Singer and songwriter Jason Wilkes's effortlessly soaring vocals and emotive lyrics have been honed through years of hardwon experience on the road fronting High Flight Society and then providing both vocal and writing support for Disciple. Behind the scenes, Jason has been continually in the process of writing his own music. A kickstarter project in early 2014 made the hope of someday recording some of those songs a reality. The result is Shells, a stellar release late in the year featuring both Jason's own formidable musical aresenal and the support of producer Dwayne Larring (Sonicflood, Audio Adrenaline), guitarist Shane Cole and drummer Ike Thurston.

Jason took the time to sit down and share with NRT about the creative process behind his newest musical venture, some of the challenges he faced along the way and what sets Shells apart from anything we've heard from him before.

Would you mind giving us some background on Shells and its timeline?

The timeline is actually way off from what it was supposed to be, like most projects that I've done. I actually started tracking the record over a year ago, and it was supposed to come out last December. But all kinds of stuff happened, and balls were dropped by various people and then tripped over and lost completely and we found them again-- it was awful. Hard drive crashes and stuff. So just getting to this point has been a long, crazy road.

The way it all came about is that I was in the studio with Disciple, recording Attack. I was in there with Travis Wyrick, and I recorded "Lion." He asked me if I had any music that I did myself, and I told him that I did but I didn't really have a plan to record any of it. He offered to record it because he was stoked on my vocal, and I showed him some of the songs and he really liked it. What's funny about it is that though that's where the spark came from for me to actually do it, oddly enough we couldn't get our schedules lined up. So I ended up recording it with someone else. 

But the conversation with Travis is why I really started getting the ball rolling, and then the Disciple guys kind of chimed in and said I should do it. And I already had some of the songs. "Come Now Rain Down" is 7 or 8 years old, and some of the other songs I had written to pitch to other artists, so I kind of had them in reserve and I ended up recording them myself. 

So it's been a kind of weird timeline, but that's where it came from. Then also from just the fact that I've always had solo music and wanted to do it, but it's never been very tangible because it's a great ordeal to record music. 

So you had the spark for Shells while you were in the studio with Disciple, and it sounds like some of these songs come from back even before Disciple. But Shells sounds very different from anything you've done with High Flight Society or Disciple. Is that intentional?

If I had been doing anything by myself at any point in my career, it probably would've been similar to this. But the influence of other guys has been what has taken it other places. In High Flight, we all loved pop music, but at the same time John and Michael were huge fans of Thrice when we first started becoming a band, and that influenced us to be a little more rock. And I was into-- and am still really into-- Foo Fighters. They were my absolute favorite band at the beginning. So I was trying to be like Foo Fighters, even though I kind of preferred Michael Jackson and, these days, Maroon 5, more poppy-sounding stuff. 

So it's what it would've sounded like by myself anyway, but part of this was a little bit intentional. I had the option where I could have asked all the High Flight guys to play on it, or I could have asked the Disciple guys to play on it. But the reason that I didn't is because I knew, if I wrote the songs and I sung the vocals and then the guitarist for High Flight played guitar and the bassist played the bass, then it would sound exactly like High Flight. And then the same thing with Disciple. You would hear all the influences. 

So I steered clear and got two of my friends I've always wanted to make music with and asked if they'd be up for it. And then for guitars, for instance, I didn't even go to the studio. Shane went with the producer Dwayne and recorded them all himself so that I wouldn't be able to speak into it, so that it wouldn't sound like High Flight. And then it's obviously not going to sound like Disciple ever because though I love Disciple, love playing in Disciple, love writing for Disciple, heavy music's not what I do or what I listen to. So if I did make something pretty heavy, it'd be totally forced. 

So I guess it was a combination of on purpose and then just by chance it worked out how it is.
 
You referenced some of the musicians you have on it. Do you want talk more about who you wrote with on this, what the studio team looked like?

The two guys that are playing with me are Shane Cole and Ike Thurston. They're friends of mine from way back. Shane actually was a High Flight Society fan way back in the day and then we became friends with him, and he's turned out to be one of the best musicians that I know. So having him on the record is a big deal. Their names aren't as notable, but they should be as notable, if not more notable, as everyone else that's on the team. They just have been doing things behind the scenes for years. So hopefully this will give them some limelight.

The producer is Dwayne Larring, who was in Audio Adrenaline and Sonicflood, and he did production on the one Audio Adrenaline album that Kevin Max was on. He's been doing production stuff for years. I met him on the road when Disciple toured with Audio Adrenaline. He was telling a production story about how he likes to produce, and it sounded like what I like production-wise, so it started as a conversation and then he ended up being the producer out of that. 

And then all the writers-- let's see if I can start at the top. "You've Got a Hold On Me" has Josiah Prince from Disciple on it. I wrote that song in the studio while we were recording Attack. I was messing around on Travis's acoustic and I wrote the song and pitched it to Kevin. And immediately after I sang it I was like "you know what? This would be awful as a Disciple song. Forget I even showed you this melody, because it is the poppiest thing I've ever written in my life." But Josiah was standing there and fell in love with it, so we finished it in the hotel room afterwards.

