Caroline Grogan, Senior Reporter
@cgrogancourant
Jesty wants to share his music with you.
Whether it be through garnering the attention of radio stations while he was a solo artist attending Ohio University or the success of his streetwear brand Home and Bones, things have a habit of blowing up for Cleveland/LA-based writer, singer, and producer Jesty.
His new indie pop project by the name of Holy Mattress Money is no exception, but Jesty started the project with his number-one goal being to release his music out into the world as soon as it is created. After Jesty’s best friend and songwriting partner Aaron Michael Cox passed away, Holy Mattress Money emerged as a way for Jesty to cope with the loss of his friend and ensure that people hear his own music while he is around. Jesty started out with “Mattress Mondays,” releasing a new HMM song every Monday for twelve consecutive weeks, and has been steadily releasing new music with a variety of collaborators ever since.
Be on the lookout for new music from Holy Mattress Money, and read our interview with Darrel “Jesty” Greene below.
For new fans who only know you from Holy Mattress Money, can you give a history of what you’ve done in the music industry as Jesty and how that led to Holy Mattress Money?
I started off as a solo act making beats, ended up going on tour for about four years and it was really cool, it was a great experience and I actually want to get out there so we’re trying to get Holy Mattress Money into the touring space but that’s not here yet.
So I was just an independent artist, I did everything independently, was able to start at Ohio University where things just started to blow up — it was really weird, like I started recording in my dorm room and then things just escalated pretty quickly. From there I got the attention of the radio station and that led to other radio stations picking up my song “Famous” and that led to me meeting a girl named Jackie. She was a PR major and she was like, “Anything I can do to help you, I’m down to help.” So I was like, “Hey, how about you figure out a way to get a free spring break trip? I don’t know how we’re gonna do it but I need a free spring break trip for me and my friends.” A couple days later I got this phone call and it was like, “Hey, we want to fly you out to Mexico and we want you to be here for a month and perform for all of these huge names like Sean Paul and Pitbull” and I’m like, “This is insane.” I got to do that while I was still a college student and I was able to get independent study credit to do it, I just had to write a paper about it, so I wrote a paper and I got school credit to be on tour in another country. It was just an awesome experience.
From there I went back to school, I graduated, and then after that I moved to LA and it didn’t work. Some crazy stuff happened — wild stuff. I moved back home to Ohio and picked up where I left off, met a guy named Aaron Michael Cox and Aaron Michael Cox was one of the greatest singers, songwriters, producers that I’d ever met. He had an incredible voice, he had incredible talent, he was just my best friend. We had similar upbringings; we used to joke about being long-lost brothers or cousins or something. We were best friends — we just wrote all day, played all day, that’s all we cared about. So I ended up being songwriting partners with him. We ended up writing a bunch of songs; we wrote for 2AM Club, I wrote a song with Jeremih and Omarion, there was a girl named Jamie B — she has a couple bangers. So we just had a real cool crew of friends and it was a real cool thing and then Aaron was like, “I’m done writing for other people, I want to create my own album” and I was like “Alright, let’s do it.” So we went to work, we started writing this album. It was just kind of crazy because the songs that we wrote for his album, people kept trying to buy them or use them for their albums — like “Evidence” for 2AM Club was originally an Aaron Michael Cox record. I also did a song called “We Should Fall in Love Again” with Aaron and Darren Criss from Glee wanted to record it. All these people were coming and trying to take the songs that we were making for this album. It was just that fun; it was a cool time.
From then, we eventually got a great demo for him, we had probably six songs done, we put together the demo and then we started shopping it and we landed — this is gonna date us — we were working on a Big Time Rush record called “Love Trip.” It never came out but we were in a meeting with Columbia Records/Sony and they were like, “Who’s demoing these songs?” and Aaron was like, “That’s me.” They asked if he was an artist and said they wanted his album. We were able to get the demo to Columbia Records and everything started moving forward and we were gonna take the deal, everything seemed pretty good, like I co-wrote most of the songs on the album – like everything’s gonna be awesome. But what ended up happening was he wasn’t feeling well, went to the doctor, found out that he had Stage Four cancer. He didn’t know, like there was no sign, there was no physical energy level that would let you know that this person was sick, or he hid it really well. So, within the month of his diagnosis he ended up passing away and everything just kind of went all over the place, like the copyright was tied up, things were tied up and we weren’t able to move forward with this project and…I didn’t realize that I was depressed at the time, but I was depressed. You know what I mean? I distracted myself with work, but looking back I think I really was depressed. But when you’re in it and you’re working everyday and you’re drowning yourself in work and you don’t deal with it, it eventually will hit.
