Iowa native Jay Allen moved to Nashville in 2013 to work as a songwriter – but it was his most personal song, ‘Blank Stares’, that gave him his breakthrough moment as an artist.
A moving, heartfelt ode to his late mother following her Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis, the song became a hit after videos of Allen inviting his mum up on stage and hugging her as he performed went viral on social media. Since then he’s raised over $100m for research into Alzheimer’s, made it to the battle rounds of The Voice and performed at venues including the US Capitol Building and even the White House – as well as crossing the pond for his first UK headline tour.
Whilst he was in London last week, I sat down with Jay to talk about his experience of UK fans, his latest single ‘Heart Ain’t Gonna Break Itself’, how his approach to his music has evolved, the impact of ‘Blank Stares’ and what’s next for him – including new music…
I guess the first thing to say is: welcome to London!
Thank you Laura.
How’s the tour been so far?
It’s been good. We’ve been here eight days. It’s been a blast. We’ve been everywhere. And everyone’s hilarious here, so kind, so hospitable. I’m kind of thinking about making a move, to be honest [laughs]. If I wasn’t married I’d already apply to come here, and live here full time.
Well you could always ask Kylie [Morgan, Jay’s wife who’s also a country artist] and see what she says…
Yeah, she’s tricky [laughs].
Have there been any particular highlights or standout moments from this trip?
So many. It’s been endless. From the start, we did a pop-up surprise at a care facility centre in Wales. For me that was really special, people at the end of their lives, we give them an experience, and all of the history in that room – just think about all that they’ve been through and all the family and friends, all the things that they’ve experienced. It was pretty for me and Hunter, my guitarist [who sat in on the interview]. We’ve played a lot of full band shows all round the States and he said the coolest moment he’s had in music so far, when we started playing he played a little lick. A little old lady right next to him said, “oh I really like that”. That was so special, you know, just the little things. And to spend time with the caregivers, that do a job that does not get rewarded, and to give them a moment just to laugh and to be with them, see what they do and talk them up, shine a little bit of light on them, refresh them, energise them – for me that’s what it’s all about.
So yeah, and then we played a charity event in Wales, and then we’re hopping all over the place. [In London we played] The Pheasantry, so much history here. We played the venue where the Beatles were founded – like, holy smokes. And people actually showed up and sang along to the words of a song we released on Friday, which was just so cool.
Has there been anything about the audiences here that’s surprised you? Maybe songs they’ve responded to in a certain way or things like that?
Yeah, like the one on Friday. We literally released a song on Friday called ‘Heart Ain’t Gonna Break Itself’ and we walked into the venue and two ladies approached us. They’d been waiting there for four hours for us to arrive. And they stood in the front row and they sang along to that song. I didn’t even know the words yet! [laughs] So yeah, everyone’s embraced us. I feel like it’s home away from home here.
You’ve mentioned ‘Heart Ain’t Gonna Break Itself’ so tell us a bit more about that…
Yeah, so I went on this show called NBC’S ‘The Voice’ last year, and it was interesting to me because it’s a storyline-focused show, so they reach out to acts that have stories so they can create dramatic scenes and build ratings and make money on their show. That’s how it works. So they reached out to me a few times, I finally said yes, and they gave us a list of songs. It was like 100 songs that were a “no, please don’t choose this song” and a list that was “yes, we would love you to sing one of these songs”, and one of them was a song called ‘Til You Can’t’ by Cody Johnson which was a massive number one in the States last year. That was my first pick, and that ended up being their first pick for me as well. So it aligned perfectly.
So I actually know the songwriters on that song. So I called one of them, a good buddy of mine, Ben Stennis, hit songwriter in Nashville, and I let him know even though I wasn’t supposed to. And we started just kind of having an emotional moment over the phone on my way to LA because he shared something with me that I didn’t know and I guess he hadn’t shared with anyone else, that he had talked about what I had gone through with losing my mother in the room that day, that was one of the many inspirations for that song that day in that room, which is really cool for me.
He actually pitched a song to me called ‘Heart Ain’t Gonna Break Itself’ after I got off the show. And I take a lot of pride in being an artist and releasing songs that I’ve written, and this is one of the first songs I’ve released that I didn’t write. It just hit me. I loved it so much. It’s rock and roll meets country, it feels good, fit my voice. And I really wanna support songwriters. I did that for the first five years of my life in Nashville, so I wanna support the songwriting community. So that’s where that one came from. Long winded story! [laughs]
This is a bit of a different direction for you compared to a lot of your previous songs. Is that side of your sound something that you’re looking to explore more?
