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Shoutout atlanta feature
“Meet Mary Jennings: Singer/Songwriter & Bolo Tie Maker. We had the good fortune of connecting with Mary Jennings and we’ve shared our conversation.”
indie-music.com's favorite reviews of 2015
“Mary Jennings delivers her brand of piano pop on a grand scale, an enveloping and sensory experience that’s exhilarating.Metamorphosis, in perfect illustration of its album title, feels like something of a coming-out party. Jennings sounds like she’s blooming and changing into some other-worldly pop star across the expanse of this record.”
Infectious Magazine: Top five road essentials
"Aside from the obvious items like music gear, cables, and merch, there are several items as an independent solo touring musician that I would never leave behind whether doing shows for a weekend or several weeks.
1. Cosmetic Bag in the Front Seat– My cosmetic bag contains basic makeup necessities, facial wipes, deodorant and a travel toothbrush. You never know when you might be running late from traffic or other mishaps. I cannot count how many times I have had to prepare for a show in the front seat of my car. You don’t always have time to stop by your friend’s house or a hotel..."
The vinyl district first date
“I don’t know what it is about music, but it has always been there for me. It is my best friend that seems to get me better than anyone else. As hokey as it sounds, it has elevated every emotional peak and valley in my life.”
Huffington post: exclusive on tectonic plates
According to Mary Jennings...
The entire Metamorphosis record has heavy undertones of nature and the way in which it relates to people. As I started reading more about tectonic plates and how they shifted and changed, I saw so many similarities in human interactions--sometimes we come together creating emotional earthquakes, sometimes we drift apart, and sometimes we move independently, never affecting one another. It was important to me that this track be relatable while still being scientifically accurate. Without the scientific accuracy, I think it would have disrupted the metaphor and I certainly didn't want some poor middle school student failing a test because of misrepresentation. There are only a few people who I'd feel comfortable calling on to co-write a song about tectonic plates, but Jeremy Nash was a natural choice. As we wrote and started to sing it together, I realized this song had to be a duet. I also knew I wanted my dear friend and talented producer and drummer, Ian O'Neill to bring 'Tectonic Plates' to life. We spent a lot of time searching through pads on the computer and banging on various objects in the room to find the perfect earth moving sounds."
vents magazine: interview with mary jennings
Hi Mary, welcome to VENTS! How have you been?
Well thank you!! I have been fine! Thanks for having me on VENTS! I have been busy on the road plays shows to support my new album, “Metamorphosis.”
Can you tell us more about the story behind your track ¨Home¨?
“Home” is a song about survival. Many people think of “home” as a place or things. Even more people consider “home” to be family and friends. I think that at the core though, “home” is a state of mind and an ability to survive.
Did any event in particular inspire the song?
“Home” was inspired by watching “The Walking Dead” actually. I started watching the show during Hurricane Sandy when I was living in New York. All of that had me thinking about an apocalypse, both zombie and otherwise. I considered what “home” would be in an apocalyptic world. It’s not people or things because you might have to leave at a moment’s notice. It’s not even people because they might turn into ZOMBIES!! But as I said before, “home” is a state of mind and self awareness.
Independent artist buzz's Indie 5-0: Five questions with mary jennings
Mary Jennings’ latest album Metamorphosis may seem, at moments, very much like a coming of age record, but after you listen the whole way through you will feel as though you’ve never known someone who had it more together. There is a rare wisdom found on Jennings’ Metamorphosis that made us want to talk to her so badly.
An Interview with Mary Jennings:
1. You are ensconced in the non-country Nashville music scene. Tell us how it differs from New York.
Both music scenes are awesome! Undeniably, New York’s music scene tends to be a little bit more diverse and unique which makes going to those shows so much fun. You never know what you are going to see or discover because almost anything goes in NYC. In Nashville, you might not get quite as much diversity but it makes up for that in talent. I can go into almost any venue at any night of the week in Nashville and see some of the most amazing singers and musicians. As a player, I enjoy both scenes a lot! There are lots of great venues and supportive fans and friends. I definitely have my favorite places to play in both cities but they all offer a warm and supportive atmosphere.
