Jackson Emmer Plays Lost City River North

At the beginning of the year, Carbondale-based singer-songwriter Jackson Emmer set a goal to write and release twelve songs in 2022. “Then my wife said to me, ‘That’s not hard for you. How about 22 in ’22?’” he recalls.

He accepted the challenge.

Five months in, the country musician has already written more than 22 songs, but in order to release them all, he’ll have to record one song every two weeks for the rest of the year. Emmer feels confident that he’s up to task, as years of practice have helped him hone his self-recording skills. But he’ll be balancing production with tour dates, including a performance at Lost City River North on Thursday, June 2, with special guest Joe D'Esposito and opener Austen Carroll.

This is the first time that Emmer has embarked on an official songwriting challenge. But he’s gone through phases where he’s written a song a day or one per week. He has enough material to fill five albums, seven singles and two EPs on Spotify, not to mention his sixty music videos on YouTube. “It’s just part of how my brain works,” he explains. “I see songs everywhere.

“If something interests me or touches me, it gets automatically blended into some sort of rhythm or harmony,” he adds. “It could end up turning into something cool, be trash, be a part of a song or be a whole song. I sing plenty of stupid ditties around the house. They don’t all become something to share.”

Emmer picked up guitar in high school for fun and kept playing throughout college — so much so that he spent all his free time playing and not as much time keeping up in his visual art and animation classes. His teachers noticed and encouraged him to take music classes as well. When Emmer explained that he was worried he wouldn't be able to make enough money as a musician, his teachers reasoned that neither cartoons nor music would guarantee a job with a high paycheck.
When he graduated in 2009 in the midst of the Great Recession, there weren’t many jobs anyway. So Emmer hit the road with some friends for a two-week tour in New England and was immediately hooked on the fun of performing. Music has been a part of his working life ever since.

But Emmer wasn’t always a country singer. He’s dabbled in electronic music, French and American jazz, punk music, rock and blues. He’s also been particularly inspired by hip-hop, with its sonic textures, rhythms and ability to weave multi-genre influences.

“I saw a lot of overlap between hip-hop and country,” he says, explaining how the genres use common language to make poetry from people’s everyday, lived experiences. “There’s something in there for everyone to relate to, wherever they’re coming from."

Emmer brings a calm demeanor to his country performances. He leans into telling stories and painting pictures with his words. For example, “Colorado Line,” one of his “22 in ’22” releases, reflects on the feeling of driving across state lines. He describes the “28 bullet holes in the Utah border sign,” Wyoming’s “wind so sharp your tears’ll freeze,” and even how his “mind got lazy rhyming on the lonesome road to Limon.” The song is meant to capture the ways one’s thoughts can ramble in different directions, he explains.
He wrote another “22 in ’22” song, “Walkman Bumpin,” while reminiscing on his childhood in light of recently becoming a father. During his teenage years, he had a Walkman in his back pocket at all times, and he recalls the playfulness and freedom of it. “You got to be the protagonist to your own movie when you walked around to your soundtrack,” he relates. “It’s difficult to express now, when everyone has music on their phone, but it was really new and empowering at the time.”

Emmer also finds a way to bring an element of humor into many of his songs. His “Job Interview Song” is a dialogue where an employer asks questions like “What are your interests, hobbies and such?” while the interviewee answers, “I like spreadsheets and twelve-hour days.” The chorus gets at the tension under the surface: “I don’t want this, but I need it, one day you’ll fire me, either that, or I’ll quit.”

Humor is “built into the way that I relate to people and any topic,” Emmer says. “In my mind, levity and gravity are intertwined, and they kind of need each other.

“Life is so sweet,” he continues. “There’s so many reasons to focus on parts of it that are not, but I hope that a concert or even listening to a record reminds people that life is to be savored, and part of that is through amusement.”

The trick now is to translate that sentiment into Emmer’s 22 recordings — which, he admits, is the hardest part, especially because he’s the one recording.

But years of practice have taught him the importance of creating a space and moment to be comfortable and relaxed and trust his process, he explains. “I’ve gone from laying down a take in thirty to fifty tries to where the first or third take is the winner.” That's good news for the fast pace of his “22 in ’22.”

Jackson Emmer plays Lost City River North, 3459 Ringsby Court, on Thursday, June 2, with special guest Joe D'Esposito and opener Austen Carroll. Listen to his music through his website or follow him on Instagram.