Jay Warren: a singer on the rise
Every big-name musician was once a small-town no-name musician. Fame takes dedication, passion and talent, all of which define R&B singer, Jay Warren, to a tee.
Based out of Salt Lake City, Warren has slowly built a following around his catchy beats and sultry vocals. He can appear overly confident and apathetic over social media but in person, he is a genuine, humble individual who cares about his friends and family.
“I just love to have fun,” Warren said. “I love being on stage, being in front of people and making sure people are having the best time of their lives. It’s all about having fun and enjoying the music, enjoying the moment, the party, the show — wherever it is.”
Music was a decision as much as a part of life for Warren.
“I’ve always been singing my entire life,” Warren said. “I grew up in church and school choirs.”
This is not an understatement. Though he doesn’t personally remember it, his mother said when he was just 18 months old he attempted to sing Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.”
“She says, ‘Yup, that’s when I knew you were a singer,’” Warren said.
If that is not prophetic enough, Warren recalled, “I remember very clearly was in second grade, we were doing those little school shows where the class sings some songs to the parents. And so our second-grade class was singing “You Are My Sunshine,” and Mrs. Simpson heard me singing off to the side and she was like, ‘Oh, wow, you’re a really good singer. You should do the solo.’ And I was like, ‘Alright, cool.’ That’s the earliest memory I have of someone realizing like, ‘Oh, yeah, you can sing. Let’s put you in front.’ So, as early as second grade I knew, ‘Oh, I can do this.’”
Then, in 2017 when he lost his job, he made the decision to “go full career mode” with his music.
“My wife and I were just like, ‘This is probably a sign. Let’s just go full-time with music,’ because we knew that’s what we wanted to be doing.”
Since entering career mode, Jay Warren has released over a dozen singles and most recently, a full-length album.
Warren describes his music as having three phases to it.
“There is the pre-game phase. Like “Beautiful Disaster,” “Take You Higher.” That is the anticipation, the excitement of getting ready to go out,” he said. “And then there is being out. So, “Go Slow” is like, we’re out, we’re at the club, we’re at the party, we’re having a good time. And then there’s the postgame music, the like, now we’re in the car on the way home. I’m like hanging out with a guy that I might kind of like, and, you know, might get to know each other a little bit more after the party.”
“So there’s something for pregame at the party and after the fact. So whatever you need, just throw on some Jay Warren and I can guarantee you it’ll fit the soundtrack to whatever you’re doing.”
Music is a powerful and immersive source of connection, which is something Warren loves and works to find in his music.
“Each song kind of has its own purpose, so to speak. It has its own emotion that I’m trying to convey,” Warren said, “But as an artist, my goal is to bring people together. Whether they’re at a show or with friends listening to the music. You can forget about all of the craziness that’s going on — especially all of the 2020 type things that are happening — and just be in the moment and present where you are. The purpose of my music is bringing people together.”
With such a broad but impactful goal, it would seem there’s a lot of pressure when writing. For him, that’s not the case. Songs emerge with work naturally, but it’s not nearly as complex of an experience as one may think.
“I’ll sit down and I start at the piano,” he said, “and I just start messing around, playing chords, trying to find sounds I like. Once I find a chord progression I like, I start humming and trying to find the melody that feels like it makes sense with whatever I’m playing. And then once I find the melody, I try to find one line, one lyric that works with that melody.”
His favorite example of his process was with the first line of his song “Closer”: How could I expect you to wait for me like lovers do when I wasn’t there for you? He didn’t have a story in mind yet, it was just a lyric he liked.
“So once I find that lyric, I take a step back and I try to imagine, almost like a movie or a script. Alright, there’s this character, and he’s saying this line, ‘how could I expect you to wait for me like lovers do when I wasn’t there for you?’ And I basically build a movie around it and try to think of the story of why he’s saying that and what’s going on in his life to make him do that. Sometimes there’s a bit of me in there, I’ll insert things that I’ve gone through or things that friends have gone through.”
On Sept. 25, Warren released his first full-length studio album, “Give Love.” Ever since going career with music, he knew he wanted to release an album but waited and only released singles for three years to gain a following. Even so, the album has been physically in the works for years. The first song he wrote for it, the album’s last track and titular song, “Give Love,” was completed in 2018.
“I knew I wanted that to be the last song on the album because it ends on that [line] ‘love,’ and it just gets quiet, quiet, quiet — just fades away. And I wanted that to be stuck in people’s heads as they finish the album.”
Next, he wrote the album’s first single, “Take it Higher.”
“It was such a fun song that I was like, OK, I want this to be the feel of the album — this is our center. And we can go right and go left and back. But this sound — fun, upbeat, almost pop-funk type sound — is going to be the center of the album. And then after that, I was just continuing to write a bunch of songs.”
After years of working, collaborating with his guitarist and producer, Nate, his team hand-picked his best songs to create an album bursting with unbeatable beats and memorable melodies.
All the waiting and hard work immediately paid off. “Give Love” reached number one on iTunes charts for R&B albums, beating out Alicia Key’s “Alicia.” Beyond this accomplishment, it was the first album based out of Utah to do so.
“I had this goal. I was like, I want to do something that’s big enough to where it scares us but something that is also realistic like, ‘OK, I think we can do this,’” Warren said. “There’s never been a Utah artist to go number one on an iTunes chart for R&B, so let’s do it — let’s pick that one. And it was nerve-racking.”
For weeks, Alicia Keys was number one, the only artist ahead of Warren. “Give Love” was originally going to be released on Sept. 18, but, feeling more time was needed to gain the necessary momentum, they bumped it back a week.
“We were just crossing our fingers that like, hopefully, we have enough momentum so that by the week later, we could knock her off of number one and then go number one.’ And the 25th came and for most of the morning, we were number two. I kept refreshing my phone over and over and over again. Like, ‘Oh, my God, I don’t know if we’re going to make it.’ And then finally around noon or 11, we finally passed her and went number one. And it was amazing … It was absolutely crazy.”
With such an accomplishment under his belt for his first album, Warren is confident going forward and has projected numerous goals to continue him on his path to success.
“If your goals don’t scare you, you’re not doing them right,” he said. “Music is plan A through Z for me. That’s what our team always says. It’s plan A through Z. So whatever it takes to make it work, let’s figure it out and do it.”
Having already proved his potential, there can be no doubt Jay Warren is nothing if not a singer on the rise. The height of this rise is something we will simply have to wait and see, though it’s clear, we won’t be disappointed.
You can give love to “Give Love” on iTunes, Spotify, Pandora and YouTube, as well as his many singles. You can see more of Warren in the podcast he runs with his wife, Annie, called “The Internet’s Mom and Dad,” which discusses everything from pop culture and lifestyles to current events to personal life experiences. Available on Spotify, Apple, SoundCloud and YouTube.
Dara Lusk was born and raised in northern Virginia outside of Washington, DC. She is majoring in English with an emphasis in Technical/Professional Writing and a minor in Anthropology. When not writing she loves reading and annotating classic literature.
@dara_marie