Ahead of his June 27th and July 25th releases, Edwards discusses energy capsules, busking, and the death of modern society

Transmission 268: Interview with Jesse Daniel Edwards

Jesse Daniel Edwards is a Nashville-based singer-songwriter raised in the mountain isolation of Cuyamaca, California. Growing up without television and surrounded by profound silence, Edwards developed an internal musical vocabulary that would later define his philosophical approach to songwriting.

Title: Requiem Mass / Catechism En Masse
Artist: Jesse Daniel Edwards
Release Date: 2025-07-25
Genres: Americana, Art Rock, Folk Rock
Description: Jesse Daniel Edwards discusses mountain isolation, Ryokan, and Requiem Mass / Catechism En Masse, out June 27 & July 25 via Cavity Search Records.

After years busking across America and Europe, he released Violensia in 2023 and his self-titled Jesse Daniel Edwards in 2025, both recorded live to 2-track tape in Memphis. His Requiem Mass / Catechism En Masse was released as two digital EPs—Requiem Mass on June 27th and Catechism En Masse on July 25th—before being combined as a physical LP on July 25 via Cavity Search Records.

Growing up in Cuyamaca, what first pulled you toward making music instead of following another path?

If you’ve ever had occasion to lose yourself down some half-forgotten memory, following the dusky shadows upon the sinuous two lane blacktop leading to the speck on the map that is Cuyamaca (“Oh, ye land of my youth, Oh, ye wellspring of my being!”)- and in all my wide, world wanderings, I have not yet to this day crossed paths with the windswept sojourner who can say “aye!” to this lofty and isolated claim- you would have every occasion to acknowledge that beyond the amusements one may generate oneself, there is scarce much else with which to occupy oneself. Oh, starlight there is a plenty; and a profound sense of stillness amidst the barren mountain enclaves…true, and for this I am ever grateful. For, little did I know how much the quiet would mold me; and the solitude shaped me. Yes, it was in this remote landscape that I indeed “cut my teeth” so to speak- musically, but moreover, internally, and personally. Believe it or not, my parents still managed to receive a noise complaint, though our nearest neighbors were half a mile distant!

Without “choosing” to embark full-fledged-ed into the notion of freewill and choice, let me just say that we are as much imprinted upon by our environment, as the marks we leave thereon. My case was no different, really- perhaps slightly more extreme than others of my generation, but I did draw in, in order to start blasting out…ideas, dreams, free-floating thoughts, angst, rage, humor, horror…if there were other outlets, perhaps I did not allow myself to realize, or believe, there were. Ironically, this is how any of us end up as we are- where we are- more or less: a set of circumstances identified as our fishbowl, and then a series of engagements with that environment that feel as if they are personal choices, informed by our fleeting glimpses of mental and emotional activity. This is what we have in common with all animals, and yet, part of what may also distinguish us as human. Perhaps being “god-like” is merely understanding the difference. If we could experience time differently, for example, would music still sound like, well, music?

What were you listening to before you started making music?

My parents were right, I think, in a way, to fear the outside world. Their weapons of rebuttal? Discipline, religion, seclusion. I would say their methods “worked”, in a sense- but it was many decades later that I would cede the point, and even shed tears of gratitude amidst tears of understanding. I can probably remember more of the music I listened to in those early years- at least of the stuff that mattered- than I can remember how I felt about my life, or what my friends and I would talk about. Because of seemingly slight, yet significant differences betwee how I was being raised as opposed to my peers, I do recall there was ample opportunity for what I called affectionately/deploringly, “slipping away”. We’ve all let our minds wander when the conversation turns dull or routine, or the talk becomes “small” (ALL too often)…for me, as a young’un, I realized these were prime opportunities for mental activities of all kinds!

