The Aussie-Americana of Jordie Lane
by Brian D’Ambrosio
Jordie Lane’s first visit to the United States was in 2010. He traveled to the Mojave Desert before exploring the High Desert of California and Joshua Tree. He stayed in Room 8 at the Joshua Tree Inn, near Joshua Tree National Park, the spot where Gram Parsons (1946-1973) died of a fatal overdose in 1973. It was an adventure that deepened the singer-songwriter’s affection for America, solidifying his desire to become a part of its musical geography.
“I was soaking in that spirit,” said Lane. “If there was a ghost of Gram there, he was okay that I was there. I felt connected to him. I always liked the fragility in his voice, and that he was not hitting all of the notes perfect. I met some people and remember lighting a guitar on fire as a tribute to Gram in the desert. From that point on, I realized that crazy, magical stuff happens here (in the United States).”
A native of Australia, Lane has called East Nashville home since 2020. On his first record, GLASSELLAND, released in 2018, he probed the singer-songwriter’s realism and compiled a snarky, spontaneous and at times downright melancholy batch of songs that to him felt open, free, and alive, perhaps best expressed in the jauntily, lovingly paranoid “Better Not Go Outside.”
Demanding Voyage of Tropical Depression
Lane’s latest album Tropical Depression, a demanding voyage of self-discovery that equates the storminess of nature with the shakiness of the human heart, was released recently. It is rife with beautiful riffs, legitimate hope, melodious and fearful self-knowledge, and a deluge of raw feelings. It took several years of hard, internal strife for him to complete it, but Lane couldn’t imagine himself engaged in a more important battle.
“In the past I’ve had a lack of confidence or lack of self-esteem,” said Lane. “Not deciding things on my own. Is the song finished? Is it done? In the end, Tropical Depression is me accepting myself as a person and artist.”
The songs on Tropical Depression are heavy and cynical, weighty and hopeful, wondrous and spacious, without sounding unrealistic or sentimental. There is also a sly sense of humor to Lane’s line of attack, like the reference in “Back, Out There” to spending all of his money to pay a publicist and the best result being a profile on “some underground Norwegian blog.”
“The album is me dealing with some of my baggage and problems,” said Lane. “Songwriting helps me walk forward in my life. It’s a cathartic, therapeutic practice turning something that wasn’t going so well into a piece of art. To end up with a song out of something that’s tough – that’s a gift not everyone gets to use as their way to get through things.”
Tropical Depression deals directly with Lane’s mental health issues – anxiety, depression, negative self-perception – and he chose to be especially vulnerable in his approach to the album’s songwriting. Revealing true vulnerability gifted Lane with some impression of self-control and guidance in his life.
“That was the most terrifying theme – the vulnerability – but the record has given me and others the opportunity to keep working on that stuff. Severe weather informs our mental health. They go together. Maybe it starts a conversation, like how do you deal with depression? Therapy? Medication?”
Aussie Examined Americana
The recording allowed for Lane to delve deeper into the broad spectrum of Americana, a term that the outsider in him still finds “weird to say,” though he regularly uses the name.
“Americana is the quick way to say what I do,” said Lane. “There is storytelling, there is a folk tradition, there’s a little bit of blues, there’s a little bit of country. Americana is almost the same term as what alt-country was in the early-to-mid- 2000s. I loved Ryan Adams and Whiskeytown. I was just finishing high school and listening to “Heartbreaker.” I listened so much to Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, and now I live on the same street as their Woodland Studios.”
Many of the songs on Tropical Depression reveal the artist’s obsession with looking back on his past, his inability, as he said, “to fully live in the moment.” Indeed, the lyrics disclose the soul of someone attempting to reconcile the emotional wounds of the past and prying loose from the bottomless pit of wistful thinking. Another theme of Lane’s songwriting confronts the lingering miasma of self-doubt, the despairing view he has of himself.
“Choosing to indulge in the musical traditions of America is tricky,” said Lane. “Who are you? What are you doing in our American roots tradition? I just need to stop listening to those voices in my head. I’m excited to be exploring, but I’m also a little scared, a little on the edge.”
He is grateful, too, to be able to experience the various cultural and musical scenes of the United States, to perceive it, hear it, ponder it, and breathe it, firsthand.
“Everything I’d heard was from television and the movies,” said Lane. “Discovering a certain street or person or a certain tradition that they were singing about, and to see that it is real, it is mind blowing to experience that.”
It took Lane three years from premise to end to complete Tropical Depression, a testimony to his perseverance. Though he endured a shaky, uncertain period when he was writing it, he is now relieved that it’s all out in the open, that he kept fighting until he was happy with the results.
Indeed, Tropical Depression is the culmination of a personal journey, a direct message from a musician firmly committed to “living the life,” as he called it, and experiencing the wonder, mystery, awe, and oftentimes unrewarding pain, of sculpting out a name.
“My visa is only as working as a musician,” said Lane. “I have to make my living from this. I always did in Australia. But it’s a little bit harder in America.”
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For story ideas and suggestions, music journalist Brian D’Ambrosio may be reached at dambrosiobrian@hotmail.com
Find one of Brian’s previous interviews here: Interview: The Tried and Tested Believability of Amy Speace
Great piece. Well written.