So I was working and working and working and it didn’t really hit for years, like I’m working and working and meeting people and — keep in mind — I worked with Da Internz, they did Anaconda for Nicki Minaj, they did “I Would” by Justin Bieber, they did Rihanna’s “Cake,” like huge records. So, these guys are my mentors and I’m just drowning in work and learning and doing everything I loved to do which was an amazing experience, but then I was looking at the amount of work I was putting in versus the amount of headway I was making. It was kind of like, look, I’m making a good living here in LA but I’m not where I want to be creatively, I’m not in the mental space to be there, so basically I got sick of writing for other projects. Let me break it down like this: let’s say Rihanna wants to put out an album. Rihanna is working on an album so everyone in the music industry in LA and New York, they start writing songs with Rihanna in mind. So you’ve got thousands – tens of thousands – of people that are all writing songs to become one of twelve songs on Rihanna’s album. So it’s a mad dash and I’m like, “Wait, I don’t want to do that anymore. I’m sick of trying to go through all of these big people, I wanna do it myself.”
I started to go through my catalog and look at the records that I’d written and then find an artist — up-and-coming or established — like, we’ve got a couple people that were on The Voice on the next couple of songs that are coming out, so we’re just finding people that are the right fit. From there we put the songs out and get it directly to the people who would want to hear it and that’s what the model of it is. I write a record and produce the record and then I find the artist or the singer who can best bring that song to life, then we record it, and then we put it out and do it again. So basically I ended up doing that, that was it, but it was a way to deal with the feeling of losing one of your best friends. It was like, look, we’re only here for a certain amount of time, no one knows when, no one knows how we’re gonna leave and I just want to be here and see people enjoy my music while I am here. That’s what Holy Mattress Money is about.
You work with artists and singers from all over the place. How do you find the people you end up working with and does their being from all over pose certain challenges?
They’re definitely pretty much all over the place with the exception of Henao or Callan. Both of those artists are my friends and we hang out, so they’re literally in the studio with me and we write or we record or however the process of the song goes because it’s different for every song. But then, there’s the other artists that I work with remotely. What happens is I figure out the chords, I write the song, then I send a demo to the singer, and then they send me back the vocals of them singing what I sang. Then I put it all together, I send it to my mix engineer, and he mixes the song and then we put it up. It poses a challenge for touring because each song has different people on it but we’re putting together the traveling troupe, the people who are going to come on the road, and certain people are just gonna sing all of the songs. Armin Van Buuren is an artist who does it or Mura Masa — the way that he tours or the way that he plays live, that’s the way that the live show is gonna be. So it’s like DJing mixed with live performers coming out and it’s gonna be pretty sick.
I was going to ask about touring, so that’s exciting to hear that you’re working on that.
Yeah, I’m rehearsing because I’ve gotten MIDI controllers and I’ve got an Ableton Push and I’m trying to figure out how to make it work, like how to create a set and create some of the tracks live. You know how people are looping now? I’m gonna do a lot of that. It’s gonna be cool — you’ll see. For me to step back out onstage it has to be right and everything has to be worked out beforehand, but I’m in the process of getting that taken care of.
The first song I heard from you was Blue Hundreds which definitely got a lot of attention. Did you see that song as a turning point? Did you expect the reaction it got or was it more random?
I don’t want to say it was random because it was the reaction that I was hoping for six other times. Basically what happened was I was releasing a song every Monday and no one was paying attention. It was weird cause on Spotify if you have fewer than one thousand plays it just says “<1000,” like they don’t even give you the number of plays. Before Blue Hundreds everything was set at less than one thousand and it was so ugly; I hated looking at the profile, it was kind of discouraging. So I was working on Blue Hundreds and I was doing that in real time, like I had a week to do that song and so I had come up with the music and I had come up with the melody. But the thing was, there was a turning point in my mentality and I think that kind of translated to the audience. I’ve never said this before, but the truth is I pictured people singing it back to me and if the line didn’t feel like people would sing it back at a concert I didn’t put it in. It was a shift in my mind. I made it about the experience of being in a live show and being onstage and hearing the crowd singing it back. If they can remember it and they can feel it and they know the words, then we’ve got a winner.
I put out Blue Hundreds and it started to move a little bit faster than the other songs. But without the other songs, Blue Hundreds couldn’t have been what it was because the other songs got people used to checking for us every Monday. So even if it was ten people checking, Spotify’s algorithm or whatever is like, “Oh, people are digging this,” and then I was able to get it in front of more people I guess. I was blown away by the response, like when I’m on Twitter and I see people typing the lyrics out I think that’s the coolest thing. I think that that is the coolest. Being able to sum up the way a person feels and enter into a person’s real life — it goes from this idea that’s in your head to…now we’ve got skin in the actual game. We’ve got skin in the game where we’re actually in people’s lives. I read the comments all the time and people are like, “Yeah this is the song I played at the beach the other day” and I’m like, “Wow, we’re in people’s lives?” It’s pretty interesting. So I’m with it.
I’ve noticed you’re really active and interactive on social media. Is that something you’ve been focused on for Holy Mattress Money?
That’s what we’re trying to do because we were founded on interacting and seeing people enjoy [the music]. I’ve released almost exclusively through social media, so social media plays a huge part in everything that I do. We haven’t even scratched the surface on what’s gonna happen, like it’s mild right now. It’s gonna be a well-oiled machine here in a little bit, I’m telling you that right now. It’s gonna be insane. Content everywhere and everyday.
