Jade Jackson

Jade Jackson is a young singer-songwriter from a small town in central California with a talent for conveying an emotional intensity well beyond her years. With parents who abstained from the modern distractions of computers and television, and a local downtown boasting less than a block of stores, Jackson’s childhood fascination focused solely on her father’s record collection.  Inspired by the music of Johnny Cash, George Jones and Hank Williams, she picked up a guitar and began writing songs at 13. By the time she was 14 Jackson was already performing live. While in her teens, she found influence in the evocative sounds of The Cure, The Gun Club, Echo and the Bunnymen and The Smiths. The otherwise cheerful teenager was soon attracting a local fan-base with a sad and immensely beautiful sound. “I just really love sad songs,” Jackson says. “I’ve always been a happy person. Maybe it’s because I get it out in my music. And it probably has to do with all of the Hank Williams I listened to growing up.”

Waiting tables at the family restaurant, Jackson was able to self record two albums worth of material while still a teenager. Upon attending the prestigious Cal Arts college outside of Los Angeles, her sphere of influence was exponentially expanded to include the sounds of Tom Waits, Bob Dylan and Emmylou Harris, acclaimed songwriter Jason Isbell (Drive By Truckers), classic cowpunks Tex & the Horseheads, MazzyStar and California punk rock and rollers Social Distortion. When it came time to form a band, Jackson chose to enlist a cadre of talented musicians she knew from back home on the Central Coast. The lineup includes guitarist Andrew Rebel, bassist Jake Vukovich and drummer Tyler Miller. “This is a real band,” she declares. “And they’re also my best friends.” Jackson has so far shared stages with such prominent artists as Merle Haggard, Rosie Flores, Dwight Yokam, The White Buffalo, Phil Vassar and others. The group is soon to be in the studio recording with Mike Ness of Social Distortion serving as producer. Ness calls Jackson “a twenty three year old with the voice of an old soul” and “one of the most prolific songwriters I’ve met” before adding, “When I first heard the songs she recorded I told myself, I have to be involved with this!”