Taméca Jones and Her Powerhouse Presence

A candid sit-down with Austin‘s very own “Empress of Soul.”

Taméca Jones, Austin’s “Empress of Soul.” Photo by Jon Currie. Creative Director: Isa Sofía Mikhail. Stylists: Isa Sofía Mikhail and Mel Tiller of Austin Tea Party.

Taméca Jones—known as the city's “Empress of Soul”—has been a fixture in Austin‘s music scene for more than 15 years. A native Austinite and fourth-generation Texan, Jones built her reputation through legendary Thursday night residencies at the Continental Club‘s Gallery upstairs, where intimate performances created magical connections with audiences. After a challenging stint in Los Angeles, she returned home to find an Austin music scene that had evolved dramatically. Now she‘s navigating the post-pandemic landscape while staying true to her soulful roots, working to move away from pop influences and return to the pure soul sound that first moved her.

Here‘s our full interview with the one and only Taméca Jones.

So you‘ve called Austin both challenging and home. And I want to ask, why challenging and why home?

Well, I was born here, so home of course, it‘s very familiar territory for me, right? Austin evolves, and it's changing. So it's become challenging to keep up with the changing musical landscape. It's been challenging to get people out to shows. My show attendance used to be super high. I used to make all my money from shows, but now it's just challenging to get people out. It's hard.

Why do you think that’s happening?

I don't know. It's hard for me to say because I'm a hermit. I didn’t used to be. Pre-pandemic, I was out there all the time playing shows. But now I'm in hermit mode. And I also don't play out as much because there's not as much money out here for me. Yeah, I [was] just at home when I got back, and when I got back from L.A., [my show] was very well attended. I made a lot of money. I'm back. [People say], "Oh, my God, I'm so glad you're back, Taméca."

And I'm like, "God, I'm so glad to be back home. L.A. was so hard and wore on my mental health." And I had residencies after that at Donn's Depot. It was terribly attended. I barely made it, I rarely broke even. My slot was at midnight… [so the] crowd was gone. I'm the headliner, so I should have played at 10 or 9. That's prime time now. It's a shift in the way people consume music here, or consume shows here. How late they are willing to stay out.

I get that.

Yeah. I'm Gen X. It's super hard for me to get used to social media and TikToks and Instagrams. And I used to be very popular on Facebook because I wrote a lot of rants, and people love my rants. It doesn't necessarily translate to show attendance, and that's something I've noticed over time.I don't have the money to invest in pictures and photo shoots. And it's been super hard for me to get back to where I was pre-pandemic. But that's anybody, honestly, that's a lot of people.

How would you say your relationship with Austin has evolved since you've come back and since you've been confronting these challenges?

I don't think it has evolved at all.

Why not?

I don't think I've evolved. Honestly, I'm so stuck in the pre-pandemic ways, and I don't think I've evolved enough to evolve with Austin. And that's also part of the problem. I just sit on my laurels. I just kind of mope. I'm kind of a moper sometimes, like, "Woe is me." But I'm hitting the pavement, because a lot of people really don't know who I am, right? A lot of transplants [came to Austin], so I have to reintroduce myself, and I'm tired. I've been in the industry for, I don't know, maybe 15 years.

Before you went out on your own, you were with a band called 8 Million Stories. Is that right?

Yeah. We’d play at this old club called the Lucky Lounge. I can't even remember. It was so long ago.

Taméca Jones first found her groove at the Continental Club Gallery.

You had your solo residency upstairs at Continental Club’s Gallery? That was a Thursday night gig, right?

Yeah, Thursday, every Thursday. And there were no stakes involved. It was just a fun time. It was a free cover initially, and I would make tips and whatever was at the bar, representatives at the bar. So it was back then. It was easy because it wasn't a record yet. I didn't depend on it to make a living. The second it turned into a cover charge, first it was $5: [I told the crowds], "No people, you're not going to want to come because [of the] $5 cover charge." They still came, so [they] packed it out. $10, still came, packed it out. And when it became a business, that's when it lost some of this magic. For me, it became a source of some deep [issues]. Honestly, it still is.

I can only imagine. I mean, it's really got to be a little nerve-wracking.

Yeah, because before, I used to live with my mother. Me and my friends, a single parent, I didn’t have that many expenses. I just paid for my children and other expenses and bills, nothing too heavy, you know, because I was a single mother.

[But after moving out of that situation,] I had to pay my own rent and car notes. Paying all those bills on the salary of a musician is almost impossible. It is impossible. Before the pandemic, I used to make about 80% of my income from private shows for corporations. They were like, “Oh, it’s Taméca Jones, Queen of Soul,” which is what I was called back then, before I made the name change. I used to eat off private shows. [Now, after the pandemic,] budgets have dried up. [A lot of those companies] forgot about me.

