By Frankie Shayne Pearman
Reports from The Scene
FSP: So how long have you been a part of the Hutchinson music scene?
JW: My first live show in Hutch was at the Metropolitan Coffee shop…approaching roughly 20 years ago.
FSP: So, roughly around 2005?
JW: Yeah I’d say around ’05 or ’06 area, somewhere in there. That’s when I first started performing live.
FSP: Have you always played just here in Hutch, or have you played other areas?
JW: No, we traveled quite a bit, because at the time, we were young. Haha. We had a little family band, and that was our first project. We traveled around quite a bit, playing, and a lot of its started out of the church band and that sort of ministry band. And that’s where I got my start, playing worship and ministry.
FSP: That’s a great lead into my next question. As an artist, there are phases we go through, so what are some of the phases from family band to now that you have gone through, and where do you see yourself today?
JW: I went through several different phases through college. Of course, it started with gospel/ministry/contemporary Christian, and I went from that to…when I stepped away from that I just wanted to write songs, that would be more, I mean, the rest of the world would call secular, compared to Christian music, but I really just wanted to write songs about life and how I was really feeling on the inside. I wrote a lot of songs about what I believe, but I didn’t write a lot of songs about the things I was going through, through college and stuff. My phase in college kind of went, like I played around with bluegrass a little bit. I loved the jam circles where I was able to just play around and play by ear.
I’d say from there, I started playing around with, like, the tail end of high school and youth group, I started writing my first Christian raps, and I wrote a couple of them we’ve been playing in our youth group bands. They even still play them today. From there, I was still plugged into the hip hop scene, but I, going on tour, we toured with another band that was more outlaw country hip hop artist, ya know. My roots, I grew up on country music; my grandpa used to play steel guitar, ya know I was always around George Strait, ya know classic country. I think there I started intertwining, kinda making my mark in the hip hop scene, intertwining that country twang with hip hop.
Now, I’d say my style is a lot more focused on the art of songwriting. I don’t wanna plug into just one genre; I still like playing around with different sounds.
FSP: You don’t want to be pigeon holed…
JW: Yeah, I like the idea of being able to bounce to different ideas. So some of it may be more bluesy, some of it could lean folk, and some of it could lean country. Then I still have some things that the hip hop side of me still wants to get out, ya know, some of the fast-pace lyricism.
FSP: I can hear that influence in a lot of what you play today, but I see you have evolved into more of an acoustic performative style instead of just trying to spit lyrics, if that makes sense.
FSP: Where do you see, specifically the Hutch music scene, considering the ebbs and flows that seem to happen in our local music scene, where do you see it headed? As far as you as an artist within this music scene?
JW: I definitely see there is still a strong community around the music scene. Sometimes it’s been more competitive and people fighting against each other because everybody wants to be the top of the totem pole, or they think they’re better than somebody else. For me, I’ve learned I needed to step outside of that kind of mindset; it’s not about the competition or being better than the next guy, because the truth is no matter how many people here in Hutch that I’m better than, there is always someone in Wichita or Kansas City or Nashville or L.A. that’s better than me. My objective now is how can I outperform myself from the last time I performed each time I get an opportunity. My mindset has changed on that to where I focus more on how can I outshine myself.
One quote to live by: “There’s enough room in the sky for all the stars to shine and all the birds to fly without crashing into each other. There’s room for all of us to be successful.”