Meet Jonah Wakefield

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jonah Wakefield. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Jonah, so great to have you on the platform. There’s so much we want to ask you, but let’s start with the topic of self-care. Do you do anything for self-care and if so, do you think it’s had a meaningful impact on your effectiveness?

For me personally (Jonah, guitarist and singer of Milk St.), there was a huge learning curve with learning to balance everything Milk St. related and my own personal life/self care. The band takes up a huge part of me, and is definitely an extension of who I am both creatively, emotionally, and in my day to day tasks. I do all of the booking and advertising myself at this point, and for a long time felt like I always had to be working on it in some way, which culminated in spending a lot less time having experiences outside of the band and band related activities. This is awesome when we’re touring or creating, but staring at a computer screen 6-10 hours a day for a few months can really sap you of creative drive, and leaves us with a lack of music to actually be promoting and touring on! This led to me having to shift my mindset and start prioritizing my self during certain times of the day, or even take full weeks for this. I enjoy creating obviously, so in turn, doing things like meditating, going hiking, going on personal drives that don’t involve the band, read, etc, leads to me being more productive band wise in the long run. I like to think of myself as a battery or canister creatively that needs to recharge by experiencing other things that inspire me (lately it’s been a lot of beat era authors as well as Blind Melon / Modest Mouse documentaries), or even just taking in experiences like hiking local mountains in Maine where I live and things like that. I’ve found that meditating every day has also made me more able to be in the moment with the things that inspire me, or even when doing things a little less enjoyable like booking on the computer for instance. Being in the moment and willing / open to what’s in that specific moment has helped me so so much to be more creative / not have burnout with my process within the band.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I sing / play guitar in the band Milk St. as well as run a recording studio and DIY venue space in Bangor, Maine. I’ve been playing music since I was 7 and have been making it since I was 12 or so, and sort of always knew it was something I wanted to do. A big part of my life has always been traveling and I really live for new experiences and meeting new people / interacting with their communities and life styles. So it was really either travel aimlessly with this in mind on my own, all the while making music as a hobby, or be in a band and do all that through touring and making music with my best friends. The sense of family through this whole experience is really what I live for with it all the most to be honest. Making music is part of me and what I output, but making all the friends we make on tour, and having experiences with my bandmates Harry and Gabe are really what makes it for me and what I get out of it all. Even the act of playing is an exchange of energy back and forth and a conversation / experience we share with the audience. That’s what I’m really drawn to. Our newest record V3RM0NT is really all about that. For me, when I was writing it, it really was a concept record about my experience moving out of my parents house and searching for this sense of stability in relationships / family dynamics that I never had a true sense of growing up. Don’t get me wrong, my parents loved me and I value the relationship I had, and still have with them, but they were young when they had me. How old I am now actually. I’d definitely screw up a kid too a bit if I had one now, ya know? The album is all about realizing that and reflecting on that and learning to heal and find your own community and finding that within even if that need be. It wasn’t planned or anything like that, it sort of just became that, and I figure if I feel that, some other people my age probably feel that and if that makes them feel less alone, or if I can make them feel part of a community or even a sense of family like I’ve been searching for, through my music even, that’s what I want to do.

We’re prepping to go out on our first Midwest Tour coming up and have a split EP that isn’t announced yet coming out later this year, as well as a full album that we’re writing currently that’ll probably come out some time next year, so keep your eyes peeled for all that! We have our music on all the things like Spotify, Apple Music, BandCamp, even Deezer and stuff, but we post mostly on Instagram!

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Honestly the biggest skill I’ve learned through this whole journey is being able to go with the flow. My dad always called it rolling with the punches, but to me that always implied some level of negativity viewing yourself as someone getting punched down. I just trying to always flow with how things pan out, while trying my hardest to accomplish what I want. Things become what they want to be ya know? That’s not to say that you can’t control outcomes or try at something, but especially creatively, if I’m writing a song and I keep accidentally playing a different note or chord or saying a different lyric over and over during practice, that’s probably what it’s supposed to be whether I like it or not. That sort of goes for everything in life whether its relationships, jobs, etc. You can’t cram a square block into a circle hole. I think also making sure to take time to live in the moment has been a super huge skill that’s helped me more than most things. Not only does this allow me to be more creatively receptive when we’re writing, but it allows me to acknowledge things that make me happy when they do, as opposed to glossing over moments just trying to get to the next one. It’s benefited my relationships, my life style, everything. It kind of is the same concept but having patience with my life and the world around me has helped me so much too. I don’t mean a wait and see kind of patience like we usually think about. That just gives a lot of anxiety in my experience, but I mean having the patience to slow down and say, “okay don’t worry about what’s going to happen later or outcomes, just have the patience to exist right where you are and see what’s good around you.”

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?

Over the past year we’ve added Harry to the band as our new drummer, which happened shortly after we changed our named to Milk St., released our new record V3RM0NT, have gone on 4 tours all up and down the east coast, and have played with some bands and artists that we’d always wanted to! We really didn’t stop touring from last May until May 2024 save for Christmas I guess but we hit the pavement really hard and didn’t stop! Everything I’ve talked about until now I really learned over this past year and through all of the experiences we’ve had, and for the first time in my life I feel like I really actually have a handle on things both with the band as well as with myself and my emotions. It took a lot of work but it’s a really great feeling. Don’t get me wrong, we have a lot of work to do still with both departments but that’s just life ya know?

Contact Info:

Image Credits

David Conlogue
Cameron Cropley
Sam Melanson
Mia Smith

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