2. Your music has come a long way genre-wise since you first started recording. Do you bore easily? :) Or is this just your natural evolution?
Ha! I don’t think I bore easily, I just think my sounds ages and changes as I do. I don’t know many artists that sound the same when they are 19 as they do when they are in their 30s. My music has simply evolved with the times and with my tastes. As I have learned and experienced more, the topics of my songs and the way I chose to express them shift. It’s all still me.
Indie-music.com's indie artist spotlight
From time to time, if you’re lucky, you run across an artist whose collective musical sensibility adds up to so much more than the sum of his or her parts. Mary Jennings delivers her brand of piano pop on a grand scale, an enveloping and sensory experience that’s exhilarating. Metamorphosis, in perfect illustration of its album title, feels like something of a coming-out party. Jennings sounds like she’s blooming and changing into some other-worldly pop star across the expanse of this record...
mary jennings wins singer universe's best vocalist of the month
Mary Jennings, a modern pop/rock singer & songwriter based in Nashville, TN, has won the October SingerUniverse “Best Vocalist Of The Month” Competition, for her performance of her song “This Means War." This song is included on Jennings' latest album Metamorphosis, which she released independently in June (2015).
“This Means War” is a dramatic, contemporary cut which has a British/pop flavor to it. The song features a soaring music arrangement with powerful drum tracks, and it provides a fine showcase for Jennings' passionate lead vocals and multi-layered background vocals...
Mary Jennings Releases "Metamorphosis" and Announces Tour- AXS.com
Sometimes, you listen to music and you are just absolutely humbled. On Metamorphosis, Mary Jennings has hit a beautiful musical apogee where mind, body, and spirit merge, evolving within an immaculate flow of colors and chords to ultimately blossom into a rapture of the heart...
"metamorphosis" video premiered by No Country for New Nashville
We are proud to premiere the newest video, “Home,” from Nashville / New York based artist Mary Jennings’s upcoming new album, Metamorphosis. If you aren’t familiar with her work yet, hold on to your seats, because Jennings is simply a force to be reckoned with. Her massive voice and expert production really shape the unique sound, so it is not surprising that she would also put together a very interesting video for “Home”. The video depicts a post-apocalyptic, zombie ridden world that was inspired by the The Walking Dead. It was shot on location in Tennessee, was directed and choreographed by Anna Haas, and was produced by Montana Walker.
Check out the video below to get a taste of what Mary Jennings is all about, and keep your ears open for more about Metamorphosis, which drops on June 1st.
MARY JENNINGS, "One Brick"
Singer/songwriter Mary Jennings delivers an earnest tribute to the loss of her dear pal Sam, in the captivating midtempo hit-worthy “One Brick.” The anthemic, melodic tour-de-force chugs along with appreciable intensity, amid a piano-driven instrumental template and Jennings’ robust vocals—commandeering enough to assure us all amid a universal message that it’s all going to be okay. Amid a lovely kaleidoscopic swirl of harmonies, she offers, “I hope you know you are loved, I know it never feels like it's enough when these walls seem so high/And it's always one brick at a time…” Jennings continues to air her wares as a national touring act, with numerous songs placed in TV shows. With latest album “Collapse Collide,” she is truly radio-ready to foster national acclaim.
Entertainment journalist Chuck Taylor worked for 15 years at Billboard magazine as a Senior Editor/Writer and Single Reviews Editor.
Mary Jennings interview on Lady Indie
Read our interview here with indie artist of the piano-pop persuasion, Mary Jennings. Mary’s got another great new single for you to hear called “Metamorphosis,” which also just appeared on iTunes today!
