Jesse Sarvinski

What’s your name?
Jesse Sarvinski

What is your job?
I am a songwriter, vocalist and producer but I also like to include visual artist because one of my favorite things is to see a song come to life through the medium of music video. I love to collaborate with other artists and see their interpretation of the song.

What social causes are most important to you?
I’m really big on health and nutrition. I believe in the power of the human body, mind, and diet and I live by the words “Let Thy food be Thy medicine” so I try and spread the word that you really and truly can feel better based on what you put into your body. Don’t get me wrong I can definitely slam down a pizza from time to time but in general I like to eat clean; fruits and nuts, vegetables, lean meats and food that comes from the Earth and has not been tainted or processed.

What charity do you support – and how?
I work with a couple here in LA but primarily a group called Red Eye. They are really big on spreading the arts and working with primarily children but adults also, helping people feel empowered. It’s really awesome to be a part of that. They do so much for the community and I take part when I can. Really great people. Compassionate and excited about life and helping others. Also, a recording artist friend of mine and myself spend a lot of time in the projects, Watts. We go and hang out with the kids, play music with them, take them to shows that they might not ordinarily have the opportunity to see and it’s a really good time. I’m very big on teaching children music at a young age and it’s something that budgets are being cut back on a lot. Sometimes I will volunteer and go to a Preschool or Grade School and sing and teach kids about musical history or how certain songs were made or sometimes I’ll just sing something really uplifting that they can easily sing along to. It’s very important to me because music changed my life at a very early age and if it weren’t for the mentors I had around me inspiring me and motivating me to let that creativity shine, the trajectory of my life would have been significantly different.

How would you define social responsibility?
I think social responsibility really boils down to love and acceptance and sometimes those words can sound so cliche or mawkishly sentimental but it really does. We need to keep our walls down and realize that just because we have different skin colors or religions or languages or places of origin, the same things make our hearts beat. We all need food and water, we all need sleep, we all need love. It’s a really simple premise that might sound naive but I really do believe it’s that simple. I think that you just need to give your brother a helping hand sometimes. Ya know if some homeless guy asks you for money, is it really gonna kill you to give him a dollar? There is enough to go around for everyone and it’s important to keep your mindset in a place of abundance and not in a place of scarcity and lack.

Do you have any tattoos that relate to your social work?
I believe in the interconnectedness of everything so I think that that would naturally be reflected in my tattoos. On my wrist I have one that reads “One Life” – again alluding to the idea that we are all one, it’s all one, and it goes on and on, as far as I’m concerned. I guess it’s just a reminder to do the right thing in life. On my forearm I have a guitar, because music is so important to me and I just loved the idea of having it there and it’s a great conversation starter. On my right shoulder I have a Sacred Heart which is well-known Catholic iconography. Though I’m not practicing, I love the mysticism that it represents and the idea that there is Divine love. You can call it what you want, it’s all different names for the same thing in my mind, but I believe it’s out there so it again just reminds me to have compassion and the flames surrounding it remind me to keep the fire alive, keep that light shining and spread it around as much as you can. - Inked Magazine

BIRTHDATE: 3/15/1982

HOMETOWN: Fortuna, CA

CURRENT LOCATION: Los Angeles, CA

AMBITIONS: To stay true to myself in this every conforming society. To speak out and stand up for what is right. To love fully.

TURN-OFFS: I’ve kind of learned to not be bothered by too much these days but I try not to surround myself with anyone who is too much of a Contrarian or Con-Artist or has a stick up their ass.

TURN-ONS: People who don’t give a shit and just live without limits or judgements. I like big hearts but I also love a good dark side. People who have tapped into all of the different aspects of themselves and aren’t afraid of them. I admire the people who live off the grid, who aren’t consumed by their cell-phones and who know how to just go with the flow. I like people who take care of themselves and eat right and stay fit but also aren’t afraid to hit the drive-thru of McDonalds at 1am with me once in a while. People who have weird hobbies or jobs that don’t go with how they look, like the perfect 10 who makes quilts. Anomalies are my favorite.

DREAM GIG: I’ve always dreamed of performing the televised section of the Grammy’s.

