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In this week's episode of What's Up, Wake, we dive deep into the life of double platinum songwriter and local musician Jason Adamo. Jason shares his captivating journey from his beginnings in Blacksburg, Virginia, through his musical influences, to becoming a renowned artist living and performing in Raleigh, NC. We discuss his unexpected discovery of new music genres, his songwriting process, and his experience of finding a living kidney donor. Don't miss his heartfelt performance of "Beautiful Believer" and his insights on navigating the music industry. Follow his inspiring story and learn valuable advice for aspiring musicians.
00:00 Introduction to the Episode
01:13 Meet Jason Adamo: The Local Music Sensation
01:29 Jason's Musical Roots and Family Influence
04:12 Discovering Rock and Roll
06:15 The Journey to Double Platinum
12:23 Navigating the Music Business
17:14 Embracing New Technology
18:09 A Life-Saving Kidney Donation
19:43 A Neighbor's Unexpected Gift
20:48 A Setback and Way Forward
21:13 The Six-Surgery Chain
22:57 Jenna's Wedding and Matchmaking
23:18 Becoming a Living Donor
24:05 Charity Concerts and Community Support
24:54 Lightning Round Questions
29:39 Performing and Family Life
30:28 Closing and Final Performance
Creators and Guests
What is What’s Up, Wake?
What’s Up, Wake covers the people, places, restaurants, and events of Wake County, North Carolina. Through conversations with local personalities from business owners to town staff and influencers to volunteers, we’ll take a closer look at what makes Wake County an outstanding place to live. Presented by Cherokee Media Group, the publishers of local lifestyle magazines Cary Magazine, Wake Living, and Main & Broad, What’s Up, Wake covers news and happenings in Raleigh, Cary, Morrisville, Apex, Holly Springs, Fuquay-Varina, and Wake Forest.
05 What's Up Wake - Jason Adamo
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[00:00:00]
Melissa: We are hitting a high note on this week's episode of What's Up. Wake Music fans will love this insider's peak at life as a local musician. This artist is a double platinum songwriter who has lived in New York City and Nashville and performed all over the country.
Lucky us. He is now a family man, living and performing in Raleigh. So throw on your cowboy boots and turn up the volume because here's your [00:01:00] backstage pass to life as a rockstar with singer songwriter winner of both the Maggie Award for Carey Magazine and Reader's Choice Award for Wake Living. For best local music artist jason Adamo. Thank you so much for being here Jason.
Jason Adamo: Thanks for having me. My pleasure. I'm really excited to
Melissa: chat today.
You are my first musical guest.
Jason Adamo: Oh, excellent.
Melissa: And I see that you brought your guitar, so I'm hoping that means you'll treat us to a little something later.
Jason Adamo: I did, and I will for sure.
Melissa: Awesome. Okay. Let's start from the beginning. Where are you from and what initially sparked your interest in music?
Jason Adamo: Ooh, so, I was born and raised in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Virginia Tech is the college.
Melissa: Okay, so like near the mountains?
Jason Adamo: Yes. Okay. In the New River Valley actually of the Appalachian Mountains. My parents are from Brooklyn and Queens originally, and they met out on Long Island at Hicksville High School, but then before I was born, they relocated to Virginia.
So I was raised in the South by some northerners.
Melissa: That's an interesting, especially near [00:02:00] the Appalachian Mountains. Yes.
Jason Adamo: So
Melissa: is that what influenced your love of country in particular?
Jason Adamo: So I believe some Appalachian music definitely made its way in there. My parents they turned us on to people like Billy Joel.
They went to high school with Billy Joel at Hicksville
Melissa: High School. Oh, really? Okay. So we grew up
Jason Adamo: listening to Billy Joel early beach Boys, early Beatles stuff. Chiffon, Shirelles. My mom and dad both sang. My mom might have had a much better voice than my dad. But she actually went on to have a little trio singing group herself later in life.
Oh, neat. She was
Melissa: okay.
Jason Adamo: After I was born, after all, she had five kids. I'm the youngest of five. After she had all of her children, she started pursuing her passion again of singing. She grew up singing in the family. She has three sisters and they all can sing harmony together. My grandmother was had this vision of.
Creating the next Andrew Sisters, if you're familiar with them back in the day. I'm
Melissa: not, but I'm pic picturing the female version of Jackson Five.
