Gild - Jennifer Jones

By: Dominick A. Miserandino

DM) Which of the tracks on this album are you most proud of?

JJ) "Drama Queen." It's my favorite because it takes kind of a quirky look at relationships without getting extremely introspective. I think that it's always important to laugh with yourself about certain situations.

"When the Sky Falls" - another favorite of mine for the opposite reasons; it's extremely introspective. Life can also be sometimes painful, and it's therapeutic to write with a dark minor feel--turn the lights off, light some candles and say, "God, I was really depressed that day."

DM) What was one of the toughest situations in your life that you were able to laugh with yourself in order to get through?

JJ) Being in a band. (Laughs) No, let me think. To be more general...adolescence, you know, ages 13 - 18. It's such an awkward time in everyone's life. Looking back, I don't even know how I made it through. I had to do a lot of laughing then. When I was in seventh grade, a boy pulled down my shorts in front of the whole lunch room. Wow, was that humiliating, and right in front of the boys' lunch table. I don't think that they had ever seen pubes before. Their eyes were bulging out all over the place. The guy got suspended, and I was worried that everyone would hate me.

DM) I can imagine how that must have been tough! Any other unusual teenage experiences?

JJ) Teenage experiences, hmmm? I think most teenage experiences are weird and unusual. First, you're growing up, which is a weird experience, and then you're trying to interact with everyone else while searching for your own boundaries.

DM) Where did you sing for the first time?

JJ) At the "Happy Time Day Care Center"; the song was called "Butterfly, Butterfly", and it went something like "Butterfly, butterfly, where do you roam? Whose lucky garden do you call your own." The people who ran the center were worried about me, because I was really quiet. So they put me in a play, with the lead role, partly to get me out of my shell. I wouldn't talk to anybody, but, damn it, I could sing!

DM) And when did you start talking to people more?

JJ) Once I hit elementary school, I wouldn't shut up! At conferences my mom would hear a lot of "She seems to be very smart but she certainly does talk a lot." But I think that the reason I was afraid to talk earlier was because I was extremely sensitive, and you know how kids can be mean, so I was a pretty easy target.

DM) I'm sensing a theme through your younger years. Do these experiences now come back to haunt you?

JJ) Umm, yeah, I guess so. I've always been open about who I am and what I'm about; and if you're that open, I think that it can leave you vulnerable to judgment and opinions about you. In performances, in front of everyone, it kind of leaves you in the same position. Writing your own music from your own personal experience is you and who you are. You are saying, "Here I am, look at me." It's most important that you believe in that and not in what others think. Oh, it's a vicious circle.

DM) Is singing with Gild your "full-time" job, or do you do anything else on the side?

JJ) I don't know if I should be honest about this, but here it goes. I've recently worked as barrista at a coffee shop, as a receptionist in a hair salon (yuck), and am currently working as a part-time cleaning person at some businesses and houses. Cleaning other people's toilets really puts life into perspective. It pushes me to get to the next level and be a full-time musician. I think about it every minute of every day.

DM) How do you get through the mundane jobs?

JJ) What gets me through the jobs is knowing that I'm following my dreams and working toward what I truly want to do in my heart. It might not be doing music as much as I would like to, but until that happens, I just think to myself, "Yeah, I might be cleaning up your whiz, but I'm a musician and I'm happy in my life." At least I'm not sitting in one of those cubicles. I don't know how much work those people do, but I do know they eat a lot of Cheetos and drink gallons of coffee.

DM) Actually, I work in a cube all day and sometimes wonder the same things. If not for music, what career would you do?

JJ) I can't imagine life without music. All I know is that every job I've had, and all the schooling I've had, have never made me feel the same way I feel when I'm writing or playing music. But I've always thought that it would be fun to be an air traffic controller, just guiding thousands of tons of metal to where they need to go. Then I could stress and drink gallons of coffee in a cubicle while worrying about all those people...

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