JAKE THISTLE
Most shows at The Wonder Bar in Asbury Park can only be attended by those 21 and over. But singer-songwriter Jake Thistle — who will celebrate his 21st birthday with a show there, April 12 — has been on that stage many times before.
“I’ve sort of made a career of playing places I’m not allowed in,” says Thistle, who has been a musical adult for a number of years now, and is well known in the Jersey rock scene. “I’ve done a lot of 21-and-up venues. I’ve done a lot of sneaking through the kitchen to soundcheck so they don’t get me at the door and everything like that. I’ve done a lot of, ‘All right, that was your last song, pack up and go, you can’t stay for the other band.’ And then hiding behind the soundboard or something.
“So I figured, what better place to do a 21st birthday show than at The Wonder Bar, which is obviously a very strict 21-and-over venue.”
Looking ahead, Thistle will present full-length tributes to Jackson Browne and Tom Petty — on June 22 and Aug. 24, respectively — at The Woodbridge High School Concert Field, as part of that town’s free, annual summer concert series. He will also participate in a multi-artist tribute to Warren Zevon at The Vogel at The Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank, Aug. 1.
Besides that, he currently has nine shows scheduled, outside of New Jersey, at various locations throughout the Northeast. He is also a full-time student at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, currently finishing up his junior year and planning to graduate early, after his next semester.
“This is now, I guess, the sixth semester I’ve lived on campus and I’ve really only ever been here, probably, four or five Saturdays ever, because I’m usually going around and playing,” he says.
The Wonder Bar show will also celebrate the release of Thistle’s “Carpool Lane” (see video below), the lead single from an album to be released in the fall. He has previously released a full-length studio album, a live album, a studio EP and various singles.
JOHN CAVANAUGH
Jake Thistle performs at a Light of Day show at The Wonder Bar in Asbury Park in January.
“We’re sort of recording the (upcoming) album piecemeal,” says Thistle, who grew up in Paramus, and first performed professionally more than a decade ago. “I’m trying to work with as many producers as I can and get a bunch of different ears on the music because we’re really trying to develop how we want the sound to be, and sort of move in the right direction. We’ve got about five songs in various stages of completion, but mostly done.
“For the last two releases, for the most part, the demos were just a voice recording of me and an acoustic guitar. I really wanted to take that to the next level for this record. As much as I love that sound, I was ready for a little bit of a development in that field.”
He upgraded the software he uses for recording. “And so now when I’m writing songs, I really try to write them with a production element in mind,” he says. “I’m hoping that that comes through in the records. I have much more elaborate demos that I’m able to give producers now.”
Unusually, perhaps, for someone of his generation, he has taken much of his inspiration from classic-rock artists such as Browne, Petty, John Hiatt and Bruce Springsteen, and writes gracefully melodic, lyrically confessional songs that should appeal to people who are fans of those artists. (Listen to his songs “Brooklyn Can Wait” and “The Dreamer” below.) But he says he is learning from younger artists, as well.
JAKE THISTLE
“I’ve really gotten into, in the last couple of years, Sam Fender, and The War on Drugs, and The 1975,” he says. “That hopefully will come through a little bit in the production as well. It’s funny, they are so influenced, clearly, by my other influences: It’s an interesting way to sort of pick up that musical train of thought, at a later station.”
Most musicians and music fans, of course, start with contemporary artists, and then work their way back to the older artists who influenced them. But the process has worked in reverse, for Thistle.
“I think I do a little bit of both,” Thistle says. “The sort of people I grew up listening to — the Springsteens and Pettys of the world — they cast such a wide net on what makes good music. And it helps that they had 45-, 50-year careers! But for the most part, they really didn’t get stale. I still listen to all of Petty’s later records as much as I do the earlier ones and, I mean, Bruce, forget about it, right? He just did that huge tour playing all the hits and all the new songs. It’s incredible. There’s so much to draw from there, that it’s only natural that you start seeing the way it splinters off in other artists.
