Jesse Wells (born November 22, 1994), known professionally as Jesse Welles, or simply Welles, is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He released his debut studio album, Red Trees and White Trashes, which included Dave Cobb on production, in 2018.[2] Welles previously performed under the name Jeh Sea Wells and was also the frontman of the bands Dead Indian, formed in 2012, and Cosmic-American, formed in 2015.[3]
In 2024, Welles garnered attention on social media for writing and performing folkprotest songs, including "The Poor", "Cancer", and "The Olympics",[4] as well as "War Isn't Murder", a track about the Israel-Palestinian War.[5]Vulture has described his music as "A mix of old-fashioned folkie signifiers and trending-topic populism, delivered in hooky snippets on social media several times weekly".[6]
Under the name Jeh Sea Wells, Wells began his career around 2012, releasing home-made recordings of his music, posting them on sites including SoundCloud and Bandcamp. He formed the band Dead Indian in 2012, along with Dirk Porter and Simon Martin. In 2014, Welles released a song titled "Summer"[3] and shortly afterwards, another song entitled Xmas 97.[11] In 2015, he moved to Nashville to record songs with producer Dave Cobb.[12] Also in 2015, Welles released a cover of the Nirvana song "Heart-Shaped Box".[2][13] His band Dead Indian released two albums. In 2015, he and Simon Martin began a new band called Cosmic American with Skyler Greene and Blake Foster. They played on Fayetteville Public Television in 2016 and it was uploaded to YouTube. The band began recording an album but broke up before it was released.[citation needed]
In March 2017, Welles released a song titled "Life Like Mine" from his then-upcoming EP titled Codeine on C3 Records.[14] In May 2017, Welles released a music video for the song "Life Like Mine", from the EP.[15] Under the mononym Welles, he released the single "Rock N Roll" in April 2018, in promotion of his then-upcoming debut studio album Red Trees and White Trashes.[12] Cobb served as a producer on the album, which was released on June 15, 2018,[2] by 300 Entertainment. Reviewing the album for NPR, music critic Ann Powers wrote, "Red Trees and White Trashes has the heft and complexity to likely earn a few Grammy nominations; but it's also obvious that Wells will always be comfortable in some dirty rock and roll kitchen where, as he says in one song, 'everyone's kinda ugly in that way that looks pretty,' girls in blue bobs are smoking something illegal, and somebody's turned the amp up to 10 on the other side of the screen door."[2]
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