Q&A: Champagne Lane Fuses Genres and Influences On ‘The World In Your Eyes’
WRITTEN BY ANNE TILLEY
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Photo by Garrett Cardoso
Champagne Lane is an Atlanta-based duo composed of multi-instrumentalists Jackson Welch and Jake Rogers. The pair split many of the creative processes, with Jackson typically spearheading the songwriting aspects and Jake managing production duties. By infusing their work with elements of yacht rock, ‘70s funk, and the upbeat energy of indie pop, Champagne Lane has effectively created a fresh sound that is equal parts nostalgic and exciting.
The independent pair released their first single “Golden Hour” in 2019 to overwhelmingly positive reception, racking up over 6 million streams on Spotify and aiding in establishing the band’s growing fan base around the country. 2020 brought the release of their six-track debut EP Change of Heart, further showcasing the duo’s artistic longevity and ability to produce larger bodies of music.
After a brief gap in their output between 2022 and 2024, Champagne Lane released their first full-length album The World In Your Eyes in August of 2025. The carefully curated twelve tracks highlight the pair’s creativity and wide scope of influences, ranging from the groovy twang of “Stormy” to the faster, driving rhythm of “Burn.”
Read our full conversation with Jake Rogers of Champagne Lane below
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LIFE ON JUPITER: When you first met Jackson in 2018 playing basketball, did you ever imagine that in 2026 you would still be playing music together?
JAKE ROGERS: We’ve been friends for a while, and the music thing has just been what’s kept us connected through the years. It is cool to continue pushing through even though we started around seven years ago. Not every band makes it past the five-year mark, so we’re fortunate that we get to keep doing it. It’s a lot of fun for us.
How different was the process of assembling songs for an album as opposed to an EP or singles?
ROGERS: It definitely shifted. My [producer] mindset shifted where I wanted familiar themes in the album, but I also wanted to maintain a uniqueness in each song. We wanted to stay away from projects where everything sounds pretty much like the last track. Instead of “let’s get this single out and market it,” we focused more on “let’s keep the elements in the song fresh while also telling a story with the album.”
Champagne Lane has created a fresh yet familiar sound by pulling from many genres. What did your process look like in order to stay inspired?
ROGERS: A lot of the album shaping was inspired by hybrid artists who record, write, and do everything on their own. The hot one right now is MK.gee. I think everybody’s big on MK.gee. I love his stuff from the perspective of his sound design and how he creates architecture with these ear candy pieces. I also like a guy named Baird. Tom Misch, I’m a big fan of as well. Jackson and I are rooted in different genres, but the cool thing about this album is we started to let all those albums that influenced our musical DNA, with the things we grew up listening to and the things we love now, really shine through. I love jumping boundaries between genres; I think it’s super cool when an artist can do that.
Being just a two-person band, you and Jackson both must wear many hats. Did this provide any obstacles that you had to overcome on The World In Your Eyes?
ROGERS: One of the biggest obstacles with a bigger band is that you have a hard time landing on ideas because there are just so many opinions. With Jackson and I, that was not a huge obstacle, since there are only two of us. We can get to a point with a song where we know it’s going to be something or it’s not. We’re also such good friends that it’s not hard to say, “I don’t know if that’s the right fit for this project.”
One obstacle we did have to overcome was just getting things to the finish line and finding the time to record together. We always wanted to move on to the next thing, and we’d always be getting new ideas. Some of our songs would go through complete redesigns. We would change one thing, and it would have a cascading effect of changing everything. A lot of our demos had programmed drums or samples, and when we went to record live drums, it gave it a completely different feel. Then, the song turns into something completely different and goes through a whole different iteration.
After spending several years putting out music, how do you manage to keep making music fun instead of it feeling like a task?
ROGERS: Our love is creating. We’re sending ideas to each other weekly, even as busy as we are, and a lot of that is to keep ourselves sane. I’m always listening to new music, and I get a lot of inspiration from other people all the time. I’ll hear something, and I’m like, “I want to try making something like that.” To me, the most fun thing is putting a song out into the world, and then hearing from people we’ve never met saying it resonates with them. It’s hard to put into words how cool that is. Those are the kind of things that keep us going.
What do you want people to take away after listening to the album?
ROGERS: We really wanted to show people who we are, not just from a songwriting standpoint, but also from an instrumentation standpoint as well. Our earlier stuff was cool, but this was our project to show people we think we can put out a really great project. I’m hoping that between the songwriting and the production, we can inspire other people in the same way that I’m inspired by Baird or MK.gee. It doesn’t have to be in a studio or with a label, but I’m hoping we can convince other artists to just go for it.
You recently sold out a show at Eddie’s Attic for the summer of 2026 and even added a second night. That’s gotta feel good in your home state.
ROGERS: We hadn’t played a live show in probably five years until a couple of weeks ago, when we had a buddy ask us to open for him in Atlanta. We ended up reaching out to other venues to see if we could do some other shows as well. Eddie’s Attic is a pretty small, intimate venue in Atlanta, and its claim to fame is that it’s supposedly where John Mayer was discovered. We were blown away because we sold 180 tickets in twelve hours and ended up getting a second night.
A random fan of ours who lives out in Minnesota flew in with his wife just to see us open at that show a few weeks ago, and we thought, okay, this is pretty cool. Those moments make us want to try and keep doing shows outside of Atlanta to meet some of those people who are fans from afar.
Do you feel that your community in Atlanta influences your sound?
ROGERS: I do think that because Atlanta is such a diverse area, I'm always listening to so many genres. I love rap. That doesn’t come through our music as much, but it does influence me. I’m also big into Brazilian bossa nova and things like that. Growing up around different cultures allowed me to experience so many things. If I didn’t live in Atlanta, I would only know a very small bubble, and I think that shines through the different genres and types of music we try to use.
As the one-year anniversary of your debut album approaches, what’s next for Champagne Lane?
ROGERS: We spent so much time in the last two years trying to get the album right, and it was definitely a little stressful at times. I wouldn’t go back and change a thing, but when we complete our second project, we don’t want to stress ourselves out like that again. Right now, I think it’s kind of “let’s see what happens,” but we’re still showing some intent by playing live shows, especially selling out that first night at Eddie’s. I think that is a pretty big confidence boost for both of us because we haven’t played live in so long. We’re definitely looking for more opportunities to open up for bigger bands and to try and play some shows outside of Georgia. We also want to continue to keep putting music out, since it's one of the things that brings us joy. We didn’t put a song out from like 2022-2024 and we definitely wish we had spent more time making music during that period.
So, I think the future for us is to focus on keeping music in our lives, but not to stress ourselves out over it. If the music’s good, I think the people will find it. I’m a big believer in that.