Jacob Markus

Photos and Story

Clarksville’sHistoricDowntownDistrict,and throughthewhitenoiseoftrafficalonesaxophone isechoingoffthebuildings.Thebreathynotes amblethroughanabstractcomposition-complex, jazzyscalesthatdanceupanddownlikeachild chasingabutterfly,onlytofallintodeep, contemplativetones.Shoppersanddinerswalking alongthesidewalksmileanddropafewdollars intotheopencaseontheground.JacobMarkus stopsjustlongenoughtogiveashysmile,hislong jet-blackhairswingingashenodshisthanks.He’s tallandslim,hisbroadshouldersandstrongjaw payingtributetobothhisnativeInuitbloodand hisunyieldingperseverance.At25yearsold,he’s livedamorecolorfullifethanmostofthepassersbycouldeverguess.

It wasn’t easy learning from the best. “My step-dad was kinda tough, man! He set the standard for what adults wanted to hear, I guess,” Markus laughs. “He always wanted me to play country, because that’s what he played, but he was a perfectionist. If you want to play in Nashville, you know, it’s gotta be perfect. Even to this day playing country kinda gives me a panic attack, because If I got too busy playing over his vocals or other leads, he’d literally stop the song- he’d do that onstage, too! I had to learn pretty quick not to mess around, you know?” For Markus, positive reinforcement is now something he focuses on. “When I teach music to young kids, one of the things I try to make sure of is, are they having fun? Because the other stuff will come later, they just need to get used to the dopamine rush of having an instrument in their hands.” Markus counts one of his step-dad’s friends as a mentor as well. “Johnny Hiland, he was a renowned session player,” Markus remembers. “He would show me stuff when he was hanging around- I copped a lot of his bending techniques. He taught me to think of music like Classical music, in terms of themes and variations on those themes.” Markus continues to evolve his phrasing and improvisation. “Since I’ve been playing jazz, I’ve been soloing over a lot of chord changes, but you have to keep in mind when it’s just one or two chords, you gotta keep it interesting for like 15 minutes, that’s why I listen to bands like the Allman Brothers and others like that- they can keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time.”

For some, playing music is a pastime- a creative outlet to fill the hours between other, more pressing obligations. For Markus, it’s the lifeline, the singular constant in life’s chaotic equation. “The first time I remember seeing live music I was three years old. My dad was playing in an acoustic trio at the Jack Daniels Saloon at the Opryland Hotel, and I was just dancing, having a good time- and I was like, I wanna be around music the rest of my life!” Born in Connecticut and raised in Smyrna, Tennessee, Markus’s first musical influence came from the legendary figure of his Grandfather. An extroverted Vietnam Vet who played banjo during the height of the Upstate New York folk movement, his grandfather had made friends with Little Jimmy Dickens, one of the early golden-age stars of Country Music. Dickens’ drummer Gary West caught the eye of Markus’s mother and would soon become his stepdad, as well as one of his primary musical influences. With a home recording studio and a steady rotation of professional session musicians jamming out, it wasn’t long before Markus was holding an instrument - at 7 years old, he first tried the fiddle, but after struggling with the instrument, he soon turned to guitar.

After his-step dad and mom split up when he was 13 years old, Markus used music as his escape from the world. “I just came home from school every day and played. I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up.” Markus’s older brother had introduced him to the heavy side of rock music- death metal, punk, grindcore. “I just really liked the guitar harmonies in that stuff,” Markus says, finding beauty in a sound that some might find harsh.

After moving to Clarksville and starting school at Rossview, Markus joined the school jazz band. “They passed out a sheet of paper and you had to list your top three instruments you wanted to learn. Saxophone was my number one choice. Something just inspired me about how sax players were always chill, but also so sophisticated, you know? Really diverse, too.” It was here that Markus started learning the fundamentals of jazz. “It showed me that jazz is complicated, but not impossible! And it was kinda rebellious too, but my stepdad couldn’t knock it in the same way he could rock music.”

