adrian varnam

This article was originally published in encore magazine on January, 13th, 2010.

After seeing him perform in Wilmington last year, it’s clear that singer/songwriter Jeremy Aggers is a captivating performer in the most unusual sort of way.  He has no bravado and doesn’t demand that people pay attention.  He doesn’t dance around or bang on his guitar.  He simply performs.  And through the power of his calm presence and by the strength of his music, rooms quiet, heads turn, and people listen.

Perhaps his ability to draw listeners in comes from his former life as an actor, but in talking with Aggers it becomes clear that it comes from somewhere much deeper and has little to do with what he’s learned.  It comes from a place that best expresses itself through his music and is an honest representation of who he really is.  And therein lies the power.

“I don’t really have any interest in acting anymore,” he says.  “Songs are a lot more fun.  People have asked me, since I acted quite a bit, if it was easier to get up there on stage, but they’re really just two different things for me.  With acting you’re just up there saying lines that someone wrote as opposed to being up there singing your diary.”

The physical manifestation of that diary is his debut EP, What It Comes Down To, a 7-song introduction into the mind and musical catalog of the singer’s journey from his native North Carolina to his current home in Atlanta.  At times reminiscent of Tom Waits, but more often recalling the material of a young and reflective James Taylor, Aggers’ songs echo a maturity and timelessness found in most great American music but still manages to be a personal testament of his own.  All together gothic, reflective, complex, yet still hopeful, the music of What It Comes Down To is less a snapshot and more of a study of Aggers’ life and imagination over the past several years, carefully crafted and meticulously detailed.

“I’m definitely not that prolific because I tend to self-edit a lot, “ he says.  “Sometimes I think it makes for a better song.  You can have 10 really great songs as opposed to having 30 pretty good ones.  I tend to write in spurts, usually, but I try to write a little every day, although it’s hard to do.  Especially recently, with the release of the EP and getting signed on with Brash, I’ve been trying to regiment myself and treat it more like a job, but it’s tough because you love it like a hobby but you don’t wanna turn it into this thing that you dread doing.”

But Atlanta-based indie label, Brash Music, must’ve had enough faith that Aggers would be able to balance the joy of a hobby and the grind of a job in music.  They signed him in late-2008 to a 2-album deal and helped put out his already recorded EP this past year.  Although Brash is fairly well-known in the industry as a Christian music label, Aggers doesn’t see his relationship with them having much to do with his beliefs.  In fact, he says, the topic has never even come up as part of their direction for him.  For now he writes about his own journey, and if it aligns with the philosophy of Brash’s other artists, so be it.

“I don’t think any sort of spirituality was the reason they decided to go with me,” he says.  “My music definitely has some spiritual undertones to it, but for the most part it’s secular.  But that spiritual part of me has always been present and is reflective in what I write.  Sometimes in the song it takes over a bit and turns out to be what the song is all about, but it’s not always about that.  I’ve never written a ‘praise song,’ if you wanna call it that.  I just write to sort of answer my own questions.”

And although he has less questions now about the security of his next two full-length albums, Brash Music is taking a back seat when it comes to micro-managing his career.  While treating him just like any other artist on their roster in other areas, the label is allowing him to do a lot of artist development on his own and encouraging him to take a more personal approach to building his reputation.  For Aggers, it’s an agreement that he’d actually prefer at this stage.

“They’re pretty much seeing what I can do on my own, which I think is great, because the more money they sink in now the more money they’ll have to recoup later,” he says.  “So my manager and I have been doing some booking and recently began working with a publicist.  We’ve been doing most of it ourselves, without a booking agent, to see how far we can go, especially here in the Southeast, so we’ll have some places to play when the full-length comes out and Brash is behind us a little more.  So for now, it’s been a toe in the water, a foot in the water, then a shin and a knee.”

And from seeing him perform and listening to his record, it won’t be long before Aggers is fully immersed, from head to toe, in a career as honest and inspiring as his music.

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