Interview with Shawn Jennings in Bryan, TX, 2010

© 2010 / Bruno Michel; Fotos Bruno Michel

During the last decade, Shawn Jennings and his Southern Roots Band were touring the Texas Clubs. Beside traditional country songs, they also play excellent Country- and Southern Rock as well as ballads. Their first CD saw the market in 2003. On his current release, My Desire, Jennings has penned eleven of the thirteen tracks.

Contrary to the majority of musicians here in Texas, who mostly start playing and singing when they join Kindergarden, Jennings only started musical activities in his early twenties. Before that he spent his sparetime with fishing, hunting and bull riding. Soon his occasional play at campfires around friends grew into regular gigs in clubs. He started to focus more on the music but still all band members work regular jobs during the daytime and perform some one hundred gigs a year, mostly on weekends.

One of these gigs was at the Brazos County Go Texan auction, an organisation, that helps kids to get funding for their future education. The place was the Texas Hall Of Fame in Bryan, a gigantic club that exists since 1978 and offers a huge dancefloor along with several bars.

I talked to Shawn before his performance and asked him a few questions.

BM: Shawn, when you released your first CD seven years ago, where did you want your music to take you one day?
SJ: When I first did that release I didn’t even know. I didn’t play guitar until I was in my twenties. Then I started writing, set myself little goals and just kept pushing the goals further and further. It’s gone way farther than I ever expected. We still have our regular jobs. We’d realized when we would quit our jobs that right now the music won’t pay enough to cover the bills. Everybody owns their own business or is self employed. We do about a hundred gigs a year, mostly on the weekends. We’re doing pretty good, half the year’s already booked. November and December we try to take time off because I love hunting and my two little girls love it too. These months are family time for me.

BM: You list one of your influences being Waylon. I assume there’s no relation, correct?
SJ: Well I’ve heard yes and no. My mom was a Jones and kin to George Jones. They didn’t know each other. But they met one time and knew some family members they talked about. I also heard that the Jennings side is kin, but I didn’t investigate and nobody ever said yes or no for sure.

BM: Texas Music sets itself apart from most of today’s Nashville sound. Would you ever change your style in order to get a major label contract.
SJ: No, my music is as honest as it can get. It comes from me and like this new album, for which I specifically wrote these songs, that’s my heart inside out.
BM: You wrote them all yourself?
SJ: There’s two cover songs I did. One’s a Jimmy Buffet song ‘cause he’s one of my influences and it’s my favorite song called A Pirate Looks At Forty.

BM: What’s more important in a song, the words or the music?
SJ: The words gotta be right for me. If the words ain’t right you can have the best music in the world but if the song doesn’t make sense, what does it help? I like songs that have a beginning and a climax at the end of it. If it’s something that comes from your heart, it touches somebody else’s, too. Sometimes you have a melody and the words come with it, but they still have to make sense.

BM: What song do you wish you’ve written?
SJ: A bunch of Jimmy Buffet songs. As I said A Pirate Looks At Forty is one of my favorites. It says a lot of stuff about life, having money, losing it and so on. That’s things that happen to many of us.

BM: Who would you choose to perform a duet on stage?
SJ: Waylon Jennings.
BM: Hank jr. did that already with his dad after his death. They dubbed his voice into the songs of his dad. Who would it be of those still alive?
SJ: I like Hayes Carll, he’s got some good songs and is one of my favorites. I also like Chris Knight and his songs, a good story teller, not commercial and he hasn’t changed a lot despite his success. There’s another guy out there, Matt Powell. Also not real commercial but he’s a hell of a songwriter and he can play just about anything.

BM: Would you rather write a song that lasts a 100 years or one that sells 100 million copies?
SJ: One that lasts a hundred years, by far. Everybody wants money, wants to be rich. But with such a song you’ll make the money eventually, too. I wish I wrote Happy Birthday, everybody knows that one (laughter).
BM: What is the first thing you would warn an alien who lands in Texas?
SJ: We got fire ants. (laughter).

BM: What’s the difference between the Shawn I talk to and the one we see on stage?
SJ: There ain’t one. This is me, my music, my band. They’ve been with me for a long time, we’re like a family. I am not a lot of stuff but I am honest. I wouldn’t lie to nobody, here or on stage.

BM: If you were to interview Shawn Jennings, which question would you ask him that I did not?
SJ: Oh man… I don’t know, I’d have to think about that one. I don’t know what I’d ask me, because I know all my answers.

BM: No problem, thank you for the interview.