Jammerzine Exclusive: An Interview with Justin Payne + Single Premiere

Justin Payne has just released his new single titled ‘Empty Page’. And, in addition to premiering it for all of you today, we get to talk to the man behind the mayhem; Justin himself!

In this interview, we get to talk with Justin about his beginnings in music and how personal tragedy and hardship have shaped not only his music and the directions he is taking it but also him as a person and human being and how love and loss can shape you in positive ways if you have the right person with you and how you can shape your perceptions in positive ways. This is as much a life lesson as it is an in-depth interview with a positive artist.

‘I write from a very Americana and observant ‘fly-on-the-wall’ kind of standpoint a lot. And these songs are a lot more emotional and confessional.’
-Interview Excerpt

‘Empty Page’ Review

‘Empty Page’ is the latest single from Justin Payne & Co., releasing today, April 17, 2020. This is a song that is totally from the heart and experience. With vocals that mean every word and guitars that caress every note and chord through their tube-driven grit. Sonically, this is a full song meant for a stereo, so please refrain from listening through earbuds on that initial listen because you will miss out on a lot, not just those wonderful frequencies. With a glorious hook and beautiful chord progressions, the music perfectly frames the lyrics both emotionally and cinematically, becoming the landscape for the story that is the lyrics. This is what songwriting is.

‘Empty Page’ is a song about Bipolar disorder. As a songwriter with this mood disorder, I find that if I am not writing, my moods are messed up and I am not functioning well. If the pages are filling up nicely, then the work goes so much more smoothly, and my moods are generally stable and as close to normative as I can get.

When times are hard, however, and the process of writing and performing grinds to a halt from my mood swings and depression, the healing hand of love and compassion pulls me back up off the floor, and helps me keep trying to fill the pages, and therefore work to make a fuller and better life for myself and my loved ones. Songwriting is basically my survival mechanism.’
– Justin Payne

About Justin Payne

With a musical home starting in Ohio and stretching to Nashville, TN, Justin Payne & Co. is the long-evolving musical brainchild of singer-songwriter Justin Payne. Invoking the emotional rollercoaster of his living with Bipolar II disorder, Justin’s songs range from intimate stories about love lost and won, and life’s harder lessons, to heavy critiques of social injustice and authoritarianism. He pulls sonic influences spanning from ragtime, the protest music of the Great Depression, to the electric guitar heroics of contemporary indie and experimental rock. A typical show can range from intimate and sparse acoustic tunes to bombastic reveries and anarchic feedback-riding waves of exultant energy, all usually within about an hour. Conservatory-trained in Classical composition and violin, Justin has been growing and honing his craft and his sound, on his own, for over a decade, leading a rotating cast of top-flight musicians in varying incarnations of the group.

Justin Payne & Co.’s most recent project, “Empty Page” uses a heavy, layered, guitar-driven arrangement to illustrate Justin’s fatalistic lyrics with intensity, making great use of dynamics, counterpoint, and a driving rhythm section, while supporting Justin’s strong and emotionally-cracking voice. “Empty Page” serves as a perseverance mantra, through all of the internal negativity, confusion, and anger, for a musician who’s been at it a long time. Keep writing, keep performing. Out with the bad, in with the good.

Justin has extensive experience touring and performing all around the United States. As a songwriter, he is often drawn back to Nashville, having fallen madly in love with the city and its musicians’ culture. Justin will remain busy writing and performing in a place so well suited to his craft: planning a Summer tour of the Southeast, Midwest, and Northeast, as well as a slew of solo and band shows throughout Tennessee while pushing to finish what appears to be another collection of songs and rants about existence. Having shared the stage with many diverse road-bands over the years ranging from The Hooten Hallers, to Gleewood, and Anthony and the Tramps, Justin Payne has range and breadth to his work, delivering sweaty, intense, and cathartic performances of his work, every time he takes the stage.

SOURCE: Original Bio

Featured image by Miranda Liss.

LINKS:
https://justinpayneandco.com
https://instagram.com/justinpayneandco
https://facebook.com/justinpayneandco
https://justinpayneandco.bandcamp.com
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3IsJ3F2D4nD1RkA4wp93ra