“We have a saying in my band: ‘All roads lead to Cash.’”

For Jack Romano, Johnny Cash’s influence extends far beyond the sound of his country voice. Like the late musician, Romano’s catalog is rooted in honesty, vulnerability, and raw emotion—songs that explore what it means to be human and, more specifically, what it means to be a man in a world that often discourages vulnerability.

“To me, I’m writing primarily with an eye for a male audience, who in 2026 is inundated every day by an algorithm that’s telling you that you’re less of a man if you’re not providing for a woman, or some of these, you know, crazy figures like an Andrew Tate or a Jordan Peterson, unfortunately,” he said.

He continued, “We hear often in the media about this idea of, like, the male loneliness epidemic, which I don’t know that that is real in the way that it’s talked about. I think that it’s somewhat self-imposed, and I think that stems from men in society being conditioned to be very disconnected from themselves. And so, my biggest influence as a songwriter is Johnny Cash.”

But Romano’s relationship with music began much earlier, rooted in his upbringing with musical theater.

“My mom was really into show tunes,” he explained, “like Broadway-type stuff, and so she played a lot of the really, really old musicals, and those singers often had very baritone voices. It wasn’t what you hear most often in musical theater today.”

That difference in vocal range would eventually shape Romano’s own relationship with singing.

“And then later on, when I would do plays in school and stuff, it was all tenor material, and so it kind of convinced me maybe I’m not that great of a singer because that’s out of my range, or my voice doesn’t quite have that timbre to it,” he recalled. “And so I really didn’t pursue music much in my teenage years. And then when I went to college, I went to school for acting, actually, but I brought my guitar with me and would just sing in my dorm room. …That’s when I began to gravitate toward country music, folk music, early rock and roll music, where the singers kind of had either a lower timbre or a different timbre than the music of today, which tends to be more high-pitched.”

This eventually led Romano to what he calls his “big three” vocal inspirations: Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Johnny Cash.

“I first started performing when I was about 20 years old in bars, and I was kind of a Pandora radio station,” he joked. “I would just do the covers of all those great country artists, like Johnny Cash or Waylon Jennings or Willie Nelson, and just rattle off. I would do sometimes 60, 70 songs in a night, just me, in the corner of a bar somewhere.”

Romano continued, “I think as I started getting older, it started to feel like I was making my name off of somebody else’s name, like I’m just known as a guy who interprets other songwriters. And I think it was this sense in myself that I have that I’m constantly trying to challenge myself to do the harder thing than the easier thing, which made me think maybe I can write a song.”

That desire to challenge himself eventually led to Romano’s first digital release, “Haunted Man,” a song that tells the story of “just another haunted man.” “I thought that it had that universal message,” he said. “I thought that it really targeted what my goals are.”

“It was a very simple song, two verses and a simple hook, and a couple of guitars. Our guitar player doubled on bass and drums, and we just put it out there with a picture I took on my cell phone of me on a country dirt road, looking back down at my shadow behind me,” Romano explained, “kind of the image of a man who’s haunted by his own self, his own shadow self, and that the only way to get un-haunted is to kind of address your own shadow self. And that seems to have resonated with people, and I’m glad.”

In 2023, Romano was actually hired by the Cash Family Estate as a Johnny Cash tribute artist, an experience that would further strengthen the connection between his own music and his biggest musical influence.

“I went on the road for two months, every night a different city, and sang the music of Johnny Cash. …[‘Haunted Man’] honors my connection to Cash,” he said. “It honors the band because my band also were the guys that I played with on that Cash tribute. So, we had just gotten off of playing Cash songs every night. I went into the studio with them and said, ‘Hey, I’ve written this kind of Cash-inspired rhythm and song, and let’s let that be the first one.’ And I’m glad that we did it that way.”

Since “Haunted Man,” Romano has released his first independent four-song EP, The Green Growin’ Trees, before signing with Studio Zoe in Princeton, New Jersey.

“I wish I had a more artistically intentional answer to [why the EP only has 4 songs],” he laughed, “but it was as simple as I could afford one session…I knew that once I signed a deal with this studio, I wasn’t going to be permitted to do any independent releasing. So I said, ‘Let’s just pick those four best ones and release them as singles,’ a kind of waterfall strategy, so that we can periodically have new stuff coming out before The Green Growin’ Trees. Just get some stuff out there, because who knows how long it’s going to be until we have another release with the new studio.”

The EP features four tracks: “Oldsmobile Rag,” “When a Cadillac Meant Success,” “Girl with the Red Dress On,” and “The Green Growin’ Trees.” Of the four, Romano admits that “Girl with the Red Dress On” holds a special place for him.

“For sentimental reasons. It is based on the story of how I met my girlfriend, and she was wearing a red dress,” he said. “So there’s sentimental value there, but also it’s the first track that features me on the piano. It was just me, my voice, and the piano. It really sounds like I’m in the back of a saloon somewhere on some piano, singing a slow blues song about a beautiful woman I love.”

Romano will have the opportunity to dive deeper into his songwriting process at the upcoming RiverJAM Songs & Stories event, where he will share more about the stories, influences, and experiences that have shaped his music.

While artists like Sinatra, Presley, and Cash have played an undeniable role in shaping his sound, Romano’s greatest piece of advice for aspiring musicians is to ultimately find their own voice.

“My advice is to limit how much advice you listen to,” he said, “and listen to yourself. If there is something inside of you that is telling you this is right, then it probably means it is coming from the part of you that is most you. Listen to the greats, but most importantly, listen to yourself.”

Photos taken by Gabriella Cordova | Interviewed on July 20, 2026