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Photo by Naserin Bogado

In an attention economy, it’s hard to cut through the noise. It’s even harder to absorb endless headlines detailing the struggles of humanity, constantly feeling like your hands are tied. For singer-songwriter Jessie Mazin, making her mark came naturally, once she started sharing her coping mechanism online in the form of songwriting and video editing. The aesthetic of her posts make it impossible to keep scrolling and her words keep you there until the very end. We chatted with Jessie about channeling her beliefs through song and bringing them from your FYP to a fully produced debut project:

OnesToWatch: I came across your videos on my algorithm and was immediately captured. You do such a great job of grabbing people's attention, but keeping the integrity and the art at the forefront. I'd love to hear your process for presenting your music on social media. 

Jessie Mazin: I was posting on a TikTok account that I had for like 5 years, but nothing was hitting. I knew something wasn’t working, so I decided to try something new. I wrote a song called “The Simulation is Failing”. That song is about this weird, surreal feeling of living life, so I thought it would be really cool to make the video feel like it was in a weird, nostalgic place. Futuristic, but vintage technology. I made a brand new account to post that video and it just went. I was excited it was that video that worked because I thought it was really cool. So, I continued with the Photo Booth vibe and picked background images that I felt conveyed the message, or the world, of the song. People really enjoyed it and I enjoyed it. When it comes to social media, you have to enjoy it somehow or else it's the worst job in the world. The visual stimuli is as important as the song, because the fact of the matter is we're babies with the attention span of a fish. So I was like, “How do I capture people? And make them stare and listen.” I think it's been working pretty well so far.

Do you still edit those yourself? 

I still do them myself. 

That's awesome. 

It’s me and Photo Booth against the world. 

Tell me about your artistic journey. Have you been writing songs your whole life?

I started singing from the moment I could speak. I was really annoying [laughs]. My dad was like, “We need to put this girl into musical theater or something so she can stop singing in the shower and deafening us all.” So I did musical theater growing up, and when I was in 2nd grade, there was an art competition at my elementary school. That was the first time I wrote a song. It was called “Believing Makes Achieving” and it was about Rosa Parks. 

Wow, so you’ve always been writing about social justice. 

People are like, “How did you get into writing social justice songs?” It’s literally been since the beginning. I used to sit on the recess field with my friends and we would just make up songs. Then, during the pandemic I realized I wanted to make this my life. I taught myself the guitar and applied to only one college, which was Berklee College of Music. I went there for 2 years and then when the viral moment happened, I dropped out. And now we're here. That was almost a year ago, which is crazy. 

Tell us about your songwriting process. I would assume it starts with the idea of the song, but maybe not?

What might surprise you is I am not a songwriter who's like, I'm going to write about this. Normally, I just pick up my guitar and start with cords. That's always the foundation. I start singing in half gibberish most of the time. I always have my voice memo app going, so I'll go back and listen for a word within the gibberish. I go from there. With political topics, most of the time I'm just scrolling, see some kind of headline and feel compelled to pick up my guitar. I've always wanted to be one of those girls who writes all her songs in a notebook, but I just can't. My mind moves too fast, half the time I'm doing voice to text in my notes. 

Your music is special because it’s your vehicle of processing what’s going on in the world, which helps us process as well. Why is it important for you to sing about these topics? 

I'm very passionate about social justice and I feel a moral obligation to speak up for those who can't. It just happens to be that the way I feel best doing that is through song. When I write a song about terrible things in the world, I feel like I gave it a home. It gives it a moment to exist and to feel it, then you can put those worries aside and live your life because it's so exhausting these days to just worry and care all the time. It's debilitating. Those songs give it a space to breathe. It's my number one coping skill for life. 

I love the metaphors in this EP, which is why I think “Love is a Flightless Bird” is my favorite track. How does your process differ when you’re writing about personal experience vs. societal topics? 

