Beaumont Music Festival: Jessie Bird interview

Jessica Dostie is an Albertan singer-songwriter, performing under the name Jessie Bird. Having been performing for almost 18 years, Dostie just started to record and release music within the last year. Her first release, “If This Is How Sorry Goes,” was released April 11, and her most recent release, “Brighter Days,” was released on June 13. 

After her set at the Beaumont Music Festival, The Gateway chatted with her about her recent and upcoming releases.

Dostie said the change in mindset between writing to perform and writing to record was “a lot more relaxed and more goal oriented.” For Dostie, preparing to play live was a lot more stressful. 

At the beginning of her career, Dostie said “it was nerve-wracking because it was mine. But Soho in Edmonton had an open mic and they were so welcoming and so open that it made it easier to write and perform.” 

More recently, with a couple releases in the discography, Dostie is prepping to release her debut EP, The Way Love Goes, this August.

Dostie said the upcoming release is about relationships. “Romantic relationships and the different facets of that. But, mostly the pieces that we don’t like to talk about or don’t have a clean resolution.” 

“It’s cathartic. It helped me process things and I think that happens for a lot of songwriters,” Dostie says

Dostie added that “I almost called it songs that you could just cry in your room to, it’s really vulnerable. But it’s important we talk about those things and that we create spaces for those things.” 

For this upcoming release, Dostie wants to connect with listeners. “If I can connect with one other person who’s like, ‘oh my goodness, I’ve felt that way before or I’m feeling that way now,’ then I’ve done what I came here to do,” she said. 

The writing process of this upcoming record was a healing experience for Dostie as well, she said. “It’s cathartic. It helped me process things and I think that happens for a lot of songwriters. We write to get through things and deal with stuff, figure out what it all means,” she explained.

The upcoming release is also to be released physically on CDs. “I’ll have my EP online, but there’s a lot of us who really appreciated still having physical copies. I think digitally streaming loses a bit of the magic. And I don’t know if it’s the magic of the CD or if it’s really just nostalgia, but I do feel it loses a bit of the sound.”

Dostie finished off saying that “I think for anybody who is thinking about writing or writing in their room hidden away, it’s never too late to sing and get your stuff out there. I’m in my 40s now, and it’s just never too late.”

Dostie’s upcoming release, The Way Love Goes, is expected to be released this upcoming August, and can be found on her website.