Come Back To Earth | Music & Mental Health

Some stories don’t change. We do. In this episode, J.D. sits down with Brittney Jenkins to discuss her song 'Bend to Break' from her album 'Faultlines'. Brittney explores themes of identity, distance, generational trauma, and the power of reframing the past after growing up in a conservative North Carolina community and building a life in the UK. This conversation covers music as a tool for healing, the artist's creative process, and the strength required to bend instead of break.

Key topics include:
- Generational trauma and identity
- Music and mental health
- The creative process of songwriting
- Healing through storytelling

Go backstage HERE
Theme music by: Lincoln Parish

---
From the Studio
This episode is part of Come Back To Earth, produced by Story House. We believe story is a tool for meaning-making, not just performance.
Leave a voice message or reflection

The Letterbox
I read every letter. If something in this episode landed for you, or raised something you're still sitting with, I'd love to hear it.

Story House 
370 Mallard Loop Dr.
Clayton, NC 27527

Find the House

Presence over persuasion. Consistency over frequency. http://storyhousestudio.org

Creators and Guests

Host
J.D. Murgolo
Founder of Story House

What is Come Back To Earth | Music & Mental Health?

What does it cost to make music, and what does it give back? Come Back to Earth is a weekly music interview podcast where host J.D. Murgolo sits down with musicians and songwriters to explore mental health, creative survival, and the stories hidden behind the songs.

We go beyond the stage to uncover the wounds, turning points, and hard-won hopes that shape an artist's life. Through honest conversations about the creative process, music and mental health, and what it means to keep going, this is a show where the music is the doorway — and the soul is the destination.

Because the most important thing an artist makes isn't the record. It's the decision to come back to themselves.

J.D.: [00:00:00] Every story begins somewhere. This one begins with Story House Studios.

Opening Memory
---

J.D.: There's a story I used to tell myself about something that happened when I was younger. I told it the same way for years. Certain people were wrong, certain people were right. It felt fixed. And then one day, I realized the story had changed, not because the facts were different, but because I was. Growing older has a way of rearranging the meanings of things.

And that's where this episode begins.

Intro
---

J.D.: This is Come Back to Earth, a podcast at the intersection of music and mental health from Story House Studios. I'm JD, a storytelling alchemist, and each episode is an invitation to return to the stories, wounds, and hopes behind the [00:01:00] songs

Episode Orientation
---

J.D.: When I sat down with Brittany Jenkins, what struck me wasn't just the vulnerability of the material, it was profe- it was perspective.

Her song Bend to Break revisits her parents' divorce when she was 13, but from the vantage point of nearly the same age they were when it happened. That kind of distance changes everything

Conversation with Brittney Jenkins Pt. 1
---

Brittney: I am Brittany Jenkins, and I make music under the project name Pisgah which comes from Pisgah National Forest in North Carolina. So JD, again, I know that you're also from North Carolina, and actually...

J.D.: I feel like I'm coming home listening to this

Brittney: I know.

This is it. This is exactly it. And I actually grew up in Moore County, which is about an hour south of Raleigh, so that's where I came of age. But I have always had a really deep kind of personal [00:02:00] connection to the mountains in Western North Carolina. It's one of my favorite places in the entire world, and Pisgah National Forest is one of my favorite places in the entire world.

So when I was l- thinking about a name for a music project it popped into my head, especially because now so I always say that I'm a Southern-born musician who is now based in the UK because that's the reality of it. Now I live in a village northwest of London. Life took some very unexpected turns, and this is where I am.

But I think that claiming Pisgah as my project name was a way of paying hom- homage to the place that I come from. I think a lot of my songs are about North Carolina, about growing up in the South, and grappling with the very complicated beauty of that place. Emphasis on the complicated but also a lot of beauty

J.D.: It just roots you, right? And just in the simplest form, but even the way you describe that just puts so much mystery to it, in a [00:03:00] world that... I was joking with an artist last week that I was interviewing, like scrolling through, I think it was Apple Music, and I don't know what I was searching for, but I unfortunately, like most days I can just type so- something and it'll start it, and then it'll, like a light bulb will go off.

