New York City has never really been considered a country music metropolis, but as Jessica Lynn continues to bring her Brooklyn-born beat to the ears of Nashville, she’s proving the big city can have a major influence in Music City.
Lynn admits that in order to move up the country music charts, she had to first convince some country music traditionalists that her East Coast musical style was worthy of attention. Today her music is generating buzz from country fans not only in Nashville but worldwide.
“In the beginning, I had a lot of resistance,” Lynn says. “People were like, you don’t sound or look like anybody else. But I always stayed true to myself and forged my own path. But it wasn’t easy.”
Since her 2017 breakthrough song “Crazy Idea” put her in the music spotlight, Jessica Lynn has gone on to tour and perform with many of country music’s icons. At the same time, she’s managed to make her music a family affair. Her husband, Steve Sterlacci plays lead guitar; her father, a former NYPD officer plays bass; while her mother is a background vocalist. “And Audrey, my rescue dog, is our stage manager,” she says laughing.
Her first studio album, 2022’s “Lone Rider,” hit No. 1 on the Amazon charts in the US and UK, a remarkable feat for an independent artist. She’s followed that with hits such as “The Morning Always Comes,” and “Mixed Signals.”
Now the Italian country artist has added a Latin-style beat to her new track, the recently released “Shame.” Even as the unique mix of sounds helps separate Jessica Lynn from other artists, the stress of dropping such a new sound was more difficult that she expected.
“I held on to it for a good year and a half almost because I was nervous to release it because it was so different,” she says. “It was country rock, and but the song just organically formed to what it [sounds like now]. So [eventually], I was like, You know what, let’s try something different. And I’m glad I did because it’s been charting all over the world.”
Lynn’s keys to staying focused and confident in her country music creativity has always required the abilities to remain consistently fit both physically and mentally. That process starts each morning at 6 a.m., with a heart-pumping, high intensity workout. The daily sweat session is followed by her commitment to a vegan diet. To maintain success onstage night after night and still make it to her workouts, she happily admits to skipping most post-concert parties.
“I’m the most square person you will ever meet,” she tells M&F Country Muscle podcast. “I’m into my fitness and healthy eating. I rarely drink… To me like success is my drug. I value achieving things and being healthy more than just a fun night out.”
With her tour beginning May 31 in Stamford, CT, Jessica Lynn shares some of her daily goings on as she prepares physically for her gruelingly entertaining concert schedule throughout the United States and Europe.
“Working out gets me in a clear headspace and makes my body feel warm and ready,” she says. “I’m not so young anymore. So I can’t be pulling a muscle or a hamstring when I’m onstage.”
Jessica Lynn Carries Her FitBit On and Off Stage
Decades before sharing the stage with country superstars like Keith Urban, Brad Paisley, and Phil Vassar, Jessica Lynn’s was forming her musical path at an early age. “My parents have videos of me singing and writing songs when I was about 3 years old,” she says. “It just kind of became a part of who I was.”
Following her preschool performances, Lynn began to focus on classical piano. And while she worked toward her Masters degree in special education from Pace University, her musical skills kept expanding as well. She added guitar, drums, even harmonica to her skillset. She’ll oftentimes showcase her talents at any one of her performances.
But whether onstage and offstage, the “Shame” songstress says her most important instrument these days may be her Fitbit. She likes to keep meticulous measurements following a workout or performance. She says many times after one of her high-energy performances, her numbers can top 800-plus calories. It’s the fitness price for giving the fans an enjoyable entertainment experience. “Some newspapers have called me the ‘Energizer Bunny’ onstage,” she laughs. “But if you come to see a live show, you want to see a show right? If you just want to listen to the music, you could do that at home.”
If watching one of her shows isn’t evidence enough of the energy a live performance requires, her aftershow appearance may provide more proof of the athlete-like efforts that goes into each show.
“I’m usually dripping in sweat—and it’s before I go out for a meet and greets,” she says, laughing. “I always have a towel—I can’t be hugging people like that.”
She says in order to consistently perform at such a high level requires her commitment to early morning high-intensity cardio, which she does mainly at her New York home gym. Many morning she starts her routine with a classic Insanity workout. It’s the iconic Shaun T workout videos series from the late 2000s. Like good music, she says a good workout should stand the test of time. “I love Shaun T. I’m a big fan and he keeps me on shape. When he sees my calves bumping on stage, it’s because of him.”
