Jade Zabric: "Good Music" is What We Do
“When the trains are ready for us, we’ll be back.”
Jade Zabric hasn’t performed on the New York City subway trains in over a year.
Originally from Houston, Texas, Jade has been a performing artist in New York City who started The Train Walkers, a collective of buskers who perform music in the subway. Before the pandemic started in 2020, the Train Walkers would each perform on their own, as a partial group, or all together. They would huddle around a portable amp on the train and pass the mic around.
To be a Train Walker, Jade explains, all it takes is overcoming the fear of performing in front of people who aren’t expecting to hear you play.
Jade Zabric featured on the Offstage Tunes Live show
Before her busking routine came to a halt in 2020, Jade was receiving part-time hours at a radio station and securing performance gigs, but she actually made most of her income through busking. It pays well even if people don’t usually see her job as cool, she says.
Some nights as a busker can be scary, especially if she’s performing or traveling alone, but occasionally she gets messages from people telling her how she has made someone’s day with her music.
“It tells me what I’m doing is good and right…because sometimes there will be nights where maybe I didn’t make any money or it just wasn’t a good run, and you feel like ‘Maybe I shouldn’t be doing this.’ But every now and then you get these messages, and it’s like, no, this is good, they want it. I gotta stick to it.”
The Train Walkers have not been able to perform in almost a year. I ask Jade when the group might be returning to riding and playing music on the trains again.
“I feel like it’s gonna take a while before everyone is comfortable…I like it when everyone is kind of happy. I know that that’s really hard to do on the train, but I don’t want anybody to get mad at me for playing in the pandemic. When the trains are ready for us, we’ll be back.”
Interview conducted and written by Louise Lau. Connect with her on social media @offstagetunes