From the Campus Activities Magazine Cover Story -
November/December '04
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Jason LeVasseur is a college entertainment industry staple. Before his rise in popularity as a solo performer, he was a member of one of the more popular campus groups, Life In General. While he still maintains a relationship and still works with this band, his sights are set on furthering his solo work. This includes the proliferation (election time-had to throw in one of those campaign words- sorry folks) of his new album, Driver Is The DJ.

Jason was born in Connecticut and was moved to Mexico with his family at the age of three, followed by a move to Belgium. Jason went to high school outside of Boston, then moved to Italy to study languages. He then came back to the good ole' U.S. of A. and went to Wake Forest University to study for a degree in English and Philosophy. North Carolina is where Jason now calls home.

Jason's parents loved to travel and his father worked for a company that had international offices. "It was a really fun experience growing up. I am the middle of three brothers and we got a chance to see lots of the world and have different experiences culturally and musically. My mother was an artist and my father was a drummer, so I get it honestly."

Jason studied Spanish, Italian and French in his tenure in Italy and was fluent in these foreign tongues. "I have to say that I have been fluent but I can't really purport to it today. When I came back from Italy I actually taught Italian at Wake Forest for a semester."

Now, finally on to the subject at hand, Jason's music. Jason's interest in music was sparked by the saxophone in school. "I was in elementary school and it seemed to be what all the kids were doing. You sort of picked an instrument that interested you and started playing it. I stuck with that for all of a year. After that I moved on to drums. I started taking private drum lessons while I was in elementary school. I played jazz in middle school and high school. I ended up going to Wake Forest on a scholarship to play jazz drums."

One of the conditions of Jason's scholarship was that he could major in anything that he wanted to. "I really like stories and sharing experiences through language and story telling. This is why I chose English and Philosophy. I thought I was going to end up being a high school English teacher," he jokes, "but I have always been a ham and a performer and enjoyed being onstage. I was a drummer, but I was also a singer so I got a guitar in high school and started playing with friends. Even before I was out of high school I started writing songs." And thus, a legend is born.

It is hard for anyone to put their finger on the genre of an artist's music, let alone the artist themselves. Jason describes it as acoustic guitar based rock. "That is the easiest way to say it because it is not folk, but there are some songs that are folky. It is not pop, but there are some songs that are poppy. It is not rock in the context of the current contemporary rock bands. That is just not my thing."

Now that we have nailed down stylings, what influences went into the pot to generate them? "Definitely some contemporary rock and pop bands like U2, Counting Crows and Sting. Also people such as Elvis Costello. My music is definitely influenced by those artists, but I listen to so much music in so many different varieties that I think it can’t be contributed to one set of influences. Everything that comes out of me is like one big mesh of stuff that I am picking up from a huge range of sources.

"There are different theories about creativity, whether or not anything is truly original. Some say you are simply taking all of your influences and mixing them up in your head and then spitting them back out in your own version as you understand it. I think I am influenced by everything. From my drives across the country to stories that I hear. Musically I would give credit to everything I have ever heard."

That being the case then, the amount of international travel Jason did throughout his life would certainly have had an effect on his musical stylings. "I would say I have been influenced by international music to a certain extent. On my first album, Watching The Girls Go By, I did a song in Spanish. There are instruments that are not in the normal language of American music that I like to incorporate on my studio albums sometimes. I think that my international drumming has a pretty big affect on my guitar playing. I studied African drums and Latin drums in times past and that undoubtedly comes through in the sound of my other music."

Jason specializes in playing to college audiences, with some clubs dashed in here and there. "I love the colleges. I don't do any corporate gigs because my style is to go for straight music. With corporate gigs it seems like they are not content to sit back and listen, they have to be entertained with comedy and more bells and whistles than I offer. With colleges, I can be who I am. I donÕt have to put on some crazy spectacular show for them, they love the music. That is what I am about; the music. I don't dilute it with any unnecessarily lame flashing lights and obnoxious noises."

Jason explains that he is also predominantly at colleges this year because of his amazing success at some showcases. "I feel very blessed and fortunate to be able to do that. I love playing the clubs in the major cities that I normally go to, but this fall I don't have any free dates to do that. Since last December I have not had a chance to do that. My whole January through the end of the school year has been nothing but colleges and it has been a blast."

Jason says his favorite thing about working colleges is what makes them colleges; the students. "They are always excited to have me on campus and they have worked hard to have you as an event. It is nice to arrive on campus and have everybody excited to see you. Also I think the college audience is a tough crowd. I have to work really hard to get my songs to a level that a student that has grown up on MTV will appreciate. Everything on MTV changes about every three minutes and all the music on it has nothing but flashy images and frills. This just means for me I have to make sure that my music is really good. I don't have million dollar productions, so it is a great challenge for me as an artist to have an hour and a half or two hours of good, solid songs."