But I just, I was in a field of music that I just wasn't familiar to where to start. So I'm like can I just look in the search area and like the library of stuff? And I was just, it's just the amount of not even subgenres. I feel like it was just like, that's it. And I'm like I this is not sleep or wellbeing.

I'm not exercising. I don't know anymore. But like to hear you describe yourself that way, it just, it removes that and makes you just go, "Oh, music can be anywhere, and you can be any human being, and what's going on here? I'd like to know," right? It's just, I don't know if you gave that, that much thought like with it, but it truly does.

As soon as you described it and like you said, like before we started, like reading your bio, like on, on social media did the same thing to me. And I didn't even connect and I'm, I live here. So I didn't even connect it, but it just, it took me so much a- away from it that you wanted to know more.

And I don't know if [00:04:00] that happens with people's art or creativity most days.

Brittney: I'm really glad to hear that because I guess, something else I really think about for myself as a human being in general, so this is relevant to music for me obviously as well, but I think something I think about quite a lot is that I'm very much a person split between multiple worlds and always have been.

I don't know if you're into astrology or the woo, but I'll just throw this out here that I am very much like a quintessential Pisces sun. And I don't know if you know what the kind of symbolism of the Pisces astrological sign is, but

J.D.: go ahead there

Brittney: two fish swimming in opposite directions. So the idea is that you very much have one, one foot in the kind of world of imagination and intuition and one foot on the ground.

And the kind of... The struggle in the life of someone, who is built that way is finding a way to [00:05:00] mediate between those two things and finding a kind of middle road, right? And so it's funny for me to think about how my life has taken a turn that has actually led me really to being between multiple countries, being between multiple identities.

I now have two... I now am a citizen here as well, so I now have dual citizenship. So I have this, I don't really feel like I fit wholly in any place, and that can feel very disconcerting sometimes, but

J.D.: how does that, what does that feel like? Yeah

Brittney: There's an aspect of it that feels really liberating, and I think

J.D.: Sure, I could see

Brittney: for me because I think growing up obviously, like growing up in North Carolina, you will know this as well.

I have family in South Carolina too, by the way, so I am very familiar with the

J.D.: We're right. We're both at home. This will be good.

Brittney: very much at home. But I grew up in a very kind of religious, conservative community that was very closed, very [00:06:00] evangelical, and I feel like growing up, I had a lot of people telling me a lot of things about what I should be believing in.

Some of those things much more traumatic than others that I, still very much like working through deconstructing the role that plays for me. But I think in that sense, I think that being able, in some ways, to like redefine like who I am and the narrative of my life by making a really like active choice to live somewhere else and try something new felt and still feels really liberating.

But it can also feel really destabilizing at times. I think now when I am back in the US and I'm visiting, it's... I feel like more of an outsider almost every time I go back. But I also don't feel fully like an insider here. So it does feel... It's a strange existence, I think, is probably the best way to [00:07:00] describe it

J.D.: But I can understand that feeling. It's, we ... Deep down, I'm sure as, as parents and, just people in the world you understand like you said, life takes turns, and you either go into the curve or, you slide off it and have to go, with whatever happens.

But, we know, I, I've said it many times I'm sure to my wife, as we were thinking about where to ... When we moved from Charlotte to, to, to Raleigh that I never lived anywhere different. My brother semi went somewhere up to the mountains for school.

But as far as a different state, that wouldn't happen. But my know ... And it might change now that I'm, like, older with kids I'm sure. But y- I'm, I ... If my, if I ever told my parents that I was gonna go, across the country even just leave it that, not even, across the pond, I know their reaction.

It would just be absolutely, and they'd feel great that you were chasing whatever dream you needed to. But the opposite was, "You, we want you here." And then I think it's the most basic form of it. But then what you're describing, if, correct me if I'm wrong, it's like you're not even just moving that far.

It's just, being that, just any distance that's not easy to travel anymore makes you feel like, oh, you just, [00:08:00] you're abandoning us. You're what's wrong with, what's wrong with us as a family? I ... Not to dive into personal, but I know that's my dad's story. He moved from Brooklyn, and he wanted a different life for his family, and that's why we

He worked for banks, and that's what ultimate- like, job-wise got, go ... how we found the growing Charlotte at the time. But I re- I know the stories that his side of the family was, like, angry. And blaming my mom and, for that. It was like, "What do you mean?

You're not s- you're supposed to live here all the time." So I get that completely.

Brittney: I love that you mention that because that, again, this is also so integral to the music that I make as well, because I feel like my music is... I, the way I always, again, to describe it is it's about catastrophic storms, generational trauma, family breakdowns which doesn't make it sound like it's very fun to listen to.

You know what I mean? It's especially when I'm playing live and, if I'm following a band that's playing really upbeat songs, I always feel like I have to preface and say, "I'm [00:09:00] very sorry, but I'm probably gonna depress you now for the next half hour." Yeah.

J.D.: yeah.

Brittney: gonna be fun anymore.

But I think that what you just said about your dad's experience has ex- been my experience exactly, and I'm a... So I'm also an only child, but I have a stepbrother and a stepsister, but I grew up an only child, and I'm also the baby of my family. So the fact that I am the one who decided to move across the ocean I think that my, my dad is actually I think really supportive.

He's retired military with Special Forces, traveled a lot himself, so he was, he's been all over the world. I think for my mom it's been incredibly hard, and I think we're always in this kind of battle of wills over I'm feeling guilty, she is guilt-tripping me, and then I'm back to feeling guilty, and then she's guilt-tripping me.

And I think, and I can understand from her [00:10:00] perspective too, having your only child move, yeah, move so far away feel, must just feel really horrible. And so I definitely don't want to be insensitive to that for her. And also I think for myself, something that I really felt was I felt like I needed distance, in this case quite a lot of distance, to actually figure out who I was without the influence of a lot of the really dom- domin- dominant kind of narratives and personalities that I grew up around, right?

And I do genuinely feel if it wasn't... I do want, or rather maybe I should say it's more a question. I guess I don't know for certain, but a question that I have or that I wonder about is how would my music have developed if I hadn't left? Would I have had enough space to step into this identity?

J.D.: I was gonna ask that too, 'cause there's that [00:11:00] whole the cliche saying "You can't heal in the space where you hurt," right? And so that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to move, across the planet, but like you, you, at some part of you needs to get out of, the house that you grew up in, or if, if you're, renting an apartment, then, this is where the trauma began.

Some version of that is necessary, but that's a wonderful question just to, to kinda dive into and figure out. Like, where would it be the same? Or not even if, sound the same, would it feel the same? Like you're saying, you- you know, when you show up on stage, like here's what it feels like.

As you play mus- as you play your music and as you write the music, 'cause I know you mentioned like you just can't not write. Is it-- Do you feel that energy, what we're talking about? I hate the word woo-woo, 'cause like to me, it's like this is stuff that makes sense.

Brittney: Yeah

J.D.: c- you don't have to believe, you don't have to fully believe in it, but you do have to kinda look and pause and go, that kinda that kinda makes it make a little bit more sense as to what's going..."

And then you can come back to your own reality with it. I'm, I'm sitting in front of like I pull a tarot card every week for myself this [00:12:00] week, this year, and that's what my goal was. I just got, I put an app like maybe shortly before the New Yo- New Year that gives me, it's CoStar. It's a very fun explanation, but I like, if I click any layer along the deeper end of it, I'm like, "Hold on, I need to sit if I'm gonna read this."

It's that. It's just making like the world stop spinning in your own way for a second. And you don't have to, you don't have to base your entire world on it, but you do, it does help you make sense. So what does that feel like for you? Go ahead.

Brittney: Oh no. I was just gonna say I'm also a massive-- I've been, like, studying the tarot for 10 years now, and I'm a massive fan, so I

J.D.: It's a story. It's a

Brittney: It is a story

J.D.: And I just, it's just one of many things that if you look at it on the surface, you're like, "Oh I've seen what that does in movies." And it's hold on a second it's, y- there's a lot of it, this isn't magic. This is this is what you're pulling from your head.

It's probably maybe it's the first basic form of therapy. I don't know. It just helps you kinda go, "Oh I'm not gonna read into this one, but, eh, that feels kinda right." But it comes out in your writing, though [00:13:00] and that's, to me, is what... There's the next step, right? If you're looking at, the stars or a card and, in my world, I'm just walking away with it.

Maybe I write it or put a voice note down, but you get to put it in a much deeper fashion, I would f- I feel like

Brittney: into another place. I appreciate you phrasing it that way, and also I was thinking, I see, I really see the tarot as a kind of guide for self-inquiry. That's the way that I view it, and I think Definitely for me, and I guess the kind of the kind of musician and writer that I am, it...

That self-inquiry feels like a prerequisite to being able to do that in the first place. And so I feel like I use the cards to open up the gate in other ways of thinking, right? But, and, but I also love what you said about the woo, like just not even feeling like you need to classify it that way, because it's very much, to me, these things just make sense.

And I do think that when I'm singing the songs that I've written, when I'm playing [00:14:00] them on stage, I feel maybe the most powerful that I ever really feel in my life. And that feels really important to me because for lots of different reasons. If you were to meet me in person, you would see that I'm literally like 5'2".

I'm very small. I'm a very petite person, and I think therefore I'm not generally someone that people find intimidating. It's really quite the opposite. And again, I think growing up in an environment that was, where there was a lot of kind of dogma and a lot of doctrine that I was being told, and again, I felt like I wasn't always being encouraged to think for myself, but rather to just toe the kind of, the church or the party line or whatever it might be.

There's something about actually getting out from under those things and just being able to speak really honestly and really bluntly about things that have happened in my life and not feel ashamed about that. And [00:15:00] I'll mention this and put a kind of trigger warning here for anyone who might be sensitive to this right now, because also it's a wild time in the world to be really alive in general.

But one of the songs on the album that I released in December, a song called Bone to Pick, is about my experience of being sexually assaulted. And that was something, I think partially because of my upbringing and the purity culture that I grew up in, and this idea that we often, you know, unfortunately still we often put the blame on victims rather than on the perpetrator.

So I think it was a combination of that and then just feeling this immense sense of shame that I had allowed this thing to happen to me. I am grateful to say I'm no longer in the place that's how I feel about it. I now know that it's not my burden to be ashamed of. It's something that happened to me, but it's not my shame.

And I think that in [00:16:00] some ways it's like for all the songs on the record and for everything that I write It's very much sifting through these like old narratives of shame and trying to figure out like what's on the other side of them and recognizing like what is my-- what I am responsible for and then what I'm also not responsible for.

And that's been a very long journey that will probably continue to be a journey through my life, I would imagine.

Midpoint Reflection
---

J.D.: There's something powerful about reaching the age your parents were when they made a choice you didn't understand. Listening back, what stayed with me wasn't the anger, it was the mercy. The realization that sometimes what feels like breaking is actually bending, and sometimes bending is strength

Conversation With Brittney Jenkins Pt. 2
---

J.D.: And then as you like, perform songs like that it's such a... we, it's not that songs don't have an emotional spine to them, but y- they can even... It could be just a gentle, like reminder of that emotion or it can be a c- a very deep wound.

And [00:17:00] what does that look like? It's not that you're like reopening it necessarily, but you are discussing it and, I, on any conversation I have with people, whether it's on a show or as a client, like that's something I'm always been hyper-aware of that, that's why there's not a lot of questions that I ask because, you don't even know what you're gonna say, and what you end up saying might have taken you like five years to even get to the point of that one sentence, let alone a whole song. And so you're being asked, it could be somebody's, that's weird to say even just like out loud right now, that could be somebody's favorite song and so it's just this, right?

