Creating music he would want to listen to and blending sounds from 60s/70s rock to modern pop, singer-songwriter Jake Thistle is making a name for himself, with the influence of major rock icons like Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen and modern-day producers like Jack Antonoff helping to guide his artistry. Growing up in New Jersey, with the music-infused state of New York right next door, has been rewarding for him, giving him opportunities to perform on stages and work with local musicians and producers, immersing himself in the diverse music scene.
Thistle’s first release since 2023, “Carpool Lane,” is a step in a new direction. Through the track’s honest lyricism, he shares that he has his eyes on his future and is ready to celebrate freedom, despite the downside of being tethered to yourself and the feeling of emptiness. Continuing this chapter of new beginnings while staying true to his roots, Thistle is releasing another single, “The City Whispers,” today, June 11.
In an interview with Melodic Magazine, Thistle discussed his newest singles, influences, performing, and what to expect next.
Your newest single, “Carpool Lane,” which was released on April 11th, marks your first studio release since your 2023 EP, The Half Left Out. How does it feel to finally release new music again?
Oh, it feels incredible. I had such a blast recording The Half Left Out, but that was really a collection of my first studio releases in general. We recorded it over about a five-month period right around the time I signed with my label at first, so it was great to get in with the band and it was a lot of trial and error and figuring out what I like.
“Carpool Lane”’s theme of freedom and opening up doors is very fitting, granted that you made your comeback with this track. Do you feel as if this track signifies a new chapter in your artistry and your life?
Yeah, I definitely think so. We tried to pick our first single carefully, we’re gearing up to a, to a full release so that it’ll probably be somewhere around the ballpark of 12 songs. But, we knew we wanted to start releasing music right away, we were really excited to get something out.
We have, at least as of the time of “Carpool Lane” being released, we had five songs recorded. So it was long conversations about what we wanted to lead off with and we landed on “Carpool Lane” I think, because, you know, thematically I think it kind of worked, but it also just seemed like the right time.
I think it’s a good bridge between what I’ve done in the past and, and some new songs. The person who produced that, he also produced the majority of the tracks in my previous record. It’s got kind of a similar sound, but I still think it’s a step in a new direction. And then, we’re gearing up with some new music next week, and that’s with a different producer, and so I’m just excited to see sort of where it goes.
In what ways is this track, and your upcoming new releases, different or similar from your previous works?
For sure. I think, in a lot of similar ways I’m sort of writing with the same sensibilities and I really just try to write songs that I think I’d wanna listen to or at least hope I would. And so I’m sort of coming at it, I want this release to be a little bit bigger and a little bit more full band. The first release I ever did, we’re coming up on five years now, was almost entirely acoustic. There was some light piano and bass over dubs, but it was, for the most part, almost entirely acoustic.
And then The Half Left Out was full band and we had a lot of great people coming in and playing parts and I ended up doing a lot of parts on some other songs too. But it still was a little bit of that singer-songwriter vibe. So as much as I love that for this new record, I’m trying to be a little louder, a little faster and bring in some more live elements that I can then hopefully get people on their feet at the shows.
Continuing on the track of talking about new music, you have another single, “The City Whispers,” coming out on June 11th. This track dives into the vulnerability of growing up next to a big city filled with opportunities, giving you inspiration but also a sense of intimidation. How has growing up in New Jersey, with New York close by, influenced your artistic path and opportunities as well as this track?
I’m really grateful for where I grew up. There’s such a great music system around where I live and then really throughout the entire state, but then especially right over the river in New York, I mean, it’s such hallowed ground in terms of, you know, singer-songwriter genre especially and rock music as a whole. And so I’ve been really, really fortunate, not only to sort of grow up idolizing that, but also to get to work with the local musicians around and a lot of them have been, really just so tried and true in their own right in terms of making their footprint in the industry.
I never really took formal lessons to learn how to play or anything like that, I mostly learned on stage, so getting to be a part of a sort of community that has been so tried and true and playing for 40, 50 years. I just did a gig last week in the Village in New York, and it’s really cool to be walking around there and looking at and recognizing all the spots from stories about Bob Dylan and Springsteen and like all these people that came through. So I’m super happy with where I grew up and I think that definitely impacts my writing a lot. I grew up in Paramus, so certain parts of town you can see the city and the skyland and sort of the glow coming out even though it’s about 15 miles away, so it did always kind of grow up on my mind.
On “The City Whispers” you got to work with Butch Walker, which was probably incredible and very fulfilling as a 21-year-old musician. What was the experience like getting to collab with someone who has been successful in the industry and has a lot of knowledge on creating music?
It was incredible. He is such an amazing mind, production-wise, arrangement and just overall an incredible person, so I was incredibly grateful. I went down, I’d never met him before when I went down to record this song, we recorded it at the tail end of the summer. I went down just for about a week in Nashville to write and record with a bunch of people and he was sort of the first stop and it just was instantly incredible. He’s got a beautiful studio down there, and so getting to spend a couple days there and sort of get this song out was really a lot of fun. It was one of those things where you walk in and you can just immediately tell he’s here, you know, where he is sort of in his stature in the music industry for a reason. And he’s just as is one of the quickest and best production minds I’ve worked with. So we did a couple songs together and hopefully more in the future.
You’ve talked about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers being one of your big influences. And your music is also compared to Bruce Springsteen’s and explores some of the sounds that came from the 70s/80s rock scene. Why do you draw inspiration from artists from that time and in what ways has their style and musicianship shaped you into the artist you are today?
