Video Premiere: Jeff Crosby Shares "Cold Summer" + Announces Spring Tour Dates

Courtesy of the Artist

Nashville by way of Idaho singer-songwriter Jeff Crosby released his fourth full-length, Postcards From Magdalena, in late 2017 and the self-penned collection is arguably his strongest outing yet. Featuring ten tracks, Postcards From Magdalena finds Crosby older and wiser, introspective, and reflective as he mines his individual journey - from Iceland to California and places in between -  for well-crafted story songs that express love, loss, and grief with great emotion and honesty.

Today, TDC is incredibly excited to share the video for one of the album's tunes, "Cold Summer." Shot in black and white, the video alternates between snippets of a pensive Crosby performing the song solo and walking throughout a graffiti-laden area, capturing the hazy, desolate feel put forth by the guitar-led track that deals with the devastation of addiction.

"Where do I start/When will it end/Sun comes up/I still can't sleep /See you in my head eyes dilated and nose bleeding/Nowhere to go but back down/Everyone loves to talk in this town"

Watch the video for "Cold Summer" below, check out where you can find Crosby on tour this Spring, and read on as Crosby answers his Essential 8, where he talks about the album and loving the chase of the road, shares advice from Ray Wylie, and tells of a memorable night in Idaho. 

3/5 Talent Club - Talent, OR
3/6 Sam Bonds Foundry - Eugene, OR
3/7 Laurelthirst - Portland, OR
3/9 River Run Lodge - Ketchum, ID
3/10 Whiskey Jacques - Ketchum , ID 
3/11 Warm Springs Lodge - Ketchum , ID
3/15 Moontime Pub - CDA, ID 
3/16 TBA - Spokane, WA
3/17 Johns alley - Moscow, ID
3/23 The Celt - Idaho Falls, ID
3/24 Treefort Music Fest - Boise, ID
3/28 Limelight hotel - Ketchum, ID
3/29 Urban Lounge - SLC, UT
3/30 OP ROCKWELL - Park City, UT
4/2 Southern Sun Pub - Boulder, CO
4/3 Goosetown Tavern - Denver, CO
4/6 Marble Distillery - Carbondale, CO
4/12 Duffy's - Lincoln, NE
4/13 Pioneer Theatre - Fremont, NE
4/14 Elbow Room - Wichita, KS
4/15 TBA - Tulsa, OK
4/16 TBA - Dallas, TX
4/17 Blue Light Live - Lubbock, TX
4/19 Rockefellers - Houston, TX
4/20 Sam's Town Point - Austin, TX
4/21 Main at South Side - Fort Worth, TX
4/27 Blue Canoe - Tupelo, MS
4/28 Martins - Jackson, MS 
5/1 Acme Feed and Seed - Nashville, TN
5/8 The 5 Spot - Nashville, TN
5/19 Roots and Vine Festival - Yakima, WA
5/25 Neurolux - Boise, ID
5/26 Mountain Village - Stanley, ID
6/9 Lander Brew Fest - Lander, WY
6/15-16 Weiser River Festival - Weiser, ID
7/20 Wildwood Music Festival - Wilamina, OR
7/21 Ruckus in the Boonies Festival - Heppner, OR
8/9 Braun Brothers Reunion - Challis, ID
8/18 Montanacana Festival - Townsend, MT​

---

Did you have a musical mentor? If so, who was it and how did they influence you?
I’ve had lots of guides and mentors. Ther'es so much uncertainty in choosing to try and make a living as an artist of any sort and I feel like it's the elders who gave me confidence and inspired me to follow what I was passionate about. When I was a kid I always wanted to hang out with the older guys and gals that were playing music around Valley County in Idaho. They all carried this energy about them that I just wanted to be around. I grew up just down the street from this woman Lois Fry who was just an incredible violinist and had a hilarious sense of humor. Some of my earliest memories are of her playing for my brother and I at my parents cabin up in Donnelly, ID. (I wrote “Sunrise over Iceland” for her after hearing she had passed while I was on a trip over there) That woman had such keen ears even in the last years of her life. I remember playing a gig with her and she would stop and tell me which string on my guitar was out of tune.