"One Star" was from that same tour I did with Audio Adrenaline and Ryan Stevenson. I was working on "One Star" on a whim-- a bunch of stuff happened and inspired it. Ryan Stevenson walked by, liked it, and I asked him if he wanted to help me with it. So we worked on it in the bus and got it 90% done. Then he took it later into a cowriting session with Jon Steingard from Hawk Nelson, and they finished it. 

Then Dave Stovall, who is in Audio Adrenaline now but was originally from Wavorly-- Wavorly was High Flight Society's brother band way back in the day. We were best friends. So I emailed Dave a bunch of songs and was like "I want you to do something on my EP, whether it be help me write a song or play piano or something." And he replied and said he had some ideas for "Shelter," so he shot them to me and we wrote it over email. 

Then Kevin Young from Disciple said that "Wrecked" is his favorite song I've ever written, and one of his favorite songs ever. I was like "hey, if you like it so much, why don't you give me a suggestion on how to make it better?" So he gave me a couple suggestions and we worked on it together in the back lounge and ended up making it way better. 

I think those are all of them. After I actually typed it out and sent you the credits, I started looking at it and thinking "wow, there's a lot of people on this, and I didn't realize it at all." I didn't pick the songs based on who did what, it just kind of happened, and then after the fact I realized there are some really great artists on there. So it was sort of an accident, like a huge unforeseen blessing to have so many awesome people on it. God just kind of worked it out, and I'm super thankful for it.

Have you thought about how you hope the songs are received, maybe the impact you hope some of them have?

I hope that everybody sees or hears the songs for what they are and what they are supposed to be. "One Star" for instance, or maybe even a little bit of "Shelter," is a little more "Christian industry" than I usually write. A lot of artists that have been around as long as I have, especially if they haven't had a gigantic success as far as money goes, resort to "well I'm just going to write a bunch of cheesy music and sell records and forget about being an artist completely." 

That happens often enough that I'm a little worried that people are going to hear "One Star" and "Shelter" and some of the other songs and be like "oh, he left High Flight and Disciple and now he's just making this Christian radio sounding music because it's his last hurrah to try to make it" or something. And it's totally not that. The songs came out, and they just happened to be those kinds of songs.

So I hope that people can hear it for what it is, hear the message in the songs, hear the authenticity in it and realize that it is coming from the same place as all my other music. I've just grown since I made all the other music, and my heart and my head's in a different place. So hopefully it has an impact and people get it for what it is.

For the most part, I try to keep an open mind to how my music impacts people. One person can hear one song and be impacted a certain way, and another person can hear it and be impacted in a way the artist who wrote it never imagined. So it if does any good whatsoever, I'm happy about it, regardless of what it does.
 
So Shells is coming out on the 27th. Is that going to be a digital only release? Where can people track it down?

Yeah, for the most part it's going to be digital only. It'll be on pretty much all digital outlets and streaming services. I'll have physical copies myself, so if you happen to live nearby me, you can come get one! Or my website wilkesmusic.com will have an online store that's functioning once I get the copies, and you can order them from there. 

I'm also working out a thing with Amazon where you'll be able to get physical copies there. But it'll take a while for that. I'll actually have to get them, ship them, and then they'll have to process them, so it might be like a month or two before they are available there. But eventually it'll be everywhere digitally, with physical copies on Amazon and on my website.

Do you have any way that people can be praying for you and your family?

When I was on the road, it was always that my family would be able to deal with it better. If an opportunity comes up where I need to go on the road to promote this record, it needs to be a perfect situation where I can go and my family can either go with me, or I can go in stints and they can still be happy without me. My little girl doesn't deal well with me being gone, she gets very upset. So if that opportunity arises, definitely cover that in as much prayer as possible.

Outside of that, just in general with my solo music for the past decade, every time I've tried to do any of it, it's had this crazy roadblock. I've recorded music at various times in the past 10 years, and it's never gotten finished. Like on Shells, for instance, the mix guy lost his entire rig, lost the mixes and his hard drive backup and had to start from scratch. Some of the files for some of the songs, Dwayne, the producer, when he was backing up, the computer just skipped some. Then I had a backpack with two laptops just disappear for three weeks, and it had all of them on there, so like literally 8 backups were gone. The absurdity of that situation happens literally every time I try to record music.

It's crazy. Whether you want to get super spiritual about it and say it's an attack of the enemy trying to keep me from doing it, which I lean towards, or if you just want to not be spiritual and say "it's crazy, it happens all the time"-- either way, I'd really appreciate if it would stop! So any prayer warriors that want to tackle that for me, I'd appreciate that.

And just in general, I'd like my wife and daughter to be happy and healthy. So any time you want to pray for that, go for it.


Shells is available now on iTunes, Amazon and Google Play.