Hear SoCal Country Rocker Jade Jackson’s Spiky ‘Good Time Gone’
Southern California’s country punk Jade Jackson has released a steady trickle of sweet-souled music ahead of her May album release, but her latest, “Good Time Gone,” bares its teeth. Produced by Mike Ness of punk legends Social Distortion, “Gone” shows a new facet to Jackson’s persona: the Western rocker.
“Devil makes three, whiskey makes four,” Jackson sings, caught in the moment of one wild night. A woman accepts a shot from a mysterious man, flipping the script on the cliché “woman in the red dress,” before driving the back roads, his hand around her waist as liquor bottles rattle around on the floorboards. “He knew all along / That we’d never have a first fight, we’d never have a song,” she sings, nostalgia for that spent electricity creeping in. Bare-bones instrumentation of bass, guitar, and drums make for sparse verses that swell into big, sustained choruses a la Distortion’s “Story of My Life,” and a squalling guitar solo as it heads for the finish.
“I’ve always been drawn to artists who write sad songs,” Jackson told Rolling Stone Country as part of its “10 New Country Artists You Need to Know” in February. “Hank Williams, Townes Van Zandt, George Jones and Mike Ness are a few who have done this well.”
Jackson’s debut, Gilded, comes out May 19th via Anti Records.