Jesse McCartney Talks Heading Out on Tour, the 20th Anniversary of 'Beautiful Soul,' Starting a Family & a Potential Country Crossover (Exclusive Interview)

Jesse McCartney is a name that pop music lovers from the ’00s will never forget.

Many fans met him as a member of the boyband Dream Street, but he found breakout success as a solo artist. Jesse‘s discography features hits such as “Leavin’,” “Body Language,” and “Just So You Know,” and as a songwriter he helped pen Leona Lewis‘s enduring smash “Bleeding Love.”

That was just the start for him, though, and he’s continued to grow and explore new projects over the years.

On Friday (April 5), he dropped a new EP titled All’s Well. The five-song collection features a cheeky collab with Yung Gravy called “Make a Baby.” As the title implies, it’s all about the excitement and challenges of family planning, something that he and wife Katie Peterson are currently familiar with.

Next up, he embarks on the All’s Well Tour in a week. The tour has him traveling across the United States to perform for his fans.

We recently had the opportunity to catch up with Jesse to talk about All’s Well, his upcoming tour and so much more.

During our conversation, he touched on potential plans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his long-lasting hit “Beautiful Soul” and his evolving relationship with the bop. He also teased a potential world tour and country crossover!

Head inside to see what Jesse McCartney had to say and to listen to All’s Well…

Just Jared: Is there a song on the EP that you’re most excited for people to hear?

Jesse McCartney: I mean, I love all of them. There’s only four or five. I think there’s five songs, one of which is a remix with Yung Gravy, which is really fun. I think a lot of people have heard that, but there’s a song called “Silver Spoon,” which no one’s heard yet, that is one of the more up-tempo, fun, catchy songs on the record that I think is really unique because there’s a lot of live instrumentation.

We recorded it at the legendary Village Recording Studio here in LA, and we had a full rhythm section and live horns and just a very musically exciting record that we spent a lot of time producing in the studio, and it’s kind of got a ’70s feel, kind of like a Hall & Oates, DeBarge kind of feel to it.

JJ: One of the songs that stood out was “The Well.” It is so different sonically than everything else. Can you talk a little bit about what that one was like to create and what it’s about?

JM: Yeah, so it was kind of a crazy thing. I literally woke up in the middle of the night with this idea. I was having some sort of nightmare dream of some kind, and I woke up out of a deep sleep and just wrote all of these… I basically wrote that as a poem in my Notes app in like 20 minutes. I wrote all the lyrics, and I went back to bed convinced I’d wake up the next day and be like, that’s going to be some foggy lyric that is probably not going to be that good. And then I read it aloud to my wife, and she’s like, “This is really good. And also, are you Ok?”

It turned out to be a nice little piece of writing. And so I took it into the studio and developed it. But the song is just sort of about being kind of a dark place or emotionally and going through a low period and then having somebody that you can rely on to sort of pull you out and to let you know that you’re not alone. And I think it’s something that everyone goes through and something that a lot of people kind of relate to. You know, I think we’ve all been there and we all have highs and lows. So yeah, it was just sort of a reflection of how I was feeling apparently in a nightmare.

JJ: Yeah head out on tour so soon. What is your favorite part about being on the road?

JM: Oh, man. I mean, I love performing live. That’s my happy place. It’s my favorite part of the music industry is live performance. It’s where I thrive and where I feel most comfortable as an artist is getting to perform and finding new ways to perform old music is always really fun and challenging. So, for instance, like right now, I’m rearranging older songs like “Beautiful Soul” and “She’s No You,” “Body Language” and finding like new creative ways to make those songs sound fresh on stage. And also, you know, still performing them because they’re such important parts of the catalog and important parts of the live show.

So I think just performing live and getting to see the fans every couple of years out on the road is so fun and watching them sing all of my songs just never gets old. It’s such a natural high that you feel as an artist and a performer. So yeah, and getting t osee all these cities and travel with my dog and my wife and my band… You just, you build so many lifelong memories being out on the road.

JJ: Speaking about rearranging your older songs, do you have a favorite song from the past that you like to perform now?

JM: I mean, I love performing “Bleeding Love” because there’s just such a cool story behind it. You know, it was a song that I wrote for Leona Lewis way back in 2008 and it became sort of my first big record as a songwriter. And, you know, it’s just fun to put my own spin on that and perform it and tell that story of how it came about because it really almost didn’t happen.