It's these two alt- like opposing op- like feelings that it's like this is my favorite. W- this is the topic? Like how can you say that? But we should be able to say that it's giving somebody else the chance to maybe process something similar, maybe not the exact same, but we know that's, then there's the whole reason for this show.

What does it look like on the other end of having to perform something like that? [00:18:00] And do you pick and choose that? It's I came onto the stage and they were just playing polka music, so this is what I'm about to do. Do you sit there and kinda look at it and go, I'm not feeling it today."

It's just somebody calling into work, "i'm not feeling myself today." Do you do the same thing as a musician and go, "You know what? 'Don't Pick' is not... It was, I was gonna do it, but I just, I can't sit with that emotion today."

Brittney: I, that I do. I do. I have to I almost gauge the energy in the room and how maybe in some, like how prepared I maybe feel

J.D.: Yeah

Brittney: in the audience might be for it. But as you pointed out also, like how prepared I am for it. There are times that I play that I, it just, yeah, I just I really am not in the head space to play it.

And one thing that I will say that is like a very strange kind of phenomena of songwriting, and I'm sure other songwriters have probably said this, or rather I'd be curious to [00:19:00] know if they have. Once you write a song, especially once it gets recorded and, and it's been mixed and all of the nice bells and whistles have happened, and it's, it really does become something that's outside of you.

And in that sense, there are times as well that I can, it, I will listen to it or I'll hear myself playing it and I can forget that it's my story because now I do really see, now it's in the world and it is outside of me. And in some ways that's like the therapeutic aspect of writing songs in the first place.

It's like contextualizing this experience. But yeah, absolutely I... It's not something that I play all the time. So for instance, I'm playing a small show next Friday that is, much more I don't know, I, it seems like it's gonna be a lot more relaxed and laid back and I don't think that song will necessarily be on the set list for next Friday, right?

But the next time that I [00:20:00] play it, especially if I have... 'Cause I also find it's better in a longer set where it can sit alongside the other songs

J.D.: yeah. So as we're talking about that, just to kinda even peel back another layer of just, not even just that entire song, but, you could kinda w- tell that entire story and be okay except for, one, one deep line. Are there any that kinda even just does that?

Not even, a whole song, but you're fine altogether until you have to sing that one line, and it pulls every bit of, your heartstrings out

Brittney: It's the end of it. It's the outro. So I don't know if you've had a chance to listen to it, and please do not worry. But yeah, but now you'll have the full story so that if you do, it might actually even have a bit more impact in that sense. But the way that the song kind of builds or unfolds is...

Or rather, maybe a better way of saying it is what it is about is this kind of growing realization that something really [00:21:00] terrible has happened to you, but you don't know exactly what it is. You know when you know that something's off. You know that something is right there at the edge of your vision, but you can't really tell what it is.

I... The song starts that way and, because that's really what it felt like for me realizing what had happened to me. It didn't happen instantaneously. It took me almost five years to actually understand the gravity of what had happened. So it was this very slow unveiling, but the way the song is structured is, it brings you into this chorus that says, "I'm remembering now all these things I've been pushing down," but you...

It doesn't actually get revel- revealed what that thing is until the very end. And I really I really labored over the best way to actually drop that bomb, because I didn't want to be so explicit that it just ruins the entire experience of the song. So I think that I decided to maybe gesture toward what happened more [00:22:00] than explicitly say, "This is what happened.

I was sexually assaulted." But I think the line that Really, I think gets me when I sing it, that kind of pulls me back into what the song is actually about. It's somewhat whispered and I sing it in a lower register 'cause it felt like it's almost like this like quiet admission.

But it says something to the effect of, "I woke up in the room, it was empty. The sheets were kicked off the bed and the pain between my legs was searing." And that's the line I think that feels really hard to sing. And I think I c- I can see how if you don't actually catch the lyrics at the end, you might just think, "Oh, this is like a nice like alt rock song."

You know what I mean? But then that that comes

J.D.: another angry teenage song.

