Jessie Veeder is a songwriter, musician, journalist, North Dakotan, community builder, mother, and advocate for Western life. She explores rural living through her music, popular blog, and podcast, Meanwhile, back at the ranch, and is the director of the Long X Arts Foundation. Veeder’s latest album, Yellow Roses, was released in January 2024.
Jessie Veeder’s music evokes a feeling that can only be replicated by driving through her home state of North Dakota, off the beaten path of the interstate. Its range and farmland, as far as the eye can see, only interrupted by grazing cows, oil flares, or a sign for the next small town’s annual summer rodeo. Western North Dakota hides a lot of its beauty below the line of sight, with much of its topography going down instead of up. This might be lost on someone who doesn’t take the time to look more closely, and Veeder has been learning how to see beyond the surface for her entire life. Her songwriting and journalism explore the moments, stories, people, and experiences that make life in the rural West unique.
Veeder has always been surrounded by the Western lifestyle and grew up singing alongside her father, Gene, a musician and rancher. From an early age, she related to songs with a story to tell, identifying elements of her own life. “I thought it was so magical to be a kid out in the middle of nowhere,” she recalled.
Her father performed throughout the community, and Veeder started getting on stage to sing with him at a young age. She entered and won a community talent contest, and the grand prize of $50 in “chamber bucks” was enough to buy a double tape deck. Now armed with the technology to record herself, Veeder kept practicing and writing songs.
Knowing that her story was unique, Veeder continued pulling on the thread of rural life in her songwriting. This led to recording her first album of original material, This Road, at 16. “It was just a unique thing for a kid my age to be doing something like that,” she shared. “I think about how brave that was.”
Veeder found a lot of support in her community, but the idea of becoming a professional musician seemed out of reach. “That was a pipe dream,” she shared. “Saying I wanted to play music professionally was a hard thing for me to say out loud as a teenager. I didn’t utter it out loud, but I did to myself.”
This changed when she left home at 17 to attend the University of North Dakota. She studied communications and was also encouraged to pursue music further. A Nashville booking agent discovered her music, and beginning her freshman year, Veeder toured up and down the Midwest. She played coffee shops and colleges, traveling alone. “I was pretty independent and totally fine getting in the car and driving hours to play,” she shared.
This experience was formative and taught Veeder how to use her unique qualities — like her thick North Dakota accent and childhood on a ranch — to connect with people. “Not being ashamed of it, but being proud and talking about it was interesting to these college kids,” she remarked. “Once I realized that people are curious about my upbringing and my songs about rural living, I gained confidence.”
At 23, Veeder was engaged to her now-husband and high school sweetheart, Chad. The couple moved home to Watford City, where Chad worked in the oil field, and Veeder did various jobs while continuing to write and play music. Looking for change, the couple moved to Missoula, Montana, where she worked for a nonprofit. Chad was offered a job back in North Dakota, so they returned to the family ranch, living in the house where Veeder’s dad was raised.
Once again, her roots and history in western North Dakota were pulling Veeder toward storytelling, and she committed herself to following this thread. “I stayed home for around a year and a half and just explored my creativity. I wasn’t going to work in a bank, in the oil field, or as a teacher. I was going to tell this story,” she shared.
She recorded Nothing’s Forever, which features her popular song, Boomtown. The oil industry had completely transformed her hometown, and the once quiet rural area was suddenly filled with people from all over the country and the world. “You almost forgot you were in your hometown because it was so wild,” Veeder shared. This sudden growth, and the negative and positive effects, made national news. Veeder had started her blog, Meanwhile, back at the ranch, and her writing had also been picked up by local and regional publications. Soon, the media was calling her to comment on Watford City’s sudden stroke of luck — or misfortune — depending on who was asked.
Veeder chose to look at the situation positively. Her father’s work in economic development offered perspective on the generational benefits that could come from this sudden influx of money, and Veeder used her writing skills to tell their story. “I was really curious about the stories that were coming in and wanted to help create a story for our community,” she said.
National publications grabbed onto shocking stories of violence and oil field workers living in campers during below-zero weather. Veeder saw humanity in these people’s stories, understanding that everyone was making a sacrifice of some kind to be there. “There were people coming here who just wanted a better life for their family, and we wanted to figure out a way to keep them here or get them to bring their families here,” she recalled.