Thanks for mentioning the “Empress of Soul” title. You mentioned having to reintroduce yourself in a way. What would you say to those folks who have no idea who you are and why they should check you out?

I'm the worst at describing myself and hyping myself up. I'm the worst at that. I'm drawing a blank.

We'll let it marinate. Let me ask you this then. So that time period before it became a career, right, when it was pretty free and low stakes, and you're exploring and finding voice and honoring influences like Tina Turner and Chaka Khan and Aretha, when did it start to click for you that you were finding voice, finding connection, that this could be a real journey for you artistically? Do you remember? Was there a story or a moment where it sort of clicked for you? Was it selling out the $10 cover shows? Or what was it?

For sure, the Gallery was a magical time in my development. Just seeing the energy there, the passion for what I was doing, the reckless abandon I had when I was singing there, it all felt powerful. It solidified that I was something to other people, and that was special. What I was doing was special, soulful. It touched people. People would say, “Oh, I brought my date here, lady. We got married because of you.”

So I just connected with people through my shows at the Gallery. It was raw, and it was personal. There was no stage. We're all on the same level.

Oh yeah, I love shows there for that reason.

Intimate. Just a magical place. Every time I go back there, it fills me with joy and also a little sadness because that era is over—[the time when] I didn’t care. I mean, I don’t know. Not caring about money, but just that sense of innocence is gone a little bit. I would love to get that back. But, like I said, money corrupts a lot of things. It corrupts music for a lot of artists, and it’s corrupted it for me, absolutely—[especially because of] the [depth] of it.

I think a lot of artists would identify with that statement.

Yeah, and I'm probably one of the few artists who [doesn’t] have a day job. And I'm so jealous of other artists who have pivoted and gotten day jobs to make their income steady. They can do music when they want to. They can fund their music with their day jobs. They can have video shoots and photo shoots, and they can afford to play shows just to play shows. I can't. I can't do that. And I tried, trust me. I tried applying for jobs [like] administrative assistant, personal assistant, administrative things. I don't have the skill set to do those kinds of things. I've been [working on my] music for the last 15 years. So [I'm] kind of stuck.

I know that you've been playing Pershing Hall recently. Where else have you been playing around?

I've been playing at this place called the Meridian in Buda, really cool place. I don't play out that much anymore because it's just a huge risk.

Why is it a huge risk?

I've been burned so many times. I make a decent amount of money only to barely break even. I pay well. I try to take [care of my people]... to pay them well, and there's a minimum. But when I do pay them, a lot of times I end up walking home with nothing.

I think that's one thing, one thing a fan like myself doesn't really fully understand or appreciate: you carry a lot of financial risk when you play a show.

Yeah, a lot of financial risk because we're not all in this together. My band['s] employees show up for a set fee, they play for me, and then they go home. Because it's Taméca Jones, I assume the sole responsibility financially.

And so again, back to that kind of chicken-and-egg scenario. You need money to do the videos, the photos, the promo, and the marketing. But it gets hard to do that if you're already committed to carrying certain costs, like paying the band. Yeah, there may not be enough in the budget to do effective marketing, and in this new climate, where folks may not be showing up as much as they used to pre-pandemic, it sort of becomes like this storm you have to swim through.

Right. And also I have to pay my bills. I [get] assistance, you know, from my mother, because I didn't meet [the required] quota. I can't pay my bills. So I don't have any extra [money] or anything. I thought I was going to get the grant last year, and that [was] a source of disdain. It devastated me when I didn't get the City of Austin grant. What was it, $20,000?

Is it $30,000?

$30,000.

Had you received it in the past, or you just didn't get it last year, the first time?

Yeah, I applied for the first time last year, and I didn't get it, and that devastated me. That would have helped me out a lot. Money has always been [a] problem for me. And I also think I'm part of the problem as well. I don't seek out resources. I don't ask people to help me. Maybe someone would say, "Oh, I'm a social media marketer, and I can help you because I love you so much. I love your work, or I'm this," and I just don't like asking you to do this, [especially] for free.

What else can the city or the scene do to help combat, you know, some of these systemic challenges and create more opportunity for artists?

Oh, big question. That is a huge question, and that's a question Chaka [Jonathan “Chaka” Mahone of Riders Against the Storm] would have an answer [for], like, at the ready. Like, Chaka is so good at, you know, [being] ready. So good at that. I'm so bad at that because my therapist, I used to have this therapist, and I was talking to her about my money woes. She told me that there are different levels. On the first level is basic survival, like food, shelter, [and] the physical needs. Once you get that taken care of, you get to graduate to another tier, and I think that was friends and family or something. I might get the tiers wrong there. I have to look. But [there are] different tiers. One is friends and family, [another] is community, and [another] is, like, metaphysical, like philosophy. I think that's the last tier. When you have taken care of [those], then you could philosophize and you're like, "Oh, wow," meditate and stuff. But when you are trying to survive, it's hard to think about anything other than survival. For me personally, I'm just focused on survival. So it's hard for me to see, to go through the other tiers, you know, the community, and then, yeah, I think it was friends and family, taking care of them, and then it was community. And then it's like philosophical needs.

