittersweet.
I know you worked with Dave Cobb, who’s obviously a legend, how did that partnership happen and what did he bring to the project?
I was very surprised, because the label brought up me potentially working with Dave Cobb, as something they wanted to do for the whole album. I hadn’t planned to do that, but they brought that up, and I didn’t know that was even an option. He is very selective about who he worked with. I said, ‘if he’s into it, yeah, for sure.’ We met at RCA studio, I couldn’t believe it, I’d never walked into Studio A before and they were like ‘he’s interested in your songs. He likes what you do.’ He opens up and is like ‘man, come on in’. We just sit down and talk about where we grew up, what our musical influences are – that whole thing. Meanwhile, he’s sitting in this corner, and behind him are these life size plaques of platinum Chris Stapleton albums, it was surreal. The whole process was surreal – it was a very unique, very raw, live recording.
Well the lyrics are so thoughtful and intentional that you don’t want that to be drowned out by too much noise.
Yeah, the whole album is bare bones. It’s cool to get to see someone like that work, because in his own field he’s got such an artistic and creative vision. The way it works is that you walk in and he hasn’t heard the song before – you play it for him acoustically and he doesn’t listen to any other recording and as you’re playing, he’ll go, ‘Hey, can you change that, let’s add a bar here’. My mind was blown and then within 30 minutes, you’re recording the final product. It’s insane.
Well, the project’s incredible. You also did your Opry debut last month, which is another of those big checklist items.
I said on stage that it sounds weird to say but playing the Opry wasn’t a dream of mine, because it’d be like ‘Guys, I want to be President of the United States one day.’ It’s the greatest honour you could have for someone like me in my industry. I think there’s something about it, because it’s so particular to country and I always feel like unless you’re like honed in to the country music scene, it just doesn’t make any sense how important the legacy of the Opry is.
One of my best friends from high school texted me and he goes, Hey, man, what’s an Opry? I said, ‘It’s the Grand Ole Opry’. He goes, I wish those extra words meant something to me, I have no idea what that is. It was such a weird thing for someone I grew up with to have no idea what that was. It was the pinnacle of anything you could do, it’s the greatest thing.
It is the greatest thing. I know that you referenced that you had thought about moving back to Florida, but how has being in Nashville impacted your songwriting?
I didn’t really start writing songs until I moved here, to be honest. I have a unique relationship with songwriting in the fact that I’ve only had a professional relationship with it, the environment that I learned how to write in was this environment. I think it’s such a big deal, because I look at it just like you would look at grad school or some sort of degree, because it’s the highest skill level in my field. It was so important for me, because I was kind of like a sponge the whole time – whether it was with songwriting or with touring and being on the road. All you had to do was just keep your eyes and ears open, because it was all around.
To this day, I’m getting very comfortable with my voice and my style. I’m so thankful that I’m around people who are so much better than me at what we do, it’s a blessing because I get to continually just feed off them. Being in those rooms with people who keeps pushing us to be better.
I always say as a rule of thumb, if you can help it be the least talented person in the room at all times – if you can take the ego hit, this humility of knowing you’re the least qualified or whatever. People are just really gracious with the information they give you and that’s helped me a ton.
You talked about the songs being a part of a longer project, so what are you envisioning for that?
So, I don’t know dates specifically. I know we’re finishing the last few songs in a month from now. As far as the release is concerned, it’s hard to say because there’s so many things with the label – Triple Tigers are rockstars, they’re so good with radio, they’re so good with development and all that stuff. that. You just never know what the right move is – that could be that we try and get it out at the end of this year or we run a song to radio at the end of this year and wait till the beginning of next year, it’s hard to say exactly. I do know that the project will be getting buttoned up here shortly, and then we’ll just figure out what the best move is to get it out there.
Well we can’t wait to hear it when it does come out! Thanks for your time today.
