I’ve been busy getting ready for the release of the new album “Northern Lights.” Between watering the grass and pulling burs out of the horses and ticks off the dogs, that’s what I’ve been doing. Promoting, planning and getting bands together for CD Release parties.
I can’t wait for you to hear it.
So I’m excited to share this interview with you where I discuss my time in Nashville and the inspiration behind “Northern Lights.”
I have a pretty busy schedule this summer, making rounds across the state for concerts and appearances.
Visit www.jessieveedermusic.com for information on my schedule, to pre-order the album and to preview tracks.
And for iTunes, Amazon and everything in between users, you’ll be able to get it the album all those ways soon. Or I can send you a signed copy too 🙂
But today,  in honor of the rain, here’s a clip from one of my favorites off the album, titled “Raining” of course.  An exclusive full track sample just for you, my faithful readers!
I spent Earth Day in my car driving across the state to get to a Lady’s Night Out event where I had the chance to talk and sing to them about the inspiration I get from loving and taking care of this place.
It seemed like a fitting thing to do on a day set aside to think about this spinning planet we call home. And despite the lack of rain, things are greening up. The wind was calm yesterday, making the ducks in the roadside ponds look like they were cutting through glass.
The trees are starting to bud and people are emerging from their houses with their hands shielding their eyes, coming out of hibernation to prune something, clean something and think about planting something.
I feel like I’m coming out of hibernation too. I’ve spent all winter working on putting together my new album and making plans for a summer of music, a summer that’s just around the corner.
Next month you’ll be able to buy the album from me or on iTunes and Amazon or anyplace in between.
In the meantime I have to tell you I can’t wait for you to take a listen. As my faithful readers  you might recognize some of the words and stories in the songs, I might have shared a few in their infancy, before they turned into music. They are songs about a couple years spent listening to other people’s stories and watching this place change around me while I tried to hold on tight to the things I don’t want to slip away. There are songs about loving a man and almost losing the one who raised me. There are songs about getting older, a song about rain, a song about working and a song about a boat…
But, as always, they’re all songs about home, this place a constant backdrop for the stories about the human condition.
I hope you’ll take a listen. And if you want, place a pre-order today and as soon as those boxes arrive, I’ll sign your copy and send it in the mail so you’ll be the first with the copy.
Thanks for your support and sharing your stories with me. If you want me to come to your town to sing these songs, let me know and I’ll be there with my guitar and stories of my own.
Ever wanted to take a trip to western North Dakota?
Well then it seems it’s time to visit the beautiful Medora in the badlands of my home state on July 18th. I’ll be performing on the Burning Hills Amphitheater, a stage dedicated to a nightly outdoor musical every summer night set against the backdrop of the painted buttes.
Medora was one of my first stages and the first place I performed an original song, so this concert, in conjunction with the release of my new album, Northern Lights, is extra special to me.
Know what else is cool? If you comment on Medora’s Facebook link with your favorite Jessie Veeder song, you’ll be entered for a chance to win free tickets!
This week’s column is about what it meant to me to be given a chance to sing on this bustling little tourist town in the badlands when I was just a 12 year old ranch kid.
I’ve had the privilege during the last few weekends of February to be involved in a variety of celebrations focused on music.
Last weekend, for example, I was one of dozens of local musicians who stood on the stage and sang our own versions of Bob Dylan tunes as part of the first ever Dylan Fest, an effort to applaud a man of prolific talent with a broad scope of influence.
The weekend before I stood on the same stage to sing and celebrate women and the wide variety of music that lives in us.
And then I moved down the street and shared the stage with those women as we celebrated songwriting.
The day before I had been in our capitol city celebrating North Dakota musicians. And after the awards ceremony, I gathered with my band on a small stage for an after party where we found ourselves surrounded by musicians of every genre singing along, collaborating and sharing that stage together in the name of camaraderie and respect for our work and an overall passion for words and notes and dancing along for the love of it all.
I have to say, for a woman who has been performing most all of my life, I continue to be surprised by the way music can gather people together of all different ages and backgrounds and stories and experiences and hold us there, connecting us in the moment.
It happened last weekend on a big stage and it happened for me on a smaller stage later that day where I found that I had collected a drummer and a lead guitar player from Bismarck and paired them with a bass player from Fargo and a steel guitar player from Minneapolis and we mixed it all up with a rancher from Western North Dakota and his daughter, the writer and singer who had the big idea for the whole shenanigan in the first place.
In that restaurant in Fargo in the middle of city streets in the middle of winter there were a hundred different stories and a hundred different reasons why we all found ourselves there—a birthday party, a gathering of friends, a drink after work, a chance to hear something new—but there we were, not just in the same room, but nodding our heads and clapping our hands and sharing our stories and toasting and drinking and living in the moment together.
And man did we have fun, the six of us misfits fitting nicely together up at the front of that room singing songs I wrote that some of them had never even played before that night.
And then old familiar tunes that we could all sing along with.
These experiences just keep getting better and more meaningful to me as an artist. And I’m not sure why except to say I have begun to realize how special they are, not only as an artist, but as the person who has sat in a crowd and found myself so moved by what someone else had to say.
Because not only did it make me feel like I wasn’t alone, but because it meant that they weren’t either.
And so I’ve been thinking lately about the value of that moment and how important it is for a community to cultivate it.
Because some of the best moments of my life have been built by music.
Some of the hardest have been processed through the same medium.
And if there wasn’t a song to reflect it all, well, then I have always been compelled to make one for myself.
My column appears weekly in newspapers across the state of North Dakota. If you’re interested in running my work, please contact me at jessieveeder@gmail.comÂ
The Official Music Video for “A Girl Needs a Dog” starring YOU and your dogs is ready for viewing.
