Jane Ellen Bryant

At Austin City Limits Music Festival in 2008, I fought crowds in the beating sun on Friday afternoon to earn my spot at the railing surrounding the Austin Ventures stage. I was a senior in high school, eager to study music at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee the following year. The artist that motivated me to ditch school early that day was singer-songwriter Priscilla Ahn. As a new songwriter myself, I was beyond eager to memorize her every move. The performance of her song “Dream” impacted me permanently that afternoon. Little did I know “Dream” would become the first song I arranged and performed with my female a cappella group in college. My grandfather would travel from Texas to Nashville just to hear me sing it. Less than a year later, I would sing it in tears at his unexpected funeral. It never ceases to amaze me how a song or performance can transcend and connect us all in ways that are otherwise unreachable. On Friday, Oct. 11, 2019, I will be so honored to take the ACL Fest stage, knowing fully the possibility it holds. - Austin Woman Magazine

There's something about mixing country music with modern guitars and distortion that I cannot resist. Jane Ellen Bryant's track is equal parts '70s rock and countrypolitan, but somehow she adds just enough disco to keep it from going to a predictable place that too much of today's country lives in. Now that's a cool girl vibe. - Refinery29

In a playful pop declaration of self-worth, Jane Ellen Bryant finds power in personal multiplicity. Building on past rock comparisons to Sheryl Crow, the Austin songwriter aims at St. Vincent's high-gloss production ("Take Me as I Am") to launch her third collection. Punchy banger "Attention" takes the cake, seconded by fluttery Sixties twanger "Too Smooth." A piano ballad and glitzy Nineties crossover stretch thematically, but the five tracks get a point across: There are many sides to Jane Ellen Bryant. - The Austin Chronicle

Austin’s own Jane Ellen Bryant is thrilled to announce the debut of her music video for “Twenties,” the title track fromher three-song EP set to be released on Friday, July 8. The video can be streamed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JAkBeqeOXo. Directed and edited by Jordan Haro, the video is the perfect visual insight into Jane’s new direction as an artist and her inspiration behind the song. For more information on Jane’s music, please see: www.janeellenbryant.com. - Paste

From deep inside the pile of CDs, cassettes, records, and other promotional ephemera the postman delivered, an entrancing pair of brown eyes stared out at me. The peepers belonged to one Jane Ellen Bryant, a young local in heavy makeup and messy hair who seemed to be sinking into a mound of children's toys.

I receive lots of ostentatious promo material from Austin musicians. Singer-songwriter Matthew Squires once sent me a used George Foreman grill with his name stenciled on it. For months, the band Full Service mailed in comics often featuring Chronicle Music staffers as characters. Nothing screamed “Play me!” like Bryant’s multicolored 7-inch vinyl picture disc.

I’m not sure if it was the curiously awkward cover art or just knowing how expensive small-run picture discs are, but I felt obligated to watch Bryant and her stuffed animals spin in a circle while listening. When the needle dropped onto the face of a pink kitty cat, “Twenties” emitted a coming-of-age ballad for the hot mess set where the young Austin native bemoans working a “shitty first job,” waking up in the wrong bed after a drunken Tuesday night, and an overall lack of direction:

“Your best friend’s getting married.
And she swears that she’s ready.
And you can’t find a date.
You’re stuck talkin’ to people you hate.
And they ask how you been.
What’s your job, where you live?
You say you just moved back in with your parents.”

It’s a songwriter-pop single with a capital S, reminiscent of indie darling Jenny Lewis and, more so, the sticky, mid-Nineties radio hits sung by songstresses like Sheryl Crow that feature attitude-driven talk/sung verses unfolding into absurdly catchy hooks.

“I had this idea my whole life that at 25 I’d have my shit together,” laughs Bryant, who wrote “Twenties” after returning from college in Nashville, unemployed and living with her parents. “No one warned us what it’d really be like.”