Jason Adamo: Very similar. Yes. My mom always had a song or humming something in the house [00:03:00] she was singing or humming something in the house. We would have Sunday Family Day where we would get together and sing mostly.
My parents were very Christian, so they had, we would read from the Bible and they would also sing some hymns and whatnot, and some secular music would make its way in there. But the passion for singing was definitely led by my mom and still in. And all of us who could sing my brothers can.
I was gonna ask sing ask. Yeah. If
Melissa: you were the only one that, that not only could carry a tune, but are you the only one that did anything with it in life?
Jason Adamo: So my sister can sing and play a little bit of guitar, really excellent at the flute, and my brother Chris picked up a bass guitar first and then a six string acoustic guitar later in life.
So the three out of the five are, not really pursuing it, but definitely two, my sister and my brother are definitely, are, they have hobbies.
Melissa: Okay.
Jason Adamo: Including playing music for sure.
Melissa: So you guys could strike up a little family trio? We could, we actually do if you wanted to. Actually,
Jason Adamo: sometimes at family reunions we do stuff like that.
Okay. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Neat. Yeah.
Melissa: So do you [00:04:00] have any genres? You mentioned hymns and Christian music. But do you have any genres or artists that have been influential, like when you were growing up, that you wanted to be like when you grew up?
Jason Adamo: So on my way to a young life. Which is a Christian organization, a young life camp, a friend.
My
Melissa: kids are in young life. Oh, so I know exactly about it. Yep. Oh, very cool. Okay.
Jason Adamo: We went to a place called Windy Gap, I'm not sure. Yep. Okay. Yep.
Melissa: They still do it there? Yep. Okay. Very
Jason Adamo: cool. My cousin, actually, Ben gave me a tape cassette. Now I'm dating myself a tape cassette of Pearl Jams 10 album.
Melissa: Nice. And
Jason Adamo: until then we were pretty sheltered musically. I would say that when I listened to that, I fell in love with that style of music, and then I really fell in love with the. Guitar playing of Mike McCrady. And then that, that led me into a bunch of Rolling Stone magazines to see who his influences were, which turned me onto to the Blues.
Steve Ray Vaughan, Albert King. And that just Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, all that just chipped just the doors just flew open for me. Yeah. And I started doing a lot of research into some great [00:05:00] music that existed that I didn't know about.
Melissa: So you were introduced to, to rock and roll.
Pearl Jam type of rock and roll. At a Christian camp on, actually on the
Jason Adamo: way back from the, it was on a bus. Okay. The bus ride. Yeah. All
Melissa: right. So little Walkman, that's when you let loose Yeah. And your friend snuck you the Pearl Jam.
Jason Adamo: Right. That turned me onto Mo. Any type of guitar player, whether it's country, whether it's blues people at Motown, anybody who could really play the guitar.
I really fell in love with anybody who could really belt out some lyrics. Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder. Stuff like that. It, for me, it was just like you open the doors to something that before that Pearl Jam tape didn't exist besides, Billy Joel and Beach Boys, stuff like that. Yeah. We already listened to it.
It opened up my musical world to just every genre, any. Anything that had passion behind it, I fell in love with whether it was the songwriting behind it or somebody really digging deep to get those lyrics out.
Melissa: Yeah. Well, and you mentioned genres that really [00:06:00] can fuse together. Blues country rock, they, there's a lot of similarities with the instruments and the belting out at times that you mentioned. Yes,
Jason Adamo: definitely.
Melissa: And songwriting styles as well. I would see some similarities with all three of those. Definitely. So I mentioned this in my introduction, but you have earned a double platinum plaque for surpassing 1 million copies sold on Brett Young's self-titled debut album called Beautiful Believer.
Which is absolutely amazing. I've never sat with a double platinum artist, so congratulations. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.
And I'm hoping that you could possibly play us a few notes of that song when we're done. Oh, definitely. Fingers crossed.
Jason Adamo: Definitely.
Melissa: So, in terms of songwriting. This is a song that you worked with other people on.
I'm wondering how is that process different when you're writing a song for yourself versus when you're writing with other people?
Jason Adamo: So before 2008 or so, I only wrote [00:07:00] solo. I never tried collaborating with anybody else. Oh,
Melissa: okay.
