JUSTIN JONES

I grew up in Rawley Springs, VA. Ten miles west of Harrisonburg, in a old stone house on Dry River. Rawley Springs isn’t even a town. Just a collection of cabins, trailers, and camps in the mountains just east of the West Virginia border. When I was 8 years old or so my family had a get together and a bluegrass band came by. They played a lonesome version, more so than the original Band recording, of “the night they drove old Dixie down” that had me in tears. The whole room singing along. My Mom gave me Big Pink shortly after. I fell in love with The Band. From there music became my obsession, and its one I carry with me still. You have to know that in this part of Virginia the people consider themselves true southerners. Rebel flags and all. I never bought in to that whole “the south will rise again” nonsense but there was certainly something majestic about growing up around all that pride and history. I had been messing around with the guitar since I was 3. My uncle played and my mom was married to a musician so music was everywhere. I was inundated with old country, blues, soul, jazz, bluegrass. I loved it all.

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I started writing songs when I was 13. My first was a song about my dog Lucy. It played on an I Love Lucy theme, the chorus something like “Hey Lucy, Its Ricky” or some stupid shit. My Mom will still tell you she loves that song. It was the beginning of a dream that 17 years later I’m still chasing. When I finished High School I tried college, but it was a waste of time. After 3 years of sub-par grades I moved to Charlottesville, VA. I worked as a cook, got drunk a lot, wrote songs, started getting a little lost in drugs and in an attempt to regain control of my life moved to Kill Devil Hills in the outer banks of North Carolina. Within a few months of being there the only man that resembled a father figure in my life died. I consider this the catalyst in me pursuing music as a lifestyle. I hesitate to call it a career, as any musician will tell you “you can’t do this for the money”. You do it because there is nothing else. There is no back up plan. I played my first show at a local’s bar on the sound side called The Horny Toad Café. I sang a song I had written about my “dad”. I remember this drunk older woman sitting at the table in front of me staring out the window just crying. It was the first time I’d ever gotten that kind of reaction. I’ll spare you her hard-luck story but that moment really fueled my writing. I was no longer going to write about bullshit. The songs had to mean something.

I wanted to move to a city to really make a go of this whole music thing. I was writing sort of “country” stuff then but Nashville did not appeal to me. I had been to DC many times as a child and figured it would be a good stepping-stone to NYC. DC was dark and dirty and poor and corrupt. Sure there was money there, but that was not the part of the city I called home. I lived in an area called Shaw my first 6 years in DC. Gentrification has changed it quite a bit since then, but when I was there it was nasty, and I loved it. At some point I screwed up. I started taking for granted the talent I had. I stopped writing songs. All I cared about was heroin. I’d love to blame this part of my story on someone else but no matter how I got started, I knew what I was doing. 4 years of my life were completely wasted. When I met my wife I was living out of my Jeep Cherokee, occasionally crashing on friends couches. She knew I needed help and convinced me to go to rehab. It didn’t take much convincing, as I was totally miserable, and emotionally dead. After 3 months of serious self-evaluation I came back to DC.

With my wits back so came my emotions and that translated into a lot of songs. I started a band and began working the DC clubs. From there we took it out of town. We weren’t making any money, but we were truly in what we were playing, and it showed. We made some recordings with a lot of help from too many people to mention. I was still exploring my sound, I guess you could say, and the records reflected that. Some country tunes, some soul ballads, some southern rock. DC is a notorious indie music city, and after being here for 8 years that influence has undoubtedly had an effect on my songs as well. After 3 independent releases and a little frustration I changed up the band. Stripped it down to what I thought were the essentials. We toured for a year and decided to record a batch of 5 songs that we were really excited about. We went to a buddies house, set up all the gear in his basement, and cut everything live. We wanted something that really sounded like us, and live was the only way to do it. When we were done we had The Little Fox EP. I sent it to my manager Seth Hurwitz. I guess he was inspired as he sent it to just about everyone he knew. 30 Tigers expressed interest in distributing it, and Seth decided to start a label, 9:30 Records.

After years of pushing on the door its cracked open, and I’m sticking my foot in. If you’re reading this then I ask you to push with me.