The newly released Twenties EP churns the bread and butter Americana that served as the main ingredient of Bryant’s 2013 debut Hourglass, spread thick with crafty pop and mainstream rock. Her agile vocals and ex-Bobby Jealousy guitarist Brian Patterson’s colorful fretwork highlight the new three-track effort, produced by Sixteen Deluxe/Young Heart Attack axe man and The Bubble studio owner Chris “Frenchie” Smith. When I ran into the veteran producer (currently working on a new Toadies LP) at Bryant’s EP release show upstairs in Lamberts last weekend, he lauded her unique talent, pointing out that no one of her generation has attempted “the Sheryl Crow thing.”

That night, Bryant closed the show with her millennial anthem, first cautioning, “You might see me in a video for this song looking real hungover.” - The Austin Chronicle

On the song “Twenties,” off her new EP of the same name, Jane Ellen Bryant sings about post-collegiate life: working a “sh*tty job,” worrying about rent being due, having “too many shots and you somehow forget it’s a Tuesday night.” Honest, relatable lyrics that convey a carefree yet confusing period in most people’s lives. It certainly was for the 25-year-old singer-songwriter.“I had a plan my whole life of going to school and going to more school,” she says about that time. “Then all of a sudden you graduate, and there’s no guidebook on how to do music or how to stay busy at it or how to make money at it. It’s pretty terrifying. All of a sudden, I looked around and was like, ‘Oh my God, what do I do next?’”

What she did next was return home to Austin, where she grew up in the Northwest Hills neighborhood. Here, she says, was a place of comfort for her after attending Belmont University in Nashville. Despite being an amazing place to learn from other artists, Bryant admits she felt the scene was a bit too judgmental for her liking. Plus, everyone there told her she sounded like Austin. “I was like, I might as well hone in on this,” she says, adding, “I was also really broke and needed to live with my parents.”

Music has always been a part of Bryant’s life. She recalls family reunions with her grandfather and uncles playing guitars and her falling asleep in her upstairs bedroom listening to the Sheryl Crow album that her parents were playing downstairs. But no one was in the music business, although she jokingly says she believes that her father was a rock star in another life. “He has really good air guitar skills,” she says.

Bryant’s early love of music led to her performing in musicals in school and attending rock band camps, where she met her current band members Chris Copeland (drums) and Kai Roach (bass). “It was so much fun that I couldn’t imagine not doing it forever,” she says about the experience. “It just like gave me life, in a way, as cheesy as that sounds. I’d be devastated when those two weeks would be over. It was the first time that I figured out how music and performing would look for me.”

After high school, Bryant moved to Nashville to attend Belmont, which she describes as being situated “right on top of Music Row.” She studied voice there, learning about commercial genres such as pop, rock and, of course, country. On breaks, she would return home and line up shows at venues around town, including Saxon Pub. In fact, she says she probably did more shows in Austin than in Nashville. While in college, she was a part of an a cappella group and credits the group for most of her skills as a musician.

“We arranged all of our own music, so our voices became every instrument,” she says. “I got to do two or three of my original songs with the group. It was so cool to come up with all the different parts that I’m hearing in my head and for people to sing and make the music.” Today, she incorporates a cappella training into her work as a voice teacher.

A month out of college, Bryant recorded Hourglass. Released in 2013, it contained eight tracks—mostly ballads—that showcased her voice’s expansive emotional range, which is capable of sliding between earnest tender moments (“Make Believe”) and heavier rock-tinged numbers (“Poison”) at the drop of a downbeat. Well received, the album left Bryant seeking a different approach on her next release, Twenties. Instead of developing the songs in a studio, she wanted to try out new material and let it evolve through live shows and see how audiences respond to it. “I put a lot of work into the songs before a studio was even discussed,” she says.

She enlisted the help of Frenchie Smith, a Grammy-nominated producer who has worked with The Toadies, …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Jet and other successful bands. Bryant met Smith backstage after a show last August, where she performed as a backup singer with the house band and also sang a Crosby, Stills and Nash song with Max Frost and Ian Moore. (Fun tidbit: Frost was a member of Bryant’s first band when she was in college and spending her vacations performing shows in Austin.) She was looking for a producer at the time and initiated a meeting. The pair clicked quickly, she says. He was able to give Bryant the space she needed to challenge herself and move toward an edgier sound with her music, which before had been based in folk and Americana.

