Jesse LaMonaca is a San Diego based singer-songwriter and SD Music Award winner returning with his first new music in over a decade. “The Way” is the lead single from his forthcoming EP Montana Snow, arriving this fall.

He grew up between Philadelphia and the small country town an hour north where his family still lives. After time spent in New York City and Sweden, he landed in San Diego in 2008 and found his footing in the city's music scene. His band Jesse LaMonaca and The Dime Novels earned a Best Americana Album nomination at the San Diego Music Awards in their debut year, and won the award in 2012 for The Lament of Tumbleweed Hawk. He travelled to Australia on a solo tour later that year.

In the years that followed, while continuing to write and perform at residencies, songwriter rounds, private events, and live shows around the country, he was also working as an emergency department nurse. That particular combination — songwriter and ER nurse — has a way of keeping you honest about what matters. Most of his free time was spent camping and moving through the landscapes of the American West — the ocean, the mountains, the desert. Those places found their way into these songs. 

Montana Snow was recorded in Nashville with longtime friends producer Ben Simonetti and brothers Brandon and James Conway. He calls the sound Western Indie Country Club, and says “These are the songs I’ve been waiting to write since I wrote my first song.” The songs are rooted in heartfelt storytelling and emotional honesty, delivered through cinematic Western Americana by a voice that sticks with you, made for windows-down road trips into the golden fading light.

“The Way” is a song about absence and rediscovery, about being lost and finding your way home, it opens on a misty river — a swarm of swallows, a grey morning, a soul that gets a little straighter at the bend — and ends with a confession.

Western Indie Country Club is now open.