This truly was one of my favorite projects, getting a glimpse into the bond you ladies share with your pets was inspiring and heartwarming.
Because we had so many submissions, I’m so sorry that we couldn’t fit them all in, but I think it was the perfect way to capture the essence of this song. I couldn’t help but smile all the way through.
And now for another chance to win something.
Please SHARE this video with your dogloving friends, either on Facebook, Twitter or here on this blog, and be entered for a chance to win a signed copy of my new album “Northern Lights” when it’s available this spring!
Thanks again for playing along. And thanks for taking such good care of each other.
So I made it home safe and sound from Nashville (and managed to steer clear of the Nude Karaoke).
I’m going to tell you all about it this week when I have a minute to gather up the clothing explosion that happened in my room upon my arrival, and then maybe think about the whole Christmas cards and gift thing, but if you’re curious, here’s a little write up the Fargo Forum did on my trip. They called me up on day two of my visit to see how things were going.
They were going swimmingly, I tell you. It has been such an awesome experience and I can’t wait to get back there and finish it up!
But there was more work to be done as soon as I got home. We had to get started on the video for “A Girl Needs a Dog” before Santa starts making his way across the sky.
I received so many wonderful photos of you ladies and your dogs, I can’t even tell you. This has been one of my favorite projects, getting to see you and your pooches, and hear your stories about what your furry friends mean to you.
So I got home on Saturday at noon, threw on a flannel and made sure I didn’t have any boogers in my nose and went out with my friend Nolan with Quantum Productions to get some footage of me singing and playing with my hounds out and about in the barnyard.Â
There was mud. There was ecstatic and obnoxious jumping. There was barking and stick chewing and running and howling.
Yes, there was howling.
It was a great time. I can’t wait for you all to see how it turns out. Funny thing about this place I’ve created here, seems from Australia to Alaska, we all have more in common than we think.
And our love of our pets seems to be one of them.
I’m expecting the video to be done before Christmas. Until then, enjoy the live version filmed from the back pasture at the Red Ants Pants Music Festival this summer.
Learn the words so you can sing along!
Thanks for all of your support and love.
I’m off now to tackle that pile of dirty socks strung out on my bedroom floor…
The premier of the music video for my song “Boomtown” happens today! I hope it give your a glimpse into the some of the stories hanging around Boomtown. I am so happy and excited to have this out in the world.
Thanks to Nolan with Quantum Productions and to those willing to share their stories with us that day.
This is my life here, crammed into this little room I’m calling my office for now. This is where I work to tell stories.
This is where I edit photos of the neighbors and strangers who have hired me to take their portraits.
This is where I write music, and these last few days, this is where I’ve been recording it to send on to the studio in preparation for another album.
Yup. Here I am, surrounded by cords and screens, cameras and props, notebooks and piles of paperwork, a puppy in the corner terrorizing the random hiking shoes I dropped off in here and a cat climbing up the leg of the sweatpants I haven’t changed out of yet today..
This has been my story these days. Writing things down, capturing moments in this room.
Tomorrow I will release a music video to the song “Boomtown,” a ballad, an ode, I wrote to the people coming and going and working to make lives here in the place where I grew up. I hope you click on over and check it out on www.youtube.com/jessieveedermusic.Â
Tomorrow is also election day, voting day, as you know. Â There are some big and controversial measures on my state’s ballot this go ’round.
Some are pretty personal to me.
And so I’ve been thinking about our stories more than ever these last few months. I’ve been thinking about how powerful and sometimes terrifying it can be to tell them.
And then I’ve been thinking about how incredibly important it is to talk, to talk to talk this all out so that we might understand each other. Because these days I feel so much gets lost in translation, in the argument, in the polarization that has become politics.
So that’s what Boomtown’s about, little snapshots of other people’s lives, a reminder that we’re all flawed and worried and desperate, so damn hopeful sometimes and really, not that much different…
So I suppose it’s fitting that I release it on election day, a little reminder, a little snapshot of our tiny corner of America, a look into the eyes of people out there just doing their best…
It’s a little familiar, a little bit wild
A big dream in the wandering eyes of a child
It’s all of the secrets wrapped up in the land
And all that we know about the pride of a man
It’s letting it go then holding on tight
It’s what’s left to lose at the end of a fight
It’s saying a prayer before hitting the ground
And when you need to be gone, it’s where you can be found
And that’s how it goes
With horses and home
It’s dirt under nails and work left to do
It’s fist clenching, back breaking, things that can bruise
It’s broke bits and burs and get up again
And all of the reasons to call someone friend
And that’s how it goes
With horses and home
We put up fences to own this place
Tame all the wild beasts and give them names
But we cant’ be sure just who’s being saved
When we let go of the reigns…
It’s wind through your long hair then on to the trees
Forgiveness and bravery on trembling knees
And then there’s the part where you think you might be
Stronger than most and a little more free
Pops and I have been singing together for a long time…
Like, since my forever….
Like, since these pants, and that scrunchie, were in style…
Tonight I have been given a cool opportunity to webcast a concert LIVE from my living room at the ranch, and I’d love for you to be there.
Pops will be. He’ll be playing harmonica.
And it’ll just be like every other evening we get together to sing, except you’ll be watching us, sending in requests and I will probably fix my hair and change out of the horse slobbery sweater I’ve been wearing every night this week.
I hope you’ll tune in. It’s easy and it’s free and it will be fun (providing my internet holds up:).
 That’s how it goes
I hope you’ll tune in. It’s easy and it’s free and it will be fun (providing my internet holds up:).
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... 