It was such a just like one of those right place at the right time kind of moments. And I think for people who have never been to the show, it’s kind of a cool anecdotal story for them to hear. And I just love singing it. It’s just a fun song to perform.

JJ: You’ve also written for people like Vanessa Hudgens. Is there an artist that you’d really like to write for still?

JM: I’d love to work or write something for like a Dua Lipa. I think she’s talented and has got such a unique voice and sound. She’s just what I think of when I think of pop music in 2024. I think she’s just, she’s great. So I’d love to do something for her. I love writing for all the pop divas and all the ladies in pop. It’s a lot of fun. But so she would be great.

I also love country music too. I love Kelsea Ballerini. I love Kasey Musgraves. They’re incredible songwriters. So it’d be great to collaborate with them on something down the road.

JJ: We spoke a few years ago, and you had recently participated in a writing camp for country artists. Did anything ever come from that?

JM: Unfortunately not, but that’s just kind of the songwriting saga, right? Sometimes songs blow up and sometimes they never see the light of day. And in this case, none of them really came to fruition, but it was such a great experience because I got to work with some really amazing songwriters in that space and build relationships that I can call on hopefully later on. But I still think about maybe releasing some of the songs on my own, you know, either as like a ghost artist or just, you know, not telling anybody.

There’s a lot of great music that came out of that that I still have banked in my drop box.

JJ: So your country crossover is coming. It’s just, it’s on here yet.

JM: It’s on the bingo card for maybe next year.

JJ: It’s really the era with Beyonce and Lana Del Rey. There’s so much country crossover happening right now.

JM: It’s really exciting to see the genres sort of crossover and blend. I don’t know how like the true country fans feel about it, but it’s certainly fun as a music consumer to see people like Beyonce doing it and all these artists crossing over into the genre. And it’s such a great… I love country music. I didn’t really get into it until later in life, but that songwriting camp was very eye opening and it’s hard. I think it’s a really hard because there’s so much storytelling involved in country that it really helps sharpen your pencil.

JJ: I can’t believe that “Beautiful Soul” turns 20 this year. Are you ever surprised by how popular the song remains?

JM: It’s remarkable and yes, I mean I can’t really… If you asked me 10 years ago if I thought people would still be singing that song, and like young people who are under the age of 20, that know that song is pretty wild.

So it’s definitely now crossed into a new generation of pop fans. And it’s amazing, it’s incredible to have a song like that that has stood the test of time in a genre of music where music is consumed so quickly that within a few months people are on to the next thing. It’s rare to have a song that has that kind of lasting power and yeah, it’s pretty wild. I’ve come full circle with how I feel about that song. You know, there was a time where I used to get so bored performing it and now I realize how much that song means to so many different people, particularly in America, that you know, it’s an important song for a lot of people.

So now when I play it, it’s nostalgic for me as much as it is for them.

JJ: Do you have any plans for the anniversary of the song?

JM: Nothing in ink or in writing, but we’re trying to figure out something. It would be great to do some sort of interpolation of the song or some sort of 20 year anniversary. I’m hoping maybe by the end of the year I can pull something together to sort of pay tribute to the record. And we’re currently trying to maybe reach out to some other artists to see if they’re interested in doing something. But there’s so much red tape when you do collabs with other record companies and artists, and it just takes a long time to get things done. “Make a Baby” with a Yung Gravy was a good example: The song took months and months to get finished and almost didn’t happen. But I think that song might bring a lot more people to the table. So it’s definitely something we’ve been thinking about.

JJ: On the topic of “Make a Baby,” that’s such a sexy song, but it’s really cheeky in how you allude to the challenges of family planning. Is starting a family something that you and Katie are talking about right now?

JM: Yeah, we talk about it a lot. And I think that’s definitely in the cards in the near future.

JJ: Do you have any plans after the tour for the rest of the year? Are there plans for a full length album?

JM: Yeah, it’s a great question. Actually, I’m in the process of discussing that with my team. We talked about possibly going overseas. A couple of these songs are doing really well in Southeast Asia. And there’s a big market over there. I think we have a lot of fans over there. So we’re thinking about maybe touring over there maybe later in the year, potentially Australia too, because we were supposed to tour there in 2020 before COVID hit.

Then like I said, maybe trying to get something together for the anniversary of “Beautiful Soul” if we can pull it together in time.

So those are the plans. And, you know, just sort of also personally working on family, trying to maybe start a family and potentially move. We love our home here, but we’re thinking of getting something a little bit more family friendly. So real estate is another thing that we’re looking into.