Through school, Markus met Patrick Long and started playing music together along with bassist Daniel Walker in a band called The Wicked Pines. “Patrick was an incredible R&B Soul singer and played guitar, so we were playing Jazz on the Lawn, Strawberry Alley, and Section 125 at age 16, you know?”

Without the financial means to pursue music at a college level, Markus knew there was only one way forward- start a band and go for it. He moved to Murfreesboro with drummer and songwriter friend Greg Gibson, and recruited Zac Pine on guitar and Andrew Shields on bass. Despite widespread differences in music taste, they started playing house parties together as an alternative rock/metal band, calling themselves From Worlds Alike. The sound was shaped by the influences of Nirvana and the Foo Fighters, with some metal and jazz in the mix as well. They moved into a five bedroom house together and, with Markus producing, recorded about 30 demo songs. After releasing “Pay to Play” as a single in 2017, the band recorded a full LP at Daniel Walker’s Cumberland Sound Studio, calling it “Joint Energy”. “I was given a couple grand for my inheritance from my grandfather. I thought, ‘What’s the most important thing I can do with this money?’ You can pay off some bills, but you can’t get back time and you can’t get back a legacy. I’m gonna hire all the session musicians, a recording engineer, and make this happen!” Markus put everything he had into the arrangements-writing out all the parts for the horn sections, and even using a chamber orchestra in one part. He ended up getting the album pressed to vinyl. “When I’m feeling nostalgic, I’ll throw it on. Henry Rives played on that album,” Markus says, referring to the well-known local musician who passed away earlier this year. Rives had played sax on “Breaking News” and “Want to Be.” “You can hear the last few notes on the song…it brings me back, you know?” In 2019 the band released an EP called “Whatever’s Clever,” recorded at Shed Recordings in Nashville.

The group also shot an underground music video together at the abandoned Frosty Morn factory in Clarksville. With that video and a collection of live show footage to go with it, they set out booking shows. “We’d have runs where we’d go out for a few months and play 50 gigs. It takes like six months to plan for that, I’m telling you I’d be sending a hundred emails a month, and you’d get like, five or ten gigs out of that. We were mainly hitting the East Coast- there’s just more towns, more venues. We played from Connecticut all the way down to Florida. Being a naive 20 year old, I was booking door gigs without guarantees.” This was a hard-learned lesson, as without guaranteed money paid by the venues the money collected at the door often failed to meet their expectations.

By age 22, Markus was feeling the pressure of time. “Time goes by so quick, man, and I didn’t want to be an old man regretting not taking those chances, you know?” He set out on booking the most ambitious From World’s Alike tour yet- all across the Western United States, from Mississippi down through Louisiana and Texas, up to Oklahoma and Kansas, New Mexico to Colorado, Nevada to California, Washington and Oregon, then Montana to North Dakota. After learning the ropes touring on the east coast, Markus knew the biggest expense for the band was lodging accommodations. To head that off, the band pooled their money and purchased a motorhome for themselves and their gear. “It was an ‘86 Ford Escaper! That thing was a P.O.S! It was falling apart- it had spray paint all over the sides and everything.” The band spent weeks getting everything ready for the tour, including having some 7” vinyl albums pressed along with some CDs and other merch. “We were already down to our last bit of money when we LEFT,” Markus laughs, entertained by the thought of it. “That tour was a disaster from the time we left until we got back.”

