Grammy winner Michelle Branch and singer songwriter Jessica Harp met early on in their fledging music careers--and as the two bonded over TCBY and tattoo’s at the Kansas City Airport, they formed a unique friendship as well as The Wreckers. With great harmony and downhome lyrics about life and love--their debut album, “Stand Still Look Pretty” is climbing the country music charts, as is their new music video, “Leave the Pieces” on CMT.
What many don’t know however, is that Jessica just happens to be a Kansas City, Missouri native. On tour with Rascal Flatts—Jessica dished to About.com poolside in West Palm Beach about the Wreckers, her influences, friendship and of course, her hometown.
We hear a lot about how you and Michelle (Branch) got connected in your early days, over TCBY at the Kansas City Airport..but nobody ever talks about how you got your start here in Kansas City. Give us the scoop on how you got started?
Sure, yeah-I started at a very young age, just doing small town grocery store talent competitions at the Big V in Kearney and stuff like that-singing anywhere I possibly could to get myself heard. Pretty much around that point is when Michelle and I started talking.
How did you two meet?
We were introduced through mutual fans on both of our websites when we were selling our independent records—trying to get record deals. And we had mutual fans which is virtually how we started talking. Michelle got signed to Maverick and she went on her first little radio tour and Kansas City was one of the stops.
So you went up and met her at the airport?
She had a layover at the airport and we wanted to see each other. So I drove myself up to the airport and we hung out-had TCBY. We really bonded and realized how much we had in common and instantly felt like we had a special connection.
You can say that Kansas City was the birthplace of the Wreckers!
Wow-that’s cool! It was fate that the two of you met.
Oh--most definitely.
I’ve been listening to your new album (Stand Still Look Pretty) over the last couple of days-it’s really amazing. Congratulations on that.
Oh, thank you!
One of my favorite songs on the album is “My Oh My”- it talks a lot about how things change, how people are changing and it mentions that you go to a place “long before a Sonic and the Walgreen’s”. Kansas City has changed so much over the last 10 years, did that have a big influence on that song? Or is it just about everything around you changing?
(Laughs)Oh, it totally has. It's really a little of both. I think when we sat down to write that song, Michelle and I were both thinking about different things. You know she had just found out that she was pregnant, which was a crazy thing—like WOW! One of us is getting married and having kids. And then I had just moved to Nashville and was living away from all the people and things I knew. I was on my own for the first time. It was a mixture of a lot of different things that were going on in our lives.
Along those same lines, Kansas City is a very diverse place-a little country, a little rock and roll and we’ve got the Jazz and Blues influences here. Does that influence you at all with your music?
Oh totally! It mostly been because of my dad-he’s been a huge music fan of all different kinds of music. So growing up here was always taking me places to listen to music--alll around Kansas City. So that added to my influences.
The Wreckers are touring with Rascal Flatts this summer—how fun has that been so far?
It’s so fun-we’ve had two shows and we’re doing our third show with them tonight. I’m speaking to you poolside in West Palm Beach. I’ve been sitting here, thinking this morning, how great our lives are....(Laughs)and how cool our job is.
Yeah, I’m a little jealous!
It’s pretty cool and for them to offer us an opening on their tour. That was so huge. We just put our record out and to get to play in front of that many people every night, it’s such an honor, really.
Now you’re heading to St Louis—any hopes of having a concert here in Kansas City this summer?
We’re actually still in the process of getting some club dates in between the Rascal Flats shows. I think we are going to have a KC gig, although, I’m not for sure when and where just yet. But I’m thinking it’s probably going to be sometime in July or August.
