The music business, like many other industries, tends to reward people who can hustle.
That's a good sign for Canadian singer-songwriter JJ Wilde, who up until a few months ago was still supporting her art with multiple side jobs.
JJ tells Q104.3's Out of the Box with Jonathan Clarke that the bartending job she quit last year also overlapped with gigs as a server and a receptionist. But the constant motion left her well-prepared for a chaos and grind of life as a touring singer.
JJ's latest EP, Wilde Eyes, Steady Hands came about after an intense week of sessions with producer Frederik Thaee.
"I think it was like eight days or something where we literally just locked ourselves in the studio and fished through all of these voice notes and just had this insane writing experience," she recalls.
JJ brought hundreds of song ideas to the session, where she and Frederik turned out about three finished tunes each day.
"Mostly, for me, writing is a therapeutic way of dealing with whatever is going on in my life," JJ explains. "Sometimes I write songs and I don't know what they're about. Then it'll all just kind of spew out and then a week later, 'Oh, that's what that was about.'"
Watch the full Out of the Box interview at the top of this page.
Follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and get all of her tour dates here.
1 of 3 2 of 3 3 of 3
Here's the official music video for JJ Wilde's "The Rush":