If not moving to the Insanity beat, Jessica Lynn hits the pavement with morning runs throughout New York, or switch it up with a nice, long hike. Her favorites, however, are the she calls “bootcamp” style workouts. She lists jumping jacks, burpees, lunges, sprints, high knees, exercises that keep the heart rate up. These moves, she says, help mimic a major portion of her performances.
“It’s a lot of running around and jumping,” she says. “You’re trying to stay in shape and actually sound good while moving around and singing. So I like to train as if I’m an athlete.”
How Jessica Lynn Keeps Stage Ready on The Road
Besides Urban and Paisley, Jessica Lynn has opened and performed with legendary country artists including Richard Marx, Montgomery Gentry, Lonestar, Jo Dee Messina, and ZZ Top.
So while stage fright shouldn’t a problem, momentarily forgetting a lyric is one of her embarrassing concert concern. To remedy any memory lapse, one of Lynn’s main pre-concert drill is to actually work out while singing her tunes.
“The only fear I have on stage after all these years performing is forgetting the word,” she admits. “Sometimes you go blank, not that you don’t know them, but sometimes you get distracted. So I always do my vocal warmups and then I like to sing through at least a few songs. That’s kind of a preshow ritual.”
Besides practicing on hitting the right notes, she won’t get onstage until after she gets in a solid workout. It’s part of her routine. In Europe, where she performs regularly, she prefers burning calories while looking over the landscape scenery of such places as France and Germany. Sometimes performing her workouts outside can be as contagious to fans as seeing her in concert. “I worked out with one of the French military training officers one day. We’ve been friends ever since,” she says. “He showed me all their workouts, and taught us some self defense. So then I was out there with all the guys training the next day. Now they come to our concerts when we play in France.”
Jessica Lynn’s Travel Tips as a Vegan
Not every location provides the calming aesthetics as Germany or France. Lynn can never forget one particular Scotland appearance, when one promoter decided to book the entire band in one of the seediest spots in Glasgow. Needless to say, it’s one of the rare times Jessica Lynn had to skip a workout.
“Spoiler alert: It wasn’t fine,” she says. “We showed up, and it was a hostel. We have our expensive equipment and everything with us and we were in this big room with a shared bathroom. It was definitely a place that I did not feel comfortable exercising, let alone leaving any of my things.”
Ever since Scotland, Jessica Lynn has added travel advisor to her skillset list (“Always browse in incognito mode on your browser, because they see you looking and they jack the price up,” she advises). One of her main advantages of DIY travel bookings, she says, is to find locations that offer complementary meals. “I’ll do that so there’s always something to eat,” she says.
Maintaining a consistent diet routine while on the road is problematic for most, let alone sticking to a vegan schedule. “For breakfast at home, I’ll have vegan coconut yogurt, but there I’ll just do it without the yogurt and eat a lot of fruit. Or I’ll buy bananas and keep them in our room or I’ll s travel with granola bars or protein bars just to make sure that I’m getting what I need.”
There’s some good options—she’s become a fan of vegan schnitzel when in Germany—however, not every venue can be as catering for the country star.
“A few years ago we toured Belgium and they forgot about my vegan request—I had to have ice cream and French fries for three days—t was the only option,” she recalls. “It was chocolate. I remember looking down at my cone and my fries and being like, it is what it is.
At home, the routine has become much more manageable. Her origins for going vegan were purely out of love for animals—she’s heavily involved in various animal rescue programs— and as time went on, Lynn realized she began feeling better.
She also proudly admits to becoming pretty good as a chef— she has a specialty of tofu-, quinoa-, and lentil-based vegan meatball recipe. “It’s like a pure protein ball,” she says. “Some tofu, olive oil, seasoning, lentils and quinoa,” she says. “You literally cook the lentils and then food process half the lentils so you get like a different texture kind of like me it has all those different textures. I just pick them up you put red sauce on them.”
Along the journey she subtly veered her other half toward a more vegan-based diet. So far, Lynn says her guitar-playing husband has lost more than 40 pounds and the back pain that troubled him has been eliminated—which helped improve his onstage health. Although she says she’s not prone to preach her diet philosophy on anyone, she is, after all, the cook.
I’d buy steaks and chicken and cook them, but they would be for the dog, she says. “My husband would laugh,” she says. “When we ate at home he would eat vegetarian.”