Rising singer-songwriter Jameson Rodgers has released his new single “Mine for the Summer,” a tribute to new romance partially inspired by his wife Sarah Allison Turner.
Ironically, Rodgers wrote the summertime tune with Brent Anderson, Smith Ahnquist, and Jake Mitchell in the dead of winter. Their goal was to write a song that made them feel the way “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls did. Anderson had the title saved in his phone and the group worked out a groove to it that fit what they were seeking.
In an Instagram post, Rodgers shared a video that took a stroll down memory lane with a montage of milestone moments of his relationship with his wife, while “Mine for the Summer” plays in the background. The clip starts with the first picture they took together in 2012, followed by a video of them dancing together in 2015 when they realized they were more than friends, then a photo together at the beach in 2017 and finally a clip from their wedding in 2021. The chorus narrates their journey together, with the lyrics:
“And I know I just met you, but girl I don’t mind
If you’re mine for the night
Mine for the summer
Or mine for the rest of my life“
Rodgers chatted with Music Mayhem about his love story with Sarah, the litmus test he uses for choosing songs, touring with HARDY and more.
Jameson Rodgers And Wife Sarah Allison Turner Love Story
The Batesville, Mississippi native met fellow singer-songwriter Sarah Allison Turner in 2011 during a workshop at the Bluebird Café in Nashville. Over the years, they’ve written together and performed together, most recently during a weekend of shows in Kentucky and Illinois this spring.
“It is always fun having her jump on the bus,” says Rodgers. “I always can’t wait to get home to Sarah on Sunday. And so it was nice to not have to miss her all weekend.” The couple performed a song they wrote together, “Money Isn’t Real,” which was recorded by Jordan Davis and appears on his Bluebird Days album.
“Built For Heartbreak”
Although Rodgers is a prolific songwriter, he still gets songs sent to him the “old school way,” where another songwriter sends a track to an A&R person at a record label, who then passes it along to the artist. That’s what happened with his recent release “Built for Heartbreak,” written by John Byron, Hillary Lindsay, and Chris LaCorte.
“It somehow got sent to Jason McCall over at Sony. And so Jason sent it to me. He was like, man, there’s another artist that has this on hold, but I think we can shake it loose. And so I listened to it a hundred times in my truck, and that’s usually the test for me if I can keep getting in my truck and pulling it up on my phone, you know what I mean?” What stood out to Rodgers was the “hurt” in it. “There are songs about heartbreak and then there are songs that make you feel the heartbreak,” he says. “Built for Heartbreak” passed Rodgers’ litmus test. “I moved to town to write songs, and that was just one that I felt like I wish I wrote. It was kind of the same case with “Some Girls” early in my career, so that one obviously got me going. And so I’m always a fan of cutting some outside songs, for sure.”
Jameson Rodgers has been working with a new producer this year, David Garcia, and shared that “Built for Heartbreak” fit into the variety of themes they’ve recorded. “We cut a love song, we cut obviously this heartbreak song. We’ve got a drinking song, of course, and we’ve got a summer love kind of song. So it just kind of fell right in there and it deserved a chance to raise its hand.”
“Goin’ Crazy”
In February, Rodgers released a pair of songs that set his new era of music in motion. He wrote “Goin’ Crazy” with HARDY, Josh Thompson and Zach Abend. The title was inspired by a conversation that perked his “songwriter antenna” and ended up in his phone as a possible song title.
“A few days later, I saw it in there and I put some thought into it and I was like, you know, we could write that about a girl, but with the flip,” recalls Rodgers. “Where it’s, you think you’re actually going off the deep end and then you flip it to where you’re actually just going crazy about a girl.“
“Holding Me Back”
The second track, “Holding Me Back” came out of an annual writing retreat that Rodgers attends the first week of January every year.
Written by Rodgers along with Brent Anderson, Jake Mitchell, and Smith Ahnquist, the idea started with Anderson and Ahnquist. “They had kind of been working on it, and I had just been talking about how we should write something with a 2000s rock feel to it. I graduated high school in 2006, and so I was a huge country music fan and also that Matchbox 20 era kind of stuff.”
Rodgers has been opening his shows this year with that tune, saying it has good energy to kick things off.
Reflecting on inspiration for his music, Rodgers says, “I get ideas from podcasts, books, movies, shows, conversations, other songs. It’s all over the map.” He admits that outside of his demos, he typically listens to true-crime podcasts in his truck. “I started a podcast called ‘Devil in the Ditch,’ which is cool. It’s about a lady in Mississippi.” He also enjoys listening to inspirational podcasts, from people like Inky Johnson and Pete Wilson. Rodgers says his favorite podcast he’s ever heard is “In The Red Clay,” which tells the stories of a hitman gangster from 60 years ago. “He basically tells all these stories about his dad. He was just right on his hip as he was doing all this stuff. And so it’s crazy. It’s just the coolest stories.
Jameson Rodgers is an avid golfer and recently experienced “one of the coolest things I’ll ever probably do in my entire life” while on tour with HARDY. “We got to play golf with this guy named Jordan Speith. He’s been the face of golf for close to a decade. That was surreal. I was starstruck. It was just crazy.”
Opens Up About Friendship With HARDY
His friendship with HARDY goes back to his early days in Nashville.
“I’ve known Hardy as long as I’ve known my wife. I met him way back in the day. Neither one of us even had a publishing deal and just kind of came up together. And so it’s just been so cool. It was just wild to see. I was just so proud of just how far he is come. I mean, it’s just insane watching so many people sing all every single song every night. So it was fun trying to go out and win some of those fans over that may not have known who I was or whatnot. But man, it about killed me,” he laughed. “It was a long three months. My liver’s hurting a little bit now, but it’s all good. I’ll recover now, but it was worth it.”
At the end of their tour together last month, Jameson Rodgers pulled off an epic prank on HARDY. He was dressed in full camo and armed with a nerf gun while his band dressed up in deer onesies, then they walked on stage during HARDY’s “Kill Shit Til I Die.”
In September, Jameson Rodgers will join Old Dominion for select dates of the “No Bad Vibes Tour.” One of the stops will be in Boston at the TD Garden arena, which Rodgers says is a “bucket list” venue. He’s been a huge fan of the band for a long time and hopes they’ll sing “So You Go” from their Happy Endings album. “I’ll have to talk them into singing that one every night.”
Rodgers will also be hitting the road this fall with Jordan Davis on his “Damn Good Time Tour.” Ironically, the Mississippi native went to the same high school as Davis’ father and has known Davis as long as he’s known HARDY. “This is just a small world. He’s a super close friend of mine, so that’s going to be a blast.”
