‘I Literally Black Out’ (Exclusive) – ryan

• Jackson Dean has managed to set himself apart in a crowded country field
• “I want to make music till I’m dead,” he tells PEOPLE
• Dean’s next single, “Be Your Man,” is out May 9
  

When Jackson Dean says he gives his all to his live performances, you better believe he means it.

“I’ll push so hard sometimes,” the country rocker tells PEOPLE, “that I literally black out — like when you stand up too quick.”

And still he keeps singing. “Last time I had it happen,” he says, “I spent an entire verse in the dark. Your body’s still going, and you’re like … hell, yeah!”

By now, fans come to his shows expecting this all-gas-no-brakes style, part of a formula that’s powered a momentum to his career ever since his debut single, “Don’t Come Lookin’” topped the charts in 2022. Add to that formula a volcanic voice and songs soaked in a restless spirit, and Dean has managed to set himself apart in a crowded country field.

This is all the 24-year-old Maryland native has ever wanted — granted, after a brief boyhood flirtation with the idea of joining the Marines until he realized that “my feelings toward authority would not add up,” he says. “But once I found music, it was just game over, really.”

To understand the physicality of Dean’s performances, you only have to look at his upbringing. The son of a masonry business owner, he grew up working for his dad, slinging concrete and hoisting bricks. He also was an all-around athlete: wrestling, lacrosse, and most definitively, the defensive line in football.

“I was not a pretty boy,” he says. “I was not going to catch the ball. I was trying to kill the ball. It was a clash every frickin’ play.”

Tellingly, Dean chooses on the same word to describe his performance style: “When you step on the stage, there’s the clash of all these sounds coming together, flying through the air, going into somebody else’s body. And you’re making that. You are that. You’re in the clash. It’s just a wild, wild feeling. It’s a thing to be engulfed by. You can literally feel the ground shake. It’s so fun. It’s so, so, so, so fun.”

Dare it be asked: better than sex?

Dean draws a deep breath. “That’s tough,” he finally responds. “But sometimes, when it’s proper … yeah. Yeah.”

Is it any wonder that he vows he’s in this for the long haul? “I want to make music,” he says, “till I’m dead.”

Dean got a first taste of what his voice could combust while still in high school. With performances in school musicals and local venues already under his belt, he was tapped to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before his final football game.

Already suited up, he accompanied himself on guitar and delivered a thrilling creative rendition — the familiar melody is almost unrecognizable — and a video of it went instantly viral. It also earned the 18-year-old an invitation to Steve Harvey’s TV talk show and jump-started the career that landed him in Nashville less than a year later.

Jackson Dean, “The Star-Spangled Banner”

Riffing on the national anthem? Sure, it took guts, but Dean also allows that something else was at work. “It’s so hard to sing!” he says. “If you start too high, you definitely can’t hit the rest of it. I was a very inexperienced singer at that point. I guess I was just going for the three-chords-and-the-truth style.”

The truth-telling has remained a constant in his music, but his artistic education in Nashville proved swift and efficient. He was just 22 when “Don’t Come Lookin’” notched No. 1; he followed it up with “Fearless (The Echo),” a top 10 hit. Both his 2022 debut album, Greenbroke, and his latest album, On The Back Of My Dreamsreleased last fall, have drawn critical praise and continued to grow his fan base.

Dean acknowledges his career growth has been more a steady rise than meteoric, and he’s content with the trajectory. The success of current top 30 single, “Heavens To Betsy,” is almost a fluke, a hit that he’s proud to have built organically from the ground up. The story song is unlike any other now on country radio — a yarn unspooled from Dean’s fertile imagination about a deceased man who sends a heavenly message of regret and hope to his still-living daughter.

“I started playing that song to kill time on radio tour,” he explains. “I’d be like, here’s another one that I wrote, and you’re probably not going to like it, but I’m going to play it anyway because it’s good.”

His gamble has since paid off with regular radio play, loud sing-alongs at shows and tearful fans at meet-and-greets who share how the song has touched them. “People will put themselves in the shoes of the song,” he says. “To see their own story in it — that’s the purpose of all this, you know. And that’s not my call to make. It’s their call.”

Jackson Dean, “Heavens To Betsy”

Dean plucked the album title, On The Back Of My Dreamsfrom the lyrics of one of the 13 tracks (all of which he co-wrote) because he liked how it “came off the tongue.” The name is also a tight fit with the overarching theme, which he describes as “wanting to live a full life, as full as you can.”

It’s his own credo, of course, and he strives to make good on it: “I’ve gotten to do some amazing things and be some amazing places and meet even more amazing people.” He also keeps dreaming bigger: “I definitely want to be playing stadiums one day. I want our sound to be coming out of a stadium.”

Crowd size, Dean quickly adds, isn’t his main motivation. “It’s what you have to give that matters,” he says. “I’ve got a lot of beautiful things left to make.”

Wealth also isn’t a driving force, he insists. Yet another chapter of his childhood history has removed that lure from the equation. When he was 13 years old, his family lost their home and belongings to a fire. Dean knows, better than most, that “it can be gone like that,” he says as he snaps his fingers.

“This material world is just here and now,” he says. “Having woken up in a burning building, you know anything could happen to make all this fall apart. It’s all a risk. You might as well go out doing what you love.”

He says he plows most of the money he makes back into his career — “just keep this show on the road, baby!” — and that means keeping his life off the road frugal. He, his girlfriend of two years and their mountain cur-heeler mix share a rustic, high-ceilinged cabin about 25 miles northwest of Nashville — a 15-minute drive just to get to the nearest grocery store. Dean’s favorite spot to “chillax” is his covered porch, which overlooks a stand of trees and acres of farmland. He relies on his own muscle to do the upkeep; next on the to-do list is a concrete retaining wall.

Dean loves working with his hands, and leatherwork and woodburning are favorite pastimes. One recent project was a woodburned guitar, which he presented to Lainey Wilson as thanks for taking him on her tour last fall. Giving a superstar something homemade — it’s another gutsy move. To Dean, it made perfect sense.

“What do you get a woman that has everything?” he says. “You get her something that she can’t buy.”

Dean also crafted the leather hobo bag he carries with him. It’s rough around the edges and forthrightly one of a kind, not a bad metaphor for its creator. “Most people would make it with detail and fine stitching,” he says, “and I’m just like, no just Bear Grylls that s—!”

Dean is now on a headlining tour in Europeand he’ll return to the United States for a summer full of festival dates. He’s also teeing up new music — including single “Be Your Man,” out May 9 — that he promises is more “groovy” and less “intense” than his current catalogue. His single-minded focus is maintaining his momentum.

“It’s one thing to go and do it, and it’s another to keep it going,” he says. “We’ve got a hell of a lot of work to do this year.”

The rewards, he knows, await him every time he takes the stage. He isn’t ashamed to admit his addiction.

“It’s hard to beat,” says Dean. “There is no drug. There is no drink. There is no love like it on the face of the earth.”