Jewel Talks Her Secret Talent, Son Kase, Woke Culture, Mental Health Event

Discovered in a Southern California coffee house with little more than her guitar, Jewel would go on to sell more than thirty million albums, worldwide, starting with her breakout 1995 album, Pieces of You, which just celebrated its 25th anniversary last year. Hits like Standing Still, Hands, Who Will Save Your Soul, You Were Meant for Me, and Intuition, reflect Jewel’s inward journey and continue to resonate, worldwide, throughout our human culture. It’s no wonder The Voice producer, Mark Burnett, calls Jewel “One of the greatest singer-songwriters in history.”

Now, the forty-seven-year-old mother of one has devoted much of her public platform to mental health advocacy and what she calls her ongoing practice of “being consciously present” with her experiences. Jewel’s Never Broken movement offers mindfulness and mental health resources and what she calls “actionable exercises,” while her second annual World Mental Health Day Summit and Concert, is taking place, virtually, this Sunday, October 10th at TheWellness-Experience.com.

Jewel’s anticipated upcoming album Freewheelin' Woman, will be released in Spring 2022.

The following are excerpts from the latest episode of the Allison Interviews podcast with host and entertainment profiler, Allison Kugel, interviewing Jewel. The full podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify; and on YouTube. This interview is also available to publish in its entirety, as well as the excerpts below.

On the danger of “woke” culture:

"Right now, the world isn’t having a lot of authentic feelings, it’s having a lot of reactions. It’s using volatile and highly emotionally charged reactions to bully people into [specific] behavior. That’s the role type of being ‘woke’ now. I find that really interesting. Something I’m thinking about right now with my son is, “How do I implement him learning to self-assess, because we don’t want to have a reaction. We want to have a thoughtful and centered response.”

On other artists needing to get high to make music:

“I know a lot of artists that are stuck on a treadmill of self-imposed hatred and self-flagellation, because they believe it’s the only way they can make art. Or I have friends that just stay high, and they only can write when they’re high. Whatever you believe is true. I personally believe art is much bigger than that. Art is just the mirror of life. A mirror doesn’t stop being a mirror because you’re happy.”

On money and the material trappings of fame:

“I was lucky to be raised in Alaska with a lot of nature; big, wild, raw country. That was my church. I’m a really experience-based person and I wasn’t raised that way, nor did my personality ever feel hungry for material things in that way. My mom, however, she was very motivated by those things, and those things were very important to her. Money helps. Anybody that says money doesn’t help is full of it. It definitely cannot make you happy, which is why there are so many suicidal rich people, just like there are suicidal poor people, but it can remove a lot of stress. Having money for medical care, for airplane tickets, for food; those things have been such a relief in my life. But other than that, I’m just not too motivated that way.”

On the downfall of being rewarded for perfection:

“A lot of us are stuck on this hamster wheel of, ‘If I perform better, if I’m more extraordinary, I will respect myself, and I will earn the respect of others, and earn my way back into heaven,’ as it were. Perfection doesn’t exist, and so we’re constantly setting ourselves up for failure and pain. And God forbid you make money doing it, you know (laugh)? God forbid you become a high performing person who has been motivated by perfection and then rewarded for it.”

On finding the creative inspiration to write new music:

“I wanted this new album (Freewheelin’ Women, slated for Spring 2022) to be written from the ground up and reflect who I am now. I think I was forty-five when I was writing it, and it was hard! I see now why middle-aged artists do a lot of drugs (laugh).”

On whether she’s do a Las Vegas residency:

“I don’t know. Maybe if I thought of the right thing to do, or the right show. I did a Cirque du Soleil show about my life, as a charity thing, which was really fun, and I thought about doing it as a regular thing, but it’s a lot of work!”

On the real talent that led to her success:

“Something I’ve been surprised about in my own life is that what I thought were my talents didn’t actually help me in my life. The talent that really helped me was my persistence. That’s not a real sexy word. It’s not a word most people aspire to, but when I look back, just not quitting ended up being my best talent. Whenever I was faced with a challenge, just being willing to stand up and be willing to do something different today than I did yesterday; standing up again and trying something different today than I did yesterday. Again, it’s not a very sexy thing, but it’s why I have the life that I have. Everything else was sort of a dressing around it.”

On the less than glamorous side of her music fame:

“I think that whether it’s music or healing, people don’t get to see behind the curtain very much. It’s not pretty work. You don’t just arrive. It’s kind of a gritty process to get great at writing, to get great at singing, to get healthier and to get happier. I wish that people celebrated grit and not quitting.”

On raising her son, Kase:

“My son is a very emotional child. He is very creative. Something I’ve really been working on with my son is differentiating between a genuine emotion and a reaction. For me, it has been going back and really studying masculinity among indigenous cultures; the rites of passage from a male perspective, and not putting my female perspective on it. But instead, learning about masculinity in an indigenous way, as well as realizing I would have a tendency to want to over empower my child’s feelings. Teaching him that you can’t use your feelings as a tactic is really important for a child, especially for a child that has a mom that’s like, ‘I care about your feelings (laughs),’ which I do.”

About Journalist and Podcast Host Allison Kugel

Allison Kugel is a veteran entertainment journalist with more than three hundred long form celebrity and newsmaker interviews published and syndicated, worldwide. She is author of the memoir, Journaling Fame: A memoir of a life unhinged and on the record, and host of the new podcast, Allison Interviews, where listeners can tune in to hear the full conversations behind Allison’s print interviews. Watch and embed the entire interview video with Jewel @YouTube. Listen to the audio podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. Follow Allison Kugel on Instagram @theallisonkugel and at AllisonInterviews.com.