Jason Adamo: On our 2010 record transistor, which. The birth of that record started in 2008 with the collaboration of myself and John Briggs, who used to be a triangle bass producer and guitar player.
Melissa: Is that how you met?
Jason Adamo: So John Briggs yes. He came in to play on my 2008 record Sunflower.
Melissa: Okay. And
Jason Adamo: then we hit it off. We became good friends. We ended up actually relocating in Nashville at the same time to pursue music there in 2013. But before then, really opened up the doors to writing music together, which I found I still love writing on my own and I still write songs on my own, but I never really realized that you can come up with a pretty decent idea that's not quite finished.
You don't know how to finish it until you collaborate with somebody. Different types of talented people. Some people are better at. Writing the bridge to a song. Some people are writer better at helping you carve the melody out of the lyrics that you've already written. Some people like John Briggs can play everything.
It's really annoying because I [00:08:00] can only play guitar and he could just take my vision of a song, not only help lyrically complete it, but also map out the entire production of the song. So it, that 2010 record transistor opened the floodgates for me to collaborating with other artists. Okay,
Melissa: so how did you come to meet Brett Young and get that process started?
Jason Adamo: So, in 2000, so 2000 tens, record transistor brought us across the country to play in Los Angeles a lot. 2011, I decided to take up residency in Santa Monica for about a month or so to get ready for 2012 tour that was coming up. We want, I wanted to secure management and a publicist in LA for that.
During that month long stay in Santa Monica, I was introduced to so many great singer songwriters and musicians, including Brett Young. We went to a rooftop bar restaurant in Santa Monica where he was bartending. And at one point he asked the owner of the establishment, Hey, Wednesday nights are pretty slow.
Do you [00:09:00] mind if I just start playing music here and inviting some of my friends to play and maybe bring out a crowd on a slow night? So at that point, when I was in Santa Monica, he had already established that Wednesday night music night. So my friend Heather brought me there to introduce me to Brett.
We hit it off. I got up there and played a few songs. Brett for those of you who don't know, is a very soulful country artist. He's from Orange County Southern California, who had then uprooted and moved to Nashville right around the same time as me. So in between that time of 2011 and 2013, we kept in touch.
We would play shows together out in Los Angeles whenever my band would go out there. So when we both moved to Nashville at the same time, when you moved to a new city, you don't know that many people. You tend to go out and hang out with people you do have a connection with.
So Brett and I started hanging out, started writing songs, and. Speaking to a beautiful believer Brett invited me to a number one party, which is if a country artist in Nashville has a number one hit their publishing company or performing rights company, in [00:10:00] this case ascap through a big number one party for an artist named David Nail.
I'm not sure if you are familiar with him, but he had a song, I'm Not, he had a song called Whatever she's Got in 2014. It was a big country. Hit it, actually, hit number one, ASCAP. Threw him a party. Brett invited me to go to that party. At the party. David Neil got up there and he played the song with his musicians.
He said, thank y'all for coming out. I didn't write this song as many times as the case in Nashville. These two gentlemen did, and he brought up Jimmy Robbins and John Knight. Jimmy gave us a very short speech handed over to John. John got up there and gave a very memorable speech about.
His wife, who happened to be in attendance and their 16-year-old daughter who was standing next to his wife, gave a short story about his entire career of moving there from Oklahoma being poor, wanting to become a hit songwriter wanting to move back to Oklahoma when it wasn't happening right away.
And his wife just kept saying, John, we're gonna stay here if we have to be poor, we'll be poor. I have faith in you [00:11:00] and I believe in you. You're gonna be a hit songwriter one day. At this point, I believe that was his sixth number one song at this party.
Melissa: Wow.
Jason Adamo: And he pointed at his wife and he said that, that's my beautiful believer right there.
And Brett and I looked at each other, we were like, that's a song right there. Yeah,
Melissa: it is.
Jason Adamo: And we just happened to have a songwriting session scheduled for the next day with myself and another brilliant songwriter named Annie Gin. So Brett and Annie and I got together. We told Annie the story 'cause she was not at the party.
Took what John Knight said in the speech, combined it with some stuff that we I. Maybe made up. It's, and the end result was a story of a songwriter in Nashville who had a belief himself, but more importantly, he had somebody in his corner who believed in his talent. And that's the story of Beautiful Believer.
