Singer boasts wide range
Jack West sings to a crowd. Photo submitted
By Tom Victoria
Jack West can perform anything from punk to indie rock to belting out an Elton John tune.
The talented musician described the styles of his original work.
“I first started out, it was definitely more rock and grunge and that kind of vibe,” he said. “But since 2022, it's become a little more experimental, using electronic sounds, synthesizers and stuff. More like punk rock, too, so it's changing. But right now I just put out a song that was pretty straightforward, all indie rock type stuff. So I'm diving back into the rock stuff now.”
Jack, 19, released I Realize in April.
“I Realize is primarily about being a musician and model in New York City who is trying to make it,” he said. “Even though things may appear picture-perfect, it’s never as it seems. The song is basically highlighting the struggles of being an artist in the city mixed with the toll it takes on your mental health as well, while still trying to maintain a normal life.”
Photo submitted
Lost at Heart debuted in February.
“Definitely a melancholy song,” he said. “I started writing it in August. I wrote it after I moved to New York City. After that, I went to Europe for a month and came home from that and wrote. Some inspiration was from that. But it's definitely a more melancholy song explaining how the time has gone by so fast. I've graduated high school. Now, I'm living in New York City.”
Along with creating such contemporary fare, Jack can get on the piano and perform John’s Tiny Dancer.
“I have some pretty ‘80s sounding tracks,” he said.
Jack also boasts a wide vocal range as evidenced in such pieces as Goodbye LA, which he posted in January.
“I'm singing pretty high and almost falsetto, like a mixture,” he said. “The other stuff is more like head voice stuff.”
Jack draws upon his life for inspiration.
“All my songs are pretty much all about real stuff,” he said. “If something crazy happens or whether it be relationship stuff or just on touring around or just worldly stuff, I write about it and I put it into a song in a non-cheesy way. I like to say I'm a pretty good songwriter, and lyrics are a strong suit of mine, so it's really life events that drive my inspiration.”
Much of Jack’s music has a somber tone.
“It's probably definitely more melancholy,” he said. “There are positive songs, but most of them are probably on the more melancholy side.”
Jack will be performing coast to coast this year.
“Right now, I'm still booking a bunch of stuff,” he said. “I got a show in Seattle, L.A. and San Francisco on June 6, 7 and 8. I'm working on some northeast stuff. I actually have a show in New York on April 21. Every winter, I really plan intensely for the summer and the upcoming months because the winter is kind of dead. I'm just chilling, writing music, getting ready for the new year.”
Photo by Brendan Thomas
Jack savors the interaction with a live audience.
“Everything about performing live is definitely my favorite part about music,” he said. “I really love traveling. Traveling is my favorite thing, literally right next to music. Everything just goes hand in hand. There's a packed room and people are into it. I've definitely played shows in the past where there's been one person in the room and it's rough. But when it's packed, it's a great feeling like, seriously, no other.”
Music was always Jack’s passion.
“Ever since I was little, 4 and 5, I always had a toy guitar, drum set or whatever,” he said. “There was always music in the house because my parents were always playing Pearl Jam and The Doors and stuff, so it was always in my life. I always knew I wanted to be a musician. Then I got my first real guitar when I was 8 and started taking lessons. I knew from the beginning it was what I wanted to do for life.”
Vocalizing came next for Jack.
“I started taking singing lessons with this local lady up in Rochester,” he said.
Photo by Clay Patrick McBride
Despite a rocky start, it wasn’t long before Jack got his first paid gig.
“I remember my first show,” he said. “I was too scared to sing. My guitar teacher, he booked this really small show, and all my family came. It was literally all my family, and I was too scared to sing. So he was just singing and playing the guitar, and I was just standing up there, literally playing the guitar, and I was 7 or 8. But then I played my first real show when I was probably 10, also in front of my family, but it was at this bar. I sang and played guitar at the same time and got paid. So that was my first real show at 10.”
Before long, he was playing on the same stage as a top musician, sealing his destiny to be a performer.
