BGS 5+5: Jeremy Ivey

Artist: Jeremy Ivey
Hometown: Still looking for it
Latest Album: The Dream and the Dreamer
Nickname: Jivey
Old band names: The Lunar Ticks, Riverbottom, and Horse Sense.

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

I was influenced early on by poetry. Poets like T.S. Eliot, Poe, Dickinson, Keats… all those ones you get exposed to in high school. I put a tune to Longfellow’s “The Fire of Driftwood” And would play and sing it. Later I got into the Beats and that really twisted my head in the best way. After that it was Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and all the song poets.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

The first time I got to join John Prine for “Paradise” and more recently, I did my first encore. That was surreal.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?

I think of everything as an influence. I mean, when I was a toddler I watched Captain Kangaroo, when I was 9 my uncle was struck by lightning, when I was in high school I had a deep infatuation with a girl I was invisible to. That’s all living art and I think it affects the art we in turn make. Film is definitely important because of dialogue. There’s dialogue in songs too. I like Sam Peckinpah.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I’m still not sure I want to. It’s more of a calling I guess…a nervous twitch I can’t seem to shake

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

Oh I don’t know, I probably blocked it out. I try not to try when comes to writing. There’s no bigger drag than hitting that high stone wall of effort over inspiration. I try to stay inspired period. If it’s not happening in a song I’ll go find it in nature or in a book.