Concerts create electricity between strangers and friends alike. We step into a space where everyone wants to have a good time. It’s a feeling that is both addictive and contagious and, dare I say, sublime.

When I started listening to Jesse Roper’s music this August, I got the feeling that he was a down-to-earth dude, humble, and genuinely excited to have his moment in the spotlight.

I had to meet him.

Jesse was scheduled to perform at the Red Arrow Brewery where I worked, on August 20. I asked my boss to get us in touch, Jesse phoned me, and we set up an interview for the day after.

~

Jesse walks into the Rhino Coffee House in Victoria at nine in the morning. I recognize him immediately—not from his photos online, but by his presence alone. He’s wearing flip-flops and gives off an overall Billabong vibe that matches his infamous bluesy tunes.

I catch his eye and we quickly find a seat outside at a picnic table.

I wasn’t interested in the basics—his family life, his upbringing, what inspires him—I was interested in who Jesse was as a person. What made him tick. What made him Jesse. 

I start by asking what he did when he came home from touring.

He has dirt under his nails. Jesse likes to garden—I should’ve known.

Fans of his may know this already from his social media posts. He shared his garlic harvest earlier this summer, one that was surprisingly bountiful despite how much time he spent away from home.

“I’m kind of encouraging the flowers more this year,” Jesse says. While he enjoys growing the vegetables, they need more care and he just doesn’t have the time anymore.

I can imagine the gladiolas surrounding his patio as he describes them. The breeze sweeps a lavender smell through the yard. Wild daffodils, taken from the side of the road, are bright like sun drops amongst clouds of white rhododendrons, swaying and wilting onto the freshly cut grass like snow.

“Gardening takes my head away,” Jesse says, implying the importance of other hobbies. 

Obsessing over the main drive in your life can often hinder your efforts to continue it. I feel the same way with writing. Sometimes I just need a break to stop and smell the rhodos.

I’ve always wondered how musicians maintain personal connections while touring.

“I’m sort of bouncing in and out and I miss all the occasions,” he admits. “So I try to phone more people these days, like, Hey ol’ chum! How ya doin? It’ll change your day sometimes.”

Jesse also spends more time with his parents. “Covid was good for that,” he says, which in the moment surprises me. “Covid slowed it all down and I started to make more phone calls.”

When touring wasn’t an option, frequent calls to his parents in particular became frequent in-person visits, especially during the pandemic. “But they’re awesome,” he says. “I never really took the time to understand that before.”

We tend to see our parents as parents, but that’s not all they are. They’re people with their own personalities, interests, and friends, and we should take the time to be friends with them too.

We begin to talk more about inspiration. Less about what we’re inspired by as writers, and more about where general inspiration and creativity comes from.

“I’m good at writing lyrics when they just pop into my head, and there—off I go,” he says. 

Jesse goes for walks to find his creativity, which runs parallel with the gardening niche. Many people find pounding the dirt to not only be a stress reliever but a way to reset themselves.

“[Sometimes] I’m jammin’ with somebody and then it’s like boom—I’ve got the lyric and I want to follow it,” Jesse says. He improvs it.

He describes the process of writing “Cool Whip,” one of his most popular songs from his 2022 album Horizons.

“I just decided to do a writing exercise: the first riff that came to my mind, I would record it and build a song around it. I never do that…” he explains. I can see the excitement in his body language. “I came up with the boo-doo-doo-doo and I was in a goofy mood and I was like, That’s kinda dope… so I did a little rhythm around it and I was groovin’!”

With rhythm in place, all he needed were lyrics. Jesse stared up into the sky when all of the sudden, it hit him like a bolt of lightning.

“Snoopy roll hard—he’s got low car kicking on ground effects and zenith…” he sang, then and there. “I improvised every line of the song. There’s more—there’s so much more.”

I suggested he do a part two. 

“If it’s not my fave, it’s up there,” he says. It’s definitely one of mine.

While working on his new music, Jesse says he’s trying to be more thorough, making sure he loves each tune and makes it the best he can.

While ‘vague ideas’ worked well for previous albums like Horizons, Jesse wanted to be more prepared and intentional. The payoff has been huge.

“Everything I have now is way more solid,” he says. “Because of that, the energy came through.”

During Jesse’s performance, the energy was exhilarating. He was dancing, strutting the catwalk, interacting with the audience, and posing for pictures with fans. He would crouch-walk around the stage during the riffs to give his other bandmates spotlight time too.

As general advice to performers and writers alike, Jesse has found that he’s stopped sending his manager and friends demos and instead keeps the song to himself until it’s ready. He says that even if their feedback was positive, it impacted the music negatively.

“If a song was good, I’d think, Okay, cool, and I’d move on instead of diving deeper into it and making it better,” Jesse says. “If it was bad,” he explains, “I’d get scared—” before the song could even meet its potential.

He’s gone back to how he used to do things: “roll into the studio and play ‘em on acoustic guitar” for his producer. “We’ve got even more colour into the mixes this time,” he says.

But it’s always important to sit back and enjoy life aside from your work—even if your work is making music.

Jesse collects mugs and has a unique attachment to them. When he walked into the coffee house, he was holding a red-clay, pinch-pot mug with a delicate pattern on the side. It was obviously homemade and carried a lot of character.

He found this particular mug at a market in Seattle, but it was made in Oaxaca, Mexico, from the clay in the Sierra Madre.

“I’d just broken two of my favourite[s],” Jesse recounts. “I find [mugs] all over the place, but they got to speak to me,” he says. “It’s gotta be the right mug.”

He rolls the clay mug between his hands. “Yeah, I love this thing…. Even if I don’t drink out of it, I bring it everywhere with me.”

I’m inclined to agree. My favourite mug is a demo my art teacher made in high school and gave to me. Ain’t no other like it.

I tell Jesse that my mum is coming to see him play at Red Arrow next week. She’s a huge fan and excited for a small venue. He says he can’t wait to meet her.

~

I navigate the crowd after a performance from The Steadies, the opening act. A makeshift mosh pit in the gravel parking lot of Red Arrow Brewing Company. I narrowly miss women and their husbands dancing to Jesse Roper’s music.

Over 500 people have come to see Jesse, from fans who first heard him at Laketown Shakedown in Lake Cowichan to those from the backyard parties in Victoria where he began his career fifteen years ago.

They sway and thrust, tapping their feet and pumping fistfuls of beer overhead. Droplets of alcohol splash, the fermented liquid infusing the air with a sickly sweetness. People sing at the top of their lungs and the energy of the crowd accelerates into the sky.

Fog rolls over Jesse’s microphone. He rocks out on stage with his electric guitar. Its polish shines red as the sun descends upon his audience. His bandmates pour their heart and souls into every chord, every note. Not a syllable is misplaced; not a word goes unheard.