Melissa: I love that.
Jason Adamo: Yeah. It's a great story. Yeah, it is. Six months later, Brett got a record deal with Big machine big machine records. Adam Nashville texted me when I was actually in Raleigh and said, Hey, beautiful believer going on the record. And I was in a movie, went like that. Yes, my first cut on a major label.
Little did I know the record was gonna [00:12:00] take off and sell as many records as it did. To this day, I'm super grateful for Brett and our connection that we made out in Los Angeles because it led to that first cut. And then led to having a smaller song on a very big record. He had, I believe five number one hits on that record.
And Beautiful Believer was not released as a single, but it's on the record. That went double platinum. Like you said. Nice. Yeah.
Melissa: Well, and you touched a little bit on the business side of the industry, so I'm wondering as an artist, how you are able to balance your passion for music and the artistry of music with the business side of the industry.
Jason Adamo: Yes. Very difficult. Because you were talking about
Melissa: going out to LA and trying to find, representation and all that stuff, and I mean, I would just think that. That's not really your jam as no pun intended.
Jason Adamo: Right.
Melissa: As an artist,
Jason Adamo: that's why I wanted to find management, because I did not Yeah.
Did not like doing that kind of stuff. We've, we were fortunate enough to have a budget behind that record that was coming out in 2012. So I was allotted a [00:13:00] certain amount to find a publicist to help us promote the record. Oh, okay. Okay. But for a manager, no, that they just were off percentages.
The business side of the music industry is very difficult waters to navigate. It's very important to find somebody who's well versed in all of the lingo and all of the, and
Melissa: trustworthy and all that good stuff. Trust. Yeah. Trust, yes,
Jason Adamo: definitely. That's very difficult to find apparently, I'm sure.
Yeah.
Melissa: Yeah.
Jason Adamo: I would just read up as much as you can on everything that goes into there's a series of books called the I believe it's called The Business of Music, that you can pick up and read and just gain some knowledge for yourself before you pursue this crazy game of.
For sure.
Melissa: Yeah. And I would think that also translates into any type of performance arts. Whether it's music or acting, anything like that. It's finding the right people.
Jason Adamo: A hundred percent. Yes. For myself, as soon as I got the cut on the first record I researched and tracked down a company that would make sure I got paid for my small sliver of that record.
So luckily I signed a deal with [00:14:00] them. They're administration company and they're all over the country, but there's a lot in Nashville. And I signed with one in Nashville to make sure I'm making money off that, that song.
Melissa: Good. Yeah. Thank yourself from what, 10 years ago? 12 years ago?
Jason Adamo: Yes. So this goes into my next question, which is what advice would you give to aspiring musicians?
Surround yourself with talent people, whether it's other songwriters musicians who might be better than you. You can learn.
I, that's what how I played, learned how to play guitar. I took a month of guitar lessons when I was 13. It wasn't for me. I think I, my head wasn't in the right space to learn from a talented guitar player.
Melissa: Not many things are in the right head space for a 13-year-old. Right.
Jason Adamo: I was lucky to basically become a lead singer in different bands growing up, and I would pay attention to what the other guitar players were doing and pick their brain.
Do that as much as possible, pick people's brains. Whether it's a songwriter, whether it's a publisher whether it's. [00:15:00] Offer to buy them coffee and just see if they can give you half an hour of their time. And take notes and try to keep that relationship going. Be respectful of their time.
Do not oversaturate their email inbox.
Melissa: Yeah. Yeah, that can be hard, I'm sure. 'cause you've got a million questions, right?
Jason Adamo: One of the biggest things I would say is let your talent do the talking. If you put yourself out there and by, by putting yourself out there, that's very difficult for some people who are beginning I understand that.
I used to host open mics in the Raleigh area 15, 16 years ago, and I would encourage those people to come back and come back and just get that stage time. Putting yourself out there is the way to open up doors for yourself. For people to hear your music, to make connections with other musicians, other songwriters.
Just keep putting yourself out there. If you have a song idea that you're not sure about, but you do believe that it's a good song, or it could be a good song, record it. Record a demo. Share it with your family. Share it with your friends. Get [00:16:00] feedback. Take that feedback and work with that feedback to make it a better song.
