Waiting For Jimmy
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Waiting For Jimmy

Band Alternative Folk

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"Fans no longer ‘Waiting for Jimmy’"

Local band Waiting for Jimmy reached
the musical big leagues when their EP,
“Before We Lose It All,” was released
in mid-December by Jason McEntire,
producer/engineer for Ludo, Ha Ha Tonka,
and Son Volt. Now, they have an even
bigger deadline—the release of their first
full-length album.
“We are calling it ‘Year One of This
Four Year Fight,’ basically chronicling the
advances we made in what we consider
our first real full year at giving Waiting
for Jimmy the attention necessary to
have success,” Jada Ryan Grindstaff, lead
vocalist/guitar player and OTHS alum,
said.
The album will feature four pianoheavy
songs with “Cold War Kids” sound
man and instrumentalist David Beeman,
four favorites from their EP, a few from
producer Ryan Hahn that have a relaxed,
haunting feel to them, and six tracks the
band recorded at 12bar Studios with
producer Travis King, who also played
stand up bass.
“I’m not sure what to expect. The new
songs are more raw than the ones on ‘Before
We Lose it All.’ A few have a more rock-’n’-
roll feel. Some tell great stories,” Bill Kaus,
backup vocalist and guitarist, said.
Drummer Tim Blaylock expands his
musical repertoire, playing the dulcimer,
a lap mountain guitar, on some tracks
and shows growth in both comfort and
inventiveness on the drum set, while Kaus
plays more electric guitar than on the
previous EP.
Although fans can expect a shift from
melancholy ballads to up beat tunes, the
lyrics will continue to focus on the everyday
troubles of living in the Midwest.
“The Midwest always seemed to us
to have a very different feel and a very
different set of troubles than the otherAmerica that we have lived.
California is much too fast, the weather
too consistent, for example. What do they
know about having ten of your thirty high
school baseball games rained out? That’s a
Midwest trouble,” Grindstaff said.
“As a young man, I was faced with
internal questions about who I was and
where I wanted to be. Was I a city boy?
Or a country boy? O’Fallon isn’t far from
the bright lights of St. Louis, and we had
the best of both worlds. Do I stay here and
go to college and marry my high school
sweetheart, or do I venture off to see things
that would never make their way to the
middle of America?”
Grindstaff is currently stationed in
Iraq and won’t return in time for the
CD’s release. Still, he helps with Waiting
for Jimmy’s marketing and design while
Blaylock and Kaus finish the production
in St. Louis. Their fans have a lot to look
forward to.
“Waiting For Jimmy has well-crafted
songs and a voice that howls with honesty.
With simple, yet thoughtful musicianship,
it suits each song well. The storytelling is
superb, like a rural highway through the
artists’ life and the big city glowing in the
rearview mirror. When you arrive to your
destination, you realize it was the trip
that really meant something so you keep
driving,” McEntire said.
Still, don’t expect them to turn into your
average rock stars. They can’t stand them.
Waiting for Jimmy just wants to be rich
enough to have their families in one place
and “float the Mississippi River on a raft
all the way to the ocean without getting in
trouble,” Grindstaff said.
“As for myself, I’d buy a big buck hunter
machine. I don’t really know what else I
want. Maybe some new guitars. My car is a
little beat up, but I like it just the way it is,”
Kaus added.
- OTHS Prowler


Discography

maybe this is all i've got EP(Aug08)
Before We Lose It All EP(Nov08)

Before we lose it all is available in streaming format on numerous internet radio station including napster, thesixtyone.com, and others.

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Bio

Waiting for Jimmy started in the St Louis area in 2002 and have been steadily playing together ever since. Their first official studio work was self released in November 2008 and recorded at Sawhorse Studios with critically acclaimed St Louis producer Jason Mcentire(LUDO, Ha Ha Tonka, Son Volt, Magnolia Summer, Destiny's Child). Jada Ryan(songwriter, lead vocals) has spent 6 years enlisted in the US army as a paratrooper and served two tours in Iraq, and the imagery and emotion behind the experience of war has fueled the songwriting of wfj for years. Their full length album is slated for release in Feb 09, once again with Mcentire at the helm. 2009 has seen them share the bill with David Allan Coe, Sponge, and Marcy Playground. Quickly gaining steam as one of the promising acts to hail from the St Louis area.