Platinum Hit: Jes Hudak Speaks!

Were there any songs that you wrote on the show that you thought underperformed, or weren’t happy with afterwards?

It’s hard to tell, especially when you’re in that experience and it’s such a little bubble. But there’s definitely songs that I think could be better—I really feel like Nick and I missed the mark with “Save Yourself,” I really wish I could go back and re-do that whole song with my original hook, and keep that original hook as the hook of the song, as the judges said we should’ve done.

Any songs that you came up with that you thought were exceptionally great?

Yeah, I’m actually really proud of the third episode, the Road Trip challenge, the song that Amber Ojeda and Melissa Rapp and I wrote called, “Free,” on Bravo it’s called, “Home for Me” but on iTunes it’s called “Free”—not confusing at all—but that is probably one of my favorite songs of that I’ve ever written. It’s a very personal and emotional song and I’ve gotten a huge response from fans — just a whole bunch of new listeners who have never heard me before, and once they heard “Free” they were like, “We love you!” I am very happy about that song.

Do you think the judges were fair? I guess it’s a difficult job, they have to make quick decisions…

Yeah, it’s hard because music is so subjective—that’s the thing, after the judges make their decision, then people in line are like “what are they talking about? This is my favorite song I’ve ever heard. How could they say that it’s bad?” You know? It’s very, very subjective but luckily our judges are such badasses that they know what they’re talking about and you better believe that I’m going to listen to what they’re saying.

How was your career going before the show?

My career was actually going super well. 2010 was the first year that everything really clicked—I put out a record when I was 14 and I’m 29 now, so it’s been 15 years of every day being like “today’s the day I’m gonna make it!” I put out that record when I was 14, I put out a record in 2002, just all written by me and put out independently. Last year I put out an EP called National Holiday, also independently, but that is available on iTunes. And last year I was selected to play at the Lilith Fair.

I’m finally getting attention and winning awards, I won the Billboard World Song Contest in pop. And I collaborate with a bunch of hip-hop artists, our hip-hop record was #3 on the CMJ charts, so I was actually just going full steam ahead and finally popping off, and so it just kind of made sense that this opportunity would come along that was the next level because we were just doing everything that we—my little team–had to do to get to this point. It’s been quite an exciting couple of years!

Before the show, did you have any kind of songwriting instruction or did you just sort of teach yourself?

I had just been writing songs my whole life pretty much, and I’ve worked with other songwriters. When I first moved to New York I had songwriting friends who would kind of mentor me—there’s one amazing songwriter named Jenny Bruce—she kind of helped mentor me in those early days. The whole thing about collaborating with other writers is that you’re instantly going to get better, because you’re seeing things from a different perspective and getting advice and the experience of somebody else. That’s why I feel like collaborating with other writers is so important, because that’s kind of like instruction, and how you’re going to get better.

There was a review for the very first episode of Platinum Hit, where the critic wrote that he imagined the contestants had the hooks already written in their head before the show, and then they would come on the show and tailor them to the challenges…

I definitely think some people did that. I personally didn’t just because I wanted to win because of the work I did there, so I never re-used anything. And also, if this is about getting better and pushing yourself, why am I going to use something old? Why wouldn’t I want to write something new with this new advice and Jewel telling me what to put into it and stuff; I want to start from scratch. So I definitely went into it without any of my old hooks. I’ve written a lot of songs in my day, and a lot of songs that nobody’s ever heard, but I just really wanted to win for the right reasons.

Who else did you bond with on the show?

I love Amber, she and I wrote the Road Trip song together and we just get along, we’re friends and we hang out to this day. We just immediately liked each other. And then, Jackie Tohn who is on the cast is actually one of my best friends. We’ve been friends for years and actually have a cover band together, and both got on the show completely independently of each other, which is crazy.

What kind of cover band?

Well, she was on American Idol season 8 and she actually made Top 24. Our band is called Powerfox and Ponymane and yes we have a YouTube channel. It’s quite exciting, she plays ukulele and I play keytar and we cover songs. Like when Idol is on we mimic the Idol themes, we do mash-ups of the songs that people did on Idol. We just kind of do it for fun, because as a songwriter and a performer you have to take yourself so seriously all the time, and it’s your name and it’s your brand. And this was just a way for us to  have fun singing together songs that we want to sing.

Who are some of your musical heroes that made you want to start writing?

Well when I first started writing music on the piano, I wasn’t really aware of a lot of piano artists. And then of course I discovered Tori Amos and that kind of changed my world, because I realized that you could be on the radio and be a girl and play that piano. So like, Tori Amos and Fiona Apple and Sarah McLachlan were huge influences when I first started writing.

Who are you really into right now?

Let’s see, there’s definitely artists out there right now that have the careers I want and I love everything they do pretty much, like Ryan Tedder from OneRepublic, Bruno Mars and Katy Perry—those artists, like that’s the life I want, I love the stuff they do—they’re singing, they’re performing, other artists are performing their songs, and that inspires me.

How has your songwriting style changed since the show?

Before it was just like, “OK, I need one line. OK, I’ve got a line now I can move on.” And now I’m free write and it’s super sloppy and I actually get to much better, deeper concepts. Because that’s actually what I learned on the show, the importance of writing a good song with a concept, and that will help transform the lyric to be better. So now my writing is—I know that I got the melody and the chords down, that’s my strength, and I don’t stress about that when I need to focus on lyrics. The whole process is totally different for me now.

Did you have any surreal moments on the show?

I think the moment that Natasha Bedingfield said that she could hear herself singing our song, the Road Trip song, that was one of the best moments of my life.