Also listen her previous single below: “Home.” Mary will be playing live next at the Neighborhood Theatre in Charlotte, NC on Thursday December 4th.
LADY INDIE: A piano driven band works better in certain atmospheres/venues. What is your favorite type of venue to play in?
MARY JENNINGS: The venue really doesn’t matter to me as long as I have an engaged audience. The audience is the key in any show. You want to feel like they are not only listening and being respectful but really feeling your music as well. I have often found that smaller listening rooms and house concerts really provide that kind of an atmosphere. I want to feel like the audience and I are in this together and intimate settings are perfect for that.
Mary Jennings' "Home" featured on Lady Indie
Mary Jennings’ new single “Home” is a perfect listen for our need of some Monday motivation. It’s a snowy day here in Montreal and we’ve had this gem on repeat; it’s warming our hearts.
In this inspirational piano-driven single, Jennings sings about getting back up again once you have fallen. “I’m fearless,” she sings. Consider letting this song seep into your subconscious if you’ve had a particularly rough weekend!
"Home" and more on lhyme.com
I am nothing without my voice…. Mary Jennings’s song, “Home” , is the perfect display of this pop/rock/electronica artist’s talent. The first time I heard the song, I immediately purchased it on iTunes without hesitation; it was just a natural reflex. This release was Jennings first release in two years and let me say, it was worth the wait. With the recent release of “Metamorphosis” this month, she has a goal of releasing a new song every two months until her tentative Summer 2015 album release.
Jennings gives me Tori Amos, Sara McLachlan and Joni Mitchell all wrapped in one perfect vocal package. She describes her influences as artists such as Amy Lee, Florence and The Machine , and Joni The goal for Mary Jennings is to create good, meaningful and honest music.
On AXS.com: Mary Jennings to release ‘The Walking Dead’ inspired single, ‘Home’
You might know Mary Jennings as the bolo tie crafting, wildly passionate artist with breathtaking, landscape-sized vocals. But there’s another side to this dynamic individual, a side she finally fully exposes on her latest single entitled “Home” (available Oct. 1). The single was inspired by the vastly popular “The Walking Dead” series, and with its release, you will be treated to a fabulously creepy facet of this truly multi-dimensional artist.
“Oh my gosh! I am like absurdly obsessed with scary movies!” Jennings expressed in an interview with AXS.com. “I have a group of girlfriends who are all the most unassuming people -- you would never think, ‘Oh, these girls are all into horror’ because we are all sweet girls,” Mary laughed. “We just like to get together and watch scary movies once a week in the middle of the afternoon. You know, just enjoy a good fright flick during the day.”
Jennings music is beautifully moving. She can touch your soul with her stirring, robust vocals. Though she still taps into that magic on “Home,” the track also carries a hollow, or a “void” as she calls it. There’s a chilling emptiness that captures the essence of the phenomenally successful series...
"Music: Home by Mary Jennings" on imoveilive.com
Inspired to write it after watching the tv show, Walking Dead Mary Jennings brings you, “Home.” check out this great interview we did with here about this great new song.
Why did you select this song as your current single?
I will be releasing the majority of the songs as singles until the album comes out. I think it is important to give each song it’s deserved spotlight. The song “Home” was the first one that I worked on in this series. It felt right for it to be the first one released.
How does this single relate to the rest of the Album, EP or Mix-tape?
Each song that will be on the upcoming album has a different theme and story. However, the style of production connects them all.
What was the writing process for the song?
This song came to me in the middle of the night. I was watching a lot of “Walking Dead” during that time and, although the show is about zombies, it really focuses human survival during an apocalypse. I knew I wanted to right a song based on the concept of “home”. Is home a place? A person? And in the middle of the night, after being asleep for several hours, I woke up with “where we fall but get back up again we can call that home.” I went into the den and sat down with my loop pedal and wrote the rest of it almost in it’s entirety right then...
