Derek Jones just dropped a new song, “Everybody’s Somebody,” which is the title track of his upcoming new EP. Written with James LeBlanc, the song was inspired at least in part by Derke’s own mother, and her view on life.
“We had no idea what we were going to write about,” Derek recalled to Everything Nash of the day they wrote “Everybody’s Somebody.” “And then we started talking about the division that’s going on. This was last year, when we were talking about the division that was going on in this world. And I told him, ‘My mom has always told me that everybody is somebody so treat people accordingly. And he’s like, ‘That’s it. ‘Everybody’s Somebody.’ And about an hour later, we had that song down.”
There are five songs on Derek’s upcoming EP. The record follows his 2018 album, Pray, which landed at the top of the Amazon charts. The Indiana native wrote all but one song on Everybody’s Somebody, mostly because the songwriting is just as important to him as the singing, if not more.
“It’s my job to tell the story,” Derek explained. ‘Most of my songs I feel like are stories because I’ve lived through it. Whenever I see Jamey Johnson, he’s one of my biggest influences … He puts his heart into everything in his writing. I’d like to follow that same path; when I’m done singing a song, I want somebody to believe what I just told them. So, I would like to think I’m a songwriter who can sing.”
Derek isn’t opposed to finding a record label to partner with at some point, but for now he’s quite happy to make music on his own terms, at least for the time being.
“I like being on my own basically, because I like having complete control,” Derek acknowledged. “I’ve heard tons of bad stories. Jamey Johnson, for instance. He signed a record deal and then they shelved all the songs. I think that’s what scares me the most is that, after you sign a record deal, you kind of lose control of your music. I don’t want to lose control of my music. I don’t want to be told what I have to record or how I should sound. I like having control of that. And nowadays, with social media and Spotify and all this streaming that goes on, you don’t really need a record deal.
“Look at people like Sturgill Simpson and Cody Johnson — they had this huge following that they created just from social media, and they didn’t need a record deal. I know Cody Johnson has one now, but you really don’t need a record deal. Not saying that I would never signed one, but I kind of like where I’m sitting right now.”
Doing it all on his own might mean Derek has to work harder, but that’s never scared him before. After spending four years serving in the Navy, the proud father is ready to do whatever it takes to share his music with the world.
“The Navy teaches you really how to have a great work ethic, not that I didn’t have one from my parents,” Derek shared. “My parents instilled in me that if you work hard and you want something, you go get it and it can happen, but you can’t wait on opportunity to knock on your door. You have to go out and make stuff happen. With the Navy, it taught me just the same, that if you want something bad, you work hard at it and you’re going to get rewarded for it.
“It also taught me how to love this country and what that flag means to me,” he remarked. “It means the world to me. A friend of mine, he was in the Marines, and he always says, ‘We only did four years, but that doesn’t mean that the service our country is over. We’re never done serving our country,’ and that’s true. I love this country and I’d do anything to protect it, and to protect our freedoms that we have.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Adkins Publicity / Chasity Hobbs