Yeah. I was really more of a philanthropist this last five years. I went to war against this disease called Alzheimer’s, which is the sixth leading cause of death in the States. I don’t know what it is here but I’m sure it’s high up there. Over the years, playing all these shows, I formed a band, I gained the confidence on stage and I became an artist. So coming off ‘The Voice’ I got offered a record deal. I took it. That was cool. And the team shared with me, “we know you’re known for this cause, you’ve been a philanthropist, you’ve released all these heartfelt songs, and we love that but you’re also this guy that’s covered in tattoos that’s really fun.” If you know me, if you’re in my circle, I will go out of my way to make sure you’re always having a good time, drinking a beer or the cocktail of your choice. And they were like, “you should release fun music now, let’s have fun”. I felt like I was given the green light to have a good time with my music career now.
So the first song that we released that was fun was a song I shared with them as kind of a joke called ‘Jello Shot’. And they loved it. We made a hilarious music video. And then the next one is this, ‘Heart Ain’t Gonna Break Itself’. And then I’m also – this is new news that I’m sharing, but I made friends with an artist called RaeLynn, and we wrote a duet together and we’re gonna be releasing it at the end of September. Another fun, uptempo song. So yeah. That’s the direction. Fun. But really, you know, my dad was a hippy and into rock and roll, and my mamma loved country. So that’s the sound – rock and roll meets country.
I also wanted to ask you about ‘No Prayer Like Mama’s’ which you put out recently – tell us a bit more about that one…
Yeah, that was an unexpected moment. I wrote that with a buddy of mine in Nashville who’s signed to BMG, a hit songwriter, a hit Christian songwriter. So I’ve done the whole Music Row thing where I wrote with all the hit country songwriters and I wanted to delve into the Christian [side] a little bit. I grew up as a Christian, I’d be a Bible thumper and share my faith. I really wanted to say one last thank you to my mama for letting her life serve as a purpose for mine. So we released that around Mother’s Day. It’s kind of just paying homage not just to my mom but to all moms. It’s such a big role, if you have a mother whether she was good or bad you know what a good mom is. So I think we need to show a massive amount of respect to them and raise them up. So that’s what that song is about.
We’ve touched on your philanthropy already but I wanted to ask about how you got involved with the Alzheimer’s Association, especially as I know your mum was a big driver for you in that regard. Can you tell us more about that?
Yeah, so I grew up in a little town in the Midwestern States, in the state of Iowa. I left when I was a kid and ended up in Nashville somehow one way or another. That might be for another interview [laughs]. But I’ll never forget, I’d been in Nashville a couple of years and my dad called me, and said, “Jay, I feel obligated to let you know that your mom has been struggling for a while and this morning it became real. She called me and let me know, she had been going to the same place of work, driving there for years and years and years, but she pulled over. She was bawling her eyes out, she didn’t know where she was and she begged me to come pick her up”. So she was officially diagnosed with what’s called early onset Alzheimer’s when she was 51. It took her life in two years and nine months and it progressed very, very quickly.
So while she was still alive – I wrote a song about it first of all called ‘Blank Stares’, really a therapeutic song for me, and then it was just part of the plan where important people were supposed to hear it. While she was still alive I had this idea, and it was a conflicting concept, to bring her on stage. But I’d been sharing this song and telling this story for so long and kind of feeling like I was hitting roadblocks where you can only speak so much to people to try to teach them. Well what better way than to show them? So my mom was just, she was 53 years old but she was hunched over, looked 75. So we brought her on stage after a very lively, fun show, everyone’s drinking and having the time of their lives, and suddenly everyone shut up and they listened. I wrapped her arms around me and I wrapped my arms around her, I told the story, sang that song. A guy took a video, put it on his Facebook and it’s now encroaching hundreds of millions of views. I don’t even know how many at this point.
And I just started saying yes to every opportunity that came my way, learned how to be very brave in front of people and how to talk about my sad story to help bring healing to them. We’ve raised over $100m to fight against Alzheimer’s and I learned what a philanthropist is, and it is not an easy job. But along the way I also became an artist, so it’s been an interesting, unique, tiring, fun, fulfilling journey.
When you wrote ‘Blank Stares’, did you know that it was a special song? Or did the level of people’s response to it surprise you in any way?
Yeah, well, it hit me. I have to work really hard writing songs. You know, we wrote a song here for my wife that I teased called ‘4000 Miles’, ’cause we’re 4000 miles apart right now. But I gotta work really hard. Because sometimes it takes a whole day or several days, several sessions for me to write a song. But that song was like a hammer over the head for me. I had the melody, I had the concept and the main thing was the hook. It was inspired by one dance with my mother. We walked into a venue, she heard the band playing and she heard the music, and her illness went away suddenly. She was present and that blank look in her eyes went away. And so I thought, “You’re still there, and I’m gonna fight for you”. So I wrote that hook line, “I still see you, in between the blank stares”.
