Jesse Welles has no problem giving it to you straight. It’s in his nature to pull no punches. Ask him about the current state of rock music and the rock singer and multi-talented musician will tell you how few things in life make him so equally prideful and angry as people bemoaning its death. He’ll readily tell you that despite others constantly talking up his once-in-a-generation, jarringly emotive voice, to him it often sounds like nothing short of “burnt toast.”

“I hate to experience anything that isn’t just the cold-hard truth,” the Arkansas-native who performs as Welles, and has a knack for penning at turns tender, melodic and gut-punching rock music, says without hesitation. “But music definitely takes me away from it all,” he offers with a nervous laugh. “Well, for three to four minutes anyway.”

Welles understands the best singers wield their instrument with a stealth utility; they’re readily able to unleash a wealth of emotion from little more than a murmur, if, in his case, an occasional manic howl. Where vocal precision belies sterility, depth and character are blood let out from a deep wound. To that end, where Welles may not deem himself a storyteller in the classi

[Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.]