Call it a case of art imitating life. While Jonathan Jackson’s character in the ABC series Nashville is, like so many of the show’s players, a musician gunning for his place amongst country-music royalty, off-screen Jackson’s a musician as well—and his band’s just released a new album.
The latest from the rock outfit Jonathan Jackson and Enation, an EP called Blame-shifter, came out earlier this month and now the three-piece band is heading out on the road. “We’re about to start the tour, and we’re going to be doing that all the way through June,” Jackson says. “Then hopefully in the next few months, we’ll start working on the back half of this EP, and connect it into a full album.”
It’s no great surprise that Jackson and his band are anxious to get back into the studio, considering how much he says they enjoyed making this one in a Nashville studio. “We were having a blast, though we were all pretty focused,” Jackson explains. “There wasn’t not a lot of downtime, really, especially because we were recording in the midst of filming schedules; when we were in there, we we’re very focused on getting it done. But it’s one of the most fun things for me in the world, being in the studio. I love it.”
Enation
Of all the songs that the group recorded, Jackson says it was the new EP’s title track that might have been the highlight of his time at Nashville’s SIR recording studio. “I think really, the way that ‘Blame-Shifter,’ came together was a highlight,” he says. “It was one of those songs that really felt like a three-piece rock band, and we wanted to see that through all the way to the end product. We wanted to keep the raw energy of the song, and it was fun to approach a track like that.”
As far as the next album goes, Jackson says the band’s looking forward to testing out new songs on the road—the tour will take the group from North Carolina to Ohio and beyond—and getting them into perfect shape before heading back into the studio.
“The songs are already written, but we’ll definitely need some time, some band sessions, to bring them to life,” he notes. “We kind of have it mapped out, but we’ll need a little time to sit there and actually play them live.”
