supersonic
Artist Information
Biography
Jason Lee McKinney has been the “next big thing” since he started writing and recording music, but life has always intervened: now, McKinney is writing about that life, and it is more real and powerful than ever. He is the type of musician who is becoming the face of the new music business: a vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter. He has been signed to two major record
deals with two different bands—SpinAround and Lost Anthem—and worked with music legends such as Tommy Sims (Garth Brooks, Bruce Springsteen, and Eric Clapton). He has played over 1,500 shows, released five full-length albums and two EPs, and had four moderate hits on three different charts.
In fact, it is hard to imagine that with as much as he has worked and recorded, McKinney is not a household name yet. However, in 2006 while Lost Anthem was recording a new album, McKinney suffered two of life's biggest losses on the heels of
each other: first, his father died of cancer; and then, his high school sweetheart and wife of fourteen years filed for divorce. It seemed like the music left him, too. For the first time since the age of ten McKinney was not involved with music— he did not sing, he didn’t play, he didn’t write, he didn’t even listen. About a year after the divorce, however, he was going through his father's records when he stumbled upon a stack of old Bob
Seger albums. “I was reminded that I knew every word to every song,” he says. “Bob wrote about the human condition, common experiences everyone faces and appeals to people from all walks of life for the long haul.” He wrote off this epiphany moment as a fluke, but he kept listening to the music of his childhood— Seger, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings— opening the door wide enough for music to come back to him. If vinyl was the gateway drug, going back to the radio was the hard
stuff. For the first time in two years, McKinney began listening to contemporary music, and discovered that while he was settling things in his own life, contemporary country radio had become something for which he had an ear. Though he had heard and appreciated artists like Keith Urban and Pat Green before, he had not yet realized the impact it would have on his own writing. Soon after, a friend of his, Scott Faircloth (songwriter and producer for Lifehouse), convinced him to sit down and write. “Scott asked me if I had written about the divorce and I told him, 'I haven't written
about anything.’ Scott challenged me to just write whatever would come out and not think about selling records or radio, or demographics, just frigging write from the heart, from the
pain, from the soul. So I just simply poured out my heart with him at the piano and me frantically writing and singing. Literally five minutes later the song was done and we were both in
tears,” McKinney recalls. That experience still wasn't enough for him to fully commit to music again, but after several music industry people heard the song and had the same stunned tears reaction— he decided to stop fighting who he was and dive back in. “I just came to the realization that it is in me, for better or worse like a marriage, music— performing and being creative is just who I am.” It was then that McKinney began to methodically, cathartically, and honestly tell his story in song. Though he had been writing for years and had a reputation as an articulate and clever lyricist as well as being a master of the hook melody, his writing had always been missing his story, his heart, and now it was there. For the first time, McKinney was bleeding on the page.
By facing his losses and demons on the page, McKinney is able to write relatable music. His passion and energy is a perfect foil for his down-to-earth songs: it is hard to imagine anyone listening to “June 7th,” about his divorce, without getting a lump in their throat. The song starts, “It was the 7th of the sixth month when my world stopped spinning/ When you said that you don’t love me anymore/ We swore that we would hold on, so I didn’t see it coming/ And I guess I really still don’t understand,” and his hurt is palpable. By being so specific with his lyrics, McKinney opens his
heart up to the audience while still writing a song everyone who has ever loved and lost can identify with. Likewise, more laid-back songs like “Middle of Nowhere” are about growing up in the Midwest, and would fit in on any contemporary radio station—“Born on the Westside of a Midwest town/ Indiana boy without a doubt/ Raised on the banks of the Ohio/ skippin' rocks to see how far they’d go” evokes more than just his own memories, these are the shared childhoods of Midwesterners.
He also talks about touring and the blessing and curse that music can be in “Strangers, Stages, and Cheap Hotels,”
with lyrics “ I fell for the one mistress who don’t share/ she gives me strangers, stages and cheap hotels” and writes about new beginnings on songs like “Better the Second Time,” with lyrics like, “Every now and then you get a second chance/ Someone comes along that makes you want to live again,” which make it obvious that McKinney is taking the pain of the path of all he’s learned in his life and moving forward. He is ready to leave his permanent mark on the music industry.
