Surfing the crowds to Success: Jessie Powell does it all

Interview by Brieghanna Maye

Photos by Metal Muse Media

At the end of last summer, I sat down via Zoom with Dream State vocalist, Jessie Powell, to talk about all things women in music. After a few minutes of exchanging pleasantries and sharing a few stories about our own crazy lives, we got down to business.

Yea, of course! So alright, we’ll kind of just jump in. First, do you kinda want to tell us a little bit about who you are, and your band?

Yea! I’d love to talk about me! My name is Jessie Powell and I front a band called Dream State. I also am a very small business owner of a company called Jessie Powell Music, which really did start due to, like, the sort of like demand and interest that's been happening over the last year for singing lessons, or band management, or ghost writing, or features, DJ sets, whatever. So yeah, I just bit the bullet and now I have my own company. I've been a singer/songwriter for about 25 years, and I honestly believe that music is my calling.

Awesome! So what kinda made you want to get into music in general? What kinda sparked that calling?

I'm Catholic and when I grew up, all my educational schools have been catholic schools, whereby you would sing in the morning, sing at lunch, sing at noon. You know it was like my primary, my high school, my college. All my education has been Catholic, and that meant that there was always a choir. And, I wasn't necessarily…I wasn't a naughty student, but, believe it or not, I was very distracting of other people.

Umm, not sure why they'd say that, but… Anyways, based on that, I’d always get sent to the choir teacher. I would always get sent to choir practice if I was disrupting a class, not being naughty, but probably just trying to talk to someone, or humming, or something that was… I was always tapping or singing, or doing something that distracted people. So they would send me to choir. Because of that from the ages of like 4 to about 18, I've sung in the church. And I'm classically trained in opera, which is something I'm really proud of because I think it's beautiful. And, I learned from a very very young age that I was able to scream, just listening to the likes of Chester [Benningham] in Linkin Park on the TV. I think “Numb”, or one of their earlier songs came, and I just started screaming along, and my mom was like “Jessie, you sound exactly like him”. So I started going to rock school. I'm from a really small town called Worcester, and we have rock schools, and I had guitar lessons, and piano lessons. I think my mom especially realized that I had, she would say, a gift for music. I could play on a guitar and sing along just very naturally, to be able to do both. So music has literally been a part of me since I was about 4, and I've been fronting rock bands since I was about 14.

That's really awesome! That's an interesting transition from Catholic choir/opera, to moving into the metal scene. How did you make that transition?
You know something, it's really surprising actually that when I read up on interviews, that so many metal artists come from a Catholic background. It actually is really bizarre when you listen to how many metal singers say “I sang in a church”. Even Katy Perry came from a church, so not even just metal singers, so many pop singers came from a church background. The transition was quite easy. Naturally and organically as I got older into my early teens, I became a bit emo. You know, I still go to church with my family, but it got more forced as I got older, but I like singing in the choir. I liked going to sing there, so even when I turned a bit emo, I would still proudly go and sing. I really enjoyed being part of that choir, and I enjoyed the songs, I thought they were beautiful. So for me the transition felt really quite easy.

Opera is so close to metal in terms of what you need to do to deliver heavy vocals, it's all the same control. Which is why I feel so fortunate to be able to deliver quite unique vocals, sing, scream low, scream high. Probably based on the stamina I've gained in my diaphragm from opera.

I can remember the first time seeing you live, I was honestly mind blown, I was thinking the woman has some of the best vocals I have ever heard. My friend that was at the show with me was talking about the show for weeks after. She was seriously impressed.

Awww thank you so much! That gives me goosebumps actually! Sincerely, I feel really privileged when anyone has something like that to say. Because, I feel like I've been trying to make it for like 20 years, and it feels like just now, I'm kind of finally getting a platform where I'm getting the opportunity to be heard. So to have that kind of feedback just feels really magical, so thank you to you and your friend.

Oh of course! I come from a musical background, I did choir, theater, I grew up in the church as well. So I can understand how complex the nuances are to be able to do the type of vocals you do, and so I'm always telling people, “You should check out this vocalist, she's amazing”

Well thank you! Maybe you could do a cheeky death metal voice as well if you come from that background!

I don't know about that! I would say I am a mediocre singer at best, with lessons maybe, but I am definitely not there yet!
Well I am a singing teacher, so you know where I am!

Definitely! It sounds like music has always been your passion, and it seems like you were destined for this, which I think is really amazing. What do you think is your favorite thing about being part of the metal scene?
Well I feel really privileged to be put in that category. My previous bands have been much heavier than Dream State, I come from a metal core, almost hardcore background. I used to enjoy playing with bands like No Bragging Rights, and We Like The Beat Down. So Dream State is a lot softer for me. But you know, it feels really special and what I am noticing is that there is a lot of young girls, people my age, older, and especially the 9-12 year-olds, the young girls who come to my show and who meet me after, they're like almost in tears because of what they've seen me do and how excited they are. You know they feel like, “Oh my god there's a woman up there who's doing that.” So it feels like I've got a really good opportunity to make a really good impression to the next generation and show them... You know obviously there's plenty of other metal singers in the world who are much bigger than me, but you know in the small platform that I've got, I feel like it's really important that I deliver a really important message to my, especially female, community that metal is for everyone, and you can do it too. So that's kind of my goal here, to let people know that you can do it as well.

