LEAP & the net will appear…
After seven years of getting snarled up and stalled out in a couple of record deals, Jeremy had come to a crossroads. More like a dead end, if you asked him. He had given his all to a music career and he was sick of hitting the wall. Battered and beaten down he was ready to just quit. And he almost did. But then something happened…
“I stopped writing at the beginning of 2011,” recalls Jeremy, about the pivotal decision that ultimately changed his life. “That was my New Year’s resolution, to stop writing for awhile. Because since I got to this town, when I had my first record deal, my publishing deal, my management deal, all everybody said was, ‘Just keep writing.’ Because that’s really where the most money is made and where you’ve got the most likelihood to get picked up. But I was writing just to write. There was no process. I found myself sitting in a room sometimes with writers I didn’t even know, writing about shit I didn’t care about. And that’s when I knew I was on the wrong path.”
After languishing in limbo in a development deal at one label, then releasing a promising but often overlooked independent release on a second, Jeremy found himself burnt out of the entire process. So he took a big step back and a long hard look at what he was doing and who he had become and wasn’t entirely happy with what he saw.
“I was over it…I was done. It just wasn’t fun anymore. And obviously this is a business, but it’s something I’ve done my entire life. The most frustrating thing I’ve ever felt is wanting to work and not being able or allowed to, whether it be contracts or political red tape it was devastatingly frustrating for me. So I got to a point where I said screw it, I don’t need it.”
Ready to chuck his lifelong dream and throw in the towel, Jeremy suddenly remembered something another artist had said to him along the way that stuck with him, and the words rang true. “This town either makes you bitter or it makes you better”. After a writing session I just realized that I needed to make a conscious decision to get better. Because I knew I didn’t want to be the guy in this town who’s bitching about everything & everyone and that’s what started the process of wanting to make ‘Leap.’’
Deciding to make an album completely on his own but unsure of how to proceed with no major label backing or safety net, Jeremy found some major support from an unexpected place — his fans. Discovering the website Kickstarter.com, a site where donors pledge funds to help support artistic endeavors, he appealed to his fans directly and quickly raised more than enough money to begin making his dream project. Thanks to his fans, Jeremy also discovered a newfound love and joy for making music again.
“I was worried the site was kind of panhandling a little bit, or begging for money,” admits Jeremy. “But once I looked into and saw people who had used it, like Colin Hanks, who funded a huge documentary the creator of Tower Records, I saw it was reputable, I realized it wasn’t so much asking your fans to give you money — it was more allowing your fans to be part of the project from top to bottom.”
Once the funds for the project were secured, Jeremy traveled to Spartanburg, SC, (where he made his debut CD, MY SIDE OF TOWN) to work once again with his friends Rusty Milner and Tim Lawter, former members of the Marshall Tucker Band. He also sat behind the board for the first time ever, producing the EP and involving himself in every single aspect of it, which he found invigorated him like never before.
“I think it stoked a fire within me not only to go make the absolute best record I could with the best songs I’d written, but it reignited me to continue to want to do this. The whole process has been completely different from beginning to end really and I think I’m finally in a groove with who I am with this record.”
And now I’m not afraid to talk about love, I’m not afraid to be happy. When I made my last album I was still young as an artist and I didn’t want to make waves. I wasn’t comfortable completely baring it out there, whether it be love, or sex, or alcohol, or prescription medication, I don’t care what. I just finally got to a place where I feel comfortable with who I am and the music that I make- that all came about from the fans validating what we’re doing by funding this record
Looking at the Album he’s always wanted to make and worked for years to finally bring to fruition, Jeremy can be proud of the long, arduous journey he’s made from that kid back in Post Falls, Idaho strumming his guitar and watching his Dad perform in the nightclubs to the unfettered artist he is today. But even now, it’s tough for the hardworking entertainer to rest and be at peace with his accomplishments — a trait he learned from his father and his father’s father before him that still hangs over everything he does.
“Just sitting in the producer’s chair in front of the board and hearing it come together was completely surreal, because you doubt yourself. I doubt myself around every corner and think, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing,’ but you just find out that if you take a deep breath and relax and let it happen, it’ll happen. I couldn’t have done all of this on the first record, because I second-guessed everything. I’ve always said nobody will be harder on me than me…it comes from my dad. He’s the hardest worker I know and I’ve always said, No one will out work me, I never want to let down my fans..”
With a project made directly with help from the fans, for the fans, and inspired by the love of the fans, it’s not likely to happen. The album is certainly a labor of love, start to finish and whether it sells a hundred thousand or a handful, Jeremy can rest easy knowing he’s gained much more than he ventured just through the process alone. The set of wings he built on his way down from this amazing leap of faith will likely take him soaring to heights he never even imagined before his career is through.
“The album title is LEAP and the net will appear and I just kind of feel like that’s exactly what is happening. You get to the point where you’re on top of the building and you’re looking down and eventually you’ve just got to jump. I feel like now I‘m more apt to say screw it, let’s do it, no inhibitions, balls to the wall — and I think that whatever you’re doing, whether you’re in the military, or an inventor, or whatever, if you’ve got something that you’re passionate about, and you really believe in it, jump, you know? Who gives a shit? The only people who are gonna talk down about it are the people who are too afraid to do it themselves.
“There comes a moment of truth I think where you look at the reality of the picture you’re looking at, with this record I had literally a handful of people or less industry-wise behind me who said, ‘I’m there, I get your vision, it’s a great idea, I want to see it through.’ Then we put it out to the fans, and they were all behind it. They were all in – and that was the most inspiring thing to me. It makes me a little emotional thinking about it because we had people who donated hundreds of hundreds of dollars for a record. And if it wasn’t for every fan who came on and donated a dollar or a thousand dollars, that’s what made it. It reenergized me as an artist, as a person, as a music lover, as a fan. And it comes down to, it makes me feel like the small kid in school again, that’s what I’m enjoying the most right now. Because I feel scrappy again. I feel like I want back in it, and you just put it all out there and swing for the fences, you know? It all just comes down to one word – LEAP, that word really encompasses everything.”
LEAP & the net will appear is Now Available Digitally on Itunes and Many other Outlets, You can also order it through Jeremymccomb.com