“I was 14 and 8th grade, I opened for Imagine Dragons and Neil Young at the Bottle Rock Festival in Napa, California,” he said. “I was already touring at a very young age. When I was 12, the moment I realized, yeah, this is 100 percent what I want to be doing and took it to the next level. I played with Eddie Vedder on stage. That changed my life. That was pretty surreal. So that really upped my presence. The venues started to respect that. They started to book me at that younger age.”
Jack brazenly asked Vedder to perform with him upon a chance encounter.
“I actually ran into him in a hotel lobby in Nashville the day of the show,” he said. “I got a picture with him and I was like, let me sing with you on stage tonight. I talked to him for 10 minutes. I was like, just let me play with you. I know your songs. I'll impress everybody. Sure enough, I was back in his trailer practicing with him. My family came back and we watched a show from the side of the stage. I came up and sang the song with him and I walked up the stage. It was quite crazy for 12. I'm 19 now, so it feels like yesterday. It's been forever though. He must have really believed in me.”
The moment proved to be life-altering for Jack.
“If that never happened, I would have not done the Imagine Dragons thing and Young thing,” he said. “All the Pearl Jam people, their manager and stuff, I’ve become close with them. It's led me to a lot of contacts. I'm not that far at all in the music industry, but I've come a long way since that moment for sure.”
Photo submitted
Jack hasn’t had to fret about changes to his voice in a while.
“I was 13, 14. I was mid-changing,” he said. “But ever since I was 16, it's been the same. I had crazy range and it definitely cut down, but I still have pretty good range. I can do good stuff with my voice I'd like to say still.”
Jack practices to ensure his performing doesn’t suffer.
“I do take pretty intense singing lessons every week,” he said. “It's pretty intense. Do I practice like I'm supposed to all the time? No, but I try to take care of my voice.”
Jack’s vocal coach is Max Lawrence, son of the renowned Don Lawrence, Lady Gaga’s vocal coach.
“His dad worked with her when she was younger,” he said. “But the dad is older now, so now the son works with her. They work with a bunch of people, but Lady Gaga is the big one they work with.”
Jack would be more than happy to attain similar fame as the Lawrences’ most famous client.
“I want to sell out Madison Square Garden one day,” he said. “I want to go big.”
Jack walks down the runway. Photo by Emily Lockard-Furry
As a youth, Jack drew the most inspiration from classic rock musicians.
“Probably Eddie Vedder or Jim Morrison,” he said. “If you want to know why, it's because when I was 4, I got the Morrison Hotel CD. believe it or not. I had a CD player, and I was always playing. I swear to God, this is the earliest member or moment I remember of my whole life, but I was probably 2 or 3, and I was in the living room. My dad turned on Love Boat Captain by Pearl Jam, the live video of them at Madison Square Garden. I remember that. But that is literally the earliest memory I remember of being alive, which is bizarre.”
Jack’s current musical inspirations are among less traditional talent.
“My favorite band of all time is the Red Hot Chili Peppers,” he said. “But lately, I've been listening to, probably, a lot of people you've never heard of, like Iann Dior, the Kid LAROI, Foster the People, even a little bit of 1975 stuff. All genres.”
Jack is originally from Rochester, New York, so he had already been exposed to the chaos of the Big Apple.
“I grew up coming here,” he said. “I'd come here every weekend during high school for music. I moved here because I modeled, too, and I was down here for that. But I love it here. There's really nothing I don't like. I mean, it's crazy and chaotic, but it's New York.”
Photo by Zach Adams
He explained what music means to him.
“Music, it's really everything to me,” he said. “As cheesy as it sounds. I'm always listening to music. I have my headphones, my air pods in all the time. I'm listening to music nonstop, but it always leaves me with a certain feeling. I'm always thinking about the past. A shit ton over dumb stuff, but I'm always just thinking about different things, the future, the past, the present. It's definitely a big part of my life. I don't know how to describe it. If you listen to one song from two years ago, it brings you to a certain moment or another song. So it's like a time machine to me.”