Another neighbor, Andrew Emde, was an Alaskan bush pilot, a trucker, and rode a Harley and had a badass old orange 1970’s Chevy truck. He’d let me play his old Guild guitar while he was gone trucking or flying. I’d go over to his place and sit upstairs and play that thing for hours and hours. He introduced me to Ray Wylie Hubbard and Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle. I need to call him actually. Also one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met.

There was a band called Frame of Mind that moved from southern California to McCall, ID when I was in high school. Their guitar player Obie got me into the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead and all that stuff. Taught me a ton of licks I still use. We sat and learned all of “In Memory of Elizebeth Reed” one night and just totally changed the way I looked at the guitar and songwriting.

Not to go on and on but I have to mention my friend Jerry Joseph also. I met him through a friend when I was bumming around Salt Lake City recording my first album and he let me open for him on a few tours. I ended up touring with him for a few years as his guitarist. He had a lot of great advice on what NOT to do and taught me so much about playing every show like its your last. Also about not getting caught up in writing in the same old traditional format. I could go on and on...

Is there a story behind your album’s title?
I traveled to Colombia a few years back and stayed with a girlfriend in this little town called Taganga and the state is called Magdalena. I wrote “Best $25 I Ever Spent” and “Hearts Too Heavy” there. I looked up the meaning and history of the name “Magdalena” and its also a bird watchers' term for seeing a rare, beautiful bird. Those songs bring back such vivid memories for me from that trip. Swimming and hiking around the hills and playing guitar on the beaches there. Staying up all night with the locals. The songs feel like postcards now. Thought is was a worthy title for the album.

When/where do you do your best writing?
​Honestly when I’m depressed and alone. And hungover. And tired. I write a lot up in Donnelly, ID at the cabin I grew up in. Sometimes I write on the road too, but that can be hard.
It’s weird, living in Nashville the past year I met all these writers that just wake up and make coffee, meet up with someone, and sit down and write a song. It's so bizarre as its just never been that way for me. I have to go gather the experiences and put myself through a bunch of uncomfortable situations, loneliness, breakups, people watching downtown, self doubt, whatever to be inspired. I can't clock in and write. It just comes when it comes and I dive on it because sometimes I’m not so sure when the muse is gonna show up again. I kinda wish it was'nt that way sometimes, but that's just how its always been for me.

In your writing, do you draw from personal experience, the experience of others, observations, made-up stories, something else or a combination?
Mostly personal experience and observations, but I have a few songs written from someone else's perspective. Songs like “She’s Hurtin” from All Nighter and “City Girls” from Waking Days were both written as if it were a story being told by someone else.

What’s the best advice you have ever gotten from another musician?
I played a run of shows years ago in Wyoming and Idaho opening for Ray Wylie Hubbard and asked him if he had any career advice for a young guy like myself. He said do what he did and just don't get good at anything else. Then you have no choice! I thought that was some pretty sound advice.

What’s the best advice to give to a musician just starting out?
I get asked this a lot and I’m not ever sure how to answer it. I’m 31 so I feel like I’m not old and successful enough to be giving advice (maybe I’m in denial on the old part?) but I would say don't take anything too personally, hard work is the only sure way to any success in my experience, and make sure you find a manager that actually gives a shit and will work as hard as you will. Successful or not there's no “easy” road. But I feel like that's the same with anything you choose to do.

What do you love most about being on the road?
I love the chase. Having somewhere we gotta be and a gig to play and waking up early and onto the next. It’s pretty crazy when your going town to town how it all kinda just blends together after awhile. I had to learn the hard way that in my personal experience a day break every 7 or 8 gigs is necessary. For my voice and the general health of the band. But there's this sweet spot after so many gigs where the band is just firing and songs are opening up and stretching out. Parts are writing themselves. That's my favorite part about playing with a band. Its a lot of work, but its so worth it.

Do you have a favorite gift from a fan?
Last summer we played this festival in Idaho and afterwards a guy and a gal gave me a bottle of wine and a couple hits of LSD. I put the LSD in the bottle, took a few swigs, and passed it on to my brother. My friend Glenn led us through all of Dylan's “Tangled Up in Blue” and The Dead's “Music Never Stopped” around the campfire and then we all watched the sun come up skinny dipping out in the middle of a reservoir. I’m not asking our fans to start bringing me wine and LSD but...that whole night was a hell of a gift. ​

To stay up to date with Jeff Crosby visit the official website
Find him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Spotify
Purchase the music HERE

---