I took that concept into a writers’ room on Music Row at Sony with a buddy of mine who’s now a hit songwriter, he wasn’t then, now he is, named Jason Nix. It was two dudes with beards crying all day long [laughs]. And we just… it wasn’t for anyone. I just needed to get it out of my system. And just it was predetermined that something was supposed to happen. The president of Sony ATV called me at the time, I think it was three days after I turned in the song to my publishing company, and he called me and said, “Jay, I’m listening to your song in my office crying my eyes out. I know what it’s about.” Because he said, “My dad has Alzheimer’s, I was his caregiver for the last five years of his life”, so he was very involved in helping to get the song out there and share it. So like I said, you can’t plan things. If they’re meant to be they happen, and this one happened.
I did want to ask about your songwriting – is that aspect of it being a way for you to process things particularly important to you?
Oh, 100 per cent. It’s a form of expression. Everyone has their form of expression. I hope everyone finds it eventually. For me it’s when – every emotion I’m experiencing, like I just experienced it when I had a little tiff with Kylie ’cause she misses me, and I didn’t really even know how to deal with it but just sing about it. And it was therapeutic.
A lot of times it comes from that. I used to be kind of forced to write. I did it for a living, I had a publishing deal and they made me write twice a day every day. It was a lot of quantity but not a lot of quality, and for me I made the personal choice to only write songs if I’m led to write songs. So they kind of fall out these days.
Do you feel your approach to your music has evolved over time?
Yes. Yeah. I’ve learned along the way. We all have to learn along the way. I think everyone is wired differently and for me I’ve kind of figured out how I’m wired. It’s not trying to do anything, it’s who I am. I’m not trying to be an artist, I’m not trying to be a songwriter. It’s just, this is who I am, who God made me to be.
I also wanted to ask you about your cover of ‘Here Without You’ by 3 Doors Down…
Yeah!
Hunter: She knows who 3 Doors Down is!
That’s so funny. So I love that type of music. That was my youth. So Kylie has a little sister, my sister-in-law, Raylee. She’s 18 years old, and so – this is weird to say but I could be her dad actually, I’m old enough to be her dad. When I was listening to that music and telling her I was gonna cover one of the songs and release it, she was like, “I’ve never heard of them”. And I was like, “what the heck?!” And later on we were talking and she was like, “oh I looked up that band, Two Doors Down” [laughs]. Her dad, my father-in-law, was sitting next to us and he was like, “I think you are at the wrong house” [laughs]. So funny.
But yeah, I love that music and my producer called me up one day and he goes, “You should cover this song, ‘Here Without You’.” I was like, “Really?” and he was like, “Yeah, I think you would crush it. Just put some pedal steel on it and make it a little country”. And we played that every show. Hunter learned the guitar part which is really hard to play. It’s a nostalgic feeling for me so I hope we can bring that to others.
I wanted to ask you about your time on ‘The Voice’ as well, and in particular what you learned from that experience that you’ll apply to other projects?
Yeah. I learned TV is a whole different ball game. I’ve played hundreds of shows on stages of all sizes, all over the place, and not a nerve in my body to be honest. Not to be cocky but I don’t get nervous. I get out there and have the time of my life. It’s more about the people for me. When there’s a camera on you and you’re staring at Gwen Stefani, I was a ball of nerves [laughs]. I also have a big crush on her. But I’m so thankful that I did it, for many reasons. I was the only act that sang an original song, that helped tell the story in such a beautiful way that I never could have. And also just to be around that feeling of everyone fighting for their dream, it kind of reignited a flame in me.
And then to watch myself on TV, with my wife right next to me and my family and my close friends, I saw myself in a different light. I was reminded, “You know what? I am capable, and I should fight for myself to do this. I am an artist, I have something to say, and I’m gonna do it with the right people around me this time”. And that’s where this beautiful lady came into play, Stacy my manager. And we have a really fierce, beautiful team. We feel and act and are a family, and that’s a big part of the reason why we’re here, ’cause I have an awesome manager [laughs].
So many things fell into place after The Voice. It was really a refresh for me. And then to get to spend time with people like Blake [Shelton] and Gwen, and they actually surprised us at our last show of the year last year. He invited me to play in his home town of Tishomingo, Oklahoma, which was like – I immediately said yes and then I was like, “shoot, the night before I’m playing in Albuquerque, New Mexico”. So I had to drive through the night to get there, exhausted. We sound checked, got ready at the hotel and then we went down to the green room, and my guitarist in front of me at the time, he peeked his head round the corner and said, “who’s that cute blonde sitting on the couch?” I peeked over and I was like, “man that’s Gwen Stefani”. They flew in on their jet and surprised us. So really, really cool people. A once in a lifetime experience.
