Loud Magazine: How do you define success in your personal and professional life?
Jimmy Dixon: I define success strictly in terms of how many likes, views, streams, follows, and tweets I get on any given day. Just kidding, I don't know what some of those things are if I'm being completely honest. If I am able to get a hug from a loved one, listen to a song that makes me think, brings me joy, or brings me to tears, or if I learn something new about myself or the world I live in, I consider that to be a tremendously successful day.
Loud Magazine: What personal values or philosophies influence your music and career?
Jimmy Dixon: I define success strictly in terms of how many likes, views, streams, follows, and tweets I get on any given day. Just kidding, I don't know what some of those things are if I'm being completely honest. If I am able to get a hug from a loved one, listen to a song that makes me think, brings me joy, or brings me to tears, or if I learn something new about myself or the world I live in, I consider that to be a tremendously successful day.
Loud Magazine: What personal values or philosophies influence your music and career?
Jimmy Dixon: I can't stand songs that are superficial. Unfortunately, sometimes there seems to be an abundance of such music. Songs that are thoughtful, genuine, authentic, and honest are inspirational and influential in my own music journey. That can be music from generations ago - Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, Nick Drake to name only a few - or music from current artists such as Ruston Kelly or Patty Griffin. I think people can tell if music is genuine and authentic. The Jimmy Dixon Group, if nothing else, strives to be genuine.
Loud Magazine: What comes first for you: the music or the lyrics?
Jimmy Dixon: The music sometimes comes first but often they come together in a package. Lyrics help me remember the melody and if I have a melody, the lyrics are usually not too far behind. I would say, for me, I almost never have lyrics that I write a melody for - I haven't gotten to the point where I am good enough to write in that manner. For me, writing lyrics is the most fun, frustrating, exhilarating, infuriating, and mysterious part of the songwriting process. Sometimes words just appear. Where do they come from? Most of the time, I don't know.
Loud Magazine: How do you know when a song is truly finished?
Jimmy Dixon: The song usually tells me when it is finished. It is a feeling the song gives you. I have written songs that are nearly 10 minutes long and songs that are under 2 minutes. The song knows when it is done and it has a way of communicating that to me by way of how I feel about the song. If I love the song and I know it has something to say but it just doesn't feel right, it isn't done. If I listen to the song and I get a feeling of 'this song isn't half bad' then I know the song is completed.
Loud Magazine: How do you handle criticism and feedback on your music?
Jimmy Dixon: We love feedback on our music! In fact, we're working on our second album and we post our work-in-progress tracks online on our website (www.thejimmydixongroup.com) so that wherever we are, we have an easy way to listen to them and discover new ideas for the tracks. Anyone can listen to these and provide feedback, positive or negative. We love both! Not to give anything away, but we're too old to care about criticism anymore. We lost that sensory years ago. We play music together because we get pure joy out of the experience. If we are able to make a connection with even just one listener, that is just incredible.
Loud Magazine: What’s the most challenging aspect of being a song artist?
Jimmy Dixon: The most challenging aspect is ignoring all the noise and focusing on what is most important to you. Whatever that is. What's most important to us is having fun and loving the music we are creating; if that means toiling in obscurity or playing for thousands of people, we've reached a point where that kind of thing is so far down the list of importance. Don't get us wrong, we love the feeling we get when we connect with someone, even if it is just one person, who enjoys our music, that's why we do things to help broaden our listener base but If we stop having fun together or the joy of creating a new song is lost, then it's time to stop. If there's no joy in the music, there's no music at all.
Loud Magazine: What changes would you like to see in the music industry?
Jimmy Dixon: Some of my favorite albums are rough, stripped-down, under-produced albums. Think of "Pink Moon" by Nick Drake or anything from the Chicago blues era. Just pure, genuine music at its core. Sometimes it seems music or a song has to be perfect, but it doesn't. Flaws are beautiful, too. I love it when an artist releases demos of some of their produced songs - it's like you are sitting there with them. It's authentic emotion and sometimes that gets lost in production.
Loud Magazine: Are there any hidden messages or easter eggs in your songs that fans might not notice?
Jimmy Dixon: Hahaha, of course! But if I told you, that would ruin the secret, wouldn't it? Ok, fine, take a listen all the way through the song "Afternoon Sundown" - that's all I'm allowed to say!
Loud Magazine: How involved are you in the creation of your music videos?
Jimmy Dixon: We here at The Jimmy Dixon Group, we have faces made for radio. In fact, if you go to our website (www.thejimmydixongroup.com), we have a t-shirt that confirms exactly that. So music videos, Facebook, Instagram, we stay away from those kinds of things. It's for the best. Trust us.
Loud Magazine: How do you keep your live performances fresh and exciting for both you and your audience?
Jimmy Dixon: The Jimmy Dixon Group hasn't played a ton of live shows recently. We finished our first album, "The Rough Demos", and we have so many more new songs we didn't know what to do with them except to record them. So we're back in the studio recording our second album which we hope to be out later in 2024 or more likely early in 2025. We're really excited and focused on that at the moment. After that, we'll see...