FAVORITE LYRIC: This changes everyday but right this second it’s “I find something so right in doing the wrong thing…” Which leads us to the song I wish I wrote (currently)

CRAZIEST PERSON I KNOW: I feel like the proper question would be more like, “Who is the most ‘normal’ person you know?” Isn’t everyone a little crazy!? Or am I projecting?

SONG I WISH I WROTE: Counting Stars – One Republic

5 PEOPLE I’D MOST LIKE TO HAVE DINNER WITH: Einstein, Pope Francis, Oprah, Abraham Lincoln, Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt (I’m a bad counter)

MY FAVORITE CONCERT EXPERIENCE: Gotta be Dolly Parton. Not only do you get a fantastic concert but you also get a stand-up comedian. Her banter is spot-on. And she plays like 13 instruments. I saw her at the Hollywood Bowl and it’s a night I will never forget. A beautiful, beautiful soul that Dolly!

I WROTE THIS SONG: .I was in a really dark place the past few years: I was f*cking up opportunities and sabotaging my life with drugs and alcohol and I came to a point where it just wasn’t working anymore. I’ve always been pretty spiritual but I couldn’t quite connect with the world the way I wanted to because I was always f*cked up. That’s been a major influence on this record for me; the start of a new chapter and the realization that there’s a force out there that we’re all a part of, and this new conviction that you really can do whatever you want in life. You just have to get rid of whatever brings you down and just look yourself in the mirror and say “I can do this. I can do anything. - American Songwriter Magazine

Jesse Sarvinski was born and raised on the coast of rural Northern California. At the age of 3, he began teaching himself guitar, piano, & songwriting. In high school, his participation in musical theater & choir made him realize he might be on to something. Soon after he moved to Venice Beach to focus on a musical career. With touches of country-western, reggae, and pop, Jesse is a mixed bag. “I’m really one of those people who likes to dabble in everything”, says Jesse. “I like every kind of music and for the most part every kind of person. Even in high school I never really rolled with one crowd. It was always me and the metal-heads, or the jocks or the drama kids or the holy rollers”. His acoustic work is laid-back with a poetic vibe.

Recently taking a break from the acoustic sound, Jesse teamed up with a European producer and released an EP titled Automatons. Departing from his trademark acoustics and flirting with dance music, Jesse clearly bends all the cookie-cutter music biz rules. “I don’t like to be put in a box. If I want to mix my country twang with a synthesizer I do it”, he confesses. “And of course you get the people who tell you..‘thats not you.’ And I say 'Well yes it is me. I wrote it and I’m singing it, so it must be me.’ ” he says with a knowing grin. On Wednesday, Jesse will be taking it back to acoustic vibe so come see for yourself one of his many sides. - The Standard Hotel

In the first week of his new album release “Higher”, I caught up with recording artist Jesse Sarvinski to see what inspired the album and what makes him tick…

1 – What music did you grow up listening to?

My parents pretty much always had the radio dialed to the country station so that was kind of the foundation of my music listening but I was exposed to a lot. My older cousin kept up with the current stuff and listened to the pop station, I spent a lot of time with her so I listened to a lot of that too. Country is really good at telling stories, kind of letting the narrative unfold in a really cinematic way. Pop music is all about the hook, the chorus that really gets stuck in your head. Later in my early teens I got more into rock, reggae, and alternative, much of which was classified as grunge back then. The first few albums I owned were pretty random though. It was something like Ace of Base, No Doubt, Green Day, Real McCoy and Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill – which had a profound effect on me. I remember hearing “Hand In My Pocket” for the first time and immediately asking “WHO IS THIS?” She was a great storyteller. But even like Ace Of Base for example, the beats were so solid. The music just got into your bones and I really love that too. I grew up on everything and I still to this day listen to everything. If it’s a good song, it doesn’t matter to me which particular genre it belongs to.

2 – Who taught you to sing? What inspires you to write songs?