From the first stop, which was the Tour de Ville in Clarksville, the band had an almost comically bad run of luck. The RV overheated 15 minutes into the trip, so they filled it with radiator fluid as they went and made the Tour de Ville gig, which had disappointing attendance due in part to the band not having an established connection to the area. “We still went all out for anyone who stayed to watch,” Markus remembers, smiling. “I broke a beer bottle on the mic stand and started using it as a slide on my guitar! But it wasn’t how we really wanted to start a tour, you know?” Directly after the gig, they had to cancel two others while the RV was in the shop. “It cost $700 to get it fixed, and we had to live in it for two days with no air conditioning while they worked on it.” After losing a license plate in Mississippi, they barely had enough money to get to New Orleans. To add to the troubles, the RV’s gas tank wouldn’t take more than a quarter tank of gas at a time before it overflowed. Due to the frequent stops necessitated by the problem, they barely made the next show in New Orleans. “We made a couple hundred dollars and headed up to the next gig in San Antonio- and when we got there, they didn’t even know we were coming! The venue owner had asked for a show poster, and when they didn’t get one, they just canceled it.” Markus shakes his head. Following that they had a rough set at a street festival, with the Texas heat getting the best of them, and a small turnout. “Everyone was getting an attitude by then. Afterwards it had started raining, and I was standing under an awning, watching the motor home, when it started shaking back and forth-I started hearing screaming and yelling from inside and sure enough, the bass player tackled the guitar player right out the door and into the mud and rain, just fighting! I couldn’t believe what was happening in front of my eyes!”, Markus says, still in disbelief at the situation. Andrew Shields had had enough of playing bass in From Worlds Alike. He called his girlfriend to pick him up, cleared out his gear and some of the cash, and left them with nothing but a bass guitar. “I told Zac (the guitar player) he’d better learn to play bass by tomorrow or he was going with him!” Markus laughs. “We went to Guitar Center the next day and got a bass amp, and that’s what he did!” Things were going from bad to worse. “We were so broke we were busking at every Wal-Mart and Kroger on the way to Tulsa just to get gas money. I ended up having to shower at a homeless shelter before the next show,” Markus says, shaking his head.

Now unexpectedly a trio, they had to adapt the set list quickly. We couldn’t play a lot of our originals, as they were written for two guitars. That left us with a lot of country music covers, which actually worked in our favor in that part of the country!” The three of them set off for Las Vegas, where Markus had somehow booked a gig at a long-standing jazz lounge. “That was a disaster, man! Halfway through the first set, the owner came up and asked where our piano player was- he told us he’d only pay half what we agreed to, told us to get out after the next set,” Markus recalls, laughing as he shakes his head. After leaving Vegas, the RV again broke down, this time in the middle of Death Valley. “It was like 115 degree heat, and I just stopped caring at that point.” With no one to call, the band cleaned up some corroded battery terminals and got the old wreck moving again, just long enough to get them to the middle of Los Angeles on the infamous I-5 interstate, where it again left them stranded. “We were stranded for a week in LA while it got fixed. Greg started a Go-Fund me and it brought us $1200. I’m not the guy that asks for help, so I hated it, but it really helped.” At that point, they knew the RV wasn’t going to make it the rest of the tour, and they made the call to cancel the remaining 20 or so gigs and head for home. “We couldn’t risk being stranded out in Montana with all our gear, so we headed for home. It took 35 hours,” Markus laughs. That was the end of From World’s Alike as well. “We put out a couple albums and honestly, I learned everything I needed to from that,” Markus says, looking for the bright side of the whole experience.

The reset Markus needed was right around the corner, after meeting an artist in Indiana named Taylor Hernly. Hernly was getting traction as a dark folk, Americana singer-songwriter, and Markus hit the road with him going west again. “We had a good run, and it paid better than last time for sure! He opened for Jamie Johnson, and then Afroman just last month,” says Markus, impressed with Hernly’s momentum. Markus ended up playing sax on Hernly’s debut album “Sidewalk Preacher.” Soon after that, the pandemic shut the world down, and Markus moved in with his brother and his brother’s girlfriend. During the lockdown, Markus would deal with his stress by going out and playing in parking lots at 2:00 AM. “At that time, I didn’t have a lot of friends in Clarksville, so I just started going down to Open Mic night at Revel House. I guess people were impressed, and I started making connections and getting opportunities.”