Jason says that the crowds from college to college can vary more than from college to club. "It really varies, not so much on where the schools are, but what type of school they are. Community colleges for example, vary from private schools. The time of day and the day of the week can make a huge difference in how a crowd reacts. There are so many variables that it can be dizzying. Right now I prefer playing colleges more than I do clubs. I have more fun than I do at clubs. However, at clubs, I do have a few hundred people that know every song and that have paid to see me. Whereas at colleges oftentimes it is new students that donÕt know my songs, or it is a new audience where only two or three people know my songs because they got a sampler CD from the booking agency."

Jason explains that he likes working with fresh audiences, mainly because he enjoys the challenge. “I really like introducing the songs because with a new audience it keeps things fresh for me as well. It is a challenge, but it is something that I have to do.”

"It is incredibly gratifying. For one example, last night I had a show in Milwaukee. All of the colleges are great and their intentions are the best, but not everybody has the same facilities at their disposal. Not everybody has a great sound system. Well, last night at this show we had all sorts of technical difficulties, so I just decided after the first song to go acoustic. The speakers had been cracking and the guitar didn't sound the way I wanted it to, so I unplugged everything and played totally au natural.

"I invited the audience to come up close and we had an hour and a half of completely acoustic, unamplified music. I had never done that before. I have done it at different settings, but not at a college concert. I think it went great. The director was really happy for the way it went and even thanked me for being so easy going about the technical difficulties. Once again, I enjoy a challenge and this was an opportunity for me to have an extremely close and personal relationship with an audience. It was certainly a show I don't think the students will ever forget and I think the director is probably on the phone with my agency ready to have me back. That is why I love what I do."

Jason had so much fun because he was able to be four feet from his audience instead of way up on stage. It was so enjoyable to him because it was intimate and that shows a truly remarkable dedication to his craft.

Speaking of the above mentioned agent, since Jason has been a solo performer, he has been exclusively represented by Bass/Schuler. "They have been amazing. They know schools; they understand what schools need and they respect schools' budgets. They make sure everyone gets all the promo they need and I think they understand they are primarily working with college students who obviously have their academic endeavors to worry about first and foremost. Their sole purpose at that college is not to bring Jason LeVasseur to campus, so that can help take a lot of the pressure off students when they have someone to understand their plight and work with them on that. Bass/Schuler is great. I have known Scott and Chris for a long time. They also have a new agent who has been there about a month, Beck, who is really easy to talk to and is doing a great job."

Jason's writing is inspired mainly by personal relationships. "I don't necessarily sing songs about the trees or such. I sing about human relationships and common experiences that humans have with each other, whether they be mine, or others that I observe. I have a lot of first person stuff, but I am sometimes singing about someone else as well. When I write I do like to use a lot of analogies and metaphorical speech. In my folky songs it is more straight forward and laid out in plain sight, so to speak. Things there are usually very apparent with no hidden messages. But then there are songs that are open to many interpretations. Not to the point of stumping the listener, but enough to make it interesting and fun."

Jason currently has one CD released, the aforementioned Watching The Girls Go By, and has a live CD as well, The Opening Guy. His new CD, Driver Is The DJ, is a great leap in the evolution of his music and he has great aspirations for its potential. "I am hoping to get much more radio play. We got a decent amount for the last one, but with my profile rising a little bit, I think we are going to do much better with it. I am also hoping to get it into more stores.

"I have definitely gotten more critical of my performances since the last album, but not in a bad way. I think this album and all the songs on it are better than the last one. I am very proud of what we were able to do on the first one, but I think I have gotten better at understanding what I am trying to get out of the studio. I have gotten better at understanding what I am trying to get out of a song well.

"I do have other CDs with my band Life In General who I still actively perform with. We have six CDs and are still quite serious about the future of that project, we just live in different places and have different life situations. For one, the other main guy from Life In General, Jerry Chapman, has had two kids, so his priorities are understandably shifted for the time being. He just does not get on the road quite as much as I do."

Another goal for Jason is to get the new CD into the hands of some movie and television people. "Some of the stuff I have done in the past has been played on movies and television and there are great possibilities for expansion on that plane. It is really a lot of fun to see something on television and hear your song in the background.

"Obviously I hope to continue to play colleges as well. I think what is going to happen is I will just have to be a little more reasonable with my schedule. I have had a show everyday since August 20th. Ball parking it, I probably play about 200 shows a year, which when you consider the studio time it takes to record an album, is a pretty rigorous schedule.