Faith: Totally.
Jess: It felt a little rambling. [laughs]
Faith: It just takes us deeper.
Jess: Good! Ok. Good. [laughs]
Faith: Yeah… When you were talking I was struck by the analogy of “seeing eye to eye” with a person as opposed to anyone looking up or looking down at another.
Jess: Yeah.
Faith: Just the whole relationship of where one is placing their attention and focus…
Jess: Yeah… I think some people do music because of that attention and focus, they want to be “famous”. But to me, if fame is your goal and you reach it, then what do you do? [laughs] Know what I mean?
Faith: And how do you define “fame?”
Jess: I suppose I mean fame on a national level. It’s not a goal for me. The goal is making people feel good. Music makes people feel good so I love to do it.
Faith: Yeah.
Jess: Yeah. So that’s mostly what we’re using it for these days.
Faith: Cool. Well…, you and Andy have certainly contributed to the flourishing of
the Longmont music scene and helping support other musicians, and creating opportunities for people to be heard.
Jess: I appreciate you saying so. Whenever we first kind of started cutting our teeth in Lubbock, that’s where we spent our first few years of marriage, it was really competitive. There was actually a gig that Andy got pushed out of because one of the other musicians that played it threw a fit to the venue. [laughs] I don’t remember what his issue was but the result stuck in my brain. It was very competitive there, nobody wanted to share booking contacts and nobody wanted to help each other.
Whenever we moved here, we wanted to embody positive change, you know, like the saying, “Be the change you want to see.” And for us, that need for change caused us to ask the question, “What if we were a community instead of competitors? What would that look like?” It looks beautiful. It looks like a bunch of people that get together and play together and are not concerned with not having enough. Everyone gives to each other.
Nobody’s in direct competition, we all do different stuff. Your music is totally different than my music, and they’re both great. You know what I mean? That’s the beauty of art! There is no first place. You can judge it by how many albums you sell, how skilled you are, your knowledge of theory. You can judge it however you want. So there really is no first place.
Faith: Yeah. It’s very subjective.
Jess: Yes. Like a beauty competition. [laughs]
Faith: [laughs] Yeah. But, fortunately not exploitive….
Jess: Yes.
Faith: Like a beauty competition. [laughs]
Jess: Yes!
Faith: … Going back to past conversations… [laughs]
Jess: Yes… that’s actually something that has really influenced and formed The Prairie Scholars. We wanted a band of equality. We didn’t want either of us to be physically objectified or exploited. And so, you might notice subtle things like our harmonies… I’ll sing lower than Andy on many occasions.
Faith: Oh…?