Just Jayne Knows a Thing or Two About Girlhood

Photo by Jack Owens
If you’re looking for three musical older sisters who just get it, whatever “it” may be, country girl group Just Jayne has an answer for you.
Sometimes, that answer is the advice you need to hear. Sometimes, it’s the laugh you needed after a terrible date. And sometimes, it’s the reminder that the person you’re trying to get over probably isn’t worth getting over twice.
Made up of Taylor Edwards, Jillian Steele and Rachel Wiggins, Just Jayne blends unapologetic truths, layered harmonies and a healthy dose of humor on their debut EP, Jayne.
The project turns the messy realities of girlhood into music, tackling heartbreak, friendship, confidence and the unpredictable world of modern dating without taking any of it too seriously.
That balance is part of what makes Jayne feel so personal. The stories may come from three different women, but the emotions behind them are shared.
“Because there's three of us to pull from, we always say that it's kind of a pulse check,” Taylor said. “If we have an idea where if one of us has gone through it or all three of us have gone through it, there's probably a lot of other people that have gone through it. For me, throughout this EP, I was in different seasons of life.”
And while the project knows when to sit in those more vulnerable moments, Just Jayne also knows that sometimes the best way to survive dating is to laugh at it.
“It was inevitable [humor] was going to come out at some point because it's just how we are,” Rachel said.
That becomes especially clear on “Death & Taxes,” a song that turns one of life’s oldest sayings into a punchline about another unavoidable experience: an ex finding his way back into your life.
The song captures one of the project’s greatest strengths: its ability to find comedy in situations that would otherwise leave you staring at your phone, wondering why you ever answered the text.
“We had a lot of songs about us going back to our exes, but honestly, they're coming back to us these days,” Jillian said. “Like [they’ll come back around] as sure as death and taxes.”
But Jayne isn’t all sharp punchlines and post-breakup confidence.
The song “Emergency Contact” slows things down, looking back at the relationships and memories that can linger long after they’re supposed to. For the trio, the song had already lived a life of its own before it ever found its place on the project.
“We wrote that song two years ago… so it's always been a demo that I went back to and we weren't sure we were gonna be able to put it out. And then we're like, no, it's coming up.”
That song’s long wait is fitting for a project that itself took time to figure out.
Before Just Jayne had a defined sound, there were three individual artists, Taylor, Rachel and Jillian, each pursuing solo music. The trio met at Belmont University and eventually found themselves in a songwriting session together. What started as a simple experiment became the beginning of something much bigger.
“We actually started all doing solo music. We went to Belmont together and we got put in a songwriting session,” Taylor said. “And in that session, we were like, ‘Wait, what if each of us sang a verse?’ And we wrote and did that. I think our minds just totally opened. And we're like, ‘This is cool and different and fun.’”
From there, Just Jayne began to take shape. But figuring out exactly who “Jayne” was would take more than simply putting three voices together.
They released around seven songs while building the character, testing different sounds and slowly discovering what felt authentic. It wasn’t until “Death & Taxes” that everything clicked.
“We put out six or seven songs as we were building Jayne,” Taylor said. “But, once we hit ‘Death and Taxes,’ it gave us this sound that we're like, okay, this is it... this is what Jayne sounds like. This is like what she wants to say. It just catapulted us into this direction of the entire project.”
That discovery was just as much about personality as it was music. That’s because Jayne isn’t simply the name of a group, she’s the woman behind the songs. A character the three women created together, part alter ego, part best friend and part older sister.
“I feel like all of the songs are pretty much Jayne talking and not us, but she's very confident and she knows who she is and she's not going to let anybody walk all over her,” Rachel said.
From each track to the next, Jayne weaves a picture of choosing yourself first.
“Love A Loser” is made for the windows-down drive home after breaking it off with that toxic relationship. Finally free and independent from what was once weighing you down, because as Just Jayne says, “it’s better to lose a lover than love a loser.”
Though on the surface, Jayne might seem untouchable. She’s confident, cool and completely unbothered. She knows her worth and probably isn’t losing sleep over the guy who broke her heart.
But when you listen a little closer, there's more underneath.
Jayne cares. Jayne gets hurt. Jayne remembers. She just refuses to let those things define her.
“She’s the girl that we all make up together, but she’s also who we aspire to be,” Taylor said.
And maybe that’s the real magic of Jayne.
The character may have been created by three women, but she leaves room for anyone to see a little bit of themselves in her, the girl who has stayed too long, sent the text she shouldn’t have, laughed about it with her friends afterward and eventually remembered she was going to be okay.
Just Jayne isn’t promising that heartbreak won’t happen. They’re just giving you a soundtrack for when it does, and three older sisters to remind you that, eventually, you’ll laugh about it.
Listen to Jayne below: