Jxdn flashes a warm smile when he greets me at his front door. He’s standing on a multi-colored “JXDN” entryway rug, which matters because he once abandoned his identity. But on this blue-skied, sunny May afternoon, Jxdn is proud. We had met the evening prior at Warner Music’s headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, and he had been dangerously dehydrated with a fever, which scared him because it presented an excuse to revert to self-destructive patterns. He’d anxiously paced, his head spinning with manic impulses, and wished he were in his bathtub. But he’d shown up to perform acoustic versions of “Sad October,” “You Needed Someone I Just Happened To Be There,” and “Just Let Go” from When The Music Stops, his sophomore album out now via DTA Records, because he cares more about music than comfort.
“It was so important that I went yesterday,” the 23-year-old artist born Jaden Hossler says. “I can’t just say sh*t anymore. I have to do it.”
Jxdn has worked hard to reconfigure his comfort zone. Two Junes ago, his foundation was shattered when Cooper Noriega, his best friend and biggest fan, died from an accidental overdose. Jxdn hid — what good was anything if he couldn’t have Coop? — and stopped listening to music. It was an inconceivably dark comedown from the euphoric highs he’d experienced after being hand-picked by Travis Barker as his first DTA Records signee, releasing his July 2021 debut Tell Me About Tomorrow (spawning pop-punk/rock hits “Angels & Demons” and “Better Off Dead”), opening on Machine Gun Kelly’s Tickets To My Downfall Tour, and headlining his first tour.
“I don’t want to be famous anymore,” Jxdn says. “I don’t want the extremes. I want the grey because that’s where the gold is. Nobody sits in the grey.”
On this afternoon, we’re sitting in the grey. His friends, including longtime manager Shannon Bayersdorfer and roommates Onyx Mayor and Quinton Griggs, huddle in the movie room. Jxdn’s brand-new Maltipoo puppy, Kurt — named after Kurt Cobain — darts around for scratches. Jxdn moved in two months ago after ending his high-profile relationship with Stassie Karanikalaou. In the past, he would have isolated and self-sabotaged, but it dawned on him he’s happiest when his home is full of people — people dedicated to changing the world through music, to be specific.
“Every breakup I’ve gone through has destroyed me,” he admits. “I really loved this girl. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I hadn’t been spending time with people of my nature. At heart, I’m kind of a little rat. I felt a lot of inferiority with ex-my girlfriend and her friends because they are the biggest celebrities in the world. It’s nobody’s fault but mine, but I just had to change my environment. I would’ve been very happy with her, but I wouldn’t have been very happy with myself. I needed to marry music again.”
In the kitchen, Chef TJ unintentionally affirms Jxdn’s decision. “I was on FaceTime with one of my best friends in France last week,” TJ says while preparing a Southern feast that Jxdn and his friends will devour in two hours. “He has a daughter, and she was like, ‘I’m going to see that guy from California. His name is Jxdn.’ She showed me her ticket, and it was you.”
Jxdn is cautiously excited about his upcoming European promo trip for When The Music Stops: “I don’t like leaving my house, but I need to go talk to my fans. I’m an in-person person. I think that’s the best way people can at least try to understand what I’m trying to do.”
As such, Jxdn asks if he can play me a few in-progress songs. To watch him sing along and play air guitar with his eyes closed, as if nobody is in the room, is to instantly understand him. His all-consuming passion and aching transparency covers every square inch of When The Music Stops, a 17-track album encapsulating two years, nine genres, and infinite emotions.
“Coming out of the hardest time of my life, I was ready to give up completely,” Jxdn says. “I’ve been fighting to feel the way I feel for as long as I can remember, to the point where it broke me. I am willing to lose everything to do what I’m doing, but that is not the only option. I think that’s what people forget: We don’t have to lose everything to make things better.”
Jxdn only knows that because he lost everything.
Hunter Moreno
Growing up, Jxdn moved 15 times. His adolescence was split between Texas and Chattanooga, Tennessee, with his two sisters. His parents were pastors. He was constantly exposed to new cities and peers, but he remained sheltered and severely depressed, surviving suicide attempts. “I was never opened up to the world,” he says. “I didn’t know you could have posters, didn’t know you could go to concerts. I would make friends, lose friends, and I was always trying to fit in.”
Jxdn’s chronic desire to fit in led him to TikTok in 2019 — earning money and millions of followers. He toured the United States, relocated to LA, and attended his first concert. At 18, he witnessed the late Juice WRLD perform “Empty” and knew music was where he belonged. He made up for lost time, squeezing the world for all it’s worth, with Noriega by his side. “I don’t want to discredit the other people in my life, but everybody knows that Cooper was my first genuine best friend,” he says.
After Noriega’s death, Jxdn crashed for eight weeks with Bayersdorfer, his manager since March 2020 whom he says “knows me better than anyone” and grieved Noriega.