I love that. That is what we are hoping to achieve with our magazine as well. To give a platform for people to prove they can do these things, too, and that they belong here.

I have definitely seen a shift like I have for girls in metal over the last years coming back now. It's so refreshing, let's say when I played at a festival 15 years ago, there would be, like, me and one other girl on the line up, and in the green room it would just be guys and maybe their girlfriends. And I've noticed since coming back, there's way more female sound engineers, light engineers, photographers. And it feels really special to be seeing so many boss women kill it, and absolutely do just as good of a job as the guys do. I really push for our tours or any shows we do to work with ladies, I've really had a good success this summer getting girls involved, whether it be opening our show, or doing the lighting or sound, or even the photography. I always try my best to make sure there's a girl somewhere in our team, because why not? We can do it, too.

So what is it like being a female fronting a rock band, or in such a male-dominated scene?

It can be quite scary, but I think the more shows I play and get more positive feedback like I’ve just gotten from you, that confidence grows a little bit. And I think that we are a good band, not just me as a woman, but collectively as a 4 piece, I think we're good and we always put on a good show. So I think that whilst sometimes it does feel scary, like when I played Download [to] over 10,000 people, that was really scary, but I do think I'm starting to believe I belong there and Dream State do, and should be given these opportunities because our shows speak for themselves. So yea, it is scary and there is lots of room for improvement in lots of ways. But I will say that coming back into this scene after a 6-7 year hiatus, there has definitely been a really positive shift with ladies in metal and how we are [received]. Or just ladies in bands, and in rock bands, there's a bigger want for it and a bigger platform for it. I've certainly noticed the way we are treated backstage now, I am not automatically assumed to be the girlfriend, or something. The respect level has massively shot up, so it's actually a really nice place to be right now. But sometimes as the shows get bigger, that can be really scary,

Do you have any experiences touring, non-touring, positive or negative that have really stood out to you?

Yea, no definitely. One really good positive, back in the day I fronted a band called Aurora, and we very very last minute got asked to play Slam Dunk Festival, and we were not officially one of the bands, one of the bands had just pulled out on an Uproar stage, which my friends owned the club Uproar. So they called me up and were like, “Hey Jessie, are you at Slam Dunk?”, and I told them of course, so they asked, “Do you wanna play? We’ve had someone pull out. But you need to be here and ready in like an hour.” So I called all the band. One of the members was already at Slam Dunk, but the others were working and their bosses said they couldn't leave, so they all just walked out. We played Slam Dunk, and I happened to bump into Jason Butler [vocalist, Letlive] before we played. I had briefly met him a few times before and he was really kind, so I just remember running up to him and being like, “Hey my band is playing in this little room, would you come and watch me?” He said yea, and he followed me. I was just thinking, “Oh my gosh, he's coming to watch me.” When we finished playing that set, he invited me to open a show for him a few months later in Birmingham. It was a sold out gig, and he said he thought people needed to hear us. He invited me up on stage with him to sing “Mother” with him at that show, and I will say that's still one of the highlights of my whole career. Not only having Jason Butler come and watch me as a kid and support me, but then made it happen for me to open for him in Birmingham. There wasn't space for another band, but he managed to get doors pushed earlier so that we could play. We were playing as people walked in, but by the time we finished it was a packed room, and all of the people from Letlive were wearing Aurora t-shirts. That will always be in my mind as one of the most positive experiences of my career.

Secondly, that would be playing Download Festival, I've been wanting to play that since I was 14 years old. I remember seeing Flyleaf there, and I remember looking up to her and saying, “I'm going to do that one day.” Literally 20 years later, I did it. I still dream about that.

A negative experience, would be back in the day when I was in other bands. I can remember trying to walk up onto the stage so that we could do our line check, and I needed to get on the stage to do my voice check and security pushed me back saying “This is for bands only. Only bands are allowed on the stage.” I was telling him that I was the singer and he just didn’t believe me. I can remember the guitarist at that time throwing his guitar down, getting almost aggressive and being like, “She's the singer, she needs to get on stage!” and the security was shocked and started apologizing saying he thought I was just someone's girlfriend. And that has really stuck with me, but it was a long time ago, probably 20 years ago. And it's not just been the one time, it's happened a couple of times. I haven't had too many negatives, but that one stands out for me. I will say that the positives outweigh the negatives, if I’m honest I've been quite lucky.