Just keep putting yourself out there. Well, I would think that particular advice. Translates into any type of career or path that, a young person is coming up, definitely find the right mentors. Ask questions. And be present Definitely. And follow your talents. What are some of your biggest challenges you've seen in the music industry since you've started? I'm sure a lot has changed because you came in here today, you handed [00:17:00] me very kindly, a record of yours. But now everything is digital and I can't keep up with all of the iPods and pads and
Right.
Melissa: Earbuds and I it changes constantly.
Jason Adamo: It does.
Melissa: So how are you able to keep up with all the changes?
Jason Adamo: You just have to go with the flow.
I signed up on TikTok 'cause I knew that if you once you got a thousand followers, you could go live and once you can go live, you can get tipped on the app. That was probably, let's see, 2022, October of 2022. I have like 10,000 followers on there now. Every time I play a show, including this past one I did at the Kerry Theater.
On the side of the stage, I have a tripod with my phone on there, and I'm live on TikTok and people are following me or. You just, you have to navigate the new technology.
Melissa: You might have just given me an excuse to finally dive into TikTok. I have. I have put it off for years. My teenage daughter is all about some TikTok, I don't need another thing to, to be addicted
Jason Adamo: to, but I will say as I scroll, I'm [00:18:00] turned on to so much great music. Out there that otherwise nobody would hear of.
Melissa: Well see, that means your algorithm is music.
Whereas, funny
Jason Adamo: dog videos. Yes. Music stuff like that. Mine's
Melissa: So I read that you received the gift of life from a kidney donor.
A living donor to be exact. Yes.
In 2023, first of all. Wow. Can you tell us about that experience, how you're feeling now? How this all came to be? I love, I don't know anything about living donors in particular.
Jason Adamo: I didn't either, but I love telling the story now.
Melissa: Great.
Jason Adamo: That happened to me.
I have polycystic kidney disease, which means I have very large kidneys, size of footballs. They have Wow. Thousands of cysts on them. They just keep growing and growing. I have not. And that's
Melissa: for both kidneys? Both kidneys, yeah. Okay. Okay.
Jason Adamo: I was diagnosed with that in 2011. I was told I would need a transplant somewhere in the 40, 50 year range.
And sure enough, three years ago, I'm 46 now. Three years ago I was told that I would need one within the next five years. That [00:19:00] was in 2020 1, within two years or so I had my transplant August of 2023. I didn't know what to do, where to go as far as finding a live donor.
I have very rare blood type, which o negative. Just very, I can, I could give a kidney to anybody being an O blood type. Okay. But I could only receive from an O and that made it very difficult. I was told to find a match. It would probably take around seven years or so. My wife gave me a little nudge.
She said, you have a decent amount of followers on social media. Put the word out there and give your blood type. Tell 'em your situation. Say you're looking for a live donor, and sure enough, it's actually didn't have to go far. It was our next door neighbor was reading my post.
Melissa: You're kidding.
Jason Adamo: No it's pretty crazy.
We had met this woman, Jenna, who, sorry. Next door neighbor is Jessica. I Great neighbors. Sounds like it. Yeah. We already love them. We love them even more now obviously Jess put us in touch with [00:20:00] Jenna, her, one of her good friends. Who was already in the process of donating to a stranger at Duke, which happened to be my hospital.
Melissa: Okay.
Jason Adamo: Jenna just felt a calling to donate her kidney to somebody. So she was in the process of doing That's
Melissa: unbelievable. Yeah.
Jason Adamo: Doing the paperwork to get this done, not knowing where it would go, where her kidney would go. When she found out from her good friend that her new neighbor in 2020 moved to this house.
Her fairly new neighbor was in need of a kidney, happened to be o which is Jenna's blood type. Jenna said, well, that's no a no-brainer. I'm gonna donate to your friend, your neighbor, Jason. Fast forward to April of 2023 after we found out that Jenna would be a quote unquote perfect match. And these things do happen.
Eight days before my surgery, they found an antibody that would in my body, which would reject her kidney. Devastating to say the least. Jenna, then? Yeah. Yes. Jenna then didn't [00:21:00] bat an eye, this type of person she is obviously said, let's go the other route where I can, it's an exchange program we can sign up for.
