Jackson Dean came out of the chute hot. Selling out bars around the same Maryland stompin’ grounds that gave the world the Brothers Osborne while still in high school, the free spirit wasn’t looking for fame as he made his way through the music business.
Dean found his way to Nashville via California where after interest from a string of labels in Music City, but it was Scott Borchetta and Big Machine Records where he found his new home. Earlier this year, we were treated to his Luke Dick produced major label debut “Greenbroke” (available HERE) which all ten tracks were co-written by Dean and he shared more details about when we recently caught up with him over Zoom after he had just spent some time back at home before returning to Nashville. “I had a private show back home. I went home for about a week and a half, it will kind of be the last time that I will be there like that until Christmas. I had a couple of days off, played with my nephew and nieces, saw a bunch of family and then woke up yesterday to beat feet all the way back here. We’re heading out at three o’clock today to Indiana to play a show with Darius Rucker.”
This is an exciting time for Jackson as he looks to share Greenbroke to as wide an audience as possible across the summer which is looking really busy with a number of US festivals and a run of shows opening for Lee Brice. “We’ve got stuff booked out until pretty much the week before Christmas that we’re holding to announce but the schedule is full of shows and that’s the way that I want it. I got exactly what I asked for and I couldn’t be happier on that front. The shows with Lee are about to kick back off next month, which have been really awesome with great sized rooms then we still have all the Country Thunder things, Tidal Wave, Faster Horses and a couple of others. We’re just taking it to the people this year and we’re going to do the same thing next year which hopefully next year will be even bigger.” As for this project, whilst he has released music before this becomes his first imprint being able to reach such a wide audience which was all written and created since he moved to Nashville over the last couple of years. “Well, there’s ten songs on the record and the first five: Don’t Come Lookin’, Fearless, Love You Anymore, Don’t Take Much and Wings were done, it happened a year apart so the first five were done and we put those out, then we waited a minute, wrote some more tunes and went back in to finish it about a year later. I knew it wasn’t done with just the first five because that is what I got signed off of, it was like a taste and there would be more to make this whole thing. All in all, it was about two and a half years of getting everything there to have everything done for it, but it took my whole life to dream it and now, it’s like I have six months to write the next one! I have enough songs to probably put out another two records, but I think every single song on that record were songs that I wrote when I got here to Nashville.
For “Greenbroke” itself as the projects title, the word is primarily an equine term which Jackson explained the meaning and how it relates to his story along with why this song was the best fit as the title track for the album. “You’re right, Greenbroke comes from horses. You get a broke horse that will do what you want and a green broke horse that you can ride for maybe a couple of minutes but it’s not going to do what you want it to do, it’s unpredictable, it still hasn’t been fully domesticated. It’s still wild and probably not going to be fully domesticated. That song is my story and I wanted that to be the title track because I knew it was never going to be on the radio, it’s just too long but I wanted it to be like it’s composing this thing and putting a big old intro in it that’s really reaching for stuff. It was everything that I felt in here and it was also singular. All the songs stand alone, there’s not really two songs the same on there and I know that some of the playing or some of the words are a bit far out there on it, but I felt that Greenbroke was the most reflective of that. It’s buttoned up nice as one word and one thing to get the message across. Like I said I knew it was never going to be on the record so I wanted to title to be something that wouldn’t be going to radio to show the general theme. It looks a big word, and it is, visually I wanted things to match that. But yeah, it’s about never losing your wild!” “Greenbroke” had the heavy footprint of Luke Dick over the record amongst a couple of the writing credits (Jackson himself co-wrote all ten tracks on the record) and as the producer of the album. “I got with Luke through Arturo (Buenahora Jr.) as I’m signed to Little Outer Music, so we met through him. We started working together and writing songs a couple of years ago, where we kind of hit it off as we dig a lot of the same things, like a lot of the same music and we’re just two big blonde dudes that can get along. I love his brain, he’s been a great sensei to me, I mean the man was a philosophy professor in New York and is just uber smart. I had never hung with anyone like that, and he was like you’re pretty cool too. I lived off Luke Dick demos for a while, they didn’t sound like anyone else’s in town, and I was like why don’t we make some more noise and do a record? He’s a lot of fun to work with because he can pull shit out of thin air and making this record, we had a lot of nights over at Luke’s singing vocals, thinking about what we’re going to do, and it was a lot of fun. He’s kind of like everyone else to work with but also very different. Here’s an example, we were sitting in the studio and we we’re doing Trailer Park trying to figure out what we’re going to do to put some parts in it. He was like I want to put some harmonica on this, and I said that’s awesome, what do you want it to sound like? He said yeah man, just kind of gobble like a turkey, the way that he expresses things is just really funny.”
Then lastly we covered the potential desire and opportunity for him to be looking at heading over to this side of the Atlantic and playing shows for his growing European fanbase. “Absolutely, It’s been a dream of mine for a long time to go overseas. I’ve never been out of the country except for Canada but I’ve always wanted to go to see England, Scotland and Ireland. I want to visit northern Britain really badly then of course see The Netherlands and the rest of Europe. To come over and play, I know you all love guitars over there and rock music so, we’re a little heavy and especially live, it’s a little grungier live so it’s like I wonder if they would like what we do, which we hope they will. I’ve been with my drummer since I was fourteen and we are so excited to even have the thought that you guys are saying come on, let’s do this. We’re looking forward to getting over there and making some noise!”
GREENBROKE Track List: 1.Don’t Come Lookin’ | Jackson Dean, Luke Dick 2.Trailer Park | Jackson Dean, Cary Barlowe, Jesse Frasure 3.Fearless | Jackson Dean, Luke Dick, Jonathan Scott Sherwood 4. Don’t Take Much | Jackson Dean, Marv Green, JT Harding 5. Superstitions | Jackson Dean, Luke Dick, Dan Tyminski 6. Love You Anymore | Jackson Dean, Brian Bunn, Phillip Lammonds 7. Red Light | Jackson Dean, Jonathan Scott Sherwood, Ryan Tyndell 8. Other Than Me | Jackson Dean, Bryan Simpson, Ryan Tyndell 9. Wings | Jackson Dean, Park Chisolm 10. Greenbroke | Jackson Dean, Jeff Hyde “Greenbroke” from Jackson Dean is out now through Big Machine Records (available HERE). You can learn more about Jackson and his upcoming tour dates on his WEBSITE and keep up to date with him socially via INSTAGRAMTIKTOKTWITTERFACEBOOK.