Mark Jones Talks About His New CD, New Single, New Career + Sings Live – Exclusive Interview

If you haven't heard of Mark Jones or his band, Mark Jones & Twenty Paces, you're not alone. The Spring, Texas native is out on his first radio tour promoting his debut single ('Fast  and Free'), his debut album ('Breaking Even', available 5/27), and from the sound of it, he'll be a well known singer-songwriter before too long.

Our conversation began with Mark telling us about how he quit his day job to focus on his music career. Jones tells us, "I was working for the man down in Houston up until about three weeks ago, and this is our first single and first album coming out next week, and and we're excited to get our name out." I asked if Mark left his job guns-a-blazin', and he said "No, I didn't do anything crazy, I tried to leave on good terms."

Mark is hesitant to label his music, although some might refer to his sound as alt-country. He states, "People try and put a label on stuff, but we just play what we like, and, you know, we just kinda let the songs speak for themselves. You know, going into produce this record, it took a while to find a producer that we really wanted to work with that would let us kind of take creative control of the project, and found that with Jeffrey Armstreet, Magnolia Red, and we couldn't be happier with the final product."

Jones tells us that he picked up music at an early age, stating "My mom was actually a church music director when I was growing up. Music's always been a huge part of my life and who I am, and so I grew up playing piano, singing in church and school choirs, and then the guitar kinda followed in college. And then songwriting came off the chance I had to take a Fine Arts credit. There was a songwriting class and I was like 'Hey, that sounds interesting'. And you know, just picked up the craft of songwriting, and it's just something I'm really excited to pursue."

Jones grabbed his guitar and played a song for us in studio, and he chose to play his song, "Austin" for us. Take a listen to the full interview with Mark Jones here

Mark Jones Interview

Mark Jones is a very talented guy, and now that he's focused totally on his music career, I think it's only a matter of time before Texas takes notice of this guy. Hopefully we can get Mark and his band, Twenty Paces to play live somewhere nearby. Meanwhile, catch up with Mark Jones at his official website and like his Facebook page.