Jacob Augustine

Jacob Augustine is naked.

His imposing figure punches a hulking silhouette out of the air in front of you. A biker's build, he stands over six feet tall, barrel chested. Huge arms and hands grip the guitar neck and pick. Tattooed, bearded. He shaves his head.

He looks like motherfucking Zangief.

He looks mean as all get up. He looks like the kind of guy you wouldn't want to see walk down an alley, much less meet him there.

So it is disarming when he sings in that warm, dulcet tenor.

It is disarming when he picks up an acoustic guitar and strums a simple, mesmerizing chord progression.

It is disarming when he sings deeply personal, honest and raw lyrics. Lyrics about his grandmother, say, as in The Ghost In The Room.

But that's all part of Jacob. Nick and I showed up at his new apartment and he'd just gotten out of bed. It was past 2:00 in the afternoon. He didn't try to hide it. Simple comments like that littered the afternoon as we filmed. Mentioning how he can't deal with a lot of things. How he's depressed. Worries about his drinking. He's honest and open.

He's naked.

His songs come from the same place, these deep worries. Memories. Noticing problems he feels he can't fix. Issues and turmoil he has faced in life, or seen friends go through and not come back.

This paints him as moody. The truth is, though, Jacob is a sunny guy to talk to. Smiling, joking. He's friendly and gregarious. He's a fun guy to be around and maybe all these dark thoughts just come from sitting and recollecting our conversation that afternoon. Nick saw it, too, though. I don't think I'm whistling in the dark.

You can sense something, though, something when he's playing. The depression, the worry, the angst... it all melts away. When Jacob makes music it is just him and the song coming together in an absolutely spell-binding union. His tender tenor, his simple strumming and most of all the raw, personal connection he has with his music. That's it, that's what you're hearing. You hear that connection. You hear a man bear it all.

Jacob Augustine writes his songs off the cuff, to fit the music. They are a lesson in extemporaneous writing. "I don't even know what I write when I'm going," he says, "but when I look back it's always heavy shit." Automatic Writing is a process where the author writes what is in their subconscious. I'll bet that Jacob is going through something similar in the songwriting process. He has his music to jump off of - but that marriage between subconscious thought and the lyrics written creates a unique bond.

Jacob's youth was spent in the clutches of Metal. He always wrote his unique folk songs on the side, but he played guitar for Red Cloud Revival. That was a family affair, featuring his brother on vocals and his cousin on bass. He mentioned two significant experiences that set him on the path from distorted to acoustic music. 1) He heard Dark Side of the Moon and 2) He heard the band Meshuggah. The latter inspired him in that he would never make anything more metal than that. "They're like a fucking machine," he commented.

Jacob feels artists should always be pushing their art. Adding to it. Making something new out of music. He is actively doing that. He is in the middle of recording a new CD, with a due date of "sometime before the year is out." If you haven't heard his first release, Harmonia, you're missing out. He tours sporadically, shows are generally about once a month. He has a full band backing him up, fuller than full, really. Drums and strings and a horn section. But when he takes the stage, the music has the same feel as when you hear him alone at Empire. It is Jacob and his music. It is personal and open and honest and deep and raw.

It is naked.