Jess Moskaluke shoots music video locally, plans some shows close to home
July 21, 2025, 4:00 pm
Ashley Bochek
Local country star, Rocanville’s Jess Moskaluke, recorded a new single called ‘I Ain’t Country’ this summer.
Moskaluke recorded the music video for the single in Langenburg and Moosomin a few weeks ago. It is now available to watch on YouTube.
She came up with the song in response to an International blogger who criticized her as not being country enough.
“The song is called ‘I Ain’t Country’ and basically it was inspired by a blogger that actually came out of the UK who had reviewed a show of mine and had some complaints that I wasn’t country enough or my songs didn’t resonate or didn’t scream Canadian and I thought that was really funny coming from someone in London, England. It really inspired me to write about that. There have been several comments about it over the last 15 years, but that was the one that put me over the edge.
“I always wanted to show them exactly that this is my everyday life, this is where I live and it’s just a little ironic to throw stones from a glass house in that way. I am country and that is what the video and the song is all about, and that is not going to change.”
Plans for video changed
Moskaluke says they originally planned to shoot the music video in Toronto.
“We talked about not necessarily doing it locally just because oftentimes renting production and gathering a team can admittedly be a lot more convenient in the city. So we talked about shooting it in Ontario—somewhere in the Toronto area—because that’s where my director Connor Scheffler is from, and then when we started trying to source things I was like this is ridiculous—all of these things we are trying to source are going to be challenging to get in Toronto and expensive likely, and they all just exist on my mom’s farm.
“The reason I actually didn’t necessarily want to shoot it locally initially is because I have already done that a number of times throughout my career and I didn’t want to reinvent the wheel and I didn’t want to do something that I have already done, so it was a bit of a challenge to make sure that it looked different while still recognizable and playing to the treatment that Connor created. So we shot at my Mom’s farm and at the Moosomin World-Spectator.”
Local actors highlighted in music video
Moskaluke says the video involves many local people.
“The video itself turned out so much better than I had pictured. Connor was really great and a lot of the inspiration and references that he had were really accurate and we were very much on the same page the whole time.
“I love how tongue-in-cheek this video is—it totally matches the song and it’s just a cherry on top to have local people, familiar faces, and places in it just to further prove the point to this blogger that will probably never see this again anyway, but it was great. The only out-of-town person that was involved was Connor, my director. We ended up needing to find a production team, rent equipment, and stuff so Josh Deramas from Filcad Productions was so kind and it was great to have him and his team come out and do a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of actually shooting the video, and then everyone else that is in the video is from Rocanville or Langenburg.”
Music video out now!
Moskaluke’s new music video shot locally is out now on YouTube.
“For those who haven’t seen the video yet it really is just about that blogger,” she said. “The whole concept of the video is showing somebody around unfamiliar parts—I don’t want to give much of the video away—I’d rather have people watch it themselves I don’t want to give any spoilers but, that’s what it’s about it’s just showcasing country lifestyle in a little bit of an unconventional way.”
Life for Me tour coming to Langenburg
Moskaluke will be performing in Langenburg this fall while on her Life for Me tour.
“A lot of times when I am able to play locally—first of all, it doesn’t happen very often and when I can, the budget for a full band show is not often there. I think people don’t realize that it’s unfortunately not just me showing up and playing it’s a crew of twelve people that all need to get paid and need to get flown in and put up in hotels, so this is a really great experience because when they want me to come and play it is great, but there is not always the opportunity to facilitate that because smaller towns often have smaller budgets and smaller venues and that’s perfectly fine, I love that.”
“I’ve loved the way we’ve been able to do acoustics while performing close to home,” says Moskaluke, “but this is particularly exciting to me because I get to bring my actual full band show, no holds barred, and show them what I actually do because this is what I have been working on for so long, it’s been years in the making truly, and it’s really special that I get to bring that home.”
Hometown shows
Moskaluke says hometown shows can sometimes be the hardest shows to perform.
“The crowd is always the most electric at home, but to be totally honest the hometown shows are the most stressful. I always want to make sure that everybody feels seen, important, and appreciated, and not that I don’t feel that way in other towns, but I really want to make sure that I take the time to make people in my life feel that way, and that’s really hard to do when there is a thousand people in the town and you know every single one of them.
“The stakes feel higher to me because I know that these people have invested in my career for so many years and are so proud and vocal about that, so I really just want to make sure that everything is perfect. I am very thankful.”
After tour
Moskaluke explains her next steps following her tour.
“After that is hibernation. That is a seven-week run. It’s the longest tour I have ever done and I think that my agent said that it may even be one of the longest ones that a female Canadian singer has done in many years. So hibernation is what’s next. Right now I am going to finish out the summer and we’re going into rehearsals—I’m preparing for tour right now and then it’s just tour for the rest of this year. Then you’re probably not going to hear from me or see me for a little while.”
Moskaluke explains her singing and songwriting career.
“Everything is the fun part. The music, that’s unfortunately about 15 per cent of my job now. It has been a lot of marketing, interviews, planning, content creation, travel, management now as well. There are a ton of other parts that are not very music related but are just as crucial.”
Thankful for community
Moskaluke says she enjoys spending her time at home and being part of the community.
“I love it here, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t love it here. I love the community. There are a million things about it that I love, and it’s tough for me to answer because I show it in so many different ways including this video and this song and showing up on tour, which not a lot of artists do, so instead of answering it verbally I think it is more meaningful to answer it in the ways I show up for my small communities over the years.”
She says singing and songwriting is her daily job.
“As much as it is cool to other people and it is cool to me, it is also my job that I do every single day and I think that it’s really easy to kind of get lost in that, so I think, you know I get that question daily and I think every day it’s a good reminder to try and take a little more time and think about how special it is.
“It is awesome, I’m excited, but right now it’s work mode. It is buckle down time to get ready for the upcoming tour. I’m thankful, I’m excited, I’m motivated, but right now it is time to gear down and prepare for this tour and make it the best that I can and once again show up for those people that have supported me, in this case by buying a ticket to come to see a show on the Life for Me Tour!”
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