Well, let's talk a little bit about the music and where you are with the music. "Plants and Pills" came out last year. Is that right? 2024?

2024.

And you worked with Jonathan on that? Correct?

Yeah, Jonathan Diaz and Mike McInnis, yeah.

Well, how did it go? I read a little bit about how, you know, moving from live performance to studio made you a bit anxious, and also how you have this perfectionist energy sometimes and wanted to get it right. Were you happy at the end of the day with how it turned out and how it was received? And where are you now? How does that inform where you're going next in terms of getting back to soul?

I actually enjoyed making this album, and I would rather spend the rest of my days recording and writing, if I could.

It kind of flip-flopped for me because I used to love performing, but it flip-flopped because performing is [not a burden, but] it's a source of a lot of anxiety.

Writing a song, and it took me nine months to make the album because I got a grant. Actually, Black Fret, awesome. They actually approached me. He was like, "Do you have a project? And I was like, "Well, actually," and so I made my first album with that because I wanted it to be 100% me, and I wanted to show I was [a songwriter]. I wrote more songs that weren't about sex and longing. That was a lot of what I wrote. [I wrote] the song about the gun violence after the Uvalde shooting. I wrote a song about police violence. It just helped me become a better songwriter.

Hearing you share that about the process and writing those songs, and watching some of your performances of those songs, which are tremendous. It seems cathartic for you, in a way, to delve into some of those issues and write about them.

It was [cathartic] because you feel [powerless] when you see atrocities like that, and politicians aren't doing anything about it, and you see all these children dying and just gun violence in general. I wanted to write a song to be a vehicle for my frustration and sorrows. So that's why I wrote that song. And [regarding] the police violence I wrote about, I wrote "Paint Roses" about police violence. Well, I wrote "Wave and Smile" about [it as well]. We're, like, we're playing and plotting our revenge. We're plotting our ascent to the top, and we just have to wave and smile through it. So I wrote that song, not necessarily about female empowerment. Yeah, it was very cathartic for me, and I'm glad I did it, but I'm looking forward to the next thing.

So you've alluded to the next thing being more cohesive, more soulful. Any other details you want to share with me ?

I'm still working through whether I want to be kind of throwback soul, like how I started my career with "Cotton" and "The Sandman," because those songs seem to be really popular with people. Oh, I love "Padma." That's one of those songs that has stood the test of time. Also the "Sandman" song.

That makes sense. I've seen interviews that discuss how you want your audience to feel something—you want them to get up and dance. Is that fair, and is that more possible, if you will, if it's more organic than versus highly tracked?

I want to get back to the organic music versus track and loops, just an organic feel. I really shine when I'm off the leash, when I'm doing "Hard Father" or "The Sandman." [I've] noticed that. I've noticed that at the shows that I've played, it just feels better, unless [I'm] tethered. If that makes any sense, [there's] more interaction, because I feel [it's] from me, not from them. [They] already interact with me, but I feel like the music I make now, I'm so in my head about it being perfect because [it's] tracked, and I can never sing it the same way I did in the studio. It feels like I'm in a box. I don't emote as much, I don't look at the crowd, I don't dance on stage. I'm in one place trying to make this perfect because [it's] hard to recreate what I did in the studio, and that's so hard.

Given how candid you've been about the challenges you face, what advice do you have for up and coming artists, especially female artists?

Okay, I think the female musicians up and coming have more information [than] I would [have] coming up. They have jobs, and they're great, they're so savvy. So they can teach me something, honestly. They're savvy. They collaborate with other musicians, [which is] something that I didn't do, [but] I'm trying to do now. I don't think you'll [get anything], other than the mistakes that I've made. Don't focus on Austin. Don't focus on Austin, Texas. [There's so much] outside of the city. I wish I had known that, but I'm going to raise this [point], because sometimes I get trapped in this bubble, like it's a steel bubble in Austin, and you're like, Austin, South by Southwest, ACL Festival, and there's [more out there].

Just don't get blinders. Don't just stay in the city.

Is there anything I haven't asked about that you want to make sure we capture?

Well, I do talk a lot of smack about the city. [Like], 'Oh, the city of Austin hates me,’ but I have murals, and that's great. And the city loves me. [I’m a] member of Austin Soul. A lot of [what] I think some of my tribulations have been… [are just] me getting in my own way, and me feeling like ‘[woe] is me’ and just [falling into] self-victimization. And I know a lot of artists who just go after it and don't sit back, and I appreciate that.