Meet Jamie-Lee Dimes | Musician, Artist, Writer, Advocate
We had the good fortune of connecting with Jamie-Lee Dimes and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Jamie-Lee, what role has risk played in your life or career?
I feel like I’m constantly living in the ‘risk zone’ of my life. Every time I’ve made the biggest sacrifices or taken the riskiest leaps, ones that could potentially end a career, that’s when my writing, stories, and experiences have truly resonated. Over the past nine months, aside from recovering from the aftermath of high-risk decisions, I’ve also faced a lot of challenges, public scrutiny, backlash, personal life scrutiny that aren’t often talked about with risk.
I began working on a significant project, one that could tank my entire life, and found myself at a crossroads: I could retreat, take on an ordinary job, and pretend the last few years never happened, be silenced, let those wanting to silence me win, or, I could dig deeper, become more resilient, and continue pushing forward. I decided to take on the challenge, working on a film project, writing an e-book, and going back to school. I changed my major from sociology to law because I know that in the coming years, the risks I’ll face will be extreme. I need to understand how to navigate those challenges.
Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Music is the hardest slog you’ll ever go through. Right now, I’m dealing with the fallout of having rocked the boat a little too hard, my personal life has changed dramatically. Just last month, I was talking with friends in the industry about how, when an artist goes through conflict or challenge, especially when they speak out or have a strong voice, they’re often the ones who get silenced. People avoid you, pretend you don’t exist, and project their unresolved pain onto you. Every situation in my life has been someone else’s pain projected into me to completely derail me. That’s exactly the space I’m navigating in my career right now. Law school has helped me see risk in a whole new way.
I’m currently recording my sophomore album, New York, California, while also completing a full-time semester of law school. I recently released an eBook for Coachella called Thrifting in the California Desert, which explores sustainable styling in Joshua Tree and ties into my business, 1973 Records. On top of that, I’ve begun developing a film project rooted in a song I wrote for my forthcoming album, and an extended conversation from a rolling stone music video of the week song I wrote in 2021 called ‘Wish I Was Someone Else, it’s investigative journalism through a feminist and sociology lens. I’ve spent the last six months mostly in solitude, back in my hometown in Australia, writing and building this body of work. Honestly, life is weird and I hope it all pays off. I see so much corruption and coverups in music and in every industry.
In the past few weeks, I’ve started to see the projects move forward, and that feels like a breakthrough. But I’ve also been struggling. I’ve been drowning at times, fighting hard through a weird and uncertain period of my career. Even now, with this new chapter opening and small victories starting to emerge, from spending twelve hours a day unpaid on something I deeply believe in, I’m realizing that taking such a hardcore risk has created a job for me for the next two years. Still, every time progress shows up, it seems to come hand-in-hand with massive personal tests and people trying to derail you.
If there’s one thing I want people to understand, it’s how hard I work. I don’t stop. I’m Taurus-level tenacious. I don’t take no for an answer. When I hit a wall in my music career and couldn’t get the legal help I needed, I didn’t give up, I enrolled in law school. That’s how serious I am about building a sustainable, long-term career in music.
Right now, I’m in what I call the “ugly phase”, that gritty, messy middle where nothing looks polished, but everything is being built. Once I get through this hump, I know I’ll be unstoppable. I’ve formed a new band for the album, and we’re all living together. Writing music again has reignited my soul. When I commit, I go all in. That’s also my flaw, I don’t always know when to stop.
If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
A day that starts at a Korean spa, followed by vegan Ethiopian food in Little Ethiopia, a Runyon Canyon hike, drinks at a Silver Lake dive bar, and ends with a drive out to the California desert to go thrifting.
Buy my ebook Thrifting in the California Desert here
Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
The California desert has destroyed me over and over, and in doing so, revealed my strength, my raw-as-guts resilience, and the deep healing that’s taken place there. You could almost say it’s where I’ve both broken and broken through curses. It’s a place of intense transformation. It doesn’t creep in quietly; it reveals what’s hidden with full force. There’s nothing subtle about it.
Website: http://jamieleedimes.com
Instagram: http://instagram.com/jamieleedimes
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamieleedimes
Image Credits
First Photo: Tanya Doyle
Third Photo: Jackie Sterna
Last Photo: Mimi Haley
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