Critically acclaimed singer/songwriter, Jamie McDell, has released her new single, “Dream Team,” via ABC MUSIC. This is the first single from her forthcoming new album due to drop in early 2022.
Produced by Nash Chambers, Jamie discusses the single, “I wrote Dream Team while sitting on the bathroom floor of my partner's boss's apartment after having just finished watching the last episode of the Netflix series ‘Chernobyl.’ I wouldn’t say this song was inspired by the tragic events that took place in 1986, but the devastating stories paired with a social media post by some local popular boys with the caption 'Dream Team' had me questioning who we aspire to be like, and the hands that we choose to place our families lives in.”
Born in New Zealand, at the age of 7 McDell’s father left a high-paying job at an elite Auckland law firm to shift her mother, younger sister, and Jamie onto the high seas and began living aboard a yacht in the Mediterranean. It’s here Jamie wrote her first song, a sea shanty to the dolphins. Also on that yacht lived a small collection of her parents’ favorite cassette tapes, which luckily included albums by Jimmy Buffett, John Denver, and James Taylor. The young artist quickly formed a particularly strong bond with these records and she fondly remembers watching her parents perform Buffett duets - and occasionally chiming in, learning how to harmonize with her mother. An eager learner, Jamie then picked up the guitar after studying her fathers’ John Denver chord book collection and has never looked back.
Now at age 28, New Zealand singer/songwriter Jamie McDell has achieved a prolific amount in her formative years. Being signed to EMI at age 16 sparked the beginning of a successful musical journey, making her a household name across the nation. With the release of her debut album ‘Six Strings and a Sailboat’, she went on to achieve Gold album sales, receive three NZ Music Award nominations, winning Best Pop Album of 2013. Then her sophomore record ‘Ask Me Anything’ gained global attention, seeing the album track ‘Moon Shines Red’ featured on Pretty Little Liars.
In March 2017 Jamie made a trip to Nashville, looking for a change of scenery and to connect with the environment that birthed much of the music throughout her youth. It’s here she wrote the songs that would make up the fabric for her third record “Extraordinary Girl”. She met with ex-pat Australian producer Nash Chambers for coffee one day and decided they shared the same musical values. Not long after that meeting McDell arranged to fund her first independent record “Extraordinary Girl”, which was recorded over the space of two days at the House of Blues studio in Nashville. She then returned home for the albums’ release, promotion, and supporting tours throughout New Zealand and Australia.
Then in early 2019 Jamie relocated to Toronto, Ontario for a new chapter and to be closer to Nashville. It’s here she found herself sitting on the floor of her tiny apartment, feeling overwhelmed and frustrated with a friend in a troubled relationship, and out came the powerful song, “Botox.” “It’s a story depicting the dangers of silencing our instincts and compromising our values, just because a significant other has you convinced that you need fixing,” says Jamie This track would then fuel a new era of unapologetic honesty in McDell’s songwriting, and the release of The Botox EP.
After opening a US tour for Robert Ellis (Texas Piano Man) in early 2020, she would then visit Nashville once again, team up with Nash in his eastside studio, and gathered the amazing musical talents of Dan Dugmore, Jedd Hughes, Dennis Crouch, Shawn Fichter, Jerry Roe, Jimmy Wallace, Tony Lucido, and Ross Holmes, along with guests such as the McCrary Sisters, Robert Ellis, Erin Rae and Tom Busby (Busby Marou). This new album (yet to be released) contains Jamie’s most brutally honest moments, in both writing and performance, while the musicians and production take you on a modern journey through 70s folk and country, blended with a healthy dose of roots and rock.