She also wanted to make sure she was expanding her songwriting and not relying on ballads as much. “It’s easier to write a song when you’re sad than it is when you’re feeling awesome,” she says. “I had to limit myself on the amount of ballads…and really focus on songs that were upbeat. Those don’t come to me as naturally. But ‘Twenties’ came to me just as naturally as any other ballad.”

Despite her youthful appearance, Bryant often exudes a wise-beyond-her-years quality. Her voice at times has a world-weary sultriness. But she’ll be the first to tell you that she’s still figuring things out and just hopes to be truthful in her music. “I am a happy person, but I feel things just like any person. I’m not trying to hide anything or pretend I’m something that I’m not,” she says. “For ‘Twenties,’ I pretty much laid it out exactly as my life was looking at that time. I feel and hope that people will respond well to that.”

Jane Ellen Bryant’s new EP, Twenties, is out now. Her album release party takes place at Lambert’s tonight, with doors opening at 9:30 p.m. Also performing will be Emily Bell and the Talkbacks and Eric Burton. - Austin Monthly

Austin native Jane Ellen Bryant’s new EP Twenties isn’t much of a departure from the more traditional Americana sound of her debut album, Hourglass. It’s an expansion, turning up her bite without cutting off her roots. Depending on your age, the EP’s title track may send you back in time two decades or two days, listing a series of events and emotions all are privy to in our second decade: grueling first jobs, late-night partying with complete disregard to the day of the week, and that indescribable yet universal feeling of uncertainty and confusion as you enter the first phase of adulthood. - KUTX

Most of us so-called adults reflect upon our twenties as a period of self-discovery. It’s a beautifully complicated decade filled with humbling epiphanies, large and small…significant break-ups, a few make-ups and frequent hazy wake-ups. But, for Americana-rocker, Jane Ellen Bryant, these significant years are all about opening up to the unexpected. With her soon-to-be-released, and aptly titled EP, Twenties, the 25-year-old singer-songwriter welcomes us into the big decade of her life.

The 3-track EP is an energetic departure from Bryant’s full-length Americana debut, Hourglass. “On the previous album, I hadn’t quite reached that Rock & Roll sound yet,” claims Bryant. “But, this new EP definitely hits home on the Rock base.” With the help of producer-guru, Frenchie Smith, Bryant has refined her sound by incorporating a livelier, Rock tempo within her Americana roots. She shells out raw, authentic lyrics and continues to master the folky-flavored ballads that made Hourglass such a success.

Twenties opens with the title track, a satirically relatable montage of the idiosyncratic predicaments familiar to so many of us during this uncertain period of our lives. “The ‘Twenties’ track describes a time when I had just graduated college and was trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do next. There were no rules or guidelines anymore and it was a bit overwhelming,” admits Bryant.

Fans of Hourglass will feel at home with the lilting cadence and leisurely pace of ‘Want it With You’. The potent EP finishes with a grand finale in ‘Easy Mistake’; a fantastic, “girl power” arrangement packed with speedy guitar riffs and powerful vocals.

Bryant’s fluidity between Americana and Rock allows greater space for creativity within her songwriting. She’s able to vividly express her colorful personality through her music and ultimately define her unique sound. “It’s a different sound but it feels more like me than anything I’ve done before,” claims Bryant. With a full length follow-up in the works, Bryant is well on her way to becoming one of the most influential young artists around.

Twenties will be released July 8 along with a release party that evening at Lambert’s located at 401 W 2nd St., Austin, TX 78701. - The Music Issue Magazine

Jane Ellen Bryant
EP: Twenties
Favorite cut: "Easy Mistake"
She's only 25 but she’s got some major chops. An Austin native, Bryant took advantage of living in the Live Music Capital and draws her inspiration from her experiences. Bryant has shared the stage with numerous music legends including Ian McLagan, Alejandro Escovedo, Joe Ely, and Bob Schneider. Twenties was produced by Frenchie Smith who says, “What I look for in an artist is believability, and whatever Jane is performing, I believe it.” With sultry vocals and lyrics like “Too many shots and you somehow forgot it was just a Tuesday night,” we can relate. Our 20s — we’ve all been there.
Upcoming show: Lamberts, July 8 - CultureMap Austin

Jane Ellen Bryant, is “right in the thick” of that “big decade of your life,” as she calls it in the title track of her EP, Twenties.