Her high school classmates started returning home, and family ranchers who once feared not being able to pass their operations on to the next generation were able to bring their kids back home. “The next generation could make a living here and do it really well,” Veeder said.
She honed her writing skills during this time. “I became really practiced at it and worked on seeing the magical everyday moments, or the story that could come from the turn of phrase that someone said,” she recalled. “I have always been fascinated by the stories in rural America.”
Her latest album, Yellow Roses, further explores Veeder’s life in the rural West and her family’s deep history in North Dakota. She and Chad are the parents of two girls, Rosie and Edie, and motherhood has also become a strong theme in her writing. Released in January of 2024, Yellow Roses came on the heels of several trying years for Veeder. In 2020, right before the Covid-19 lockdown, she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. She had been fighting breathing issues, and having been told that she had asthma, kept trucking through life, singing and performing regularly.
After flying to Elko, Nevada, for the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, Veeder knew that something was very wrong. An ER doctor in Elko expressed extreme concern, and after performing for the festival and returning home, she sought out a larger hospital in Bismarck. As she drove away from the hospital toward home, the doctor called her and said she needed to return immediately. A large tumor was discovered in her airway — Veeder’s lungs were over 90% blocked. Thanks to a strong diaphragm and good posture, Veeder had miraculously been able to sing but was dangerously close to an emergency. After several surgeries, a lot of treatment, and downtime, Veeder recovered. Luckily, her voice was not affected despite the extremely invasive surgery to remove the cancer. Today, she is learning to slow down and does regular preventative scans, but Veeder is back to living life full-on.
In addition to sharing her own music, she works as the director for the Long X Arts Foundation, which brings art into the Watford City community. The organization helps plan events ranging from rodeo dances to art classes and classical piano concerts. When the oil boom brought money into the community, Veeder quickly advocated for the arts. “I knew that was something we lacked in our community because growing up here, I didn’t have as many opportunities to perform or explore the art world,” Veeder said.
Other community members also advocated for supporting the arts, and in 2016 the Long X Arts Foundation was officially formed. “We have a permanent space in our visitor center with an art gallery and a full-time art teacher. We run a big concert series and go into the schools. We have facilitated public art projects and now are opening a retail space where we can really lift up local artists by giving them a place to sell their work,” Veeder shared.
Art is front and center in the community, and Veeder is committed to bringing new and interesting performers into the community. Concerts have featured a Carnegie Hall trumpet player and a classical pianist.
Veeder is an advocate for the Western lifestyle, and through her social media platforms, blog, and podcast, she shares her life on the ranch with people from across the country. Recently, she has been considering the popularity of Western culture and how that can be harnessed to benefit agriculture and Western culture. “I think we’re coming into an era where our story is our power,” Veeder shared. “I see that happening on social media in the world of agriculture, and we’re on those platforms showing people what it really looks like to be on a family ranch. This is what cowboy looks like, what being a farmer looks like, and what raising kids looks like. We’re able to grab a hold of that narrative on our own, and that’s what I think is so empowering and wonderful.”
The newfound popularity of Western culture presents challenges, and Veeder recognizes the gap that needs to be bridged between popular culture and real life. “Let’s celebrate the culture and give people the opportunity to learn about what we do. If someone watches Yellowstone and then wants to come out to my ranch and let us show them what we do, all the better,” Veeder said.
Rodeo is another thread connecting the general public with rural America. “I’ve been a participant in rodeo and, of course, an advocate for it. Those contestants are the ones representing our lifestyle. What we’re putting out front — and what cowboy means to us — matters to people,” she shared.
Veeder is also the author of Prairie Princess, a children’s book written in collaboration with North Dakota artist Daphne Johnson Clark. The book celebrates rural living through the eyes of a young girl on a ranch.
Veeder performs regularly at festivals and events throughout the country. She is a regular performer at the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering and has shared the stage with a long list of Western artists. Her efforts in music, community building, and advocacy have been recognized by several entities. Veeder is a recent recipient of the Governor’s Award for the Arts in Individual Achievement, she was named North Dakota’s favorite Folk Artist in 2016 and 2017, and she is the recipient of the North Dakota Ambassador Award.
-Article by Lilly Platts
Q&A with Rickie Fanning
RL: What horses are you currently hauling with you?