Mary Jennings - Featured Artist on Amurco
Read Below To Find Out What Happened When We Interviewed Mary Jennings
Her Latest Single ‘Home’ Is Out Today
Q. Mary, what have you been up to this year?
Well this year I have been busy working on new music. I moved back from New York to Nashville (Tennessee) about a year and a half ago. Since then I have been doing tons of co-writes, performing a lot of shows and mostly preparing for the release of these new songs.
Q. To someone who has never heard your music, how would you describe your sound?
I would describe my sounds as, well… I am a piano playing, looping, bold, singing female rock pop electronic artist. I often get compared with the storytelling and emotional writing of Joni Mitchell with the the pop influences of an Annie Lennox, the electronic vibe of an Imogen heap and the rock sensibilities of Florence and the Machine. So if you were to fuse all of that together somewhere in there you would find what I do.
Wednesday Q&A with Mary Jennings and The Dutch Guy
Think it must been late 2010, I was still doing radio on Cool FM when I discovered this sister. I remember spinning her single ‘Doorway‘ on a regular basis and getting awesome feedback on it!
The station closed down on me and so did a lot contacts. I’ve always been keeping an eyeball on her, but think we didn’t spoke for close to 3 years, until I got an email a couple of weeks ago: ‘not sure if you remember me’…
The thing with me is, I hardly forget an artist, especially when I’ve had or played them on a radio show one time or another. So, I was more surprised she remembered lil’ ol’ me!
With giving me a sneaky-peek of her awesome soon to drop single ‘Home‘, she explained to me she’s gonna release a single every two months, until she’s gonna put out a brand spanking new album...
Mary Jennings on The Underground Sound
Born in Nashville, raised in Gainsville, and polished in NYC, Jennings is a fiery siren that packs a big punch in a small package. With an incredible vocal range, immaculate control, and passionate words, Jennings is a must see when she stops into your town.
A veteran on stage, Jennings has been writing songs since she was sixteen. Her outpour of musical expression came at the sudden loss of her mother in 2001. “I had no idea when my life was going to end, I just kept thinking, did she live her life to it’s fullest?” Jennings used her tragedy to create passion driven music that is relatable to everyone. A self taught pianist and vocalist, Jennings is pure talent wrapped up in an emotional ball.
While living in NYC, Jennings enhanced her sound. Opening her set with complex personal loops to create a full band atmosphere. Jennings has the quirkiness of Regina Spektor with more soul, the presence of Tori Amos with less angst, and the vocals of Sarah McLachlan with more edge. All of these influences can be seen while watching this gritty performer on stage.
While performing Jennings is an open book, “I want my audience to leave knowing my life story.” While singingFalling Higher off her latest album Collapse Collide you can see her reach back to moment that sparked the lyrics to this song. “I don’t like to pack my songs with complex metaphors, I want it to be completely relatable.” Her raw power shines through vocally in this candid love song. Her honest soul and love for music pours through in every show. “I would rather everyone walk out of here with music than worry about the money they have in their pocket,” she said while explaining that every audience member should grab a CD whether you have money to pay for it or not.
If you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing Jennings perform, you will soon. With over 100 shows played last year alone, she will play anywhere, “I will play at your house party, just give me a place to sleep and an attentive audience…I’m there!” When you see her play make sure to stick around and talk to this wonderful artist. Not only is she incredibly talented, but also she is approachable, incredibly interesting, and just plain nice. Jennings is one of those people who have it all.
-Rachel Stemerman, The Underground Sound
Mary Jennings, "Take it or Leave"
Mary Jennings knows how to deliver a song. Her highly personal and emotional singing style is raw and captivating. It’s the sort of performance that keeps audiences rapt with attention; leaning in toward the stage do they don’t miss a thing. Take It Or Leave It captures the energy and power of a Jennings performance for those who haven’t been lucky enough to see her live, or for those who have and want to recapture the moment. Don’t miss this album.
-Wildy Haskell