She can vanish into thin air just by putting her hair in a bun. She opened for Pantera on their first US show back in 22 years. She can flip people off with her toes and do a one-handed cartwheel holding a full beer without spilling a drop. She’s been doing this for over 20 years, entirely on her own terms, and she’s not slowing down.
Jasmine Cain is a Nashville-based independent rock artist who grew up singing in bars before she was old enough to stay in them, went from country to rock the moment she heard Joan Jett rip into ‘I Hate Myself for Loving You’, and has since built a career that spans stadium fight anthems and hauntingly raw ballads. From bull riding to booking her own multi-genre bands to headlining stages across the US, Cain has never waited for permission to do anything.
We caught up with her for our On The Radar feature to talk origins, independence, the Nashville rock scene, and the painful story behind her track ‘Hurt’ that she held onto for seven years before letting it out into the world.
For anyone who hasn’t come across you yet, who is Jasmine Cain and where did it all start for you?
My mom says I came out screaming and never stopped. Music was always the centre of my universe. It was on the radio in the kitchen when I woke up and on the radios in the barn and shop where I went to do chores and help my dad. There was a song in my head all day, every day. I learned how to play guitar with the help of a chord chart I bought for $1.95 at 4 years old. My older brother was my hero and bought an electric guitar and amp when I was about 6 or 7 years old and I thought that was so exciting. I wanted to rip guitar solos like him! He started a country band about the same time and I started out singing a couple of songs a night in the bars with them and then would have to wait in the car in between because minors couldn’t just hang out in the bars. It’s hard to pinpoint the one moment where it all started for me because I truly felt like I was born into it.
How did you first get into performing and decide to go the independent route from the start?
I started performing at church and school programs when I was like 6 years old and once my brother got his country band going, I was in bars singing when I was probably 7 or 8 years old. I didn’t know anything about writing or becoming an artist at that time. It was solely a passion and I was still in school. We continued being weekend warriors throughout my high school years and the day I threw that graduation cap into the air, I joined a bluegrass music show for the summer of 1996 performing 7 nights a week. I still felt like it was just a hobby at that time. I worked as a dental assistant (among several other jobs in stories I could tell that would fill your magazine) and when that started losing interest for me, I made my first decision about becoming a full time musician. Since I lived in a fairly low population area with an insanely large percentage of musicians in the area, I made a plan to have several bands that I managed, booked, and performed in that were different genres. Some of them I would front and some I would just be a background person, but all of them were unique. I was the music director, which was weird because I had no music training and only played by ear, and I realised how unique it was that I was both creative and business minded so I handled the bookings. I might be booked at the same venue for 3 weeks, but one week was a country band with a husband and wife lead vocal team and I just played bass and sang, one week would be a rock band I fronted, and one might be a blues band or a hip hop/funk band I had. They were all so drastically different and it worked. I made more money doing that than working full time at a dentist office and I had all my weeks open. We were just doing weekends. It was quite liberating and that’s when the independent bug really got a hold of me. I didn’t mind doing the work as long as I could have that freedom of being able to do what I wanted when I wanted. Becoming an independent ARTIST… now that was a learning curve all its own. There’s so much more to the game in that respect. I don’t regret staying independent and I think it’s easier now than it ever was, but did I love being independent all the time? No. And are there some things that keep me from being able to grow because I am independent? Absolutely. It’s a catch 22.
How would you describe your sound to someone who’s never heard you before?
I think my songs are honest and heartfelt and in many times thought provoking. In a world of AI where everything is starting to sound the same (because it’s being generated by the same people or AI), I think we connect at a deeper level with our fans and people that are searching for truth and want to ground themselves in something they know is real.
What bands or artists shaped what you do? Who were you listening to growing up that made you want to pick up a mic?
I grew up on country music. There’s a lot to learn from those 3 chords and the truth. I studied it relentlessly. I learned the formulas and yet was still so surprised how you could take something that was otherwise so predictable and give it a slight twist and it was something no one else has done before. Artists that I felt were groundbreaking for their time were people like Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Wynonna Judd. But just when I thought I was going to be a country girl forever, my older brother had to sneak in a blank cassette of Joan Jett singing ‘I Hate Myself for Loving You’ and just like that… I realised I was a rocker all the way. It fit my attitude and style. I was rebellious and bold. I did things that girls didn’t do at the time like ride bulls, arm wrestle, and even practised with the football team. I was a total tomboy and that’s why all the bolder country artists were my heroes. When I saw Joan Jett ripping it up on an electric guitar, I was hooked right then and there.
If someone’s about to hit play on a Jasmine Cain track for the very first time, which song do you point them to and why?
Oooh that’s hard. I write so many different ways, so I guess I would first try to figure out what you were like and then I would make a recommendation. For those travelling gypsies with a free spirit, I would recommend ‘Highway Prophet’. For anyone who is battling something in their lives, I would recommend ‘Be Brave’. For anyone that just wants to put something on the radio and drive, I would suggest ‘1995’. If you felt isolated and needed to feel like you weren’t alone I would suggest ‘Hurt’ or ‘Close My Eyes’ (for all the OG listeners). If you’re going through a break up I would say ‘Break Even’ or ‘I Need You’. And if you just wanted to rock tf out, I would say ‘Any Given Sunday’, ‘Nightingale’, ‘Victory’, ‘Money’, and ‘Iconic’.
Tell us a potentially emotional, tragic, or funny story?