I can donate to, to a stranger again, which was my initial plan. But this time you'll get a kidney in return. And then fast forward to August of 2023, where I was part of a six surgery chain with three people receiving. The gift of life based on Genesis. And did this all
Melissa: happen at Duke, or did each
Jason Adamo: It was coordinated through a co an organization called the Alliance for Paired Kidney Donation, which is out of Toledo, Ohio, which is on the border of Michigan, where my kidney came from.
Those people are great. Can't speak highly. I can't say a good enough things about, enough good things about those people. They've become dear friends of mine and Lisa's my wife. I'm sure it's a
Melissa: long process.
Jason Adamo: We are very lucky actually, to have all six people meet in Toledo November of last year.
So,
Melissa: so when, that is one question that's coming up as you're telling the story when you have a living donor do you normally get to know who it's coming from? Not all the time. Do they choose, could they choose to Not, [00:22:00] you have the choice. Okay. You have the
Jason Adamo: choice to put your information out there to the donor or recipient.
Melissa: Okay. But in your case, it was a friend of a friend. A friend of your neighbor. And and she was of course willing to,
Jason Adamo: she donated to people in Colorado who at first did not wanna be a part of. Oh, okay. Letting them know their information and meeting Jenna. And Lisa and I were my wife and I were devastated for her because I had already talked to Peter and Morton from Denmark.
Peter saved his best friend Morton's life from Denmark by flying over to Michigan to be a part of this chain. And we were able to meet with them on a zoom call. And then later, like I said, met in real life. In person rather in, in Toledo, Ohio. November and surprise people from Colorado showed up.
Melissa: Oh good. So there were
Jason Adamo: many tears shed, yeah,
Melissa: I'm sure. Many hugs
Jason Adamo: given and many pictures taken. It was an amazing two days we spent in Toledo. So now Jenna is in contact with her recipient.
Melissa: What a story. Yeah.
Jason Adamo: It gets even better. Jenna's getting married in May and my wife set her up with her [00:23:00] husband.
Melissa: No. Yeah.
Jason Adamo: So what can you give somebody who gives you the gift of life, a husband?
Melissa: Yeah. Hey. Not bad.
Jason Adamo: Yeah, my wife just took it upon herself to play matchmaker and worked out amazingly well.
Melissa: Kidney match for a matchmaker. Yeah. Not bad.
Jason Adamo: That
Melissa: is a truly unbelievable story.
So, do you know off the top of your head where we could find more information about becoming a living donor?
Jason Adamo: Oh, yes. You can just simple as a Google. Okay. I want to do, I wanna be a living donor. All sorts of organizations will pop up, including the organ alliance prepared kidney donation.
Melissa: Okay.
Jason Adamo: They're a Nobel pre prize winning organization for their speaking
Mike Reese and his father came up with the algorithm. Saved my life by putting together partners in this exchange program like Jenna and I were where there's a person who's willing to donate but can't donate to me.
For one reason or another, but Ken donate to somebody else. So they, our information went into the system. The people in Colorado's information went into the system, and then Peter and Morton's, and [00:24:00] they set it all up through Duke.
Melissa: Wow. Yeah.
Jason Adamo: It's pretty amazing the
Melissa: power of technology. Yes.
And you mentioned to me before the interview about how you're, what, about a year and a half out of your your transplant and you do a charity concert at Defar Pizza and Kerry,
Jason Adamo: we started it last August, which was the anniversary of my first anniversary of my kidney transplant.
I'd like to do this every year there, and they've expressed a lot of interest in helping me do that every year. It was a great day. It was a beautiful day out there. We had a stage in the parking lot of Defar Pizza in downtown Kerry. I invited a lot of my singer songwriter friends to perform on the stage.
We had raffle items, et cetera. And each year I hope to do it around the anniversary of my kidney transplant and hopefully make it bigger and better each year and raise more money for the alliance repair, kidney donation.
Melissa: Awesome. So shout out to the folks at Defar, we love them. Yes. And be on the lookout for information about that charity event. Sometime in August.
Jason Adamo: Yes, definitely.
Melissa: Okay, so it's time for my lightning round of questions. Okay. First [00:25:00] question, if you could collaborate with any artist, past or present, who would it be?
Jason Adamo: Living or dead? Elvis Presley.