Brittney: Exactly. But then that comes out, and I think if you're really listening to it... Yeah. And so I have definitely had people just like just go silent and ashen [00:23:00] listening to it, which for me I was like, "Okay, great. This is this is what the job of this song

J.D.: I would, yeah. I was gonna say, it, is that how int- how intentional is all that? You said you, you sing in a lower register, but the whole piecing together of it. And as I was reading your guest form that, the album took years to, to materialize.

And I, apologize if I say it every episode, but it to me, I- it's just something I think we need to understand as listeners that, it... Some songs happen within 30 seconds, and your jingle is out there, and it's a worldwide hit. But the majority of them, you're talking about a human putting a story on paper and then singing it and performing it constantly.

It's not "Here's the book. You get to read it. I've also gotta perform this every night if I choose to," right? And so when you're crafting things like putting a, maybe just leave it as a song and hopefully it materializes into a whole album. But how intentional is that thought?

Writers, like a Stephen King it's "Ooh, I wanna keep this thought there," kinda make you wonder [00:24:00] and guess and, "Oh, nope, it's not." But I think we forget that, that comes out in music, too, and if it's a, that kind, that style of music that's telling a personal story.

How o- how intentional is all of that from start to finish, and is that what is that the real reason it takes a minute for an album to be put together, let alone a song?

Brittney: I guess I can only speak for myself and my own experience as a songwriter. But I-- it's a very weird combination of being intuition-led but also intentional as far as you can see. And what I mean by as far as you can see, the way that I always describe songwriting is i- it's really being in a pitch-black forest and feeling your way through.

And it's every step you take reveals a little bit more and just a little bit more, but you don't know what's gonna be revealed until you take that step, right? And so I think-- I think for [00:25:00] me I, I recorded a lot of demos of Bone to Pick to the point that I got very tired of listening to that song and was just like, "I need to just get this out," because I just...

But the thing that was really not feeling right to me about it was the end in the original demos because I think-- Again, I sing, I s- I sing the admiss- or I sing the kind of revelation in a much higher register, and it was quite loud and I-- And to me, I was like, "There's something about this that doesn't feel quite right," and it's really funny. The thing that actually ended up really unlocking, "Okay, I need to maybe pull this back and think about doing this, softening the dynamics, and I think this might actually be the thing, and maybe doing some whispering as well, that kind of thing I think would be better," is that I was listening to a Nine Inch Nails song

J.D.: There you go

Brittney: which you would not necessarily always expect.

But it's a song called Ruiner. And gosh, what's the record? Why am I forgetting the name of it? It'll come back to me. I can see the album cover. But [00:26:00] but yeah, I was just listening to it on repeat. There's something about the break in that song that I've always really loved, and it just hit me.

It's because everything drops out, and it very... And all of the instruments very slowly come back in. And Trent Reznor always, he loves a kind of s- talk whisper thing, so I was like, "This is actually... Maybe I should

J.D.: This is useful,

Brittney: works." And so I did, and then I was like, "Actually, yes, this is what I've been waiting for."

So in that sense, it is intentional because I think maybe the best way that you know what you want is by identifying what you don't want. It's like you know when it's not right, and that's the thing that can be really hard because sometimes it can take you years to figure out why it's not

J.D.: Oh, I saw that. I love when artists like mention, and I go back to the genre conversation. That's the only word I have for it. Like other styles of music, there we go. Like other styles of music that you may not like be prepared that they're like influenced by. And I always like it always makes me smile and I'm like, "Of [00:27:00] course," but it's fascinating when people hear that and you're like, "What? That's not even close to what this sounds like. You don't listen, you only listen to the kind of music that you play." And it's no, look what you can pull from it. It may not be the lyric or the s- it's the sound. It was one small part of the sound, the way they said it, and it's just that's creativity right there, 101, I think, is just going, "Oh," not borrowing their whole beat or stealing the entire track. Like it's just, "Oh, that, that's might be an interesting trick to use.

Brittney: Let me

J.D.: How does it work, how does it work in my world?"

Brittney: Exactly. And I think, that's another kind of aspect of that being quite a contradictory person that I mentioned, right? Like I, I really love like a lot of very dark, quite heavy music and in a way that I don't think people would always expect. So Nine Inch Nails is a good example of that.

