94.1 The Zone and Crossfield Heating & Air Conditioning Holiday Hangover

94.1 The Zone Presents the Crossfield Heating & Air Conditioning Holiday Hangover w/Judah & The Lion, and Jonah Kagen

To paraphrase John Lennon, life is what happens when you’re busy making other albums. After recording 2022’s Revival, singer-songwriter Judah Akers decided to creatively face the fact that his own life had imploded.

Over their decade as Nashville’s crossover folk heroes Judah & the Lion, Akers and mandolinist Brian Macdonald had built a strong enough foundation to explore both darkness and light. Not long after college, the hardcore fans of the Lumineers and Mumford & Sons made their 2014 debut, Kids These Days, then broke through with the genre-blending Folk Hop ‘n’ Roll in 2016. With 2019’s Pep Talks, they revealed the musical confidence to grapple with real life struggles, setting Akers’ candid dispatches on alcoholism and family trauma to their cohering mix of acoustic roots and Alt Rock. But throughout the creation of 2022’s Revival, after the departure of longtime banjo player Nate Zuercher, Akers kept a tight lid on some grinding personal agony that was keeping him frozen, creatively and in life.

The band had made Revival during the pandemic, with the intention of bringing more positivity to the world. But during its creation, “I was fighting for my marriage, going crazy, and getting sick,” says Akers, 33. “ I fought writing about what I was going through. Finally, a friend told me, ‘If you don't write about the biggest heartbreak of your life, you can’t be honest in your work.’ And he was right.” Since Akers and Macdonald are both sons of therapists, ideas like Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief were relatively close to hand, and once Akers committed to the harder material, the concept emerged as an almost inevitable album conceit. “It gave us a way to embody the tough and sometimes really negative emotions that I deal with in songs, but within a larger framework of empathy, forgiveness, and hope.”

Embodying contrast, Savannah GA native Jonah Kagen approaches the guitar with the instinctual know-how of a virtuoso, but also pens lyrics that are both deeply personal and universally relatable making them instant festival singalongs much like his influences before him, Townes Van Zandt, Jason Isbell, Andy Mckee. At just 24 years old, Jonah Kagen has already cut impressive figures with over 250 million global streams on the heels of his largely self-written and produced critically acclaimed debut EP The Roads and recent single “God Needs The Devil.” Much of Jonah’s musical inspiration draws not only from the people around him, but nature as well, which he’ll have no shortage of as he heads out to perform at various festivals this summer and opening for Chance Peña this fall. followed by a stop at Nashville’s storied Americanafest. The exploring won’t stop there as he’ll immediately move into his newly acquired Airstream, which serves as both home and studio, to continue finding inspiration in the world around him. An exciting new voice bringing undeniable energy and sincerity through his multifaceted sound, Jonah Kagen is one to watch.

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