Melissa: Okay. Okay. I guess I should've expected that. I mean, you've lived in Tennessee and
Jason Adamo: I forgot to mention that was obviously one of the biggest influences of my. Sometimes I skip over Elvis. Well, speaking of the blend, because sometimes it's obvious,
Melissa: the blend of genres, he's he's blues country, rock and roll. Exactly. He's a little bit of everything. So that is right up your alley?
Okay. Where is your favorite place you have personally ever performed?
Jason Adamo: That is a tough question. We only do the hard hitting questions around here. Jason. I've been lucky to play a lot of cool shows around the country. When I was living in New York City, I played on Father's Day in Central Park. I. Oh,
Melissa: that would be hard to beat
Jason Adamo: that. That was an incredibly hot day.
Sweating profusely. And then my guitar stopped working halfway through the gig. Halfway through that, I think of like three minutes later after just pouring sweat, figuring out, just telling the crowd. Bear with [00:26:00] me. Bear with me. I did a fonzi and I hit my guitar and it came back to life.
Melissa: Talk about striking the right chord.
Jason Adamo: So, exactly. So that's a memorable, very memorable gig for many reasons.
Melissa: Yeah, definitely. Okay. What is your favorite concert you have ever been to as a spectator?
Jason Adamo: On the smaller scale would be the first time seeing Martin Sexton, who is a songwriter out of the Boston area.
I. Who I greatly look up to, still to this day. This was in 2000 living in New York City. I was turned on to a, do you remember Burning CDs?
Melissa: Yeah, of course. Yes.
Jason Adamo: Compilation cd. I'm
Melissa: exactly your age, so I do remember that. There you go. Yes.
Jason Adamo: And the Press on Label had all the songs, printed out on the computer.
My cousin gave me that CD of Martin Sexton's Greatest Hits. Even though not many people know who Martin Sexton is. I had the opportunity to go backstage and meet him that night and give him my CD and say, one day I'm gonna open for you. And then in 2003 at the Lincoln Theater in Raleigh, I got to open for him and then a few other shows.
Did you
Melissa: remind him of [00:27:00] that? Oh, yes. Okay.
Jason Adamo: Yes. Because
Melissa: now I'm wondering, how many people have done that too? The successful artist in the past. So at least that was full circle, you were able to really prove that you were right.
Jason Adamo: And when, actually when I gave him the cd, he said, be careful what you wish for, because somebody about your age not too long ago, gave me his CD and said the same thing, and now I'm gonna go out and tour and open up for him. And that was John Mayer?
Melissa: No. Yeah.
Jason Adamo: So Martin John Mayer's also a big fan of Martin Sexton.
Melissa: Okay.
Jason Adamo: And to this day, I think we'll bring 'em out for a song or two if they're in the same city.
Melissa: That would be awesome. Yeah. Okay. So if you had to listen to one record on repeat, which one would it be?
Jason Adamo: Well, can't
Melissa: be yours.
Jason Adamo: Yeah, I was gonna say, I do that when we're writing and recording a record, you listen to your record over and over again.
But I would say probably that Pearl Jam 10 album for opening the doors to all this great music that existed that I didn't know about. Not to mention that it's a record that you can hit Skip, but you don't want to 'cause every song to me. It's an amazing song and I'm getting [00:28:00] to see them when they come to Raleigh in May.
Melissa: Oh, awesome. Okay. I didn't know they were coming to Raleigh. So that's news to me
Jason Adamo: coming Mother's Day and the Tuesday after two shows.
Melissa: Okay. Yeah. Okay. Might have to add that to my Mother's Day wishlist. There
Jason Adamo: you go.
Melissa: Okay. And finally, where is your favorite place to listen to live music in the Raleigh Triangle area?
Jason Adamo: I am pretty biased at this point because I put on the Jason Adamo presents series at the Carey Theater. The Carey Theater is a, for those of you who haven't been, you have to go, especially for their live music. I mean, you can go there to watch movies or comedy, but it's a great live music room.
Very intimate, 165 seats. The acoustic paneling in there, the, just the, there's magic in the room. As far as listening to live music,
Melissa: I have not been to a concert there.
Jason Adamo: You can they're starting to. I have a lot of concerts there, okay. In the last few years.