I don’t know if I was ever actually taught. It was just kind of like this “I want to sing so I’m going to” type of thing. My voice was shit when I first started out because I was primarily interested in getting my thoughts out and a lot of times there was no resemblance of a melody and it could have been so off key that it was painful but I just told myself, “Bob Dylan was off key. Johnny Cash was off key. Lots of people are off key.” I made it about what I was saying but never stopped trying to develop my voice. I remember a lot of people asking me “Have you ever thought about being a songwriter, like, JUST a songwriter?” And I would be like “No, I’ve never thought of being JUST that, but thank you.” I kind of knew that I was never gonna be the guy who was doing all these complicated runs with his voice and being some Luther Vandross character and I just accepted that. As I got older I started training my voice much more and working with a coach and it’s kind of like working out at the gym. You have to do it on the regular and if you do, it can only get better and better. I’m inspired by a lot of things, sometimes it can be that I’m out to dinner with friends and someone will say a phrase or a sentence and it will ring a bell in my head, and I think “that’s a really good idea for a song,” and then I’ll run with it. Sometimes it’s a real experience I’ve had, maybe let’s say with a relationship, and there are those things that I think but that I really don’t necessarily want to say to that particular lover so I write about it. Or maybe it’s just a heightened take on an emotion that I’m feeling for one night. It’s always just a snapshot. That’s the great thing about a song. It’s not forever. Like just because I may write something that’s on the melancholy side, doesn’t mean I’m a melancholy person in general but in that moment I was feeling melancholy so I wrote about it. It’s all just catharsis.

3 – How do you stay fresh and on top of new sounds, and trends?

I don’t anymore. Trends come and go but speaking your truth will always be in style so I try to just go with that and if I like something then I do it. A friend of mine is a pretty well-known songwriter and I remember her telling me one day “just go with your gut.” So that’s what I do. And that seems to work best. If you try and analyze and say “oh I gotta do this, be like this person, give it this feel” you will miss the mark. You can be inspired by something but mimicking never ever works. My songs usually start with a beat. A producer will give me a beat and I write the lyrics and melody on top of that based on what the music emotes for me.

4 – Why is your new album called ‘Higher’?

I’m a seeker. I’m always happy to be where I’m at but I’m also aware that there is always more to be experienced so I’m constantly trying to rise towards whatever that may be. Many of the songs on the album are about those types of journeys. We’re kind of on this staircase and you don’t just get one step upward and think, “Okay, well I’m here now. I guess I will just sit at this step for the rest of my life.” For me it’s more like, “Alright. I’ve accomplished that. Now what!?” I’m always making little tweaks to make things better for myself. I also believe in a Power that is beyond what is just inside me and I’m constantly aware of signs that there is something higher at play than just the world we see with our eyes on a day-to-day basis. There is something out there and you don’t even have to give it a name. It’s just a light inside all of us that is working toward some greater good. Those themes are woven throughout.



5 – What’s the hardest song to sing off the new album?

“Inferno”. It’s so high. I don’t know what I was thinking when I wrote it. Hah. Also, “The Stories We Tell Ourselves”. That song is pure raw emotion for me.


6 – How do you overcome performance anxiety?

Sometimes I’ll have a little bit of whiskey butI like to be pretty clear for the most part. I love being on stage, you kind of have to if you want to be in this business. There’s always a bit of a thought process beforehand though. I want the audience to enjoy themselves so I think about that. I get really silent within for a minute and just think about connecting with people like we are all old friends at a house party.

7 – Do you think artists should give their music away for free?

I think that if people knew how much money the artist put into making that music they would be more inclined to buy it. But people just don’t know. They aren’t aware of what went into that song. I don’t get upset about it or anything. “It is what it is.”But I do often think about how I can’t go into a restaurant and ask a chef to prepare me his favorite meal for free because he loves food and he’s good at it. I don’t go to a tire shop and ask my mechanic to work on my car for free just because he is passionate about automobiles. I don’t get free haircuts. Why? Because that person went through training and certification and hour after hour of perfecting their craft to make me look stylish. So isn’t it funny how it’s so different with music? MUSIC! The thing that every single person in the world loves, that can take you from sad to happy in an instant or transport you back to a time in your life that you remember fondly. For me, I look at it like this; I’m taken care of. Always. I always have enough. I get to do cool things and play my songs for people and that’s pretty cool. For me, it always comes back around. What I give, I get back.

8 – Everyone has a secret, What’s yours?

Everyone has multiple secrets but mine wouldn’t be secrets if I told you them now would they? - ElectroWow