Jordana Bryant — New Music This Spring
16-year-old singer/songwriter Jordana Bryant has garnered 6 million views on YouTube independently on her performance videos. Her debut EP Last First has over 1.3 million global streams, and her debut single “This Love” (written by Bryant, Seth Mosley and Jesse Lee) has over 350K global streams. She is working with Mosley (Kelsea Ballerini) and releasing new music in April.
Your dad, who was in a country rock band as a teen, is the one who taught you how to play music. What is your favorite song to play together?
Hard to say! Our favorite song to play together is probably whatever we’ve most recently written, but one of our favorites to play is probably a song called “Can I Get It Back,” that I’m hoping to release soon!
Jeannie Seely, Patti LaBelle, Joan Jett, Pink, and Taylor Swift are also Pennsylvania natives. Where are the best places to go to a concert in your home state?
There are so many great places to go see live music in Pennsylvania but I’d say my two favorites are the Wells Fargo Center and the Hershey Park Stadium!
Choosing to write traditional and contemporary country-pop songs because you want to be able to tell vivid stories. Which songs have most influenced you as a writer?
There are so many songs that have influenced me as a writer but I think two of the big ones are probably “The Dance” by Garth Brooks and “I Can’t Make You Love Me” by Bonnie Raitt. I feel like these two songs have such great stories and you can almost picture every word in them. I feel like that’s a really powerful thing to do in a song and I’ve always loved those two songs for the way they really make you feel the story.
One of your first covers on YouTube was Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats.”
Recently you and Temecula Road’s Dawson Anderson covered Underwood and Jason Aldean’s duet, “If I Didn’t Love You.” How challenging is it to put a personal spin on a well-known song?
I actually feel like more than anything it’s just really fun to get to do your own take on a well-known song. “Before He Cheats” and “If I Didn’t Love You” are two of my favorite songs and I sing them all the time, so when it came time to get in the studio to record a cover of them, I tried to not think too much about it and just have fun!
You’ve said your tracks “This Love,” “Not Sayin’,” and “Last First” are a trilogy of songs. What inspired you to tell a love story through the three tracks?
I’ve always loved how movies have sequels because I feel like it’s so cool to see the story continue and for a lot of my favorite songs I’ve wished that I could hear what happened next. Like with the song “Jolene,” I’ve always wanted to know whether Jolene actually got her guy and for “You Belong With Me,” I’ve always wanted to know whether they ended up together. So, going into writing these songs, I knew I wanted to make them a continuous story to show how the relationship in them grew and evolved!
Working on new music, like ones you’ve shared on Instagram — “Hole in My Guitar” and “Best Friend.” What can you share about the release scheduled for this spring?
I’m super excited to be releasing some new music in the next few months! Both Zach Kale and Seth Mosley have been producing the new EP that I’m working on and it’s been a blast to get to work with them and really figure out what I want to say with my music! I can’t wait to be able to share these songs with everyone!!