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Photo by Adali Schell

A blazing, eclectic singer-songwriter, Jake Minch, originally from Monroe, CT, has left an indelible impression on us in all three instances we’ve seen him perform within the last eight months, the most recent of which being a partners-only showcase in midtown Manhattan this past week, just an hour following our in-person interview. His onstage banter is off-the-cuff and whimsical, despite a stark contrast from his solemn, focused performance abilities known to hush a room in an instant.

In conversation, his demeanor is, on occasion, quite reserved and sheepish, whilst other instances have proven him to be an animated, frothy individual with the ability to maintain boisterous, enduring discussion. This interview illustrates both ends, with significant emphasis on the former, as he heavily ruminated over queries of the vocal and musical technicalities, emotional merit, and intentions of the sprawling, viscerally honest penmanship of his debut album, George, out now.

Minch, a Gen-Z offering whom could be seen as a distinguished prototype of Kurt Vile, offers his most comprehensive, diaristic account of events shaping the transition from his late teen years to that of early adulthood on George. From his fatal discovery of the modern-day dating app, the trials of temporarily abandoning life in the northeast for professional ventures on the west coast, and the crushing blow of the fallout of coveted, prolific love affairs, the project depicts Minch’s journey of self-discovery and painstaking recounts of his rattled psyche.

This collection of songs ranges from the retelling of a dramatized queer story written as an insouciant attempt at entertaining his trusted collaborator and producer Tony Berg (“Say Uncle,”) multi-perspective omissions of guilt (“Fucked Up,”) gaffe-driven recoiling (“First I Was,” “For Leaving,” “Changed Things,”) and attempts of backpedaling details of a past flame to a new one (“Fingers and Clothes.”)

Though his instrumental arrangements are wonderfully assorted and engaging throughout this project, including a standout solo section reminiscent of Coldplay’s “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall” on “Unicef,” it is his stylized, exhaustively personal lyrical skill, and the tones in which he sings those lyrics, that radiate across tunes such as “First I Was,” “Changed Things,” “Fucked Up,” “Drawing a Tattoo,” and “Twice.” Most impressively, his tones and dynamics fluctuate regularly as he twists and bends his tone at will, carefully selecting the words, or even the fragments of words, he wishes to accentuate feelings of emptiness, self-loathing, fear, mischief, and ecstasy. He does so as he maneuvers between impressive displays of mid-upper range belts to whisper-like pleas in his lower register, as if he lay in a fetal position with his mic in hand. 

OnesToWatch: How influenced are you, if at all, by artists like Kurt Vile, Courtney Barnett, and The War On Drugs, and, whether in this realm or outside of it, other music that tends to be both rather stagnant and metaphysically shifting?

Jake Minch: My Kurt Vile obsession is fairly recent. This album was way more centered [on the idea of] “Ok, I have something to say, because I feel like I’m dying.” It was sort of a ‘famous last words’ kind of project, and working with Tony was nice, because he’d introduce some funny stuff. It took me a minute to learn that good music is funny. It makes playing a live show easier, because it’s more celebrating the song than living in the hole that I was in when I wrote it.

What do you credit your style of songwriting to and how did you master your version of your storytelling? 

I would… not… hmm… [ponders for 11 seconds]. I was super manic. Well, maybe manic is not the right word. I was really in my head… a victim to an imaginary higher power, and I let something, the most brutal honesty, pour from it. 

The affectation you sing with tends to morph from your traditional tone on hard consonants, and certain vowels up in your higher register. What do you think that is for, and why does it work for you? 

That’s a really good question. I don’t think too hard about what the music sounds like. I love getting the message across, and doing it, in the most exciting?? ways. I don’t think I have the resources to give that question a proper answer.

Assuming things always start on guitar for you, do they? 

Mhm 

How long does it typically take for you to come up with a guitar line that you feel YOU haven’t used yet, and one you don’t immediately retract to someone or something you’ve heard before? 

When writing this album, everything kind of appeared out of thin air. “Fingers and Clothes” was a song I had stuck in my head, a melody I’d been humming while folding laundry, until an ex found a note that I wrote to the person that I had a crush on in high school. We were talking about the smell of cigarettes in the same conversation, and I was dwelling on that. Other than that… I don’t anymore, but I’ll sit and write hard-to-read poetry and then sing it, and then try different things and make the song after I know what I want to say. But, really, a lot of this album was me pulling from the ether and reorganizing after.

So, you journal, poetically, a rough but complex idea, and then you take from that and create lyrics? 

Uhm… 

Or no? 

Nowadays, it’s a lot of my idea note in my phone. “My son is the most creative thing I’ve ever made” is something a dad said yesterday that made me laugh. “If you wanna win a fight, never get hit before the fight.” “Shy of a god but more than a man” is a thing the announcer at the Coney Island hotdog eating contest said about Joey Chesnut, and I thought that was fucking awesome. Grace and I were going through one of her dating apps in the van on tour, and someone in the back was like, “Ooh, what about this guy?” and Grace was like, “That’s a guy you marry cause you’re 30,” and I thought that was INSANEEEE. You string a couple of those together and let them do their own thing. 

She’s not on every song, but what does the female accompaniment signify on this project?

Alix Page is my favorite voice, ever. On my 18th birthday, the person I had a crush on didn’t give me the attention I wanted, so I sat on my back deck listening to “Stripes” and just cried soooo bad. Her voice has just cradled me… so, I think, when her voice comes in, it’s like a way to say, “These are ‘heart songs’… it’s there in the chest instead of letting it linger around the room.”