When my friends would invariably start discussing the latest episode of The Simpsons (this was a daily occurrence, and had any one of them devoted half as much time or mental perspicacity to, say, their studies, we, as a species, would probably be colonizing Uranus by now), and I invariably started to feel that tug of the mind as it began to jettison away (I grew up without a television, you see), well, I would merely hop aboard the Mind Train and embark for the most delicious meanderings. I invented whole worlds, with the most intricate details of flora and fauna! I composed entire sonatas of the left hand (sounds like a euphemism…purposefully?)! And yes, I made up personages with whom I would construct conversations more to my tastes- philosophical, existential, honest, and raw…

Sometimes my friends would take pity on me and we’d sneak into the Teacher’s Room during recess, and co-opt the boombox to blast half a track of Pantera, or Smashing Pumpkins before being shooed out by the lunch monitor (she being already destined to be a future asshole, at age 14). Sometimes if we had a little more time before being expunged, we’d think to put a highlighter marker in the microwave and set it to blow, etc. Looking back, it was all somehow intertwined into a glorious madness of youth, held in amber as a solitary nostalgia:

“Five minutes alone, just give us five minutes alone.” -Pantera

Do you remember the first song you ever wrote, and what pushed you to finish it?

According to my father, I was composing musical ideas and rhythms as young as 2 years of age. I like that, as a part of my story, I cannot even remember my first creative output as I was simply too young to do one and not the other (create, but not remember). I like what it suggests. We each of us have things that reinforce, or even, embolden the narrative. And the narrative, my friends, is what “we” in fact “are”. The story we tell ourselves, the story we are told, and the story that is told to others.

The reason this appeals to me, is beyond hubris, listen: I moreso like the idea of sounds going out, reverberating in the bubble of Earth’s atmosphere, and fluttering amidst wind, and breath, and words, and jackhammers, and ENERGY. It reminds me that putting “it” out into the air is enough- it EXISTS. Much is made of this sad, grubby little music industry, when really more to the point is this idea of energy. We should be more preparing and crafting energy capsules of meaning and beauty, not trying to make money by shaking our butts on TikTok. It’s a bit tiresome really, how ego commanders have stolen the air from us, don’t you think? It’s quite the battle to regain any ground, but never forget we sing to angels in a language we have known since before we could speak.

Looking back at those first rehearsals and shows, what was the hardest part of carving out your sound?

The challenges are always space and time- the dreams of our hearts often exceed both. How can you learn to communicate adequately, nay, accurately about what you see, hear, taste, feel within the confines of your own spirit, if you do not have the requisite vocabulary? What does it take, to find each word, lying like dusty gemstones in the whole vast firmament of human experience? It accrues for each of us in a different, and unique fashion. Yet, we will each of us only ever operate within a finite accordance of time, and space. The potential of art to convey more aptly what we think, and who we are…that is its greatest power. It should take just about one lifetime, or perhaps one million cycles of death and rebirth, to begin to get the lay of the land…and then we start again.

You’ve mentioned being influenced by busking and performing in Europe, what city left the deepest mark on your songwriting?

You have to wonder at some point if you’ve left more parts of yourself out there, than you’ve picked up along the way. Each footfall on a cobblestone lying in a boulevard leaves a tiny imprint, yet it takes centuries to be worn down, even slightly. The cobblestones leave their impressions on us as well, of course. More of the inter-weaving…we really are physically connected at all times. Just because they haven’t monopolized, commodified, and commercialized the frequency bands, doesn’t mean it’s not of the utmost value, that it’s not broadcasting vital information around the clock, around the globe ceaselessly, shuuu! Listen! You can hear it now: cries of love, and fear…human voices in song, and agony…dreams cast in hope and forged in ideas. And you know, you and I are broadcasting just as well as receiving. Brothers and sisters, turn on your receivers! Tune IN to the human CONDITION. Make yourself one with that from which you can never even BE separate. Ask the cobblestones for their history, their mystery…leave some graffiti in blood and breath, scribble and scrawl, y’all, in four-dimensional chalk, we are but dust after all, proclaiming the same…I love you, I AM you, We are HERE…I HEAR YOU.

Are there recurring motifs or images across the record that tie the songs together?

There is a wine I like, and would like to say, I know, but you know, I can fully concede that it will probably be another seven to maybe TEN years more before I really begin to comprehend the subtle narrative held within that one glass, that one bottle. We like to think we can hurry time along, and thereby, the experience, but I’ve learned lesson #1: learn to learn. You can’t rush the process, simply participate with it, and be grateful for it. The thread that ties it all together is only apparent THROUGH time, at the end of time.

