By Mandy Wolf Detwiler | Photos by Christian Watson
JACOB RESCH might not remember much about the musical origins of MySpace (he was 10 during its heyday) or when videos played on regular rotation on MTV (neither do the rest of us), but the 25-year-old easily recalls when his love for music began.
“I started taking guitar lessons when I was about eight years old,” Resch says. “I had an older cousin and he was in a band. You always just kind of look up to your older cousins, so I just thought it was the coolest thing that he was in a band.
“After a couple of years of that, I focused on singing and took a couple of years of voice lessons, then started writing original music and recording. Now, I’m writing, recording and touring regionally and locally. It’s been a slow build-up ever since then.”
The hardest question for Resch to answer when someone asks about his band’s music style is selecting one genre.
He’s influenced by his parents’ taste in music – John Mellencamp, Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty and The Rolling Stones, but, he says, “I listen to really anything. I listen to country, I listen to rock, I listen to hip hop, I listen to the pop music on the radio. I like to think I take some elements from it all.”
Resch adds: “There’s definitely some rock influence there. The part of the country I’m from, that’s where I get my little country twang. In terms of songwriting elements, I like to take ideas from guys like Bruno Mars, and by that I mean they have really short, concise catchy hooks. You just need a couple of words that draw people in.”
As an employee of his father’s Southern Indiana development business and a self-admitted “history geek,” Resch has been drawn to helping his family change the face of New Albany one building at a time. Working for his dad, renowned contractor Steve Resch, affords the singer-songwriter a flexible schedule to travel with his band.
“My parents and my family are definitely very supportive,” he says. “I work for my dad and I do music, and I really enjoy doing both. It’s one of those things where I feel like I never have a break because I get off work and I go home and I work on music, but they’re very supportive. … The goal is hopefully to one day, sooner (rather) than later, make music my full-time job.”
But for now, he’s happy being a part of the Resch family legacy.
Steve Resch’s company has been a Southern Indiana mainstay for three decades, particularly in the revitalization of downtown New Albany. “In the last 10 years, he’s done probably
20 different build-outs down here,” Jacob Resch says. “He and my mom own quite a few properties, so next to music, that’s my biggest passion: real estate, specifically working a lot of historic properties. My dad and my grandpa and I are all big history nerds, so we love these buildings from the 1800s.”
As the family continues to construct a collective legacy that ’s positively mpacting others, Resch is working on his own, and he’s proud of it. “The stuff I’m writing now, it all works, it’s all cohesive. It’s a sleek, streamlined feel from what I’m already doing.”
You can learn more about Jacob Resch at JacobReschMusic.com.
