To be haunted by the beauty of a song is a strange and unusual thing. Very rarely is the song as strange and unusual as the feeling it provokes. But, in this instance, throughout the album, listeners find themselves haunted by the melody and the story being weaved, it hovers throughout your day, Ansley Newman’s salty voice nagging at your memory to pull up that image, that one scene it’s the perfect soundtrack to. The story never ends, because the music keeps you going.
Jule Vera is a four person band from Opelika, Alabama taking the country by storm. In little over a year, Jute Vera has produced a full length EP, gone on tour twice, got signed with Pure Noise Records, and has performed at numerous music festivals. Whether it be the melody or the constant work, Jute Vera’s star is ever on the incline. According to Newman, “There’s not really a secret, we just worked really hard writing songs and playing shows anytime we could. I’d say really just play as many shows as you can- wherever it is. You never know who will be in the crowd and it could be someone who can really help you jumpstart your music career. ”
The band includes Jake Roland, the guitarist, William Stacey, the bassist, Hogarth Horvath, the drummer, and Newman. As a collective, they are “all really great friends. We’re pretty much always together so we’re like family now,” according to Newman. And that sentiment will never be more true with Roland and Newman’s upcoming nuptials.
For a band that tends to always be on the move, Jute Vera has been hovering idly in New York City for the last couple of months. But Newman promises that their “new album will be out soon.” So what will we see from Jute Vera in 2017, an album of what type of stories, of what tone and meaning? And honestly, it could be everything to anything. Jute Vera sits down to write with a different plan of attack each and every time. “Lyrically, we just go off our own experiences or sometimes other people’s! We write about what we feel and what is true to us in any way. Sometimes people interpret the lyrics differently than how we wrote it and that’s cool that it can mean something totally different to them and be true to them while also hitting home for us,” Newman explains.
“My addiction just cannot be controlled
Like a fire flaming deep inside my soul”
Jute Vera is an enigma, lyrically and literally. The use of story telling, metaphors and similes make their lyrics something to be heard and understood instead of another three line chorus to be repeated by fans. It is music to be felt, a tradition they say originated from their inspirations: Queen, Aerosmith, Michael Jackson, and Muse. “Lyrically, we just go off our own experiences,” says Newman, “or sometimes other people’s! We write about what we feel and what is true to us in any way. Sometimes people interpret the lyrics differently than how we wrote it and that’s cool that it can mean something totally different to them and be true to them while also hitting home for us.” Jute Vera revitalizes the fact that music is as much an art form as any other medium, a craft to be built upon and interpreted, not just repeated and recreated.
Scarlett Letter by Jule Vera (YouTube)
Through headphones or in concert, Jule Vera is an experience to be had by many. They are artists you carry around with you, harmonies for the heart, lyrics for the mind, and a sound to carry you through time.
Art in Your World 