I also know that you recently went to the White House for a screening of ‘Unconditional’ which you have a song featured in – how was that whole experience?
Yes, you’ve done your research! But yeah, so many feelings and emotions of how we got to that point, by the way of a guy named Richard Lui who’s become a good friend. He worked for MSNBC, and his story is his dad had Alzheimer’s, so he was with MSNBC for years as a news anchor in New York City, but his parents live in San Francisco so he decided he was gonna take on the role of caregiver. So MSNBC agreed to let him work only on weekends part time and then he would fly all the way back to San Francisco and be his dad’s caregiver in the week and then fly all the way back to New York City. Dude never slept. So when my story came out in the media he reached out and we obviously had a connection and made friends. I was part of another film and then he reached out to us about this film. I handed him off to Stacy my manager and really the rest is history.
[And then I was] personally invited by the First Lady to come and preview that film, ‘Unconditional’. The most beautiful part of it for me was an unexpected moment – we were in the second row in the President’s private movie theatre in the White House, and we watched the whole film and my song ends the film in the credits. There was a young boy and his dad sitting next to me, I knew they were part of the film. We just watched them in the film. I didn’t know – they announced that this guy’s wife, who had breast cancer that he was a caregiver for and this kid’s mother, had just passed away recently. And then they played my song over the top of it, ‘Break From Broken’, and everyone just was weeping. He’s weeping and he puts his hand on my shoulder. It was almost too much. That’s what music is for, you know? One of the many reasons it’s for, but for me that meant so much. It was so overwhelming, but I’m very thankful for that opportunity and for all the people that were involved.
Is there a song you’re particularly proud of from your career?
[To Stacy] I hate that you have to hear everything I say all the time, but I always say this on stage and honestly don’t give a crap how many people hear, because the right people hear my songs. We have a song I’ve been really enjoying seeing how it’s impacting others, which I wrote right after The Voice called ‘No Present Like The Time’. For me it came off of my time on The Voice. I had to be alone for two and a half months in LA. Secluded, by myself. They literally locked us in our hotel rooms, would not let us out for more than 10 minutes a day. I had to sneak my wife in, we got her a blonde wig off of Amazon so we could sneak her in.
And while I was there I thought about all these things and I decided I don’t need to be sad any more, I could be happy, and I thought about all of these life lessons I learned from experiencing loss. And then I realised you only get one go so you might as well make the most out of it, ‘there’s no present like the time’. That song really fell out of me after the show. I’m really, really proud of that one.
What’s still on your bucket list in terms of people you’d want to work with, places you’d want to perform at and so on?
Yeah, we’re talking about United Nations. I really wanna go to Australia – Blank Stares went number one on iTunes in Australia so I’ve been requested to come over there many times over the years. I just haven’t been able to make it happen on my own, but now I have this fierce little tiger over here Stacy that makes everything happen. Yeah, I mean, I’ve played 12,000 feet up in the air on a hot air balloon, we’ve played in the White House, performed first ever concert in the US Capitol, we’re touring the UK. We’ve done everything I can think of that I’d wanna do except for get on the radio, and then we just heard my song on the radio at BBC yesterday. So it’s kind of just like whatever’s coming at us I wanna take it and just be thankful. Gotta keep myself humble and in check at all times. I feel like I’ve been beaten up enough over the years that hopefully I will remain humble [laughs]. But yeah, the sky’s the limit and my mind and my heart is wide open to whatever comes next.
What does the rest of the year look like for you?
Yeah, so they call us the weekend warriors. We are gone every single weekend. We come back on Thursday and then we literally have to fly to the Midwest on Friday and play another show, and we don’t stop. So we just continue touring out through the rest of the year. Stacy has a bunch of really cool things planned for us. Then we’re planning a spring tour, trying to do 40, 45 dates in the spring in the States, a headlining thing. And then also try to go out with RaeLynn and play a few shows and then also wanna release a full length record first quarter of next year.
Can you give us any hints what that’s going to be like?
Yeah, now you’re asking too many questions Laura! [laughs] There’s gotta be some surprises! [laughs] Well next time I come back I’ll play it for you, how about that?
Well I was going to finish by asking if you had any plans to come back to the UK but I think that’s answered my question…
Yeah, yeah. We have another lady in the room, Miss Georgie, our publicist, and she’s been kicking butt. So yeah, we got some dreams and we’re gonna put her to work to bring us back here.
Jay Allen’s latest single, ‘Heart Ain’t Gonna Break Itself’, is out now on ONErpm.
