Interview: Jess Williamson Talks About Finding Her Roots And Learning To Be Alone

So, Native State. You recently moved back to Texas from NY. I get that the name works on several levels, but how did you come up with the title?

Thanks. Yeah it kind of has a tri-fold meaning. There’s the obvious: where you’re from, in my case Texas, and all the songs were written after that move. All the songs come from being back at home. It refers to a time period and a specific location.

Also, for the first time ever I made a really deliberate decision to kind of retreat inward and be a hermit for a while. I got out of a relationship and I was really devastated. In the past when that happened I immediately wanted to meet someone new and go out.

I learned to be okay with being alone.

The other meaning of Native State is your native state of being. You’re alone in the world and you distract yourself from that by ignoring it or being in a relationship. But embracing that was really healing and transformative for me. So that’s the third and maybe more subtle meaning of the title.

On your website you talked about reconnecting to your roots with moving back to Texas and with what you just described, but what does that mean for the music itself?

I always wanted to be a musician. When I was a little girl, I’d tell my parents, “I want to be a singer like Dolly Parton” and it was really my first love. Then I derailed with it out of fear and set out into a photography career. I thought that was going to be my path, but then I realized that two semesters of graduate school—that if I stuck around New York, and I kept taking out these online payday loans that I would be 23 with almost $100k in debt. I’d be a total slave to working if I ever wanted to pay off that debt.

Reconnecting with my roots has been reconnecting with my childhood dream and trying to live it. I took a safe path that was still kind of creative and I just had a huge wake up call. I was like “Fuck it; I just need to try this out. It’s now or never.”

Down to more nuts and bolts—tell me about recording the album.

My friend Matt Simon has a recording studio called Eastern Sun Studios. Now it’s in a really nice building, but it was in a different space when I recorded. [At the time] it was a total shithole.

I started recording in October, and in Austin October is really hot. There was no A/C and it was infested with rats. We recorded in a tiny dark closet that we named ‘The Dungeon.’

It wasn’t the most intimate or romantic of conditions to record an album. But it was the cheapest place.

Now Eastern Sun is in a really nice place. It’s moved. But at the time it was pretty funny.

Thanks for your time, Jess.

Thanks so much, Dustin!

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