Jess Moskaluke stays close to her Prairie roots
Artist keen to play smaller festivals,
Success hasn’t made Jess Moskaluke forget her roots.
Moskaluke, who has become one of the top artists on the Canadian country music scene in recent years, was born and raised in Langenburg, and while her star continues to rise, she remains committed to her home province.
A Juno Award winner and a three-time Canadian Country Music Association winner as female artist of the year, Moskaluke’s schedule this summer includes performances at major festivals like the Big Valley Jamboree and Boot & Hearts. Yet there are also stops at smaller events like the Gateway Festival in Bengough and the Raymore Summer Slam.
Moskaluke believes that just because a show may be in a smaller venue, that certainly doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the potential to be a great show. In fact, it might improve the odds of the show being one to remember.
“I still live in small-town Saskatchewan so I think that as long as I live here, I will never lose sight of playing the smaller festivals and smaller towns. I hope I never lose sight of that,” Moskaluke said in a recent telephone interview. “To be completely honest and candid, those are some of the best crowds because they don’t get acts in every single weekend like venues in bigger centres do so when you show up, they are especially appreciative.
“The enthusiasm you get from a crowd like that is extremely infectious and that energy will really power the show. The louder the crowd is and the more into it they are, the better the show will be because it’s impossible not to feed off that energy. Gateway is one of the festivals I’m most looking forward to this summer.”
Moskaluke is heading into the summer with two hot singles in her arsenal. The songs, Drive Me Away and Kill Your Love, will be on Moskaluke’s next album which is slated for release later this year.
Drive Me Away, written by Moskaluke, Zach Abend and Corey Crowder, was released Feb. 14 and was a historic single as it peaked at No. 3 on the Canadian country music radio chart. It made Moskaluke the first Canadian female artist to break into the Top 5 since Terri Clark hit No. 1 in 2008 with In My Next Life.
While Moskaluke was optimistic that Drive Me Away would find an audience, she admitted she was surprised when it became her top single to date, even surpassing Cheap Wine And Cigarettes, which put her in the national spotlight in 2014.
“It’s insane. I really didn’t expect the single to do as well as it did. But I did know that it was going to be an easy song for people to like,” said Moskaluke. “It’s a fun song and it really does set the tone for what the best of the album is going to be like sonically. It’s not entirely super poppy sounding, up tempo, easy breezy fun. In fact, my next single is quite the opposite but sonically and some of the instrumentation are in that tone.”
The last few years have been a whirlwind for Moskaluke as she continues to move up the ladder with each passing album. The accolades keep rolling in, the airplay on radio remains steady and fans are rushing to buy tickets to her shows.
The success is great but Moskaluke also understands that with that success comes raised expectations. So how much impact do those expectations have on Moskaluke when she’s recording a new album?
“Part of me wants to say a lot while the other part wants to say not a lot — it’s kind of strange,” said Moskaluke. “Fifty per cent of me says that I take those expectations seriously because I don’t want to let anyone down and that helps to create a lot of momentum. But the other 50 per cent of me thinks that I shouldn’t because the success of Cheap Wine And Cigarettes is a good example of what happens when there are no expectations and I am just being who I am as an artist and I have a platform to do so.”
“It’s not like there are clearcut expectations, that there’s a demand that each single and each album has to be better. I feel like I haven’t peaked yet. I hope I haven’t peaked yet so I just constantly have to be bringing my ‘A’ game and redefining what my ‘A’ game is and taking the next step.”