Jessice Frech
Written by: Gerard Ucelli
Broken Records Magazine’s Gerard Ucelli talks with Jessica Frech.
BRM: Your Kickstarter is almost up to $20,000. You still have about three weeks to go. How did feel to reach your goal of $8,000 in a few days? Were you surprised of how receptive your fans are to this?
JF: “It was such a surprise and it was awesome to see the love and support of all of my fans. To reach my goal in two days and now see it go up to $20,000, it’s really overwhelming to see how much my fans love what I do.”
BRM: You said you were going to use the extra money from Kickstarter for touring purposes. Have you been putting any thought into that as far as routing and how long it would be?
JF: “Definitely. In June I want to hit up the West side and go through California and from there I would love to go cross country and get to the east coast. I know a lot of people who are going to be in the city and I would like to go see them.”
BRM: Any musicians you want to partner up with for this tour?
JF: “There’s actually this YouTube tour called the Digitour. I really love what they do and it’s in my niche. YouTube got me to where I am so I would love to get involved with those artists. The musicians on YouTube tend to be really comedic and fun. I would love to play with them. It fits who I am and I would love to join those artists.”
BRM: Tell us about the show you have coming up in New York at the end of January.
JF: “On the 27th, I will be at Googie’s Lounge. I’m really excited because I’ve never been to New York before. It would be interesting for me to meet the people and do the sightseeing. From what I hear by Facebook, a lot of my fans from New York will be there. That’s tremendous and it gives me excitement to play there.”
BRM: My favorite parody is “People of Wal-Mart.” How did you get all of the pictures of the stereotypes at Wal-Mart?
JF: “We took the pictures from thepeopleofwalmart.com and I wrote a song from it hoping it would get the songwriting into Nashville because it is the songwriting capital of the world. I wanted to prove if I’m in Nashville, I can write a song about anything. I wanted to get my foot in the door because I was a freshman in college and I wanted people to recognize me. It seemed that it worked.”
BRM: After writing the jingle for the Hyundai commercial and being offered to work on something for Pepto-Bismol, were there any commercials growing up that influenced your songwriting?
JF: “Absolutely! As far as commercials, I love the Target commercials especially the holiday one where the lady is going for the Black Friday deals. I love the All State commercials with Mr. Dangerous where is in a situation where everything can go wrong, he puts his own sarcastic twist in it. It’s great. When you put something serious then adding a twist that can still be very true, that’s what got me into doing jingles and that’s what I’m good at.”
BRM: One of the coolest things about you is doing Song Challenges requested by your fans. What was the oddest request you’ve ever received?
JF: “There were times where I spent hours reading the comments. There were posts where people wanted me to write a song about their weddings and how much I love you. I think one of the weirdest challenges was the first song challenge I did called McWeiner. I don’t remember the username or the person who gave me that challenge. At the same time, it was definitely one of the more fun ones I got to do.”
BRM: Out of all of the challenges you’ve done, which was your biggest challenge to write?
JF: “I did one for a girl named Bailey and her sister who has cystic fibrosis. Their parents and some of their friends kept contacting me to write a song about them. It felt so close to home even though I didn’t know these girls. That was definitely the hardest, but it was the most rewarding because I don’t even feel I wrote that song. It was so inspirational. I know their family really appreciated it and I really appreciated seeing them enjoy it. That’s why I do what I do. To help somebody makes me happy and that’s rewarding for me.”