But also, I really love like a lot of post-punk music like Joy Division and, The Cure and yeah, these I don't know. Again, just people who are singing about really [00:28:00] hard things with a lot of with a lot of like very heavy guitar, and so I-

J.D.: You just never know how it's gonna come out, right? Whe- when you even just look at, just political songs, right? There's how many different variations of the same thing from Bob Dylan to Rage Against the Machine, right? They're all in the same category of political, but they're not in the same style.

But it's just, you just don't know. I don't know. I... It's a story to me every time I listen to some songs. Certainly there's just songs that you're just there to feel good about, and they have no other meaning besides that. But, that's what I'm listening for. Those, if those are the songs and the artists I go back to is they gave me some story to kinda latch onto or think about and I, I constantly am, like, listening to songs that I did probably when I was younger, and I hear it and I'm like, "Oh, for starters, I didn't even hear you say that before. I was probably just so lost in my I'm so cool middle school world listening to you. But now I now it makes sense for even just my own life."

And so I just it's not to say that I think everybody should listen to every genre of music, but I also don't think you should just sit there and go [00:29:00] I hate classical." You enjoyed it when you were just sitting there in the waiting room. You were calm, weren't you? And it's you just never know what's gonna happen

Brittney: it. I, is it okay for me to ask what kind of music do you enjoy

J.D.: Nah, that's a terrible question. That's an awful question. It depends on the day. It's just... And I, we were talking about my son. My son, my daughter thinks that when I'm singing, I actually am the artist, which is highly makes you feel like like an awesome human being.

She'll look at me like, as I'm cleaning dishes and what- whatever I'm playing. Last night it was, it went from Zach Bryan to Killswitch Engage. So we'll, let's leave it there as far as the answer. But I'll be singing something, and I'm singing it. I'm not g- great at all. I know that I'm awful, like shower singer, but she just sees my lips moving, and she's doing the same thing.

Not always, and I know that's the sign that I've found the style of music. My wife jokes with me all the time 'cause I'm nor- I'm not gonna say, "Oh, we're smart devices," 'cause they're all light up and "Oh, what do you wanna hear right now?" I can just last night's a great example, and it's one of the s- every night, it's just whatever flows into my head, and it's because it's just, it goes [00:30:00] back to, what we were saying music just connects in so many strange ways.

So sh- I know that I've landed on something entertaining if she's lip sync- lip syncing. That's pretty much what it is on her end. But my son, he'll ask he- he'll ask if I've seen, if I've met the person, and what he's asking for is if I've gone to see them in concert. And most times I can say yes.

But he'll stop whatever he's doing, and he'll run over to the screen that's closer to the kitchen 'cause it's a little bit bigger, and he'll look at, the album and, see what it is. And he'll either say something to me or he'll run back, but I'm like, "Okay, note that one. That one plays again."

So it just depends. And I love being able to answer that. If I have to go back, I do have my, my, my cores of the, that kind of send me in, but they're all over the place, from Beastie Boys to Dave Matthews to Avett Brothers. It's just,

Brittney: A real, like eclectic

J.D.: ones that I always go back to, but they're just everywhere, and that's how I've always been.

That's how my dad... he'd he, anytime we'd go over to the house he'd have everything. He's Bob Dylan. That's, if you had to ask him, for sure. But, Pat Metheny spewed out, Marvin Gaye [00:31:00] spewed out, Spyro Gyra. It's just, it was everywhere. And I think that's it's kinda what you have to do, I think, it's not that I'm not gonna go back and listen to, country, for example, every day, but do I play it? Yeah. There are ones that I love to hear and sing because it put me in my own story and said, "Oh you did too. That's kinda fun. I'll keep listening." So I think that's just I think it's a good way to, to start listening to music if you've never listened to it, is just, pick something from each one and watch where it travels you

Brittney: yeah, I love what you say about, again, thinking, songs are stories, right? And even songs that don't have like a complicated narrative, they're still telling the story of something. They're still telling you something, and I think it's a really beautiful way of engaging with music and genres that you wouldn't really think about engaging with.

