We recently published an article about Jared Mancuso’s newest release, Break Me. The single is now available!

In this interview spotlight, I chat with Jared about the new release, how he adapted during the pandemic, and more.

Full Q&A along with links and music below.

Jared! Great to hear new music from you. How have you been? What’s new?

Thanks for having me here! I’m been doing well. I’ve been trying to keep busy through the pandemic, and have been pretty successful in doing so. I’m not coming out the other end empty handed!

You probably sensed this coming but…gotta ask…what about 2020? Any takeaways worth sharing?

The initial halt to everything was quite the blow. It felt very much like…what am I going to do?!? I can’t tour?! But then I kind buckled down, built up my home studio here in Phoenix, and got to work on a few different projects.

How did you keep yourself occupied during quarantine? How are you adapting now that things are opening back up?

My good friend and longtime songwriting partner, Jared Bardugone, and I released two new EPs in 2020 under our group ‘The Jared Project’. They were our first releases since 2015. He lives in Connecticut, so we did everything remotely. We still have a third one coming, which is actually going to be a full album.

Slowly making my way back into some shows with my group ‘Not Fade Away’. We play ‘50s and ‘60s rock n roll and it’s a ton of fun and really a popular thing. We were on tour when the pandemic first hit and we watched all our shows just disappear. So now we’re looking at shows coming up in a couple different places, some that we postponed and some entirely new dates. I’m VERY excited to get in front of an audience again. 

Any cool stories or behind the scenes details worth sharing about this new single?

Like all my music, I’m playing everything, and recorded and mixed it entirely on my own. I have some friends I reach out to to check my work, notably Jared Bardugone who I consider my lyric editor in this case, and my friend Andrew Torres was really great at giving me notes on the mixes I was doing.

Originally, I’d hired a big name engineer (will remain nameless) to mix the song, and they just really were not capturing the energy the song had. I was initially hoping to have the song released at the end of April, and the whole thing with that engineer set me way back. So I finally said enough is enough and just got to mixing myself. While it was frustrating, it reassured me to just trust my gut on things and to believe in my abilities more. Self doubt can cripple a project, and I almost let it get the best of me here.

In terms of the content of the song itself, I was kind of swept up in the vaccine rollout and the prospect of getting back out into the world again. So I was reflecting on how crazy it has been for me, how sad and tragic it has been for so many people, and how delicate coming out of all of this will be. I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I want people to be acting irresponsibly coming out of this, but there is this itch to really get back out into the world, to be able to go to shows, dance, eat out more, go shopping, or just be with family again. I, for one, was away from my family over the holidays for the first time in my life. And that’s nothing compared to what other people have gone through. We’re all vaccinated now and I’m about to see all of them next month, and my brain can’t process it. It’s going to be a transition for all of us back to somewhere between the extreme and what normal used to be, but I hope that my song is encouraging in the idea that you CAN get through this and we can all be together again.

Where’s the best place to find you? And listen to more tunes?

I try to be as active as possible on instagram @jaredmancusomusic and I’ve got all my albums available on Spotify, Apple Music, and all the different streaming platforms.

Anything else before we sign off?

Just to stay safe and get vaccinated! We all want to rock out again, and that’s our fastest ticket back to that! Let’s do it together!