There aren’t many teenagers with PR people, nor are there many who will celebrate their 16th birthdays as sweetly as Weehawken’s singing celebrity Jack Skuller. He is set to open for pop-rocker Teddy Geiger (who, coincidentally, made a name for himself touring with Hillary Duff when he was Jack’s age) at Hoboken’s famous Maxwell’s bar on Thursday, Jan. 26.
While most 15-year-olds were busy preparing for their driving permits, Jack, a student at Weehawken High School, was compiling his own version: an EP of four songs he wrote. The CD, entitled “Driver’s Permit,” has a projected February release date.
And while most people celebrated their holidays with cake and presents, Jack celebrated the fact that his song “You’ll Never Take My Holiday” was both acclaimed on Teen Vogue’s website and featured as the background music for the ASPCA’s online holiday campaign video.
“Music is my passion. It never feels like work to me, and I plan to keep at it for as long as I can.” –Jack Skuller
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He keeps his grades up and remains active in a plethora of extra-curricular activities in addition to his relatively demanding gigging schedule.
“Music is my passion,” Jack said. “It never feels like work to me, and I plan to keep at it for as long as I can.”
Singing since 7
Jack has been around music his whole life. His father, Eddie Skuller, was a musician for around 30 years and is his biggest inspiration. When Jack was a child, his parents played music by artists like Patty Smyth, Bob Dylan, and the Ramones, whose musical and lyrical styles he eventually incorporated into his own pieces.
Jack both literally and figuratively looked up to his father, since he often found himself below stage level watching him perform at local venues like Hoboken’s Sinatra Park.
“He had an amazing voice and presence on that stage,” Jack recalled.
He also admired the way his father connected with his audience, “and I really connected to that connection, you know?”
Reaching and touching an audience through music grew to be foremost in Jack’s mind. He started singing at age 7, and at 11, he picked up the guitar and wrote his first song, “Love is a Drum;” a song he still performs to this day.
Jack began performing at school talent shows, and eventually, he competed in a statewide competition held by a local radio station at the Jersey Shore for teenagers. After he won, he began a small local tour, which gradually grew in frequency and location.
Teen star rising
Often accompanied by his favorite 1976 Gibson LesPaul custom three-pickup guitar, Jack has rocked famous venues such as Joe’s Pub in the village, the Bowery Ballroom, the Living Room, Webster Hall, and Rockwood Music Hall. He has performed accompanied by other musicians before, but the solo guitar style is his favorite because of the “intimacy with the audience,” he says.
Last November, Jack opened for a local band at Los Angeles’ Ghengis Cohen. The venue sat around 60. His enthusiastic audience asked for an encore, but as he didn’t want to cut into the other band’s stage time, he declined.
He then watched as the room all but emptied out. “They came for me,” Jack said, “and I was humbled and so honored by the experience.”
Jack has around 7,500 Twitter followers and approximately 2,000 Facebook fans. “I get messages every day and I try to respond to every one,” Jack said, again reaching for that connection with his audience.
“My lyrics are about real things – strong feelings, like love,” Jack said. Sometimes he begins to write a song with a hooky chord progression, song-appropriate but rambling thoughts, or a couple of lyrics. It depends on his mood.
The focus of “Driver’s Permit” is his experience “growing up and changing with music and with life,” Jack said. “Sometimes it’s great, sometimes there’s a lot of love, sometimes it’s uneasy.”
But the common denominator of all of those emotions, Jack said, is fun.
As for his future, Jack may attend college. But if his music takes off, as it appears to be doing, he plans to take off with it.
“You never know with these things,” he said all too sagely for a soon-to-be 16-year-old. “My biggest hope for my future is to be happy.”
To listen to and watch some of Jack’s music, monitor his Twitter feed, or to purchase tickets for his birthday bash performance at Maxwell’s in Hoboken on Jan. 26, visit his website at www.jackskuller.com; or check him out on Facebook.
Gennarose Pope may be reached at gpope@hudsonreporter.com