Instrumentation
Discography
Don't Deny The Proof (single)
Hwy 41 (single)
Sounds Like me (single)
Strangers,Stages, Cheap Hotels (EP)
Official Website
http://www.jasonleemckinneymusic.com
Links
Photo Gallery
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Horz1looksTwit
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Strangers Album cover
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Promo Shot
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Promo Shot
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In the crowd
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Packed House
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working the crowd
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JasonLeeMcKinney_Poster
Download print quality (high-res) version (Right Click -> Save As)
Press
Setlist
KEITH URBAN
Who Wouldn’t Want To Be Me
Good in My Shirt
Tonight I Wanna Cry
KENNY CHESNEY
Don’t Happen Twice
CHRIS CAGLE
What Kinda Gone
BRAD PAISLEY
Start A Band w/Keith Urban
Welcome To The Future
I’m Gonna Miss Her
JACK INGRAM
Barefoot and Crazy
TIM MCGRAW
Something Like That
GEORGE STRAIT
Troubadour
RANDY HOUSER
Boots On
ZAC BROWN
Chicken Fried
Free
BLAKE SHELTON
All About Tonight
GARY ALLAN
Airplanes
Nothin' on but the Radio
Get Off On The Pain
JAKE OWENS
Don’t Think I Can’t Love You
DIERKS BENTLEY
Sideways
Feel That Fire
JOE NICHOLS
Give Me That Girl
DARIUS RUCKER
Alright
LADY ANTEBELLUM
Love Don't Live Here
BROOKS & DUNN
Red Dirt Road
ELI YOUNG / WALLFLOWERS
Always the Love Songs (6th Avenue Heartache)
ROB THOMAS
Diamonds
JASON ALDEAN
The Truth
She’s Country
Country
Crazy Town
ERIC CHURCH
Hell On The Heart
JAMES OTTO
Just Got Started
GARTH BROOKS
Friends in Low Places
More than a Memory
HANK WILLIAMS JR.
Family Tradition
WILLIE NELSON
Whiskey River
JOHNNY CASH
Boy Named Sue
WAYLON JENNINGS
Luckenbach Texas
GEORGE JONES
He Stopped Loving Her Today
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON
Sunday Morning Coming Down
CLAY WALKER
She Won’t Be Lonely
KISS
Rock and Roll All Nite
JOAN JETT
I Love Rock-n-Roll
BRYAN ADAMS
Summer of 69
MARSHALL TUCKER BAND
Can’t You See
BIG & RICH
Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy
JIMMY BUFFETT
Another Saturday Night
Margaritaville
Pirate Looks at 40
LS & WARREN ZEVON
Sweet Home Alabama / Werewolves in London
BOB SEGER
Hollywood Nights
Night Moves
Old Time Rock and Roll
JOHN MAYER
Free Falling
THE BAND
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
38 SPECIAL
Caught Up In You
JOURNEY
Don't Stop Believin'
JOHN WAITE
Missin' You
NEW RADICALS
You Get What You Give
CHEAP CHICK
I want you to want me
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
Glory Days
JOHN MELLENCAMP
Jack and Diane
TOM PETTY
Don't Do Me Like That
STEVE MILLER BAND
Take The Money And Run
THE EAGLES
Heart Ache Tonight (7 Bridges Road)
J GEILS BAND
Centerfold
ROB THOMAS / SANTANA
Smooth
WAR
Low Rider
TRADITIONAL IRISH SONG
Wild Rose
TOMMY TUTONE
867-5309
BLACK CROWES
Remedy
HOOTIE & THE BLOWFISH
Let Her Cry
JAMEY JOHNSON
In Color
JASON MCKINNEY
Firefly
Jimmy Buffett
Passenger Side
Barstool Fellowship
That'll Preach
Strangers, Stages, Cheap Hotels
Lord Knows
Middle of Nowhere
Better the 2nd Time
June 7th
Sounds Like Me
Highway 41
Don’t Deny The Proof