Jessica Lea Mayfield: Hard-Working and Heartfelt
So don’t expect to hear any new material when she makes stops in Toronto and Montreal later this month, opening for six-piece indie pop band The Annuals. However, you can 
expect to hear melodic, acoustically driven music that probes the depths of love and loss. Mayfield created waves in September when her first full album, With Blasphemy, So Heartfelt (Polymer Records) was released. Sounding like a cross between a Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) and a young Patti Smith, and blending Nick Cave-like darkness with Southern Gothic, Mayfield’s plaintive mezzo winds its way around tracks like the lush, country-tinged The One That I Love Best to the loping, deceptively simple Kiss Me Again. The title of the album comes from another track, the blackly poetic Bible Days, in which she croons, “With blasphemy so heartfelt, I wish that I had found someone else.” The album’s twelve tracks were written over the course of several doomed relationships, proof positive that songwriting for Mayfield was, and remains, therapeutic.
“It’s a way to open up,” she says from her Ohio home, “it’s a way to get a weight lifted off my chest if something is bothering me.” She confesses to being more open about her experiences now, but at the time of creating the songs that make up With Blasphemy, So Heartfelt, she wasn’t so comfortable sharing her emotional pain. “Something could happen to me and no one would know,” she recalls, “and then I’d write a song or six songs, and they’d all be about something sad. People would hear them and go, ‘What happened?!’ I’d say, ‘Oh well, three months ago, me and whats-his-name broke up…’”
Sounding more mature and confident than her age might suggest, Mayfield was immersed into the world of music at an early age. Her family moved to Nashville and along with her brother, they played together as One Way Rider, doing the festival circuit along with local shows. The family used music as a form of entertainment, and as a way of coping with tough economic conditions. “I had a really poor, rough childhood that influenced me heavily,” the home-schooled artist says, “and our family is really close. A lot of times certain kids, especially teenaged girls, can’t really relate to their parents, but I can say anything in front of (them) –they understand my artistic side.” This acceptance extends itself to her parents’ comfort with hearing their daughter’s tales of heartbreak and desolation; those twin emotions colour much of her creative output.
“When writing songs, a lot of people say, ‘I can’t let my mom hear that song!’ but with my parents, it’s like, ‘Look, let’s listen to this…’” She laughs, noting that “even if the song was called ‘F*ck The World, Mom,’ they would look at it with an open creative mind. It’s been like that my whole life –they were very supportive of anything creative I did.”
The encouragement from Mayfield’s parents gave the singer/songwriter a confidence that has allowed her to support herself through her work. She’s toured extensively and has opened for other acts, including folk-rock band The Avett Brothers. “A lot of people don’t work as hard as they should,” she explains passionately, “it’s why nothing ever happens. I get questions all the time in interviews: ‘So why are you doing so well and other Ohio artists aren’t?’ Other girls and singer/songwriters play the same bar once a week, and they work as a waitress. I’ve never had a job, all I’ve done is play music, supported myself and gotten out there, thinking, ‘I have to record, I have to tour, I have to get photos taken.’ People aren’t going to know who I am if I’m not in their town once every three months, and constantly seeing my name on the flyer in their town, or on the internet, or at the store. I just work and work. The only way people know you is if you’re always busy.”
One of the benefits to Mayfield’s prolific, busy schedule was befriending, and eventually working with fellow Ohio musician and Black Key Dan Auerbach. “We met when I was sixteen and recording for fun,” she recalls, noting the proximity of their towns was a great help in getting familiar with one another’s work. Busy schedules kept the two from working together until Auerbach found a break from his Black Keys duties and produced With Blasphemy, So Heartfelt. “He’s definitely very different from me in terms of the music he likes and the way he plays and writes his songs,” she notes. “He thought of things I would’ve never thought of. I’m creative but creatively straight-forward, especially with the rock and indie rock and bluegrass influences, things like that. He’s more like, ‘No, we’re gonna wait until the chorus for this or that’ and I’d say, ‘What? Awesome!’ He has all these crazy ideas and he’s a pleasure to work with, ‘cause the two minds are so different.”
The joy of Mayfield’s experience working with Auerbach translated to not just recording methods but songwriting. “I was so young working with him,” she says without a trace of irony, before adding that he helped to shape her as an artist. Recorded over a period of two years in Auerbach’s Akron home-studio, the album features Mayfield’s older brother David playing upright bass, as well as Dr. Dog’s Scott McMicken and Frank McElroy doing vocal harmonies. Mayfield in turn lent her pipes to The Blacks Keys’ Things Ain’t Like They Used To Be, off of their latest release, Attack And Release. The hard work is paying off, with Mayfield recently touring Europe and appearing in December on National Public Radio’s much-lauded World Café program. Her upcoming tour will only cement a growing reputation as a serious artist.
She remains confident in her belief that relentless hard work and dedication are the keys to success. “If I said, ‘Hey I’m not going go on this tour,’ that could change the path of my career for the rest of my life. So I need to go back. Artists need to get out there. It’s not like other careers. And I do look at music as a career.” Currently at work on material for her next album, Mayfield remains hopeful that brighter rays will permeate, though she’s also realistic with her strengths as a songwriter. “If anything, I’m putting more of my emotions in my music,” she confesses, naming The Foo Fighters, The Kaiser Chiefs, and Elliott Smith as big influences. “I definitely think these (new) songs are even more personal. It’s unintentional, and sometimes I wish I could sit down and write a song that isn’t sad or overly personal.”
Part of what makes touring so difficult for Mayfield returning to the blacker time With Blasphemy, So Heartfelt reminds her of. “My show is really emotional,” she confesses, “and I’m in a weird mood afterwards. Playing all those songs puts me back in mood of those songs, and I get depressed! A lot of times it’s grueling, but you have to go out and say hi to everyone.”
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More information at www.myspace.com/jlmayfield.
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