I’m not sure exactly what draws me to that period, but something certainly has and so it’s really been a constant my whole life. I sort of got into music for the first time when I was three years old and my parents let me stay up to watch the Super Bowl thinking I’d get into sports or something, which was not necessarily the case, but that was the year that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played the halftime show and for whatever reason, I was just mesmerized by it. And so I would go on YouTube and it was still early days of YouTube at that point, but it would still recommend the algorithm. You know, if I like Tom Petty, I might like these people and, and these people. And so that sort of cast a wide net of the people I listened to. So that became, some of my biggest influences early on and of course still now.
I’m not sure specifically what draws me to it other than the fact that I think the songs are really timeless. And I’ve had a lot of fun now, of course, now that I’m a little older and I’m working with the label and trying to make contemporary music, I listen to a ton of, of modern hits and the music that’s coming out today. I have such a blast sort of hearing these people that are influencing me, that are the younger, you know, people coming up and hearing that my other influences have also influenced them. And I love sort of taking that tangent and seeing how somebody like Jack Antonoff or The War on Drugs or somebody like that would interpret Tom Petty compared to how I have in the past, or Springsteen or whoever it may be, so that’s always been a fun sort of learning experience to mash all that together.
As a 21-year-old musician in 2025 that creates music reminiscent of the 70s/80s rock/folk scene but with more of a poppy element, do you feel that your discography and sound fits in with this 2020s era of music? Or how do you make this style of music work in this time period?
I think so, I think it at least works to a certain extent. I just try to make music based on what I think I’d wanna listen to and so a lot of that yes, does come from sort of that 70s/80s classic rock vibe. But I think there’s a lot of those elements that have, at least in some form or another, trickled down into the modern music today. And so I think especially if you’re looking for it, there’s a lot of it that’s happening now and I think some of the best writing and production standpoint and everything is currently happening and I think it’s trending upwards anyway. I look at the music that’s popular right now compared to maybe 15 years ago or something, and I almost am always gravitating towards the stuff that’s popular now and I’m really excited about a lot of stuff that’s happening in the music industry in general. I think it’s definitely a sort of gap to bridge, but luckily there’s a lot of really talented people who are doing it now on much higher levels than me that I can sort of look to and appreciate. I mentioned Jack Antonoff, but he’s great at sort of that modern retro 80s thing, as is The 1975 and The Japanese House and all bands like that.
On April 12, you played a sold-out show at The Wonder Bar in Asbury Park to celebrate your 21st birthday and debuted some new songs. Having grown up in New Jersey playing 21+ bars for almost a decade, how did it feel to finally be 21 and celebrate your birthday on stage?
It was a lot of fun. I was really glad that show worked out because I sort of set my heart on doing a 21st birthday show at the Wonder Bar for years now because I love the Asbury Park scene. It’s been great to me and the people at the Wonder Bar have been incredible to me as well and I’m super grateful for the opportunities that they’ve given me. But I won’t say that it wasn’t a, at least an uphill battle for a little bit to work there because they’re a strict 21+ venue and so, there was times I would play there, but I had to, you know, kind of go in through the back door or not sell merch and just stay in the green room or something like that so I wasn’t out in the bar. I totally get their rules, but definitely there was sort of a moment where like, all right, well when I turn 21, I wanna do it for real. So it was a lot of fun and I’d played there a bunch before, but this was my first real headline there and it had been my first headline in Asbury Park for about a little over a year actually as well, so it was, it was a great time to come back and bring the band and play an extended set in Asbury.
We had some, some of my friends, you know, that were local in the area, came and sat in and I tried to make it as much of a sort of community event as I could and so I was really grateful they had me and I hope everyone had a good time. I definitely did.
Shortly after your birthday celebration, you hit the road with Fantastic Cat on May 1st and opened for them on their East Coast dates. How was that experience opening for a folk-rock band and getting to sing some of your new songs in front of a live crowd?
It was great. I love Fantastic Cat, I’m a huge fan of them as musicians and people, so I’d known them from the scene a little bit. I’d opened for one or two of them individually, but we’d never done anything sort of extended together, so I was super grateful to get that call. We were there May 1st to May 11th, and we started in DC and we ended in New Hampshire. And so it was one of my longer runs that I’ve done. I’m still in college, so I try to do relatively local runs, so I could still get back and do classes or whatever, but I arranged to have some of my finals, you know, I was allowed to do them online, which was nice.
Yeah, it was incredible and getting to do those markets with Fantastic Cat who are some of the most fun shows, you know, they don’t take themselves very seriously, but they take their music very seriously and they’re just some of the funniest people to be around. It was definitely a great learning experience.
Do you have any future creative plans like music videos in the works or any headlining/opening performances coming up? Or anything else people should look out for?
Yeah, absolutely. I’m recording a lot this summer, so I’m really excited for that. We’re gonna try to travel a little bit and record in some other markets and just get some new sounds and musicians in, so I’m really excited for that. And yeah, sometime at, you know, in, maybe in the early winter, we’ll be putting out a new record, so I’m super excited to finish that process and it’s one of my favorite things to do.
For years I was always pretty much exclusively a live player. I started playing live when I was nine and I didn’t put out a record till I was like 17 or 18. I always love playing live, but now that I’ve gotten to be in the studio, I’ve learned that I love that as much, if not more. I love being in the studio, so I’m excited for that. We’re gonna be doing just about one single every eight weeks until the record comes out, so there’ll definitely be more to listen to.
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