Secondhand Serenade is the emotive acoustic project of Californian singer-songwriter John Vesely. One of the defining breakout acts of the Myspace era, Vesely soared to global attention with his heart-on-sleeve debut album Awake. Nearly two decades on, the record’s impact hasn’t dulled and Vesely is celebrating its legacy with a tour, playing the record front to back.
This December, he’ll return to Australia for a run of shows that will see Awake come to life, elevated by a complete string section. I sat down with Vesely ahead of his shows to get an insight into what’s in store for the tour, as well as the impact that Awake continues to have.
You’re about to return to Australia for the first time in sixteen years. What does it mean to you to be able to come back after so long?
I have such fond memories of visiting Australia. It’s a place that I always wanted to go to growing up and I never thought that I’d get there through music, but I did and I got to go with The Fray that first time, which was an incredible experience. It’s just my kind of place with my kind of people, Ss I’m excited to come back there and see if they still want to listen…I hope that I don’t let anybody down. I’m so excited about this tour in general because it’s just one of those tours that it’s one of a kind. I’ve never done anything like it, so being able to share this with everybody when I go out there is going to be an incredible experience.
You’re celebrating 20 years of your album Awake, accompanied by a string section. Is the plan to do a full album playthrough, and how will you incorporate the strings into that?
We’ll be playing the whole record, among other songs. There will be a few songs off of A Twist In My Story as well, and we’re going to be incorporating a cover. The main grunt of the show is going to be Awake from front to back. And the strings are gluing it together in a way that I never really imagined. We’ve been working really hard to get the arrangements together over the past several months, and it’s really come to life. It weaves in together from song to song, and it creates this experience that is so new. It revitalises the whole idea of listening to this record. I’m very, very excited about that. I mean, just the intro into it- it just sets a tone for the whole show. It’s pretty wild to hear it like this.
You stepped into the spotlight during a time when MySpace was king. Do you feel that you still have a grasp on social media today, or are you out of your depth?
I have a lot going on and I’ve switched around my team a little bit so I feel like I’m kind of trying to just get back to the beginning and get back to the way that I used to do things, being hands -on with people. There was a while there with management and a label and an agent and all these people where I lost touch of being across every aspect and so things would just pass me by and then I’d get notified of this and that. Now I kind of did a whole restructuring of my whole team and I’m just way more hands -on right now and trying to build this tour, working on the new record and really just trying to fall back in love with doing this again. And I think that I’ve achieved that.
Back then, I was like a Myspace ninja, but TikTok, I mean, I don’t know it so much. Thankfully, I have a beautiful, very talented wife that has been crushing my TikTok in the last like month or two- She just knows what to what to post.
Thinking back to when you made Awake, what were your musical inspirations at that time?
At that time I was so passionate about music. I listened to it at work when I was writing my music and I would put on CDs at the time when I was writing Awake- I think I was working at Neiman Marcus and I was working in the men’s department, and there was a denim room so I had a little boombox because, you know, it was the denim room at Neiman Marcus- It was a little more edgy and younger. So I played my music in there and then I would write the songs out on receipt paper. I would just get inspired by a song and then I would just write. I still have the receipt paper that “Your Call” was like written on, and a lot of the songs ended up being on that receipt paper.
At that time, I was listening to Saves The Day, Get Up Kids, Yellowcard and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus- they’re kind of my sister band, I’ve played so many shows and gone on so many tours with them and so we have a great relationship. I was listening to Mae- they unfortunately never got as popular as they deserved to be because they were just such an incredible band. Mae’s The Everglow was a huge inspiration to me.
Are there any current artists that you listen to, or do you prefer to stick to the classics?
I’m in a duplicitous world right now because I’m very much in the emo world and the music that I make is rock and emo-acoustic. But then I also am in the country world because I produce and write with a lot of country artists in Nashville, so I definitely listen to a lot of country artists. I do love Hardy because he’s a rocker at heart… But then as far as pop stuff, I mean, literally anything that Ed Sheeran ever comes out with, I’m a huge fan of…When it comes to pop stuff, I could definitely get inspired by the production of it and some of the melodies, but if I really want to be inspired to write my music and do it in a way that gets me really pumped to do it, it’s got to be the original stuff, the stuff that I was listening to when I first started making music because that’s the headspace I want to be in when I create.
After tour wraps up, what’re your plans, music-wise, for the New Year?
I’m definitely going to take a little break because this is going to be the longest I’ve been overseas in one go. I think that we’re starting to put together some potential dates to bring this tour to the U.S, and then just get ready to be releasing more music and then start touring that next summer.
Secondhand Serenade Awake- 20 Year Anniversary Tour
Friday, December 19th – Max Watt’s, Melbourne VIC
Saturday, December 20th – Manning Bar, Sydney NSW
Sunday, December 21st – The Triffid, Brisbane QLD
Tickets are still available for all three dates, grab them HERE.
Header photo supplied by artist.
