‘Old Westerns and Western music are some of my favourite works of storytelling for their luscious sounds and vistas, emotionally driven narratives and their sweeping dramatic sequence. All of those things I sought to capture with this album’ explains Nathan Jacques in the press release for his latest album, DARK WANDERER and the BOUNTY HEART. In many ways, paying homage to the classic singing cowboys of yesteryear and with a previous career in the film industry, Jacques’ music exploring the cowboy concept is a thing he feels truly drawn to rather than market-driven. The album arrives when other like-minded artists like Charley Crockett, Kaitlin Butts and Orville Peck have also cleverly used videos to promote and breathe new life into their recordings. Jacques’ passion and love for his work was palpable when we recently spoke with him.
You are currently living in Los Angeles but from Massachusetts?
I'm originally from Massachusetts in the New England area and moved to Los Angeles to work in the film industry. That didn't stick, and I've always been doing music and loved it a lot, so I got back to it and haven't looked back.
What was your earliest introduction to country music?
I grew up hearing a lot of my parent's music around the house and in the car when I was young. Country and folk music, which I didn't necessarily gravitate to right away, but when I got to the point that I was making music, it just naturally came back to me. It's nice playing music that you grew up being exposed to. There is power in finding music you like, but it also feels very true and wholesome to return to music that you remember hearing so much as a child, which was very impressionable.
What was your 'go-to' music at that time?
Varying forms and degrees of intensity of rock and roll. The classic rock genre of AC/DC and distorted guitar sounds of the 70s, from there, I moved into punk stuff and the pop-punk scene. I also had an interest in the heavier metal scene that was prominent in New England. I was playing in pop/rock bands at that time. I could never really sing high enough to fit that genre, and when I started making my own music, I found that my voice was more suited to folk and country styles.
Where did your love of Western-themed music come from?
That came from my deep love of film. I've been exposed to movies and television, literature and narrative storytelling all my life. My family was very much into all that, and I quickly latched on to it. I grew up watching Western movies with my father a lot and became very familiar with that form of storytelling and the heroes' journeys in those movies. I love how connected music and movies are and always had a deep interest in writing cinematically. Hollywood westerns and the music industry are a wonderful collision, and I've always wanted to play in that space. I'm running with it and making it my own now.
Your new record, DARK WANDERER and the BOUNTY HEART, follows a similar theme to LOUD MIND from 2021.
It's technically a sequel to LOUD MIND with the same characters and a continuation of that story. They're both concept records; now it's one bigger story if you dive into it. I don't know how to write not in concept, and I wanted to take that story and expand it, breathe new life into it, and give it a conclusion. Make the world a bit bigger and put a bookend on the story. I rallied with many of my film friends to help make it more visual, and that turned out to be a very exciting and rewarding experience, which was the initial goal.
Tell me about the recording process for the new album.
This record took a long time; I started writing it around the time that LOUD MIND came out in 2021. The full band foundational recordings happened in February 2023, so it all took a couple of years. We actually started making the record and scrapped it halfway through the process. It just wasn't working, and we had to go back to the drawing board and start again. We had made LOUD MIND in a 'paint by numbers' way, writing the songs, recording the scratch tracks, bringing in the drummer on top of that, and building everything piece by piece. We started doing the same thing with the new record, but it felt very inorganic, and it wasn't exciting and wasn't working. I realised that I had this amazing band as I was staring a gift horse in the mouth because I wasn't putting us all in a room and just playing the songs, which was foolish. So, I took about six months building the record as a group rather than trying to do it all on my own. I just brought the songs to the band and asked them to make an epic western record together as a band.
The interludes that precede each song are both exciting and timeless.
My producer, Ed Donnelly, should take most of the credit for them. I wrote the baselines and guitar parts and got the foundation going for them. Ed took that and ran with it, arranging the orchestral parts that were very purposely heavy-handed and homages to Morricone and John Williams. We wanted the listener to feel that even though they were not looking at visuals, they felt that they were listening to the soundtrack to a movie. We worked with the wonderful mixer Jordan Koop to make them sound like they were heavily aged recordings from the 1950s.
Your vocal style suits the country and Western genre.
That's my natural voice. I haven't had much training. Growing up, I tried to sing in bands but didn't start singing seriously until I started these projects. I've been developing my vocals over the past number of years for these records, and I've tried to have character and personality in my voice, and it's not 'put on.' That's my natural voice.
Is the album title a pointer toward Nathan Jacques' alter ego?
Definitely, I play an alternative historical version of myself. I'm playing off what Elvis, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers used to do. Especially Elvis, who would make those often-silly movies that would have the companion record, 'Get GI Blues, the soundtrack, six more songs than are in the movie.' I always loved the marketing and imagery that went with that, it was fun. Nathan Jacques is the fictional, unsuccessful, weird and convoluted singing cowboy movie star who is not very well received. From the start, I wanted to make the record like the counterpart and a reverse marketing thing for this big movie that you will never see. I find that concept fun even though the concept of the record is dark, really sad and heartbreaking. I wanted to pair that with a lighter visual world concept that could be more approachable for people consuming it and also for me. It's also a love letter to a part of Western history, Hollywood and filmmaking.
You have created a number of videos to support the album, which is a natural addition to the project.
Yes, that was important for me. Fortunately, I have a wonderful core group of friends with whom I've made some videos for the album. I could do more, but we had pretty clear visions from the start of what we wanted to do and have achieved that.
Can you recreate the album's sound at your live shows?
It would be difficult to recreate the album's sound without such a kickass band. I play with the best musicians I've come across in my life; they are wild and make my job so easy. Not all artists have the privilege of recreating what they do on records, and we don't try to play exactly like the records, but we have a hell of a time expressing what we do in the studio in the live setting.
How are audiences responding to the shows, and does a particular age profile attend?
A healthy mix; it all depends on where we are playing. My matrix is across the board age profile-wise. There has been an explosion of country music in the last two years in Los Angeles, you can pretty much go to see live country music every night of the week here. The resurgence of country and Western music is hitting all demographics, including a younger audience. The pop and radio country music probably also helps a lot, which I'm not too partial to, but it can also eventually bring people into country and western.
The profile of country music has been expanding in recent years, which is refreshing.
Yes, I think about it in two categories; there is that pop/country that is cultured to hip/hop often, and the more traditional side like Charley Crockett, Sierra Ferrell and Tyler Childers. They are the two zones, and then there is this middle zone where I fondly put Sturgill Simpson, who, for me, is one of the biggest keys to this resurgence. He lives in that middle point which dances between genres, not necessarily going to the pop side and yet not entirely traditional country. Sturgill's A SAILORS'S GUIDE TO EARTH is one of my favourite records, it's like a funk/soul record and is very inspiring, and I intend to try and live in that space. I find that space very liberating, where you can swim between the aspects of a funky country sound.
Interview by Declan Culliton. Photograph by Alexander Karavay