I read Ryokan and would like to think I am a student of the flowers, in my own way, in my own heart. But the face I see in the mirror, the voice that rages forth, the lyrical thought constructs that burst forth out of me, well, this is a different shaped character altogether. I would like to think Ryokan and I could have enjoyed each other’s company though, learning in a sinusoidal sorta way simply by absorbing invisible signals of bearing and thought-language-pacing, the pinging of ideas and poetry- together…without annoying one another too much! We are all of us complex beings, with many elements to our characters- the turbulent and the serene, the at rest and the at war, the lover, the fighter, the angel, the devil… And yet, simple. We don’t know how to walk when first we arrive, though, no one teaches us to breathe.

You’ve described the album as reflecting the ‘death of things.’ Which shifts or losses in society felt most urgent to address through these songs?

Every generation supposes they are living at the end of all things. Well, one of them is bound to be right. It used to be gawd to think of all the nukes floating around, capable of obliterating all life with the push of a button. Now it seems the microbes might finish us off first. Or perhaps the pollutants. Oh, and have you heard? The weather itself is in revolt! I mean, honestly, what are we meant to do? I’m just like you, man, I just showed up one day and had the basic conscription of human needs and paltry desires! Now I’m being asked to be responsible? Here’s the thing, philosophers haven’t been able to do much about it, not really. Neither have the scientists. Politicians…jeeees, everyone throughout all time knows that the majority of these career charlatans are absolute jokers, not to be trusted- and DANGEROUS.

It’s written in to the code of our nature to be the rank animals we are on the one paw. Never believe we are ever too far from the law of the jungle. That being said, on the other hand, we have “other” instincts, and more evolved ideas. Where do they come from? Why utopia? Why compassion? Is our aver-arching theme of redemption noble? To what do we ultimate attain? To be angels? To be gods? Doesn’t our impetus, for the good or for ill, still ultimately derive, at its core, from the fear of death, our own individual non-being state? Philosophy has certainly posed the many intriguing questions- molding the law of the jungle into ethical, moral, social constructs. Science has given us remarkable tools, as history can show…though oft used more to destroy than to build. Politicians (they are fond of promising and COMpromising) are willing to enact the will of the people, so they say. So where lies the disconnect?

It still comes down to personal responsibility. What is meaningful to you? And what can you do about it? Once you figure that out, you will find others, and they will find YOU- like-minded individuals who, when connected, form nodes of community, which literally means WITH UNITY. THAT is where life and society can be directly shaped, and more adequately reflect the particular needs and designs of constituent individuals.

There needs to be a grand exodus AWAY from over crowded, exploited, politicized, and violent city centers, and away from the stranglehold of virtual reality (which can only mock, and mimic true connection), in favor of returning to small communities, and natural settings. We must first free ourselves, in our minds, and in our individual lives. No one will do this for us, and, until we do this, we are merely the currency that is bought, sold, and rented to the vultures, the technocrats, the soulless corporations and oligarchs- the highest bidders…WE ARE THE PRODUCT.

AND THE WHOLE PLANET IS SUFFERING UNDER THE BURDEN OF HUMAN INEPTITUDE AND HUBRIS!

How did recording over months of experimentation influence the final cohesion of the album?

They tore down the house next to me recently, and I quickly began to take great pleasure in watching the laying of the bricks as they built the new structure. Somewhere in my mind, I saw the laying of the bricks recently removed in large swaths as vitally and inexorably linked to the laying of new bricks one by one, by hand. It is hard to say exactly how many it will take for the structure to be “done”. Or, inversely, how many are relegated to absolute dust as the old makes way for the new.

BUT, there is a time coefficient for each brick, and for every several, and so on. All that we do and ARE, moves thusly. Music is made of little “bricks” of time, laying them down into various forms reveals many things about the workings of the local universe, and perhaps the hand of the divine…or at least the breathtaking scope of the random nature of creation and entropy. Really, it’s the same hand, isn’t it? If anyone ever wants to argue the name of God, you should walk away- they’ve already missed the point.

