Jo Dee Messina has taken her career into her own hands.
The country music star recently released her fifth studio album entitled ME, a project she completed without the help of a major label, and she is now hitting the road to tour in support of her latest offering and will be playing at The Ritz Ybor in Tampa on Dec. 10.
Splitting from her label in 2012, Messina says when it came time to hit the studio for a new record, she this time turned to her fans for support. Starting a Kickstarter campaign, Messina set out with the goal of raising $100,000—a goal her fans helped her surpass, and in the process, made her campaign the most successful to come out of Nashville. At the time of its completion, it was the 15th largest funded music campaign in Kickstarter’s history.
“My cousin, Alex Preston, who came in third place on American Idol last year, was living with me at the time and I was talking about the new record and going in and recording it, and not really having the budget for it,” says Messina.
“He suggested Kickstarter, so I looked into it and I thought ‘Ok, we have enough people following us online, maybe we can pull this off.’
She says the reaction was initially mixed, but her fans soon realized how the process worked, and came to embrace it.
“A lot of people didn’t know what it was, so they thought ‘Oh how can she be asking for money?’, but they didn’t understand that every dollar that’s given, you get something back for it, whether it’s CDs, t-shirts, posters, whatever.
“One of the levels was that for a certain donation, fans could come to Nashville to sing on the record, so when you listen, those aren’t studio singers in the background, it’s actually fans including a 14 year-old girl who took a day off of school to come do it.”
The new record is her most personal of her career, and she says she was patient with the writing process, letting the songs come naturally.
“It wasn’t like I went into the studio and started to write,” she says. “It was just a year or so worth of writing that was collected and put on the record. We had pretty good demos and references for everything so it was pretty painless.”
But even with a successful new record sans a major label, Messina isn’t stopping there. She recently started her own label, Dreambound Records, on which she released ME.
“It’s a lot of work, but for me it’s just about the music and getting everything out there,” she says.
She admits that now being totally independent has proven to be a big change, but the pros far outweigh the cons.
“It’s cool because I own everything now, so I can say ‘Hey go to my Facebook page, check out this song, and share it with everyone.’ You miss the major funding, there’s huge marketing and promotion money, and that is something that now has to be found elsewhere, so now we work hard to make the money to record the music, market it, and distribute it.”
Messina first came onto the country music scene in 1996, and since then has had nine number one songs, 16 Top 40 singles, and has sold more than 5 million albums worldwide. She says that while she loves being in the studio, the stage is her real home.
“I love touring, I grew up performing, I’m more comfortable on a stage than I am in a studio,” she says.
“The crowd feeds off our energy, and we feed off their energy. Every show is different because every crowd is different, it’s a blast. I enjoy every room we play, I like the larger theaters, you can still get the energy of the crowd, but it’s still small enough to tell your stories and all.”
And while she takes stock in what she has accomplished, and continues to accomplish, Messina says she has no plans of slowing down anytime soon.
“I still have a huge bucket list,” she says.
“I’m just getting started.”
To purchase tickets, visit TheRitzYbor.com.