Markusfeltaweightlift,anditrenewedhisdrivetopursuethedream.Theconnectionspaidoff,withMarkusnow playingsaxwithRaistlinDelisle’sbandCurlie,andguitarwithSamIsaac’sgroupOomami,whohejustrecordedademo with,recordedbyGavinGatesfromWyntonExisting.“Samisaninsanelytalentedsongwriter,justareallysmartdude.I wasecstaticwhenIgotaskedtoplayguitarwiththem.Itturnedoutreallygood,soyouneverknow!”InFebruarythis year,hetraveledwithEliPerron’sbandNewSuedetoPennsylvania.“Wehadtwoawesomeshows,cuttinguptogether, justgreattimes.”MarkusisnowthrowinghishatbackintotheNashvillering,aswell.“Istartedgoingdownthere almosteverynightrecently.Ididn’thaveanyconnections,butI’djustgopostupinPrinter’sAlleybythisbeautiful muralthatsays“Icandreamallday”orsomething-it’sgotabunchofbutterfliesandrainbows.Iwaslike,it’sperfect!” Markuslaughs. I’djustplayforhours.ThefirstnightImade$400intips!”Hegotnoticedquickly,andhasbeenpicking upgigsaroundMusicCityplayingsax.“ButIt’shardtomakeitasahornplayerthere,”Markuspointsout.“Bandscan’t alwaysaffordtopayahornplayerwhenthey’vealwaysgotaguitarplayerrightthere.Sothepathisn’talwaysclear.I havetofindasmanyone-offprojectsasIcantostayafloat.”

ThesedaysMarkuscanbefoundgiggingat105SocialonFranklinStreet,anewerclubwithaR&B,jazzyvibeheloves.“I alsoloveplayingPeppersMercado-thatplacehasalotofcharactertoo!Thesoundguyisawesomethere,hehassome bignamesbehindhim.Andofcourse,RevelHouse-Dawnisamazing,”Markusadds.“Themusiccommunityhereisjust unmatched-there’salotoftalentedpeopleherethatwanttoseeyousucceed.Eveniftheydon’tlikeyourband,they’ll comeoutjusttosupportyouasaperson.Also,thesupplyanddemandformusiciansherestaystogether-inNashville, thesupplyeclipsesthedemand.”

Wheredoesitalllead?ForJacobMarkus,it’saboutputtinginthework:“Ifyou’vegotaheadonyourshouldersandare determined,you’regonnamakeit-somehow,downsomepath.Successfulpeoplehavefailedmoretimesthanafailure hasevereventried!Everyminuteofthedayhastobespentdoingsomethingthatwillcomebackinsomepositive way.”Markusleansforward,speakingwithanintensitybornofhard-wonexperience.“TherearesomanypeopleI’d lovetoplaywith,butIhavetobecarefulwithmytime,doingthisforaliving.Certainthingsareworththeinvestment. Butit’sagamble,andit’sneverclearwhichwaytogo.Alotofit’stherighttime,therightplace.”Markussitsback, alreadythinkingaboutthefuture.“Myultimategoalistobemakingamuchmorecomfortablelivingoffmymusic-and thebestwayforthattohappenistopickupanartistgigasasideman,someonemakinggoodmoneyandtouring.Ifthat doesn’thappen,I’llputmystuffinstorageandplaycruiseshipgigswhilesavingupmymoney.”Markussmileswiththe do-or-dieconfidenceofamanwhoknowsthefutureiswaitingonhim-“Ittakesalotofworkandeffort.Yougottahave avision-anddon’tgiveup!”

I was there for the video shoot for Caleb Lake's song "Gloria".

I was there because he needed to borrow my drum set for the shoot, I also used it for an opportunity to possibly get him into my fledgling magazine. Never have I regretted that meeting! We have given this Hopkinsville native a lot of our attention in our five issues to date, and look at him! Up for three Josie Awards at the Grand Ole Opry! He absolutely KILLED at our show for Artsville. People are still complimenting his voice and musicianship. So happy to know this talented guy, Best of luck, Caleb!!