NYC MUSIC COVERAGE - POSERS FUCK OFF

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ARTIST INTERVIEW: JEROME SLOSS

Jan 27 2025

by Mary

(Jerome on sax) (listen to his work here)

----------------

It’s a tenor sax Jerome is playing.

Brassy, intimate and timeless. He’s robotic, fingers decisive and uninhibited, but there’s more. There’s a tenderness, a precision which only comes from devotion. You can hear it in the music.

“It’s a mashup of Neo-soul, gospel, R&B, and jazz," Jerome said.

It’s a display of emotion, a declaration of love. The music feels safe, loving, intimate.

“It’s everything,” he said. “It’s my love, my trauma, my happiness, my excitement, my lust at times, too.”

----------------

----------------

The piano dances in the background, the bass beats underneath like a pulse. A horn plays with Jerome’s sax, a dynamic he described as “conversation.”

“When you see me up there playing, whether it’s on my saxophone or my talkbox, I’m at my most free.”

But Jerome, like all of us, needs money.

“We probably would have been on tour by now,” Jerome said, “but I had to take the long way.“

----------------

----------------

Jerome moved to New York around three and a half years ago, leaving his home state of Indiana. At work he delivers packages in ten hour shifts, 11 am to 9 pm, so he can make music.

“Until I have more money or until a label want to sign me, I have to have that nine-to-five,” Jerome said. “And it’s not because it provides me comfort, it just gives me access to these spaces, to be able to create, and to provide an environment for my band to create together.”

Though it constantly damages us, capitalism is just an idea, Jerome says. Music is real, and universally accessible.

“It doesn’t cost money for me to blow into my horn, to play piano, that’s free,” Jerome said.

Capitalism still rages like an unattended dumpster fire. Landlords still knock at our doors. Rent is eternally due.

“There are so many creative, incredible people out there that we haven’t even met yet, that are being blocked by this whole paywall, by funds.”

But music is real. Remember that. It’s outside of the Matrix, Jerome said.

“The Jerome you see on stage with his horn or talkbox, that’s Neo,” he said. “That’s me being free.”

----------------

----------------

Thank you so much to Jerome for the wonderful interview. Follow him on instagram (@jeromesloss) and listen to his work.