Name: Jaime Wyatt
Occupation: Singer, songwriter, guitarist
Nationality: American
Current release: Jaime Wyatt is currently touring Europe and the US. For tour dates, go here. Her debut album Neon Cross is still available from New West Records.

If you enjoyed this Jaime Wyatt interview and would like to find out more about her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, and twitter.  



Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

I have a great need to emote and write my experience here on planet Earth. But I believe that I also write for some collective experience within my different communities and families.

I grew up in a house with a single mother until about 14 years old and we were financially insecure and there were a few prominent people who died in my childhood, so I started writing songs as a kid for my mother and her grief and for myself. Then I spent my early 20s in institutions with inmates and other recovering addicts, so I have been around a lot suffering.

Some of that was my own too, as a young queer person in the closet. I was always writing down how it felt, or how they felt, because I have a strong belief that pain shared is pain lessened. The satisfaction and catharsis I get from writing and singing is medicine and I’d be doing this, whether folks listened or not.

I feel like I’m an observer and probably an empathetic person, and over the last 3 years since my last album, I’ve watched America reach a boiling point for certain injustices. I’ve watched demonstrations for unspeakable tragedies, racism, gun violence, poverty and I want to be a voice for the oppressed people, or the children who don’t have a voice or a choice in their safety.

I wrote “Fugitive” while under a Covid induced Fever-spell. My dad always told me to write if I get a fever, since Neil Young wrote “Cowgirl in the Sand” while having a fever. I had literally come to a boiling point with grief, seeing gun violence, mass shootings, police brutality, racism and crooked politicians on the news everyday.

Besides just fever, when I’m ill, I’m sleeping a lot and  there’s something to the state of relaxation and or sleep that helps me get quiet enough to hear the muse speaking or singing. I write a lot before or after I sleep. Or I solve lyrical lines I was working on, after some sleep.



For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

When I was writing “Feel Good” I was reading a lot. I have always pushed myself to read books, even if they are just a memoir or a classic book I’m re-reading. I read poetry and I travel with a copy of The Colossus by Sylvia Plath.  

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

I do have rituals to help me slow down when I’m writing for an album.

I start with tea and incense and yoga and organizing my space and creating a vibe usually. I don’t force myself to write on my guitar for any length of time, I have to move around between piano and guitar or just walk around the house and sing the idea.

That helps to spark the momentum and develop a flow, intent on following the melody and using the beat to find words and pockets for vocal riffs.

When do the lyrics enter the picture?

The words come secondly, at least in this scenario described above.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

I’ve got loads of lyrical notes in my phone and journal and I like to sometimes start by going through my word seeds. I’ll sometimes have a verse or two that I wrote and I have to see if I can remember how it sang in my head.

I don’t like forcing the process, as then it would be too generic for me. The good stuff is the stuff that makes me feel something. So sometimes it's fishing for hooks and refining lyrics through each draft, trying different words until they fit the puzzle.

If I’m keeping later hours, I can pick up my journal or just get into bed and hear a song with music and melody and lyrics and I’ll tell you this thing is easy. Then I’ll spend months trying to imitate this level of creativity by self care and things that make me happy and I still gotta mine for the songs.

But I do notice the more chill I am, the better.

Can the lyrics nemerge from a place of their own as well?

This album has several songs which were inspired melody-first, like this. But my first two albums were full of songs that I pondered and conceptualized lyrics and stories in my head and on paper, bringing the melody to the instrument. Lately I’ve been using music first and melody second, words third kinda vibe.

Since the flow has to be right, I often like to work backwards, structurally. This works when I write the chorus first, then I can look at the pre chorus or B section, which might be a rhythmic change, double time or punch that is gonna set up the chorus.

Sometimes I just play the chords in the exact pattern and progression and sing some phrase I like and the whole thing writes in ten minutes, but more often than not, I write in short bits for days and weeks and get frustrated sometimes and put some to “bed” or to “marinate. ”

Sometimes a walk, bike, exercise to work on a concept.

What makes lyrics good in your opinion? What are your own ambitions and challenges in this regard?

My opinions and expectations of lyrics have changed greatly. I allow them to be more concise these days.

My second edit is usually very poetic. Maybe too poetic. Then I simplify. I will just adlib words that feel good to sing and feel poignant to the emotion. Then I can follow that story and make it make sense. I was a big fan of Dylan and Cohen and Lucinda Williams for many years, so I loved stories and characters and being more long winded, but sometimes the message I need to sing is “Baby Your love has changed my life.”

And for the record, one of my favorites of all time is this line from “A Song For You” by Leon Russell, and he says,

 “I love you in a place where there's no space and time, I love you for my life, you are a friend of mine.”  



None of these words are abstract or old English, or sophisticated at all, but it almost feels like he’s crediting this love with his whole life and being. Absolute devotion said in the simplest words. So that's what I've been looking for lately.

Many writers have claimed that as soon as they enter into the process, certain aspects of the narrative are out of their hands. Do you like to keep strict control over the process or is there a sense of following things where they lead you?  

I’m writing a story, but I’m really following. When I'm doing it right it's uninhibited channeling. I connect the dots between anchor words and relate them to an emotional experience I’m having or someone else is having.

Don’t get me wrong, I still use the thesaurus to mine for cool, dramatic verbs and adjectives, and I am always looking for patterns and relationships between words, that’s my favorite puzzle in life. I feel stoked when my lyrics are with a broad and wide stroke of abstract. A specific gesture implying the emotion is always cool too.

I also love internal rhymes, I tend to use them in every song.