Another random meeting led Jack to also become a model upon running into Kelly Cutrone, a publicist who served as a judge on America’s Next Top Model.
“I was like walking down the street in L.A., actually walking out of my hotel Sunset Marquis,” he said. “She was staying there and she stopped me and she said, are you a model? I said, no, I'm not a model. And she said, well, you very much could be. They were shooting in the lobby and there were a bunch of cameras. The whole day, I was wondering what was going on. Sure enough, she comes up to me and she put me in this shoot on the spot. A month later, she hooked me up with this agent in New York City and I was working with him and then he signed me to this agency in New York City. It just was like a really fluke type thing, almost like the Eddie Vedder thing, but it was really weird.”
Photo by Kat McCoy
Jack never expected to be modeling.
“I did not think I was good looking,” said. “I did not think any of that even in high school. I guess because I had long hair, I looked really grungy. I looked like one of those kids. Ever since I became a model, it really boosted my confidence by a mile because I didn't have good confidence in high school at all.”
One loved one knew all along Jack should be a model.
“I remember my grandma, though,” he said. “She was like, you can be a model one day. She was like, they pay good money. You can be a model one day. I do remember that. It's just funny. Now, I'm actually a model.
Jack’s face gets around.
“I've definitely done more photo shoots than the runway stuff,” he said. “The runway stuff only happens at fashion week, which is in February and then in September. So I did one in September, too, but I did three this fashion week. But I've definitely done more photo shoots and magazine stuff.”
One aspect of runway walking was daunting to Jack at first.
“When I first became a model, the walking was the scariest part to me,” he said. “I would go into castings, and I'd be like, oh, shit, the walk is hard for me. But now I've gotten better at it. They just want you to walk not fast, but just pretty straight pace and arms still and your legs going at equal pace. I don't know. It's not that hard, but it's not elegant. They just want a nice, clean walk.”
Photo by Clay Patrick McBride
Jack likes modeling as a secondary job.
“I do enjoy it,” he said. “I don't enjoy it as much as the music. It's definitely a different pace of things, and I've only been doing it for a year-and-a-half now, but it's definitely cool. I like getting my photo taken in all these crazy outfits. When it's something big and it comes out, it's always fun to post it and stuff, but music is number one.”
Jack added acting to his resume as well.
“It was just a small independent film that was done in Hollywood shockingly enough a few summers ago,” he said. “I really went into it with zero expectations or experience, but it was cool. I just had my lines memorized and they told me what to do.”
Jack recognizes the value of social media as a marketing tool.
“I take my social media pretty seriously,” he said. “TikTok and Instagram, I don't want to say it's my life, but next to music and all that stuff, TikTok and Instagram is pretty up there. It's pretty important for artists because it just takes one video or one song or just one something to blow up overnight.”
Jack motivates himself to keep up with everything.
“There's so much background work I do on my phone and my computer when I'm not actually playing a show,” he said. “I get in zones or periods of times where there's like four days straight where I'm nonstop doing stuff and then I fall out of it for three or four days, and I'm like, god, I got to get back on it. I'll be at a photo shoot or traveling, and when I'm traveling, I don't want to do the hard, tedious work on my phone. I'm talking social media work or emailing people or whatever, and it's just hard to balance it all. But I know I can balance it all. It's just I got to manage my time even better.”
Photo by Clay Patrick McBride
Jack dispensed advice to aspiring musicians.
“I say this all the time, but definitely a lot of people were telling me what to do growing up, and I didn't like that,” he said. “Whether it's the music I write or the music I make or even the clothes I wear, it's bizarre. But just be yourself and do your own thing. Put the music out you want to put out. Write about what you want. Write about what you believe in. Just basically, don't let anyone stop you from what you want to do. Don't let anyone slow you down. Just stay focused and do what you want to do.”
Jack’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jackwest32/
Jack’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3tNDwbv1yMNFDpw0zeIxOg
Jack’s website: https://jackwestlive.com/