Raw, authentic emotions populate the EP, and they're delivered in an unforced vocal style that has been generating lots of buzz for the songwriter in her Austin, TX home. With lyrical barbs and an easy approach to musicianship Bryant puts modern girl power swagger into traditions that have informed her youth.

ARTISTdirect sat down with Jane Ellen Bryant to talk through her beginnings, and to grab a taste of the flavors that are to come.

Where are you right now?

I’m at my apartment with my new kitten in my lap.

Tell us about your new project: Who did you work with? Where was it recorded? What’s it about? Is there candy?

The new three song EP, “Twenties,” was produced by Frenchie Smith at the Bubble Studio in Austin. The title track is about the day in the life of a confused twenty-something. “Want it With You” is about battling inner emotions during a heartbreak, and “Easy Mistake” is my girl power anthem.

How do you describe your music to new friends?

I always say its somewhere in between the rock, folk, & singer/songwriter genres. It’s honest music that hopefully makes people feel all the things.

Other than Jane Ellen Bryant, what should your hometown be known for?

My hometown has grown so much for many reasons over recent years, but I’m thankful that music is still a driving factor. I hope it stays that way.

Please look around you right now and please describe the first item or person you see that’s significant to you (and that your relationship with it/them).

This stray kitten that showed up on our back porch last weekend. We just had to take her in, she’s the sweetest. So far her name is still “Kitten.” Nothing else seems to stick.
What first inspired you to pursue music? If it was a musician or a specific piece of music, please tell us all about why you find it so inspirational...

I don’t remember ever wanting to do anything else but music. I have a memory of singing “Wide Open Spaces” (Dixie Chicks) to an audience of my stuffed animals at about 6 years old. There were so many records I heard growing up that excited me to my core.

I love music because it’s the closest thing to a time machine we have. There are songs out there that instantly take me back to a certain time and emotion the moment I hear them. I hope to create music that has that kind of significant impact on people.

What’s the best advice anyone has given you about pursuing a life in music?

Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

Not including your current crew, who (alive or dead) would you love to have in your van for an all day drive from gig to gig?

I would love to have my grandfathers, who unfortunately passed away a few years back. I know they would be so excited to experience my musician life for a day. I would spend that ride asking them stories about their lives I never got to hear.
What song best sums up your life right now?

“I Want it Back” by Shawn Colvin

What is the best reaction to your music you have experienced so far?

I love when people reach out to tell me that my song made them feel less alone.
Take a moment to dream - Where do hope to be a year from now?

A year from now I would like to be touring and releasing a full record.

What’s your next step towards that dream?

Showing the world this new and improved “Jane Ellen Bryant” sound is the first step to making that happen. - ARTISTdirect

my guest for episode 503 is the incredibly talented, jane ellen bryant! jane's new e.p., twenties, comes out this friday, july 8th. she'll also be playing a release show on friday, july 8th at lambert's in austin with special guest, emily bell. i've heard about jane for years, but i've never gotten to meet her. it was great getting to sit down and talk to this austin native about recording her new e.p. twenties with frenchy smith, come up through the austin school of music, playing with max frost and much, much more. you can see the video for her song, "twenties" at janeellenbryant.com i hope you enjoy getting to know jane. i sure did. lets get down! - Johnny Goudie

If someone asked you to prove the breadth and depth of talent in Austin’s music community, Wednesday night’s All ATX concert at ACL Live would be a pretty good Exhibit A.

Titled “All Along the Moontower: Austin Gets Psychedelic,” the show, which benefited Health Alliance for Austin Musicians and the future All ATX Music Factory, featured a baker’s dozen of local acts performing in remarkably swift succession. From the opening blast of Bubble Puppy’s late-’60s psych hit “Hot Smoke and Sassafras” to the not-really-psychedelic but quite beautiful acoustic rendition of Crosby, Stills & Nash’s “Helplessly Hoping” by Ian Moore, Jane Ellen Bryant and Max Frost, this was an auspicious evening of Austin musicians putting fresh spins on a wide range of classics drawn mostly from rock’s flower-power era. - Austin Music Source