What are some goals that you and the band have for Dream State?

Well obviously we don't have a manager, we don't have a record label, for the first 18 months of the band we were completely DIY. We had no booking agent, record label or manager. We did sign with a company called Atonal at the end of 2023 for booking, but we still have no label or management. We’ve got our eye on who we want to work with and things like that. But I'm starting to believe that whatever’s supposed to be for me, isn't going to pass me by. But I do think the goal for Dream State now, looking at what we're achieving without a manager and without a label, I think we're all quite excited with the right team around us, to see where Dream State could go if we had the manager that's going to push us to that next level. If we had the record label that would be pushing our music and promoting whatever song we released.

If you could collaborate with any artist to come on with Dream State, do you have anyone in mind?

I would love to do a collaboration with While She Sleeps, or Knocked Loose.

What about venues? Do you have a dream venue or city that you would like to perform at?

Yea we had a really blessed year. I was approached by Red Hook, and they have asked us to join them on their Australian tour, but for one reason or another it didn't work out. But we are having them on our UK tour, and we’re hoping they will hold to their word and be able to join them next year on tour. It's kind of a tour swap. I think I can confidently say that you will see us come out to the States, and Australia, if not in 2025 then hopefully 2026. As a band I think we all also really want to play like Redding Festival, Leeds Festival. Redding and Leeds are kinda really bringing back rock stages to their festivals which is so amazing, so we would like to get to play some more of those mainstream festivals. We’ve done really well with festivals this last year, we've been all over Europe and the UK. And I would love to play mainstage at 2000 Trees ‘cause last we did the Cave and it was rammed. This year we did the Forest, and we were a bit nervous because they put the football on at the same time of our set, so we were thinking no one was going to come, and it was absolutely rammed. So I think it would be cool if we took a year off, and came back the next summer [2026], and I would love to see us on the mainstage of 2000 Trees. I think that would be a well deserved spot, even if it was an opening spot.

Let's roll things back to talking a little more about you. Obviously you are the owner of Jessie Powell Music, and you do your vocal coaching. So what is your main focus when doing these lessons?

I think it's the health and care of your vocals. We don't really get stuck into the fun stuff until we've done what I would class as essential warm ups and warm downs. So, what you could expect from a class would be really technical warm ups that don't only warm up your vocal chords, but your face and your body so that you're really ready to deliver vocals as well as you can. I also offer a service for safe screaming, so I will go over techniques and tricks that I've learned over the last 20 years to really enhance my vocals, but ensuring that I do it as safely as possible. Sometimes my students will come to me and say, “Hey Jessie, I’m working on this song, can we spend the lesson listening to me sing this song, but point out where I need to work on?” So I work with my students on control, pushing your voice out. There's loads that we work on, and I kind of tailor it to what the student wants. But this is something that I'm so privileged that this is something that I've been doing, and it's just been busy busy busy, I'm just really proud that I listened to what people were asking me, asking about vocal lessons, band advice, ghost writing. I started noticing the increased demand for those types of things, and I just decided to create a business. Now it's nearly 6 months on, and I feel really proud. I don't actually say that a lot.

How do you balance being a businesswoman and a musician as well as enjoying your everyday life?

Being a wife and a dog mom! I'm still learning the balance because it's still kind of new to me to have a company. Obviously when I had a full time job, you kind of knew your hours, these are the hours you would work, this is your expectation. But when it's your own business, I keep finding myself, like today I'm working through till like 9pm. If that was me a year ago, and I was working till 9pm in my corporate job, I'd be so upset. But because it's something I'm passionate about, and I'm loving, I feel really happy to be doing it. It's a hard balance, I'm not going to lie. I'm still working on balancing being a businesswoman, I also work a part time job to help cover bills, trying to be a wife, a friend, a family member. I'm trying my best. I'm trying to find time for myself, just work in some me time. I'm juggling a lot. Even though I'm busy, I feel really privileged to be in the position I'm in, it's not a bad thing to be. I don't want to take any moment of this for granted, because you know as the years go on and I get older, if Dream State doesn't do the things we want to achieve, I'll be a has-been. So I might as well just enjoy the ride and see what happens. I'm just trying to take it day by day, that's all I can do right now.

Letting Jessie go so that this hard-working woman could get a few minutes of rest before getting back to business, I sat there in awe of everything she has achieved. Though she may not always feel like it, she truly has set the bar for success. Vocalist, businesswoman, wife, and dog mom, Jessie Powell really does it all. I, for one, cannot wait to see what the future holds for this driven and inspiring soul. If you haven't already listened to Dream State, you're doing your ears a disservice. Their latest single released is titled “Bloom”, but I highly recommend listening to “Chin Up Princess”, its an acoustic journey of the amazing vocal range Jessie has spent her entire life perfecting.

Check out Dream State on Spotify here