“I’ve always tried to find the truth in this world, and, to
me, that meant subjecting myself to unappealing situations or things I
am afraid of. That is how you learn interesting things.”
And with that, a young Nick Jaina set out in the world. As a
singer/songwriter—a genre whose very term evokes images of
sensitive crooners with delicate sensibilities—Jaina has lived a
tattered lifetime of experiences all over the map. He has dug ditches
in the Texas sun, worked menial jobs in Cajun country, and traveled
this country searching for something more tangible than the spent
romanticism of old Kerouac novels. Jaina’s life and songs are seduced
by reality, legitimate tales of everyday minutia that, when structured
right, can lead to such beautiful things.
One of those beautiful things is Wool, the latest release
from Jaina. While he has a library of finished
recordings—including other solo work and time spent fronting the
Binary Dolls—Wool is the moment that Jaina arrives. Simple
in structure, the album resists the crutch of whistles, bells, studio
trickery, or even volume, for the most part—instead it’s just
Jaina, his piano, some mild instrumentation, and a whole lot of
delicate words, with which he weaves his magnificent songs. “The one
thing I do is write. But I love music so much that I try to channel my
writing into music,” says Jaina.
His gifts with the pen are Jaina’s main appeal, as he crafts each
song with a stylish, poetic grace that intertwines with his soft, raspy
voice. While the end result has its own stunning appeal, the writing
itself wears on Jaina. “I really hate writing. I love having written
something, and I am proud to be a writer, but the process of writing I
hate.” He continues, “I think it’s what pushed me into music. Sitting
in front of a piano is fun, playing music with your friends is
thrilling, but sitting in front of a screen and trying to come up with
words is hell. When you are done, it feels great. But the process is
terrible.”
But if the endeavor is draining, Jaina’s devotion to researching the
truth found him undertaking an excursion that even the bravest of
explorers would fear—touring by Greyhound bus. “The idea to tour
by Greyhound came out of necessity,” says Jaina. “I didn’t have a car
that I trusted to take for that long of a distance, and even when I
considered borrowing a car, the gas was prohibitively expensive. I have
a habit of setting up things that I have no idea how I will
logistically accomplish, and so the only real option for doing it was
by Greyhound.”
With an open-ended ticket, Jaina traveled from Sacramento to New
Orleans, hopping off along the way to play a series of shows with a
borrowed guitar in every city. While Woody Guthrie had his dusty
rumbling boxcar, Jaina’s method of transportation is bit more
intimidating, and far less romantic.
“I met no less than three blind people at different times on the
trip from California to New Orleans, and then, the bus had a TV and
would you believe they showed the film Ray? Well, they did.” He
adds, “I thought that someone was giving me a sign that I was blind to
something, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.”