“I’m always fascinated to listen. I’ve been so influenced by Springsteen, for example, that now when I go to listen to Sam Fender’s new record (People Watching), which clearly has a lot of E Street band influence with the instrumentation and the writing and the saxophone and everything … it’s really interesting to hear another artist’s interpretation of that influence and how it compares to all of my friends that have been influenced by him, or me and my own writing. It’s helped me diversify in a way that still feels really authentic to my original music tastes.”
Thistle, who has a double major in communication and journalism at Rutgers, says his professors have been “incredibly understanding” about his music commitments. In this semester, for example, he had to miss the first week of classes, due to a mini-tour, and will have to miss the last week, due to another one.
JOHN CAVANAUGH
From left, Jake Thistle performs with Reagan Richards (of Williams Honor), James Maddock and Gordon Brown (of Williams Honor) at a Light of Day show at Asbury Lanes in January 2024.
“They’re nice enough to understand when I say, ‘Hey, I have a business thing I need to do, a career thing. If it’s all right, can I take this exam online?’ They’ve all been incredibly supportive.”
Journalism, he says, is “something I would always gravitate towards, when I was in high school. If we had a choice — ‘for this class final, you can take the exam or you can write a research paper and interview people and find stuff out’ — that’s always what I gravitated towards. So I figured if I can turn that into a major, I absolutely would.
“I came (to Rutgers) undecided, knowing I wanted to do something like that, and I was sort of leaning toward communication. And then my first week of school here, I met the (department) head of journalism, professor Steve Miller — not of the Steve Miller Band, unfortunately, but he’s still a good guy. He sort of convinced me to shift to journalism. I hadn’t declared my major yet, but I made the decision to switch to journalism. And then about a week after that, I met a comms professor, Mark Beal. He puts together this big music festival for the comm department and wanted me to be a part of it, and he was trying to convince me to go back to communication. That was right around the time I found out about the double major. And I said ‘perfect.’ I really wanted to do both of these things and it just fell into my lap that way.
“I’m really grateful for that because I’ve had a great time doing both. I’ve met a lot of great people and it’s an incredibly diverse program. In the communication field, there’s a lot of theory involved, and your classic lecture classes, but there’s tons of PR (public relations) as well. And the journalism department here is journalism and media studies. So I’ve learned a lot about that aspect of things, too, and they’ve helped me a lot with the music business and the industry in general. Getting to understand the other side of PR — like, the business side, from the the PR professionals’ perspective — was interesting and really helped me develop my understanding of why (things are done a certain way), when I’m working with the publicist for my label.”
MICHAEL STAHL, portraitsbymichaelstahl.com
Jake Thistle, far right, with (from left) Jon Caspi, Guy Davis and Willie Nile at a Light of Day show at The Outpost in the Burbs in Montclair in 2023.
His ultimate goal, though, is still to be a professional musician.
“If I end up having a job in communication or journalism, I’ll be happy with that,” he says. “I really do enjoy it. But for the time being, I’d love to go full force at the singer-songwriter thing, and see where it takes me. I don’t mind a hybrid, either. I’ve got plenty of friends that are singer-songwriters that are also successful journalists or working as a publicist or something like that. So if I end up there, I end up there.”
He has not yet been able to fit any music classes into his schedule at Rutgers. But he has gotten all the musical education he needs, extracurricularly, performing and touring on his own, and also taking part in events such as the Light of Day Festival. He has become a regular at this annual event, sharing many bills with more experienced performers. At this year’s Light of Day, in January, he appeared at four different shows in Asbury Park, Red Bank and Montclair, and was the youngest participant in each one.
“Light of Day is like a master class in songwriting,” he says. “I’m always so grateful to be back every year. I would be in the front row at those shows if I wasn’t playing them.”
The Jake Thistle Band, and guests, will perform at The Wonder Bar in Asbury Park, with the dt’s opening, April 12 at 7 p.m. Visit ticketmaster.com.
For more about Jake Thistle, visit jakethistle.com.
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