If you don’t remember our coverage of Jared Mancuso’s previous album Superdope, be sure to check that out here (opens in new tab).

Jared is back with his newest album and we were fortunate enough to grab a few minutes with him for this brief interview.

We discuss the forthcoming album (Hype!), the response to Superdope and more.

Full Q&A along with links and music below.

It’s good to see you back with new music! How was the overall response to your last album, Superdope?

Thanks! Superdope had a really great response both critically and in sales. It’s hands down my best selling album… I legit ran out of physical copies and not because of giving them away! haha. As I played shows surrounding the album with my live band The Very Pleasant People, I started to experience something really cool that I hadn’t experienced before. People wanted us to play my original songs. Like any band, we include covers in our set. It’s not unheard of. But we found as time went on, people would actually come up to us on our set breaks and tell us that they liked my original stuff and wanted to hear more of that. And you could feel it in the room. We’d start a cover and there was that “ahhhh THIS song” vibe in the room, and then by the end they’d be in conversations, not paying attention to us anymore. So that was really remarkable. I think that when you’ve found “your sound” people connect with that. So the covers became the outliers in the sets. It’s nice knowing an audience wants to hear YOU. That led to great sales at shows and, in turn, a fanbase in locations all over the place.

How is Hype! different than your previous releases? Were you trying to accomplish anything specific?

Hype! is different in the sense that it is more “me” than ever. Of course each album is representative of yourself in a time period. But this one feels almost ahead of me in a way that I feel like I’ll be sticking to this style a lot going forward. Superdope was the first step in that direction. I found my sound and the style throughout the creation of it, and there are still some songs on there that live in THAT time of my life. But songs like Superdope, Drive Me Crazy, Roll Over, Rest of Our Lives, those helped shape where I was inevitably headed with Hype! More riff style guitar playing, tighter harmonies, punchier drums, and more lyrical substance.

With Hype! I auditioned some new writing techniques as well, particularly lyrically. I lyric journaled for the first time ever. It varied, but for example, I would have a word like “hype” in mind, then I would unpack that word in a journal entry. Then when I sat to write actual lyrics, I would flip back and forth in my journal pulling phrases or words to create the different verses. I think this helped give the album a theme that I didn’t initially anticipate. I found myself journaling about social media and the impact it has had on all of us, our addiction to it, the fake lives we portray online, the way we treat each other, so many aspects. I’ve been struggling with it myself, balancing my waking life with this sleeping digital life and I just had to get all my thoughts out on it. Of course, that doesn’t make up the whole album. I’ve got songs about love, and breakups, being made at sellout bands and all that as well haha.

Sonically it’s like…if Superdope was an old dirty trashcan, Hype! is the same trashcan, but I knocked some of the dents out and blasted it with a hose. I engineered the album on my own and really put myself to the test with some recording and mixing techniques I had never tackled on my own. I gotta throw credit to James Parenti who did some critical listening and was really helpful with giving feedback and suggestions when mixing. It was an exciting process and I’m really pleased with the final product.

Name one or two challenges you face as an indie musician in this oversaturated, digital music age? How has technology helped you (since we know it does help)?

Do we know it helps? haha just kidding, it does help for sure. The biggest challenge is what you said, over saturation. Not just with music though. There’s a lot going on in everyone’s lives and it’s hard to grab their attention. I am fully aware that not everyone, even my friends, are going to be fans of my music. I don’t expect every person I send a link to to click on it and make a purchase. Plus, my generation is more cash poor than ever. It’s hard to help financially. That’s perfectly acceptable.

But I think the challenge is all of us rethinking what “value” is. There is value in a share. And not even just online. How many times do you find yourself chatting with someone about music you’re listening to? It takes two seconds to be like, “hey my friend has an album coming out, I think you’d like it!” There is so much value in that. Connecting that idea to technology…if you want to buy a pair of bluetooth headphones, we turn to the reviews of strangers online to tell us what is worth purchasing. Same should go for music. Ask your friends for recommendations, or post your recommendations for friends to see. Spotify has algorithms to recommend music, but person to person is more powerful and meaningful. I miss the days of making mixtapes for friends.

I ran a Kickstarter for Hype! to get it printed onto vinyl and CD, get t-shirts made, and whatnot. I met the goal which was amazing and truly overwhelming. I’m beyond grateful to everyone who contributed. And not just financially. Some people just shared the link with friends and family, and that was so helpful. I don’t know that people quite understood that it was ok to not give me their money and that their recommendation to other people to contribute was just as valuable. This was a testament to technology being extremely helpful. Then I wrote an album about the internet destroying us haha

Where is the best place to connect with you online and discover more music?

Instagram. Hands down. You get updates on shows there, you get pictures, it’s the place I get to express myself and my music the most accurately. I get to be silly and post about how Starbucks always writes “Jerry” on my cup. Facebook is fine, but it all gets buried there. They want me to spend all my money just so my event will pop up on your news feed for a second, regardless of actual interest in the show. Plus, I get addicted to Facebook. Before I even get to make a post on my page, I’m an hour and a half worth of cat videos in. People can also skip the middleman and check out my website at www.jaredmancusomusic.com

Anything else before we sign off?

Thank you for this opportunity to tell you about what I do! Thank you to everyone out there who took the time to read this interview, to share it, to talk about my album, to listen to my album, to read other interviews on this site, to support. Keep staying thirsty for new and under-heard music.