Blog Post: Up and Coming Artist

The following was written for an assignment for a class called "Writing for Target Audiences" in Summer 2021.

Please note there were certain formats and content criteria for this assignment.

In this particular assignment, I had to write copy for an indie music blog.

Escape Space City: Houston native shares journey of leaving home in his new album

These days, it seems like music artists are a dime a dozen, with more and more self-titled “producers” releasing their music on sites like SoundCloud and even Spotify. This increase of young artists trying to make it in the music industry means that almost anyone can create music nowadays and none of it is completely unique; melodies get reused and clips get recycled.

The only way for someone to stand out is to really create something that nobody else has done. One up-and-coming artist seems to have what it takes to succeed in what is arguably one of the most competitive fields.

20-year-old Jack Iris has been able to show he understands the industry as well as all of the processes that go into creating an EP– everything from the sounds to the visuals. Not only is he well versed, but at one point during our interview, Iris picked up his guitar and fit it perfectly in the nook under his arm so he could have something to fiddle with in his hands. It was as if he was uncomfortable without it like his natural state always reverted to playing the guitar.

Iris, born Garrett Noteboom in Houston, TX, considers himself self-taught as most of his formative years were spent tinkering with different software, as he continuously worked on figuring out the technology behind the music. He now studies Recording Arts and Music Production in Drexel University’s Music Industry Program in Philadelphia to further master his skills.

He chose Jack Iris as his stage name sometime in high school. What started as a childhood nickname became something that allowed him to grow as an artist.

“I was Garrett my whole life, I was Garrett until the end of high school... Jack Iris just allowed me to grow from a producer to a full artist,” Iris said.

Since moving to Philadelphia, PA, Iris has been working on his first major project. After years of creating music and discovering his sound, Iris feels comfortable enough in his own voice to release an EP, which he has entitled Escape Space City.

Iris’s long-time friend and collaborator, Matt Kessler, 21, was able to help with the production of the project. During a three-day seminar at Berkely College of Music in the summer before their junior year of high school, Iris met Kessler, a music producer and engineer from Los Angeles and the two clicked pretty quickly.

“I was walking to the first class and I didn’t know where I was going and there was another kid in the hallway who also looked lost so I asked him where he was going.... That other kid was Jack,” Kessler said.

Since then, the two have been creating music together. Despite their cross-state distance, they’ve collaborated by sending files back and forth to each other, allowing them to work from their respective hometowns in Texas and California.

“I feel like that’s what kind of taught me everything, was just the back and forth that he and I had,” Iris said.

Kessler, who is currently studying at New York University, enjoys working with Iris and even admitted he wouldn’t want to work with anyone else professionally. Their new distance allows one to take a train to visit the other for a weekend, giving them the chance to continue working while in college.

“I would say that [the coolest thing about Jack] is his willingness to receive critical feedback and turn it into something positive and actually use it,” Kessler said. “A lot of different artists that I know, if you tell them you don’t like something they’ll either get offended or just not listen to you.... I think it’s a great trait [for an artist] to have.”

Kessler says that while he’s credited as a Mix Engineer on the whole project, about ninety-five percent of Escape Space City “came straight from Jack’s brain.” Apparently, he didn’t do as much production on this project as he’d usually done with Iris in the past.

“I don’t know, I think it’s cool when the artist is very hands-on with production and basically does it by himself,” Kessler said.

Escape Space City will be Iris’s first major project set for release to the public. He describes the project as “an encapsulation of the last few years of both my production experience and just how I was feeling.”

“In my eyes, it tells the story of me leaving home... it tells the story of creating your own roadmap through your life and how life works for you,” Iris said. “[Escape Space City] is a perfect display of how I’ve reached the philosophy I have today.”

As he produced them, the songs ended up working chronologically and are ordered on the EP in terms of when they were created.

“It wasn’t intended to be like that when I was writing anything, but it just kind of worked out that way,” Iris said.

Iris talks about the process of making tracks for this EP and how most were utterly different.

“I had a weird couple of months where I was making things for no reason. It didn’t feel like I had a whole lot of direction and I wasn’t having fun with it, “ he said. “Then I just took a day where I reviewed a bunch of old projects that I had and I was like, ‘some of these can could be worked with’ ... and that’s essentially how track five, Sunrise, came to be.”

While one song, “I Won’t Be Alone”, has already been released, it was supposed to be a stand-alone single to come before the rest of the project.

“That changed when Matt sent me his final version of the beat,” Iris said. “The second half of the song made me want to change everything... it just tied [the project] up way too well.”

Iris’s mother, Laurie Noteboom, unsurprisingly is her son’s biggest fan. She’s been a Jack Iris supporter since he was in middle school and even claims to love his music when he was shaking his childhood home with the bass.

Noteboom details her son’s work ethic, saying it was more than just playing around with melodies.

“He has never created something that follows a trend. He creates something that he feels speaks to him,” Noteboom says. “He has never been one to create something to make someone else happy or to make things easy on him as an artist... I just think that is so cool and brave.”

Andrea Bejar, 21, was born in Mexico City and moved to Miami , when she was just three years old. For the past year and a half, Bejar has gotten into the music scene herself with some help from Iris.

“Jack has definitely helped me refine my process.... I don’t think I would be the same musician that I am today without his guidance,” Bejar said.

The pair met during their time at Drexel and have continued to work together in the year and a half since.

“New achievement points come in the form of songs and I truly believe that we’ve grown together,” Iris said. “Theres a whole bunch of stuff we’ve done together that probably won’t ever come out but that we’re both realy proud of.”

Iris believes his style has been heavily influenced by his hometown, upbringing, and what he’s heard from other artists.

“The genre of stuff that I do kind of comes from Mike Dean, I think he’s just the best producer ever, as well as a lot of the music that the Weeknd has done, both with and without Mike Dean,” Iris said.

Additionally, he sites House of Blues and the Travis Scott project as significant influences on his music and production style.

While Escape Space City doesn’t have a release date yet, Iris plans to release two more singles off the project before releasing the final project. The next one is expected from

late September to early October.Listen to “I Won’t Be Alone” by Jack Iris on Spotify.