2010 saw the brother and sister pair re-surface with a new project and a very new sound, the more folk-inspired The Verses. The band released their album Seasons that year to strong critical acclaim. 2013 sees Jesse in a slightly more relaxed mode. He is currently working at Artful Dodgers Studios in Collingwood, an establishment that assists young unemployed people get involved in music and art.
“We usually work with people aged 17 to 28 who are disengaged from employment or education. We generally work with people who are ‘facing difficult circumstances’, is the way they like to term it. So we’re working with young people who have mental health and drug and alcohol issues as well. We’ve a really good setup in Collingwood, which is a big arts space. We’ve got setups in digital media, painting, sculpture, and we’ve got a music studio as well. We’ve got a few different artists that work with different people in each medium: there’s a visual artist, a digital media artist and then there’s a musician, which is me,” he says.
“I’ve been there for just over 18 months now. Two days a week I do one-on-one sessions, I do songwriting, recording, live performance, coaching, just anything that you’d want to do around music. And then also we’re going to be starting some short courses very soon in music, basic graphic design and video production.”
The centre has actually been open for almost a decade, and has had some pretty big name figures in the music industry go through, teaching youngsters how to play music. “It used to have a lot of different musicians working there day-to-day, over the years,” he says. “They’ve had Charles Jenkins, Rebecca Barnard, Pete Satchwell. We’ve had some great musicians there over the years…and I’m there now,” he laughs self-depreciatingly.
Apparently it is not the first time that Jesse has involved himself in assisting young people to take up and learn music, but it was the less privileged nature of the people he was to be working with that inspired him to take up this current position with Artful Dodgers, and he is finding it very worthwhile. “I’ve always taught in songwriting workshops, and worked with aspiring musicians in different contexts over the year,” he explains. “I’ve done high schools, I’ve done private workshops, I’ve done tuition occasionally, and always playing in a band. I saw the position and read a bit about it, and I’ve never really worked with disadvantaged young people; just high school kids and whatever. So I thought it’d be a great opportunity to help foster someone else’s creative juices, so to speak.
“It’s very nice for me; I can go in there and help people with their songs, facilitate them recording, so there’s creative input on my part. Sometimes it’s just being there to help them have the experience of creating. But I’m really enjoying it, it’s been quite rewarding, I’ve had some great projects come along, and collaborated with some young people on their songwriting. Some of the young guys are out playing gigs now which is great.”
Ultimately, helping people less fortunate than ourselves is what it’s all about, and Jesse feels like he is doing his part for the community. “It’s about letting them have the opportunity to do it themselves. Yes, I do get a kick out of that, I get a lot of good feedback about helping that happen, but it’s not all about me. It’s about me providing those opportunities for some other young people to experience writing their own songs, or performing. So I do really enjoy that,” he says.
With the studio taking up so much of his time, and his sister Ella working on her own thing, Jesse’s musical projects have taken a bit of a back seat for the moment, but that could change at some point. “Ella’s completely focused on her solo album that’ll be coming out this year. She’s got her first single coming out, called Low High, so I better give a plug for that. So The Verses are on hiatus at the moment. I’m doing some songwriting with some friends, so I’ve gotsome potential projects cooking along. But, early stages,” he says.
BY ROD WHITFIELD