There are multiple ideas presented on “Unicef.” Reflecting on simple things from home, someone, or yourself, pushing you away from home, or you pushing them away. At what point do those thoughts go from the idea of needing to escape, even if you didn’t want to bring yourself to get there, and what is your mentality during that time?

“Unicef,” for me, is actually about… [ponders to consider]. I technically wrote it with a cowriter, but, in reality, me and a girl who cowrites sat in a room and I told her a bunch of family stuff. That I was going to give someone money, and she was like, “Don’t do that. Here’s my story…,” and then we started talking about guilt, and that people were mad at us, and feeling like it was our responsibility to help the people back home. Sometimes when I’m left too long with my own voice, I do that rolodex of every bad thing I’ve ever done. I was sitting and thinking about that, and I mumbled into a voice memo for seven minutes and showed it to her. It’s way more about that mantra for accepting the “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve” moving forward. 

What is so intoxicating about Connecticut, and why has it been such a struggle to leave it?

I lived in LA for two years, and I did not have the resources to enjoy it. To be honest, I wasn’t going to be happy wherever I lived. There was a lot of stuff I had to work through. Me and my friends have been workshopping this concept called “middle-of-the-country syndrome,” which, one day, I will actually write down, but I definitely had to outgrow MY middle-of-the-country syndrome. It took living in LA , having a partner, failing that partner, seeing proper addiction tear through stuff, and going home just to see it again sober, it took that to properly get out. It was really nice to spend two months, physically and metaphorically, sleeping with the door open. 

What was it like to portray both sides of “Fucked Up,” and was the opposing side more challenging to write and/or record?  

I had so much fun recording that song. I wanted it to feel like someone had just found out their boyfriend was cheating, and they had to drive home two hours together. Every sound is so intense. The first verse is funny, because I’m good at poking fun at myself. Writing the second verse really rolled off the tongue. We almost tried to have a female do it… 

It feels better, conceptually, with you doing both.

Right??? It feels like a Dawes song 

Is “First I Was” about imposter syndrome? Especially considering the lyric, “I sleep in an apartment that’s paid for with money I don’t think I’ll ever make back”? 

I honestly wrote it because… I was just really passively depressed, and I was like, “At some point I’m going to need to go away for a while”, and then I was in a relationship, and I started to really, actually get bad. So that’s kind of what it is. It’s imposter syndrome a little bit, but I’d combat that by being like, ‘Well it’s ok, because I’m going away.”

Your description of “Say Uncle” on TikTok makes it read like a grade school story. A story of, “This person is not out yet, and people aren’t coming out because it’s too early.” What’s the timeline? 

The timeline of it is that I didn’t hit puberty until I was about to be 18. Turning 18 and having access to dating apps was just really a dark time and because of that there was this inherent idea of, “I like this person so much because I liked them when I was still good.” It was a high school, and some of COVID, crush that I put on the back burner. It went on for way too long because it wasn’t even really about the person anymore. It took writing that song, and another song that I will not say the name of, that was very graphic about our interactions, to put this story away. 

Were you going through the events of that for their benefit or yours? 

Honestly, I did a month with Tony where I’d come in and write songs and he’d be like, “That’s terrible,” or “That’s good, but I’m bored.” So, for this one, I was like, “Fuck it, I’m gonna have fun and I’m going to make a song that Tony is going to love.” 

I love your upbeat stuff!

Thank you. I feel weird saying it, but that was my only mission with that one.

To create an upbeat song? 

Just to make Tony laugh and impress him. And also, I wanted to write a song for someone who has never touched the person they had a crush on. Mine was just… a writing songs about it and being on Facetime, sometimes, kind of obsession.

With hindsight, is the existence of this album tied to you being able to contextualize and/or accept the events you’re singing about? 

Truly, I’m scared. I don’t wanna say dreading, but I’m going to say dreading, this album coming out because the whole record is like… nose to the TV of the problem and I’m burning my eyes and freaking out. “Nostalgia Act” was about a week I’d spent in Connecticut. “For Leaving” I’d written a week before I broke up with my ex. “First I Was” was, obviously, before. “Changed Things” was right after my grandpa’s funeral when my sister punched my arm [reference to verse number five of the tune], “Twice” was… it’s really cool, because it’s a really intense album, and then you get an interlude [referring to “A mistake you only make once”]. I think that’s why it’s my favorite song, because it’s the first time on the album that I’m just sitting back and looking at it all, and saying something that I really mean instead of just having a bridge of a song that, years from now, I’ll look back and be like, “Oh my god, I can’t believe I said, ‘I was only proving to me that I could do it’” in relation to DATING someone for A YEAR. Like, holy shit, we LIVED together.

The idea of “I won’t be able to love you the best you’ll ever be loved but I’m going to try my best…” 

Dude… 

Like… come on 

“I was never gonna love you right, but I’d love you more than I ever had yet.” I’m not… no, I will be indulgent. When that came out of me… I was so… it spilled out. So, in my head, it came from the ether. It was really exciting to have that happen. We wrote that in a room. I cried, and then I brought it into my producer and we recorded it. And then he… there was a time where every time he’d listen to it, he’d cry. It was really sweet.

Listen to George, out now: