Geskle: Rose Colored Glasses-Q&A
Jesse Golliher, aka Geskle, is an indie-rock / bedroom pop artist from Shrewsbury, MA with ties to Tennessee. Being from Shrewsbury myself, I am proud to say that our town, and the Worcester area, finally have that musical icon to inspire many in Geskle. Most of Worcester County is not known for the arts, we are known for strong educational systems and high standardized test scores. With that being said, to see someone with the talent like Jesse come out of the 508, really puts a smile on my face. On July 28th of this year, Jesse released a three track EP called Rose Colored Glasses. Since the release, the three songs have gained great attention. Most impressively, the song So She Goes has amassed over 400,000 streams on Spotify. Jesse is bringing in around 50,000 listeners per month on Spotify. All three songs are perfect for your late night drive playlist.
Johnny Dube: What was your childhood like moving between Tennessee and Massachusetts? Were there any difficult adjustments you needed to make?
Geskle: 100% it's a completely different world down there. I had to adapt to the completely different external stresses like how rural Tennessee was compared to Massachusetts and the lack of things such as the internet and central heating at my dad’s place where I spent most of my time. It was pretty weird going from playing Minecraft and watching endless YouTube every day, to having to chop wood to heat up my house. The hardest part about the move ironically was accepting that my internal struggle was the same despite the fact I was in this completely different world.
JD: How did you get introduced to music? Who were some of your early inspirations?
G: When I first moved to Tennessee I grew very fond of nirvana and got my first guitar from my dad's friend. Since I didn't have solid access to the internet I would spend my time listening to a lot of 90s alternative rock bands and learning the songs during my very short access to a computer on the weekends. I was lucky to like Nirvana so much when I wanted to learn guitar because they have the easiest songs to play on guitar. I like to say that Nirvana taught me how to play guitar, and Smashing Pumpkins taught me how to be good at guitar haha.
JD: I remember you joining various bands a couple years ago, what did you learn from them? and why did you decide to pursue a solo act?
G: I'd say that it taught me a lot about how live performance worked. We were really awful for a long time and after enough Tuesday practices we got it together enough to play really energetic shows in people's basements. It also taught me how fun yet infuriating it can be to work with multiple people on music. There's a certain magic that happens when each of the band mates are tuned into the same frequency, but if anythings off things can go south rather quickly. I wouldn't be anywhere without my band experience though and I only went solo since it was just easier to record and distribute stuff that way (and the pandemic halted us jamming). I still fully intend to have the band play with me live.
JD: What was the process behind making the Rose Colored Glasses EP?
G: To sum it up, I brought the 3 songs I had to Aaron (Pillbook) and he went to work helping me turn these songs into fully fleshed out soundscapes. I'd have the guitar chords and vocal melodies and Aaron would deep dive into the percussion and sound design of each song giving it life. We sat in his bedroom studio and decided on what vibe we wanted to capture and would work from there and without Aaron’s insight the songs wouldn't be nearly as good as they are now.
Aaron (left) and Jesse (right)
JD: How do you want people to feel when they listen to your music?
G: The same way I feel when I listen to my favorite artists. There's a point where the music becomes more than the sum of its parts and the prospect of achieving that is kinda what keeps me going. I hope i can make something that's good enough one day for people to sit and talk about the nuances with their friends on a long car ride or something like that, if that makes any sense haha.
JD: The attention that the EP received was really impressive, were you surprised by this?
G: Absolutely, however I think i'm more happy about the way it was received as opposed to the pure numbers. I've always felt like I had a sliver of something great when it came to a song like So She Goes and to see people connect to it has made me feel a whole lot more confident in my ability to actually do this thing. I'm super thankful for the fact that my first thing was received well but it set a pretty large goal to overcome haha.
JD: There have not been too many artists from the Worcester area that have gained a following like you have, how does that make you feel?
G: It's been pretty crazy. I feel like it helps me stick out a little more since most artists from Massachusetts that gain a large following are from Boston. In a weird way I think it speaks to how much a small group of people can accomplish as well since Worcester doesn't necessarily have the most bustling music scene compared to Boston. I've always felt that I NEEDED to be in a place with more connections but through the process of this EP, found out how powerful a team with 2 people like Aaron and I can be.
JD: What is next for Geskle? And what are some of your goals?
G: I've been playing around with some demos but nothing solid yet. I hope i can have another EP out sometime early next year that's definitely the plan; Maybe another music video? And hopefully i can start to look towards live shows sometime late 2021 but we’ll see how that goes. Definitely the end goal as of now is to get on the festival circuit and play Bonnaroo, Gov Ball, Coachella etc.
Listen to the Rose Colored Glasses EP below!
Follow Jesse on Instagram @geskle