Like country music is... I have a kind of love-hate relationship with it in a way where it's like I-- there, there is coun- I do really love [00:32:00] some country. Like I grew up, listening to The Chicks slash formerly the Dixie Chicks. But but yeah, and I still, if I really just wanna like belt and just get myself out of a mood, like putting on any of their records will just immediately like kinda pull me out of that.

But I think what, it's, it, that is a genre that when you really... it's about the kind of like the small things in life a lot of the time, right? And the a- and the, and what it means to live in the every day. So it's like when you wanna engage with that's perfect. Whereas last night, for whatever reason, I felt like putting on Kendrick Lamar, so I did, I don't listen to hip hop every day, but I do actually really love hip hop as well, and I will put it on like when I feel like I want like a particular kind of energy. So yeah. I think that's a great way to be, and it sounds like you're already giving your kids such a cool like eclectic music education.

J.D.: try. Some of it's taken some, like waiting and holding onto before I can play it. And I adore my wife for many reasons, but like last night was a reason that I'm just... 'Cause then, I remember, I- [00:33:00] so for a second there I'll stick to that same genre. So I think it was like, I don't know.

I think it, I it was the reason why Kill Switch started was not because that's my go-to at all. It, in fact, I probably wouldn't have even found it like period if I wasn't running on a treadmill earlier in the day and, God bless like Peloton that they decided to put that on a track list.

And so I was like, "Whoa, good j- like way to go." And so it was in my head, but then that traveled to like several other, metal artists and kids are, having fun playing. My wife's just sitting there and she just goes on with every music. I know what her favorites are too, but she's not turning around "Can you please turn that off?"

Brittney: This off? Yeah.

J.D.: that to me is, is just a beautiful like respect, that people have to have, as a listener of anything. If you're blasting it in your car while I'm at the gas station, same thing. I'm not gonna tell you to turn it off. You needed that, for some reason.

So I think just, being able, and that's what I love having these conversations because yes, I listen to a lot of these genres, less of the style of music, but every conversation, every story as the reason it exists is different. So yeah

Brittney: I think there's [00:34:00] something as well, and I, at least for me, about like in some ways, like healing my own fear of rejection through being willing to share things that I love with people that I love, and not being afraid that they're gonna reject me for them, right? And so I love how like you mentioned that Kill Switch comes on and your wife isn't "Ugh," "Just turn this off."

'Cause I think it's the same like with my husband George as well, that like I think we do have a lot of musical crossover, but he's definitely much more in the like dance EDM and then also like industrial music space than I am. So there are definitely things that he listens to that I would never listen to on my own, and I think vice versa.

But I think that, being with him and having him just celebrate the things that I love, even if I know that he doesn't really love them, he's "No, it's fine. Put it on because I know you wanna listen to it," right? And it heals like that part of you that's oh man, that, that has a lot of, yeah, this kind [00:35:00] of fear that someone's going to reject you for something that you really love, or they're not gonna love something that you love.

But ultimately, I think the most important thing is just like having someone kind of honor that for you, right?

J.D.: Brittany, thank you for your story and gifting your music to the world

‌
---

Closing Reflection
---

J.D.: I think about the stories we tell when we're 13 and the ones we tell when we're 30. They aren't contradictions, they're evolution. Listening to Brittany talk about revisiting that fracture, not to reopen it, but to understand it, it's a reminder that sometimes healing doesn't rewrite the past, it reframes it, and sometimes that's enough

Outro
---

J.D.: Thank you for joining me on this journey with Brittany Jenkins. If this conversation has stayed with you, carry it into your next walk, your next quiet moment, your next horizon. Music connects us, not just through sound, but through shared experience and the [00:36:00] courage to keep evolving. If you've got something you wanna share about this episode or how music has supported you in your life, you can send me an email at storytellingpods@gmail.com.

Until next time, keep breathing, keep listening, and keep coming back to earth.