Melissa: Well, and there is something so special about listening in a smaller environment versus, the Lenovo Center, or definitely a place like that, that it there's no intimacy. You see the huge names there are, and I [00:29:00] understand why they're there, because they rather sell out, 40,000 tickets at once,
Jason Adamo: but, and those concerts have their place too, like I was gonna say, I always actually say Tom Petty at Walnut Creek. In 2008.
Melissa: Okay.
Jason Adamo: That was an amazing, I'm pretty sure my
Melissa: mom went to that and I was mad at her for not inviting me.
Jason Adamo: That was a phenomenal show. Yeah. I
Melissa: do really like concerts at Walnut Creek.
Jason Adamo: Yes. Especially on the And Red Hat. You can get closer, but the lawn is just special to me.
Yeah. Yeah. Red Hat more relaxing. Red Hat is amazing. I've actually gotten the opportunity to play there a few times. Oh, did you? Okay. Yeah. That's a great stage. Great view of just downtown Raleigh too.
Melissa: Yeah, definitely. Okay, so. We've got two daughters. Are they fans of yours now? Are they in the cringe phase of Depends on the day of Dad is cringe yet because I'm in the cringe phase.
Jason Adamo: Well, they're four and six, so, I'm actually, oh,
Melissa: then they're big fans of Daddy,
Jason Adamo: like I said, depends on the day, depends on their mood. But they both love to sing. They both love to come see Daddy play [00:30:00] music.
Melissa: And they get the backstage pass too, so
Jason Adamo: they do actually, I'm not allowed to sing as much as I want to at home, just, it's annoying sometimes. No.
Melissa: Yeah. Yep. Very annoying for sure.
Jason Adamo: They, I'm actually gonna be going to my daughter's school to play and talk about songwriting soon, so I'm looking forward to that. How neat is that? Yeah. She's very excited about that.
Melissa: Okay. So she's not gonna be embarrassed.
Jason Adamo: She's not. She's very excited.
She doesn't
Melissa: think she's gonna be embarrassed.
Jason Adamo: She probably will be the day of, but right now she's just so excited for me to come.
Melissa: That is so special.
Jason Adamo: Yes, definitely.
Melissa: Okay, so thank you so much for being here today. Sure. I want you, before you hopefully play us out, I want you to tell us. Where we can follow you, where we can find out about everything you've got coming up.
Jason Adamo: Okay. Thanks for having me. First of all, this has been a pleasure. Jason adamo.com, which is A-D-A-M-O. It's like Adam with an O on the end of it. That's for my schedule where I'm playing. You can. Look at videos and pictures and listen to music and follow you on TikTok. Follow me on TikTok, Instagram.
Is it the same,
Melissa: what is it called? A handle on TikTok? I don't even know. Jason Adam?
Jason Adamo: Yep. [00:31:00] Jason Adamo. Music is on Instagram. Okay. TikTok Threads, all that good stuff.
Melissa: Okay, great. Well, thank you so much and thank you in advance for. Playing us a song. Oh, and you're gonna be playing at our Maggie awards? Yes, in April as well.
So I'm really excited about that.
Jason Adamo: And the whole band will be there. It's gonna be fun.
Melissa: Nice. Okay, great.
Jason Adamo: We'll play this one too while we're there.
Melissa: Oh good. Okay, thanks.
Jason Adamo: It's called Beautiful Believer.
Rode into town at only 18. A girl beside me in our baby in a car scene, everybody called me crazy. That was fine as long as I knew she believed.
Not a nickel to our [00:32:00] name. A CHI side of town. Just out of Maine playing songs are over Change. Prayed one day I'd be lining the stage.
She gives me strength when mine's all gone. She always keeps me hanging on
and when I feel that I lost my,
she leads me home.
Know how much I need her.
My beautiful believer,
I just got the news today. You know that song I wrote for you? It.[00:33:00]
Even though so much has changed, another one thing that has always stayed the same, she gives me strength. My top always keeps me hanging on
and I.
She don't know how much I need her.
A beautiful believer, beautiful believer. Every time I'm doubt myself before I even ask for help, she's right. Then next. Beautiful. Close my eyes knowing that she's by my[00:34:00]
need. It gives me strength with my,
always keeps me hanging on and.
Believer.
Beautiful.
Thank you.
Melissa: Wow.
Jason Adamo: Thanks a lot guys. It was amazing. I appreciate that a lot. [00:35:00]