Tell me about the 10k EP and that release style.
The 10k EP was something that I needed to figure out. Music is not tangible, it’s experience-based. I could sell a CD, but cars and computers don’t really have CD players. Right now, music is in super high demand but there’s not a lot of ways to get it in front of people without hijacking where there intention is already. So I wanted to create some sort of social media experience so that we can educate people about what this is.
In case you didn’t notice, there’s been an increased presence of me. At first there were no pictures, there was just the mattress-with-the-money logo everywhere. It was like, “who is this person? Who is Leslie [Carron]? Who is singing this?” Now I’m trying to introduce myself because I am kind of the only constant between all of the songs. It’s not an ego thing, it’s like I can’t count on some of the other artistic types to be as available as I am. Plus, I think that people may want to know who is writing these things, like who is coming up with this.
With that being said, I decided to release in an experience way where you get one song per day for four days and you get behind-the-scenes stories and content but it’s an exclusive thing. The 10k EP isn’t on Spotify, it’s not on Apple Music, it’s only available through this experience but that experience can educate you on what Holy Mattress Money is, what it stands for and represents. I just want to make sense of what this even is to people and I saw this as an opportunity to educate our fans as to what they’re actually fans of. We got an incredible response to it. I’m definitely gonna do it again. I’ve gotten a lot of responses in email because you get an email everyday and you can just reply, so people are sending me messages all day and all night depending on where they are in the experience. You can sign up now and go through the same experience that another person did the first time, so if they did it on February 12th when we released it, it’s the same experience. But next time I’m doing it all in real time, meaning you have to sign up by this date or you’re gonna miss out, you’re not gonna get to hear it. Everyone is gonna get the emails the same day, everyone’s gonna be on the same page, so it’s going to be a real cool live experience. So that’s the upgraded version, that’s what the next EP or album is gonna be. It’ll be everyone in real time enjoying music one song at a time and getting real time feedback.
So is it gonna be released through the email experience first and then, once it’s all out, on Spotify and Soundcloud?
That’s the way it’s gonna be. I’m probably gonna put up the 10k EP soon on Spotify, I don’t have a date yet, but I’m definitely gonna do that.
I know Cuyahoga Falls was inspired by a place in Ohio. Are there other aspects of your music influenced by living in Ohio?
Ohio is a very big part of who I am. I’ve lived here ninety percent of my life and I’m back here so I’d say that it’s kind of a supporting cast member to everything that I do. Based on my upbringing, let me put it to you like this: my favorite movie is Kings of Summer, that’s my favorite movie of all time, and that takes place in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. So now when you hear the song, you can kind of understand what it is. It’s disguised as normal but it’s extraordinary in a lot of ways. You’ve gotta dig below the surface to see the amazingness that this place has to offer, so I think that it’s more of a supporting role.
As a solo artist I was fortunate enough to collaborate with the Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, toured with King Chip — he works a lot with Kid Cudi who’s also from Cleveland. There’s definitely a scene here, it’s just, you gotta look to find it. It’s a cool place to grow up and to find yourself.
Tell me about the name “Holy Mattress Money” and the album artwork that goes along with it.
Holy Mattress Money, the idea for the words, a lot of people ask me if it came from Full House. In the fourth grade, they asked me what my favorite TV show was and I said Full House. So in fourth grade my favorite TV show was Full House and I watched it every day. I can’t say that I actively remember that Holy Mattress Money was a part of the early seasons of that where Stephanie Tanner got married, but it’s definitely a bonus. As a person who writes songs and writes lyrics, I’m always thinking of homophones, the way something sounds, and manipulating it.
Holy Mattress Money popped in my head and I Googled it, didn’t see any bands, so I’m like, “This is it. I gotta do something with it.” Then my brain just went on the journey; I’m like, “Okay, Holy Mattress Money. There’s mattresses and there’s holy stuff. There’s infinite possibilities for branding.” For the art, I found a guy online and I basically told him what to do. I’m like, “Can you draw a mattress with a bunch of money stuffed in it?”
How are you involved in the Home and Bones clothing company?
I made Home and Bones before Holy Mattress Money, that’s like two years old, maybe three. I just had an idea and I designed it and put it on a flashdrive and did nothing with it for months. Then I was walking down the street, I found fifty dollars, and I was like “What can I do with this instead of, you know, spend it on something stupid?” I just got two hats made, the black one and the red one, and then from there, one of my best friends is a photographer so we started shooting. We created a website, sold preorders, and then it just kind of blew up. Like people are all over wearing this thing, then it grew to jackets, then it grew to winter coats and letterman jackets and all kinds of cool stuff. We are trying to get some cool shoes made. There is a bunch of stuff in the works. It’s definitely something that I stumbled into but I found out that I loved it and it kind of laid the blueprint of how I’m growing Holy Mattress Money. Because I saw what worked in building a streetwear brand from scratch, I’m able to use the same techniques in growing an independent indie pop band.
