Jesse McCartney On Going Indie, Possible Dream Street Reunion And Beyond

From boy bander to solo pop star to whatever he chooses to be, after almost 20 years in the music industry, Jesse McCartney’s realized the only way to ensure his career keeps moving forward is if he’s working and creating on his own terms.

In 2001, when the singer was 14, he released his first album as part of boy band Dream Street. Three years later, at 17, he dropped his solo debut album, “Beautiful Soul,” which went platinum, as did its lead single of the same name. It’s now 15 years later, and no one’s more aware of how much the industry’s changed than McCartney.

Last year, he released “Better With You,” his first single in four years, and toured across the United States in support of it. He then released a follow-up song, “Wasted,” and set out on another tour, which wrapped up in Seattle on Wednesday. The first single’s quite a departure from his “Leavin’” days and a million miles from Dream Street, but “Beautiful Soul” can still be seen in its rearview mirror.

“I actually think [music production’s] come full circle in many ways,” McCartney told International Business Times. “This song, ‘Better With You,’…I think is tickling like a nostalgic bone for a lot of people. It sounds actually a lot more reminiscent of the ‘Beautiful Soul’ days, lyrically. Sonically, it still has a drop and it has the [current] vibe, but the core of it is still consistent.”

The artist really took his time with the songwriting process this time around. Instead of writing around tracks from “hot-shot producers” and feeling limited by it, McCartney started writing with just a piano or a guitar and decided later on what to do with it.

He cited Mike Posner’s “beautiful” acoustic ballad, “I Took a Pill in Ibiza,” and its remix as an example of the “broad spectrum of things” you can do with a song when you start with just the bones of it.

“What was nice was ‘Better With You’ was written [first], and it was decided at that point, like, 'Okay, now that the song, the core of the song, is there, and it's true to me and the brand that I am, it feels like now we can maybe push it a little bit, bring some pop elements of today into it and not try to make it like an EDM record, though.’ It's a balance,” he said.

With the nostalgia aspect of “Better With You” bringing up “Beautiful Soul,” McCartney dug even deeper into his catalog when speaking with IBT and mentioned that the idea of a Dream Street reunion has been “kicked around tons,” but nothing’s in the works just yet.

“I’ve gotten emails from fellow Dream Streeters and from former producers of Dream Street,” he said. “The biggest problem is just scheduling and people’s lives. We even talked about if we were to do something, it would be, like, a single event or something. No one has time to do a full, huge tour…But, at the moment, there’s just so much else going on that it’s just not a priority.”

Adding the nostalgia factor, staying true to himself and updating production are only a few tactics the artist has learned in his two decades in the business. After going from major label Hollywood Records to becoming an independent artist, McCartney has to run things both in front of and behind the scenes. As someone who’s now a businessman alongside being an artist, he knows he can’t do it all alone.

After the “Summerland” alum’s fourth studio album, “Have It All,” which included the Billboard-charting single “Shake,” with Hollywood Records was shelved and never released, McCartney took back his independence, left the label and started making music on his own.

“It’s heartbreaking. I spent over a year on that record, and I put a lot of time and energy into it, but, ultimately, when they’re footing the bill, they’re the one that make all the big calls,” he said. “So, right now, the freedom aspect off being independent and being able to directly access my fans, directly know immediately what they want, corresponding with them through social media, it’s just a whole other experience. And I never have to worry about that anymore. There was always that burning factor of like, ‘Oh [expletive], what if they don’t release this?’”

McCartney focused solely on the music, and not the business, aspect of his first independent project, 2014’s “In Technicolor,” and it and its tour were only “moderately successful.” From it, though, he learned what did and didn’t work and was determined to take time to grow from that experience.

“If you really want to be successful, I think it’s 25 percent music and 75 percent what you ate for lunch,” McCartney said of how things work nowadays, before explaining that when this lightbulb went off, he knew how he wanted to do things in the future.

“It was like, ‘If I do this again, for one, I’m not gonna sink a ton of money into 15 songs, I’m gonna sink more money into building a team of people around me, much like a label, like a virtual label,” he said. “Which is hire a really great PR person, hire a social network person that’s on top of it, hire somebody who’s familiar with marketing, maybe worked at a label. You know, hire this sort of band of outsiders, bring them together and create something together.’”

