Jillian Rae is back! Today she is releasing a fantastic new song – Silence. It’s a powerful reminder of what we all felt during the summer of 2020. The Twin Cities was the epicenter of a worldwide reckoning and Jillian is calling us to hold unto some of those feelings, questions and passions to be better. The sound is rich, sassy and danceable! The single release show in June 14 with Fathom Lane at the Icehouse and you can catch her this weekend at the Concert for Chalie June 2 at the Hook and Ladder.
I’ve been seeing you more on stage these days after some quarantine and travel. Tell us about Jillian Rae these days.
Oh boy. I’d say the Jillian Rae of “these days” is, well… all over the place! After spending a nice chunk of last year living abroad and recovering from surgery, this year I am definitely hunkering down & anchoring myself here in Minnesota. But within these twin cities, I’m definitely running around and wearing a lot of hats! Currently working on a new full length album, of which my new single Silence will be a part of. I have a few video projects up my sleeve. Still teaching a small roster of private music students on the regular. Probably the most all-consuming thing I’ve been working on is the building of a brand new recording studio with my partner and husband, Eric Martin. (Fate found us an amazing spot to build out our dream studio and upgrade us from our in-home basement space. She’s served us well over the past decade or so but man, this new space is literally going to be something out of my dreams. Very excited to gush more about it soon! Once construction is finished.) And on top of it all, I have a nice little summer of gigs booked that I’m looking forward to – including a “Double Single Release Show” on Friday, June 14 at Icehouse with our good friends Fathom Lane! (Who is also releasing a new single!) Extra bonus is that it’s going to be on Icehouse’s outdoor stage so this show is definitely one we are all excited for. Great friends celebrating new releases, outdoor music in the beautiful Minnesota summertime, early show with 5 p.m. doors, 7 p.m. start time, wrap by 9:30 p.m… all of my favorite things!
Silence is a wonderful song. Tell us about it. It feels like the antidote to white silence issues meets everything I needed to know I learned in kindergarten comes to love. In the best way.
Ha! Thank you so much. I guess the first thing to recognize is that when I wrote this song in early 2021, I had just come out of a year-long streak of writer’s block. I didn’t fully realize it at the time but I was definitely starting to process all that happened during the previous year. I was really just starting to come to terms with all of my emotions and thoughts and fears that had been buried pretty deep throughout 2020, as I functioned purely in autopilot survival mode. (Which I know many of us did. Solidarity.) So, one day I sat down at the piano and this song kind of poured out of me. It almost felt like a joke— just verbally riffing on all of the things that were bothering me and running through my head, over the most simple piano accompaniment imaginable. After many minutes of airing out my grievances via this strange little school-house melody over two chords, my thoughts started to take a left turn and my words started focusing on love. On moving forward and up and out of the nonsense, really. By the end of this very rare all-in-one-shot impromptu writing session, I felt more like I just finished a very-much-needed therapy session. I fully intended to keep this one to myself & never let it see the light of day! But the melody got stuck in my head for several days, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how good it felt to sing it out loud. It’s like you said up top, your take on what Silence feels like to you (which I love, by the way)… maybe simplicity really is the key.
This is song took longer to write than any other for you. Why?
Hmmmm. That is a good question! I think it all boils down to production. When I initially wrote Silence, the words and music all came out in one glorious shot. Which is a super rare occurrence, in my experience anyway. Between the initial writing in early 2021, to bringing it to my band in rehearsal that summer, to starting pre-production demos at the end of that summer, to having a proper studio session that fall, Silence had really come together and the bones of the song felt really solid. But I had a pretty clear vision in my head of how I wanted this song to sound– and it was going to require a massive arrangement and production undertaking, which my partner Eric and I chipped away at together, little by little, between fall of 2021 and December of 2023. I know that sounds like a ridiculous amount of time to spend on one song, but Silence ended up needing more overdubbed layers than any other song I’ve created. In addition to the initial band tracking that we did in the fall of 2021 (piano, vocals, electric guitar, bass, and drums), we ended up adding: several more guitar parts (including slide and pedal steel), layered string arrangements, tons of added percussion, some mellotron & other keyboard layers (cooked up by one of my favorite collaborators of all time Matt Patrick), Hammond B3 organ (played by the amazing Frank Merchlewitz), and so so many amazing backing vocalist guests. And I mean, we were also working on other singles and other musical projects along the way. So everything considered, maybe it’s not so crazy that it took almost three and a half years to get this song finished!
Can you give us any glimpses or hints into the upcoming album?
Oooooo, I am so excited about this new record! It’s actually killing me to not spill all of the tea for you right now. I think it’s safe for me to say that this will be the most fun and personal Jillian Rae record yet. Stay tuned!
Please tell us about upcoming shows: Yes, of course!
Sunday 6/2: Concert for Charlie at the Hook & Ladder (Mpls, MN), 6 p.m. show time, JRae duo performance
Friday 6/14: Double Single Release Show w Fathom Lane, Icehouse (Mpls MN) outdoor stage, 5 p.m. doors, 7 p.m. showtime, done by 9:30 p.m.
Saturday 6/15: Corpse Reviver at The White Squirrel (St. Paul, MN)
*Corpse Reviver is Jillian’s folk trio tribute to Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, with Adam Kiesling and Mikkel Beckmen
And a slew of fun summer dates throughout July and August. Visit jillianraemusic.com/shows for more information!
Mostly Minnesota 