About the Band
Jack West
Singer / guitarist
Teenage Singer-Songwriter Jack West Releases New Single, “Undealt,” on DSPs, October 19, Promises More New Music in 2024
Acoustic song was originally written when he was 15, re-wrote and re-recorded
NEW YORK, September 26, 2023—It’s been almost two years since young veteran singer-songwriter Jack West released his sophomore album, Numb, back in early 2022, but the now 18-year-old has been busy, graduating high school and releasing a music video around his re-imagining of Simple Minds’ “Don’t You Forget About Me,” featuring a full-blown Breakfast Clubhomage filmed by director Patrick McBride, who has worked with Kanye West, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Beyonce.
Now living in Hell’s Kitchen in New York City – and launching a modeling career that has seen him featured in New York Times’ fashion spreads, West continues to push his music career, with a new single, the acoustic “Undealt,” debuting on all major DSPs October 19.
The song is a young man’s attempt to make sense of the world while adopting his own philosophy, “Keeping my head held down/Keeping my eyes on the ground,” he sings. “Changing all around/Nobody knows the way/Keeping my thoughts to myself/Keeping my cards undealt.”
“I wrote it when I was 15 on acoustic guitar,” he says. “Recorded the music for it the following year, but I rewrote it and re-recorded the vocals.”
The sentiments are typical of a teenager who is wise beyond his years, barely 13 when he wrote “Old Soul,” releasing a 2019 debut, For the Record, a 2020 live EP, Live at Easy Street Records from a performance at the famed Seattle retail store, along with a collaboration with a series of singles, including “Missing Out,” featuring a solo by Pearl Jam’s Mike McCreedy.
Numb showed another side to West’s music, a psychedelic album he called “dream-pop acid music,” which included a trippy cover of the Doors’ “Love Street,” with nods to ‘80s Brit synthpop, lo-fi and the folk-acoustic guitar of “Goodbye LA.”
“Undealt” offers a hint to what’s to come for West, who plans on a new album of mostly acoustic songs along with stripped-down versions of previous tracks, tentatively slated for early next year. There’s also a bunch of “more punk, pop-rock” material on tap, as well as writing and creating music in collaboration.
West describes “Undealt” as a song “about growing up and the challenges that come in life… Taking it one day at a time. It’s more a life song than a love song,” not far from Bob Dylan’s “Watching the River Flow.”
With a touring resume including performances at the BottleRock Festival in Napa, CA, followed by appearance at the 50 th Woodstock Celebration in Bethel, NY, and at famed rock photographer Danny Clinch’s Transparent Gallery in Asbury Park, NJ, Jack’s more than ready to hit the road again with new and old music.
As for his new life in Manhattan, “The city’s been treating me good so far,” he says.
Or, as he puts it in “Undealt,” “Life is what happens with plans that u make/Do something good, you’ll have no one to blame/So we take what we have from the best/And we leave what we got from the rest.”
Jack West may still be too young to drink, but he’s got the wisdom of an old soul.