I tend to avoid emotionally tragic because I don’t think we as humans are meant to hear and experience so much tragedy in our lives. Years ago, we didn’t have cell phones that told us the horrible things that happened around the world and now we have it at our fingertips all day and we feel it hard. I don’t think we’re meant to. I think our own lives and those that are closest to us experience enough emotional tragedy to last 1 person a lifetime… so I tend to move towards comedy. I’ll take the Jimmy Buffett escape route. Here’s the story:
I have this amazing ability to vanish into thin air. I can go from Jasmine Cain to the merch girl by doing 1 simple thing: putting my hair in a bun. I know this sounds weird, but I can literally walk off the stage wearing the same costume I just performed in and put my hair in a bun and nobody recognises me from the crowd. I run the merch booth most of the time because I like to talk to the people that saw the show and hear what they loved about it and hear their stories. But for some reason, they come up to me and buy a t-shirt and ask me when Jasmine Cain will be there. I can let my hair down and then they’re like… Oh, it’s YOU! I can’t explain it, but it happens all the time and everyone in the band can vouch for that. It’s really weird.
What’s been your best gig so far? The one you still think about?
Oh, by far opening for Pantera in Panama City Beach on their first US show in 22 years since the deaths of Vinnie Paul and Dimebag. As much as I would’ve LOVED the opportunity to do a show with the original members of the band, the emotion and energy of being on that first one back in the saddle was really something I’ll never forget. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.
You’ve called Nashville home for a long time now. What’s the rock and metal scene really like there beyond the country music reputation?
It has grown incredibly, but I’m glad to say I was on the ground floor of the real rock/metal movement in Nashville from back in 2005 on. It was very underground back then, but Bonnie Neves had a passion for metal and hard rock and started Dungeon Promotions and became the organiser of several rock and metal shows in smaller basement venues in Nashville. Since bands were paid off door and ticket sales, all the bands supported each other. Everyone would show up to rock out and pay the ticket price which paid the bands and Bonnie and the clubs would sell PBR hand over fist and everyone had a great time. The biggest change I see now in Nashville is that nobody supports anyone. Even your best friends and bandmates in other projects won’t drive across town to support your show. When we do shows in Nashville now (which is rare), the majority of the crowd has flown in or driven from some other state. Maybe 10% of the crowd is our good friends from Nashville. There’s no family unit to it anymore. That’s primarily why I knew that I needed to be a touring artist full time. I really hope that changes back to the way it was soon. It was a great time.
‘Hurt’ is hauntingly beautiful and really hits deep. Tell us the story behind that track. Where did it come from?
Man, this bums me out to have to go into, because the situation I wrote it about involves friends that I still love, respect, and admire to this day, and I don’t want to name names because I love them. I was in the middle of working on our SEVEN album, writing and recording it almost simultaneously. We wanted some “talking points” so we thought we should do some co-writing with more famous friends so we might get some attention for the songwriting and the project, but the schedules never worked out. During this entire process, I had just purchased my house in Nashville and it was under construction, so we couldn’t stay there. We were staying with friends in their spare room and he ran social media marketing for several artists including myself and this “famous person” we were trying to connect with. One day there was a knock at the door and they were there to work on their social media and since they were already there and I was just upstairs in the room writing, they decided to join me. We finished a song and the social media guy… being a social media guy took our photo and posted it saying we had just written a great song. My other co-writer saw it and immediately thought I was trying to cut them out. I wasn’t. It was a complete coincidence that just happened to work out at that moment. But I woke up to my voicemail full of message after message about the most painful shit that I think anyone has ever said to me. She said nobody respected me in the community and named names of people that she talked to about what a joke I am. It was really crushing stuff and I felt so awful about everything but also really angry that they were taking the time to really make sure I knew how much they hated me. I was paying these people to work with them. It wasn’t something we easily got over, but we did get over it. In the meantime… I wrote this song. I held on to it for 7 years now.
‘Hurt’ feels like a very different side to you compared to something like ‘Victory’, which has been picked up as a fight song by the Nashville Predators, Pittsburgh Steelers, and Ohio State teams. How do those two tracks sit together for you?
I write different songs to connect with different people. We are not 1 dimensional. We have lives, feelings, excitement, joy, sadness, anger, and everything in between. Nothing written like ‘Victory’ is ever going to touch someone who needed that space to feel ‘Hurt’. I write for the song. I write for the people. I don’t write for continuity.
What’s next for Jasmine Cain? More music, touring, videos?
Always touring! Keep up with our schedule at jasminecain.com. I do have a little plan to write a 4 song EP this fall to shoot to XM and radio to gauge interest, and then shop to booking agencies and maybe even management. Perhaps it’s time for Jasmine Cain to have a team after 20 odd years of a career? Along with what I’ve planned, I am also quite spontaneous, so you never know when I’m gonna wake up and say “we should write and release a new song and video next month”. Hell, I don’t even know when I’m going to do that. My husband constantly deals with this and tries to keep my ADD in check, but when I lock into something, I just do it and nothing could stop me. lol. It’s one of my biggest strengths and weaknesses all at the same time.
Where can people find you and keep up with what you’re doing?
Jasminecain.com is our website. You can find almost everything there. I have a Patreon page that tells a backstory on many things that I don’t tell the general public, along with behind-the-scenes content no one else will see. Patreon.com/jasminecain.
Anything else you want people to know?
I can flip people off with my toes. And I haven’t tried it recently, but I can usually do a 1 handed cartwheel holding on to a beer in a glass and not spill any. That’s all I got.