That song is actually not about personal experience of mine. I write a lot about personal experience, but I also really like to write almost how novelists write; building characters and building worlds. That song is an example of that. It's about loving someone so much, and knowing that you've made many mistakes in the relationship. But despite all of that, the love you have for them is so great. A love that is a flightless bird deserves to soar and shine, but I don't think that it can. 

I don't know if you're a Twilight fan, but the title reminded me of “Flightless Bird, American Mouth”.

The term “flightless bird” was planted in my brain when I watched Twilight for the first time. I feel like it was cooking back there. 

“Cut Out My Brain” is such an amazing way to end this project. Your take on the idea of “ignorance is bliss.”

That song is simultaneously about feeling bad for people who move through life not knowing the true horrors that exist in the world and what I was saying earlier, about how it's hard to care so much because it's painful. So, you choose moments to feel the pain and then also to protect your peace. But then there's the other side of the spectrum where people are just living their life, trusting whatever Fox News says. The line in the song is, “I'm leaving a trail of blood in my wake.” I don't think living life that way is meaningful, even if it might be easier. 

Do you have any visuals planned for these songs? 

We have some really cool visualizers that I'm so excited to share. 

What was the process for those? 

I'm working with an amazing creative director. I already built the foundation through the way my videos are presented online. I made a huge Pinterest board and they just cooked up something amazing. We had this 12 hour shoot, for pictures, videos, everything. It was crazy. I haven't even seen some of them yet. They're gonna be so sick.

How do you feel leading up to putting out your first project? 

I've been sitting on these songs for so long. I wrote “Alive” in 2023, so it's been a while. I'm just really excited to let them leave me and have a new identity for people listening, because I've run them into the ground. I'm a bit nervous because of the nature of my videos online, they're just me playing guitar and singing with some reverb. I think people might be a little bit shocked by the recorded versions. For me, production in music is just as important as the melody and the lyrics. So, I'm really excited for people to form new opinions and feelings about the music that they've heard me sing over and over again on TikTok. I'm also excited to release it because that means I can then release more after that. I'm writing songs constantly, I have a big catalog waiting to be released.

I also wanted to talk about your sonic inspirations, because the production is everything. You can just get lost in it.

During my freshman year of college, I dove deep into Radiohead. I always knew about Radiohead…everyone knows “Creep”, you know? But I properly listened to their discography top to bottom and it just opened my eyes into a new world of alternative music and harmony and electric guitar parts. For this EP I worked with a producer named Carlos de la Garza, who works with Paramore and other alternative bands. That was really cool because he offered a unique perspective coming from the band world. He would come up with these crazy drum parts and super cool sounds. I also worked with Adam Melchor, who's a wildly gifted instrumentalist. He would just pick up any of the instruments and play the most beautiful line I've ever heard in my life. The process of recording the EP was very maximalist, we kind of just threw everything at the wall and saw what stuck. We were building these really cool sounds from seemingly nothing. We’d have a guitar and then Carlos would put all these effects on it and it would sound like something that I've never heard before. We had such a good time building the sonic world and I'm so happy with how it turned out. 

Give us a recommendation that’s not music. 

The music is very yearning heavy. You mentioned Twilight, but one of my favorite shows ever, that I'm always watching, is The Vampire Diaries. That world is very angsty. Everyone should watch that show and channel their inner 13 year old girl. 

Your music would totally be on The Vampire Diaries.

I was watching it with my best friend the other day and I was like, “I wish this show still existed so I can get my music on it.” 

Who are your OnesToWatch?

One of my good friends from Berklee is also one of the best songwriters I've met. Her name is Ruby Plume. Her writing is just absolutely out of this world. My second one would be Ally Evenson. I saw her play at a show that Adam Melchor was also playing last summer and she just wowed me. Her most recent album is so good and she made a short film for it. I'm so inspired by her creativity.

Speed Kills is one of my albums of the year for sure. A collab would be so cool…

I would love to.

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