And that’s exactly what he’s done. For his upcoming project, he’s already created four new songs, two of which he released last year, and two — “Selfless” and “Soul” — that haven’t officially been released yet, and he’s working on a few more. He also hired a team to support him every step of the way, including a photographer who travels with him to collect all kinds of media for his social platforms and beyond.

Getting all of that content to use for social media is high on his list of important tasks because he’s well aware of the role it now plays in this business.

“Since Dream Street, probably record sales and, obviously, social media is like probably the newest and biggest sort of factor in how the industry’s taken a turn,” he told IBT. “Adapting to that has been interesting because it’s not necessarily only about music anymore. It’s about so much more. I think social media is probably, even in the last 10 years, like since ’08, since I put out my third album, it’s dramatically changed the landscape of music.”

The 31-year-old doesn’t feel pressure to be part of the social media world but a responsibility. He understands the need to “satiate the fans with content on a regular basis,” which is why he currently boasts 781,000 followers on Twitter and 539,000 on Instagram.

While some artists have an entire team devoted to running their social accounts and don’t feel the need to be so involved, as an independent artist, McCartney has to stay on top of all aspects of his own career.

“I’m still particular about what filter I choose,” he told IBT. “I get a little, ‘Ahhh, I can’t go with Valencia, ahhh, no.’ I care about what the product looks like even if it’s just what I had for lunch. That’s the reality we live in.”

Social media was even a deciding factor in the actress he chose for his “Better With You” music video. Danielle Campbell, who starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie “StarStruck” and, more recently, worked on shows like, “The Originals” and Tell Me a Story,” has a large online following. Her 549,000 Twitter and 3.1 million Instagram followers played a role in her landing the gig.

“She’s a great actor, and she was really good about just like sinking all of her energy into it, really at the drop of a hat. Literally, we called her, ‘We want you to do this.’ She was like, ‘Sure.’ Three days later, we’re in and we’re working,” he said. “We’d just met that morning and we have these romantic scenes together. That’s one reason.

“The other reason is because she has a hugely strong following on a lot of social networks, and that does not hurt. I think that’s another thing. Synergy, you know. Working with people who maybe you otherwise wouldn’t have and cross-pollinating your fanbases is a thing.”

Despite having to keep up with all aspects of the industry now, McCartney knows it’s what he has to do to get his music out there, keep it out there and lure listeners to it. After putting out four solo studio albums — and having one shelved project — from 2004 to 2014, he’s no stranger to constantly reinventing himself and his music and doing so in a manner that’s true to his artistry.

“What I do think is sort of true to me is the songwriting aspect, always making sure I’m writing something that makes sense for me, that is not trying to do something that people are going to call bull[expletive] on,” McCartney said. “‘Cause they’re very good at that. At least, my fans are. So, I think, for me, the songwriting part is what I try to be most consistent about.”

The singer started co-writing his own songs with his “Right Where You Want Me” album in 2006 and has continued to do so on all of his projects, but he only truly received recognition for his abilities when Leona Lewis recorded 2007’s “Bleeding Love,” the song he co-wrote with Ryan Tedder.

“That moment definitely shaped and changed where I think the perception of me was,” McCartney said. “That following year, I’m at the difference between being at the Kids’ Choice Awards and the ASCAP Songwriter of the Year Award. There’s a big discrepancy there. It certainly was one of my proudest moments.”

That might’ve been one of his proudest moments, but he’s ready to add more to that list. Between new songs and social media, in this era of Jesse McCartney, fans will truly get to know both the man and the artist. It’s taken him a few years, but he’s back, and he understands that all of his successes and commercial failures were necessary for him to get to where he is now and to what he knows now. He’s ready for this new phase of his career, and it’s only just the beginning.

“I think I have a better grasp of how it all works now,” McCartney said. “More than I ever have in my entire career.”

You can follow McCartney on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. His music can be streamed on Spotify and purchased on iTunes, among other locations.