It all began when San Diego singer-songwriter/producer Greg Laswell offered to co-write and produce Jenson's first record. Greg and Molly worked remarkably well together, and on March 3rd 2009, she released her debut album, "Maybe Tomorrow". You could easily equate "Maybe Tomorrow" to the work of Jonatha Brooke, Sheryl Crow and Aimee Mann, however, Molly is much more than an ectype. Behind Jenson's heartfelt songs is an unfeigned artist, who is not afraid to reach out to an audience and let them know that she is tangible. It's evident that her songs are purely based on her own life. Her ingenuous lyrics entail stories of love and loss, hardships and better days. Beyond that, Molly's incredible vocal ability sets her apart from other female artists, and she does it with such ease.
Download "Do You Only Love the Ones Who Look Like You" featuring Jon Foreman
Molly Jenson is a singer-songwriter from San Diego who currently bases her operations in Orange County. Her new record, “Maybe Tomorrow,” dropped in stores March 3. Undiscovered was able to sit down with her a week before the album released to talk about her music.
Undiscovered: So your new album’s coming out next week right? I heard it’s actually a re-release of one that you did a few years back.
Molly: Yeah, I put a record out just independently and sold it at shows and to friends a couple years ago in 2005. And then when I signed with Bully!/Pulpit Records/Nettwerk Music Group, they bought the record off me and we changed the artwork and added a duet that Jon Foreman and I wrote.
Undiscovered: So it’s one week before your record releases. Is life any busier than usual for Molly Jenson?
Molly: It’s been crazy. This last month has been the busiest and most stressful month of my life, but it’s fun. I’m growing a lot, I’m learning a lot and I’m getting to do a lot. We shot my music video last week, and I got to go on tour with Fiction Family. We’ve been doing all these promotional things and it’s been really cool. This is the kind of stress I like. It shows me that stuff is getting done and things are moving forward.
Undiscovered: You mentioned touring with Fiction Family. Was that different from anything you’ve done before?
Molly: Absolutely! It was so amazing! It was my first real tour. I’ve played in Europe and I’ve played up the coast of California, but I haven’t left California on tour with my own music, opening for a band who has a good crowd of people. And I did five shows with them and I played solo. I’ve never played solo; I would always have at least one person backing me up because I never felt confident enough to play guitar and so they could cover up my mistakes. But I had the best shows I’ve ever played; we sold out every night.
Undiscovered: Your profile description on Myspace said you never planned on recording an album or ever doing any of this stuff. What happened?
Molly: Well, Greg Laswell and I went to college together at Point Loma in San Diego and we had mutual friends and we were only acquaintances in college. But in 2004 I moved to Orange County and I’d been singing on other people’s projects, but I really was starting to think that I wanted do my own stuff, but was really struggling. So Greg was working on his own stuff and producing other people. He heard that I was starting to write and called and said he’d love to meet with me. So we got together and wrote a song, and we just had this connection that can be really hard to find with other people, and it went on from there.