In bringing collaborators into your solo work for the first time, were there moments when their input shifted the direction of a song entirely?

My father recently told me that he and my mother never “did anything together”. You know, like play Yahtzee, or enjoy the same sorts of movies, or cook together- those sorts of things. Like many of us, I have a “special box”, it’s a memory box, you know, of like first grade report cards, plastic t-ball trophies, and the like. I find something different- or rather, I find a way to feel different- about the items therein every time I have occasion to jump in that time machine and hit RR (rewind). You know, like when it’s time to uproot and move to Clarendon, or time to sell old boots to make rent, and on and on in the grand shuffle it goes. Well, recently I found some old cards that both parents had written me at various stages in my life, and I was struck by the apologetic tone (if not conciliatory necessarily) of many of these cards.

At first I felt a bit sad, right? But not like when I was young, where I felt enraged, and the opposite of mollified or placated. Or even a couple decades later, still preferring to choose to pretend those words didn’t really exist in the way they could. And now, most recent, sad yet honored, that in this they were together, and that in this they made a supreme effort, and that in this they were conflicted beyond the bounds of their own ideals and characters…in ME, but also, beyond me. The cognitive dissonance! It made me weep, in compassion, and acceptance, and understanding. None of us chooses to abide by our monster elements, yet only love through the ages, across time and even surpassing death can purify and sanctify our true hearts.

Organized athletics, and yes, music too, gives us a practice field to be gladiators, and co-workers…without shedding too much blood. Perhaps we really can be more than just dumb beasts, in moments that may be deemed entirely “human”. This is the distinction between the law of the jungle, and the law of the angels- in one, redemption is possible, nay, requisite.

Your new record takes aim at the systems shaping modern life. Do you feel protest music can still cut through the noise in today’s climate?

No.

Can you tell us about your upcoming projects?

If anyone’s interested, there’s a book of some poetry out there now, as well as an improvised vinyl of collective songs my friends and I made out in the woods one weekend, live to tape. Gawd I wish you all could have been there! It was mostly raucous laughter, and hot stew, and blissful mandolin into the wee hour- wild, yet mellow, fun and easy, but profoundly stirring in many ways. Please, anyone and everyone: MAKE TIME FOR JOY, MAKE TIME FOR LOVE, IN YOUR LIVES, EVERY DAY EVEN JUST A LITTLE. The world thanks you…I thank you.

Postscript 

And furthermore! Is perhaps the reason certain artists, say a dozen per generations, are deemed so worthy, so holy- attaining to the highest height and designation of: tastemaker, world shaper, authoritator, is merely because (cyclically) and due to, the greatness of the artists whose have come before? Beethoven was listening to Mozart, the Beatles (who Nina Simone once called “not exceptionally talented) absorbed Buddy Holly and the Everly Brothers, and Dylan?! Dylan had the BLUES. And each only has so much marrow, before giving way to the derivative, like, to absorb the Beatles now become anachronistic, like a plastic cowboy hat in a saloon themed swingers’ soirée.

So many things have to align, across so many fault lines of probability, so many axes of insight…

For me, I had nothing to listen to, and knew I felt starved as a result. I didn’t even know who to blame, is anyone! It was all too convenient to turn the torch on my parents, but even as a kid I knew this was unjust, and that they- justly- deserved more compassion, than criticism. What a realization to have at 10 years old! 

Perhaps our true desires, borne of true intent, outlive us in both directions of our ephemeral, and transient existence.

Can we blame the Age of Reason? Humanism? Godism? The human ego? Satan? The sixties?!?!

Here’s my point- if ever there was one (and I’m not claiming there ever was):

the break in the chain are the outliers, those who have to derive their champions of inspiration from the blank spaces between the stars, or by staring at a flower petal or a flickering candlestick for 10 years in silence…and the story starts over again.

In the perennially wise words of the Japanese poet Ryokan, a self professed wise fool,

“if we attain something it was
there from the beginning of time.
if we lose something it is
hiding somewhere near us.”

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others