For those of us who remember the ‘80s, the idea of a love child between heartland rock, like Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp, and hair metal, ala Cinderella and Poison, sounds like a cheesy horror/disaster movie. Some things just don’t go together.
Yet, 40 years later, the offspring of those two completely disparate styles is here. And it turns out to not only be a horror movie, but Toronto’s Jessica Sevier brings it together as appealingly as chocolate and peanut butter or Marvin Gaye and Tami Terrell.
Talking about how she married what should have been a Frankenstein’s Monster of music into an award-winning singer/songwriter, the utterly engaging Sevier explains. “I grew up on a lot of hair metal and a lot of Springsteen, a lot of John Mellencamp. So, it’s kind of an amalgamation of all of those random things. So, a combination of Springsteen music and listening to Poison around the dinner table, like ‘Every Rose Has Its Thorn,’” she says.
Going further into the way those elements seamlessly come together in her songs, she says, “I listened to [Springsteen] for hours and hours and hours every day, studying the way he wrote music and lyrics. Then I think the musicality and sound really came from Cinderella. The Heartbreak Station record really inspired me to make music. I heard it, and I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do,’ the bluesy country rock thing. It really stuck with me after I heard that record, and I have never forgotten it. I was 14 or 15, like 10 years ago, when I first heard it, and I think about it every day. “
Sevier, who was born in the 2000s, credits her parents with giving her the necessary ingredients for her very unique musical cocktail.
“When I was in high school, I’d really gotten into hair metal, and I’ve always been a lover of vintage things. So, when I saw that my dad had this old record player, I was like, ‘Oh, I want one of those.’ So, we took his old Sears dual cassette and record player out of storage, and the speakers are about as tall as me,” she says laughing. “Then my dad gave me his mixtape collection and his record collection, and all of it was hair metal basically. So, that’s all I had. When I was in high school, I was really into analog media. I avoided digital media at that point because I wanted to live like it was the ‘80s. All I did was listen to cassettes and records, and the only ones I had were hair metal, Springsteen, and Mellencamp. So that was the soundtrack to my life, and I just fell in love with it. I still love it. It’s still my favorite. I still have that record player in my room. It’s the best.”
I found Sevier, who won Songwriter of the Year, as well as Breakthrough Artist of the Year, at the CMA Ontario Awards last week, through her moving and poignant song, “Springsteen,” in which she sings, “If there was one thing that got me through fifteen, it was Springsteen.”
Springsteen is my favorite artist ever, so I identified immediately and reached out to Sevier to set up an interview. However, the mark of a truly great song is universality, a feeling anyone can relate to. Again, Sevier just won Songwriter of the Year, with good reason. Even the most MAGA-identifying Springsteen hater can identify with the feeling of a song or artist that saved your life. For Sevier, it happened to be Springsteen. If, in your case, it was Prince, The Stones, Eminem, Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo, Erykah Badu or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the sentiment still holds true.
Since it was Springsteen, specifically “The River,” that Sevier says got her through “one of the toughest eras of my life,” when she finally got to experience one of the legendary E Street Band shows in her hometown of Toronto, it was a truly profound moment for her.
“In October of 2024, I believe I went to see him here in Toronto. I sat in the nosebleeds because it was sold out instantly, of course. [But] I finally got my hands on a ticket in the nosebleeds; my mom and I went together, and I sat there and cried the whole time. It was so beautiful and wonderful,” she says. “I was probably the youngest person there, and I just sang every word, and it was just so healing because Springsteen saved my life. His words really pulled me through this darkness, and to get to see it in real life was like soul healing. In a way, it was very full circle, like, ‘Oh my God, he’s actually a real person. This is really cool.’ It was such a great show, every note was dead on. No notes, there was nothing anyone could poke a hole in in that show. It was just straight talent and beautiful music. It was life-changing for sure. I think that was probably the best concert that I’ve ever been to.”
As mentioned, so much of what makes Sevier such a compelling new voice is that dual nature. Yes, she can cry happy tears at a Springsteen show but also hang with Mötley Crüe.
“I met Vince Neil, which was really cool, here in Ontario. A buddy of mine was opening for Motley Crue and Motley Crue invited me into their trailer. I got to meet and hang out with all of them. I was like, ‘Oh my God, why am I here?’ But it was so cool. And it’s really interesting now that I’m in the music scene that I get to meet these people because of what I’m doing. It’s like a full circle moment from me in my bedroom at 15 listening to hair metal to now being part of it,” she says.
Fans have obviously heard the Springsteen side of her influences. They’ll get to hear the hair metal side this summer on songs such as “Wild Wild Woman,” she promises.
“It’s very much an empowerment song, like, ‘How dare you do this to me? How dare you push the wild wild woman this far? I’m gonna come back 10 times harder.’ Whenever something bad happens in my life, I listen to that. I listen to my own song to hype me up a little bit,” she says. “When life doesn’t feel like it’s going my way, I put on ‘Wild Wild Woman’ and I go, ‘That’s fucking right. You are a wild, wild woman. You are a badass, you can do this.’ It’s actually gotten me through a lot of really hard times in my life. This record was super healing.”
Listen to Springsteen by Jessica Sevier, out on all platforms.
