Kirsten Jones Leaves Music Industry Job to Pursue Music

The story of the aspiring musician wasting away behind a desk is an all-too-familiar tale. But singer-songwriter Kirsten Jones' day job wasn't too far removed from her life's passion when she quit being a Universal Music executive to make music full-time.

"I was like, 'Yeah, I know the ins and outs of producing a record,' but it took me five years to shed that image and totally emerge as a musician," she tells Spinner in a Toronto café. "I've forgotten about that time, thank God."

Jones says the seeds of her sophomore album, 'The Mad Mile' were sown during her time as an executive, but the record blossomed with the help of one of her musical heroes: Jayhawks frontman Gary Louris.

"I loved it, I wish I could do it every day," she says. "He was someone I idolized for a decade or more as a songwriter. I loved the Jayhawks, they were one of my favorite bands of all time. So working with him I had to pinch myself everyday."

Louris announced his intention to produce a record for a Jones in an interview back in 2008. Not an earth-shattering revelation, but his admission came before Jones herself knew he was on board.

The end result of their fruitful partnership is 'The Mad Mile,' an alt.country/roots record which could very well do for Jones what 'Failer' did for Kathleen Edwards. Released digitally last year but out on CD May 11, 'The Mad Mile' was already nominated for a 2010 Juno Award in the Recording Engineer of the Year category.

Jones might also be pinching herself when she notes the cast of musicians surrounding her on the record: Louris, Oh Susanna (aka singer Suzie Ungerleider), Bob Egan (Wilco, Blue Rodeo), Gary Craig (Kathleen Edwards), Blue Rodeo frontman Jim Cuddy and pedal steel guru Greg Leisz (Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris) to name a few.


The 12-track album features Cuddy singing a duet on the barnburner 'Hold Me Closer,' as well as Oh Susannah on the closing 'Bittersweet Grand Canyon' and the tender, personal opener 'You Ain't Comin' By.'

"It's about one day in my life when I was six-years-old, so that's how I generally introduce it," Jones says, without revealing further details. "It's my favorite song. I personally like songs that are really personal. All the artists that I love write those types of songs."

'You Ain't Comin' By' -- which ended up as one of three finalists in the 2009 John Lennon Songwriting Contest's country category -- took some hard work however, as Jones and Louris reinvented the song from start to finish. "It was our last night and we had three hours left in the studio. I said, 'We have to redo this song.' Everyone was game, we just hopped right to it and it was just one of those meant-to-be things where it was done in three hours."

Perhaps the only small setback regarding 'The Mad Mile' was the timing of an innovative idea to help self-finance the album. With different gifts offered depending on the amount given, Jones ended up with more than $8,000 (and one penny) in donations.

"I launched that fundraising website the same week that the entire economy went in the toilet," she laughs. "Every headline said, 'We're done, we have no money, don't spend it.' And here I was saying, 'Hi, help support and fund my album.' If I had done it six months before it would've went a lot better, but I learned from it and I still made some money and some new fans. It was a really great learning experience and I do think it's the way of the future, regardless if I had success with it or not."

The rest of the year sees Jones -- one of Billboard's five artists to watch this year -- touring as much as possible behind it, though her one-year-old son means the typical touring-for-weeks routine won't be in the cards. But even without a relentless touring schedule, it seems Jones is already drawing interest from record labels.

"With the music industry these days you need to build yourself and then people will get on board," she says. "I've had some really nice phone calls from people who've said, 'We love what you do, keep building and keep in touch.' So there's been that kind of thing and there are been a couple of labels I had in mind. To be honest I'd rather wait on those than take whatever label is offering whatever right now."