Jack Van Cleaf Releases New Single “Smoker”
Jack Van Cleaf announced the release of “Smoker,” his grungy folk-rock single, and the official music video directed by Sam Lindsey. “Smoker” is featured on his forthcoming sophomore album, JVC, released May 9 via Dualtone Records. Planting its flag halfway between the worlds of indie rock and Gen Z folk, it asks big questions about identity, home, and adulthood. The album is the culmination of a journey that began during his teenage years. “This album is all about the vertigo of growing up, It’s about re-defining and re-understanding yourself.” Pre-order HERE. Watch his music video for “Smoker”, directed by Sam Lindsey below.
Jack has also announced a spring tour kicking off April 3 through May 21 with stops including New York, Nashville, Chicago, Austin, and more; plus support by special guests Ethansroom and Emma Ogier. Tickets for New York are on sale now and shows during May 11-21 go on sale Friday, March 7 at 10am local. For more info, visit https://www.jackvancleaf.com/#tour.
On the Baerd-produced track specifically, Jack stated, “Smoking is something I’ve put down and taken breaks from but come back to fairly consistently since I was sixteen. I remember having this conversation with a co-worker and realizing one day “Oh, I’m a ‘smoker.’” It made me think about what I would’ve thought of myself as a little kid, because “smokers” scared me back then. The term felt foreign to me. The first image in the song looks at teenagers standing around a grocery store parking lot; I imagine them smoking cigarettes; they have tattoos and pierced ears, any of these things that apply to me now. The song is cataloging all the life you’ve lived in a way, some of which you might not be the most proud of — reckoning who you are now with who you were as a kid and who you thought you’d be when you grew up — recognizing the differences — wondering what needs to change.”
Years after penning his first song as a high school freshman in San Diego, Jack headed east to Nashville, where he studied songwriting at Belmont University and released his debut album, Fruit from the Trees, after graduation. Jack experienced unprecedented early industry debut album buzz, drawing the attention of the likes of Noah Kahan, opening for him on Jack’s first ever major US tour, as well as touring with artists from Briston Maroney to Madi Diaz. When his single “Rattlesnake” landed him a spot on Spotify’s 2024 Best New Artist List with tastemaker playlist “juniper,” it drew over 13 million streams, and one fan in particular, Zach Bryan, became a major champion of Jack, covering the track on his social media.
This unexpected success induced an intense period of self-doubt in Jack, “I was shell-shocked,” he remembers. “I’d spent my whole life being told what to do every single day, and I always dreamed about growing up to be my own boss. Then graduation came, and I got what I wanted… but I realized I had no idea how to function on a day-to-day basis.“
He regrouped and retreated to his songwriting, and found solace in creating music in far-flung locations like Joshua Tree and the Texas/Mexico border, where he and producer Alberto Sewald (Katy Kirby, Sierra Hull) created this remarkable body of work. Those geographic choices were deliberate, their landscapes evoking the spiritual barrenness of Jack’s lyrics. “I felt like I was staring into an emotional desert when I wrote these songs, experiencing this feeling of desolation around me and looking for little signs of life,” he explains. Smoker is a song that shows the deep side of Jack Van Cleaf and we know there is more to come.
Alongside all-star collaborations with established stars like Zach Bryan and Gatlin — who features on seize-the-day anthem “Teenage Vampire” — the album also features his closest friends, Austin Burns, Ethan Fortenberry, Hunt Pennington, Adam Carpenter, Nathan Cimino, and Aaron Krak – plus Annika Bennett and Heaven Schmitt (aka Grumpy) who contribute background vocals – whom he met during his time at Belmont University and remain part of his closest creative circle.
Previously, Jack’s confessional and cathartic folk songs have garnered comparison to sparse verses of Nathaniel Rateliff and Gregory Alan Isakov and the directness of Kris Kristofferson and Leonard Cohen. On JVC, Jack takes another approach, focusing on blurring the dividing lines between acoustic singer-songwriter and electrified indie music. The result is an expansive sound, sparse one minute and grungy the next, dreamt up by an artist who’s never been afraid to write songs that shine a light on his own challenges.
A sharply-written record that measures the long, winding road from past to present, deftly capturing the vertigo of early adulthood, drawing on his own struggles with his post-college success and disorientation that followed. Songs like “Green” is a climate-conscious song whose indie rock pop hooks heighten the song’s activist bite and moody acoustic rocker “Shouldn’t Have Gone to L.A.” find Jack in transit, caught between locations without a clear anchor. His songs draw on deeply personal experiences including a constant evolving approach to religion and the emotional gravity of young adulthood to its full.