Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Chris DeMakes: Less Than Jake | Furnace Fest 2025 Series

Transcript

Chris DeMakes: Less Than Jake | Furnace Fest 2025 Series · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Thinking sage.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: That's a way how you looked at how you wagged
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: in how you say great and not the same.
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: Thinking sag.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: That's a way why you looked in how you wagged
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: in how you think the.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Same. Today we've got Chris from Lesson Jake super excited
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: to chat with you. Chris, Lesson Jake is a legendary band,
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: legendary and so it really truly feels like an honor
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: to chat with you.
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: So we'll want to talk all about Lesson Jake history.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: We'll want to talk about obviously at some point your
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: influential albums.
• 0:47
  Speaker 4: But before we get into all of that, how you doing, tod.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I am doing fantastic. We were scheduled to do this
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: interview excuse me last week, but I was I was
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: still on the road, and I did not want to,
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: uh to record a podcast from phone, so I thought
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: this would be better. And here we are. So I
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: just got home two days ago, and uh, yeah, I'm good.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: A true pro that probably comes from your Christen makes
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: a podcast.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's why I was embarrassed the other day
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: because you know, I knew it was a podcast, but
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: before we started a rolling, I was, I was mentioning
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: that a lot of times these days it'll be a podcast,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: but you don't know if it's audio video. A lot
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: of times they'll just they want to see your face
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: for vocal cues and then they'll transcript it later. But
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: then what I saw you guys were trying to do,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: I was like, nah, so this is this is yeah,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: this is better.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: We're a serious operation. Because I'm a serious follower, I.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Can see that.
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm it's funny that you you mentioned that you're
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: you get embarrassed because we've got a common a mutual friend,
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: Leonor obviously Leonor from five Iron Frenzy. I'm sure you've
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: hung out with Leonor enough to know that she doesn't
• 1:53
  Speaker 3: get embarrassed by any Oh.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I don't mean embarrassed like it's gonna crush
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: my day. It's just it's it's amateur hour. I don't
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I don't play like that, right, I don't miss interviews.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: I don't mess around, and so when I do, or
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: something something happens, I feel the need to apologize. So
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: we're good.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: Well, well, apology accepted. And also there's no reason to
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: apologize anyway.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: But that's true.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: Fair enough, Well, let's get into the very history of
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: Lesson Jake. I guess before we even really dive into
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: the specific history of Lesson Jake, how did you get
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: into music to begin with? What it made you want
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: to pick up a guitar start singing?
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: And my mom and dad were musicians, and my earliest
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: memories were, you know, playing music around the house, listening
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: to my mom and dad sing. They played everywhere from
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: nightclubs to the holiday in lounge to weddings, graduations, bar
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: mitzv was whatever there was that they would get hired for.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: In addition, my dad worked a day job. He was
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: in real estate. So music was just a part of
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: my life. It was accepted. There was always albums around,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: and you know, I'm dating myself. Albums, eight tracks, then
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: cassettes and CDs, and then albums came back again, and
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: then it went digital and who knows what format we're
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: at now. It keeps keeps trudging forward. But yeah, it
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: was it was just, uh, you know, it was something
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: that I think was not only passed on to me
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: through my mom and dad's jeans, which it was, but
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: it's you know, just become a passion of mine. As
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: the years went on.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: What kind of what kind of tunes did Your parents liked?
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Everything? Most everything from fifties, sixties, you know, standards to
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: old rock and roll, classics, motown, seventies stuff. They they
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: went up all the way into probably the late nineties.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: You know, anytime a new hit would come out, you know,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: they would try to to you know, nothing too crazy.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: They weren't. They weren't rapping or anything or going into
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: the into that world learning any Snoop Dogg. But you know,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: they stayed, they stayed as current as they could for
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: for their audience.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: Did they ever cover a less than Jake too?
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: Kind of sort of? They we did did Less than Karaoke.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: It was a warm up show for this big festival
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: we do in Gainesville in twenty fifteen, and they were
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: there and they got up and sang, uh, that's awesome. Yeah,
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Love that so obviously I imagine that inspired you to
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: start making a music.
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: Especially in high school.
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: I saw that you guys were in a like you were,
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: or at least you in particular were in a band
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: before Less than Jake, and then you know, eventually that
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: kind of broken up, and then eventually Less than Jake starts.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: But yeah, what like what what kind of was? It
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: was a good grief was.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: You know, I never I've only been in one band.
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: I've been in Less than Jake, and i've been I'm
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: kind of proud about that. You know. Yeah, there was
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: there was some what I refer to as your first
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: starter bands. We never played any shows, you know, we never,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: we never. I was in high school, the town I
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: was in, I couldn't even get into a bar to play.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: There was no such thing as a VFW halls or
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: you know, we don't have basements in Florida. You dig
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: three feet and you're you're in the ocean. So there
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: was not enough like that in this little retirement beach
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: community that I grew up in. So it wasn't until
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: I got to Gainesville to go to the University of
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Florida that you know, things really really started to expand.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: And that's when Less Than Jake really really became a thing.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Prior to that, I was with our former drummer, Vinnie,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: him and I started Less than Jake. And prior to that,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: you know, him and I had played in bands, but
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: once again, it was just bands by name, something to name.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: We were just back back bedroom jamming with each other.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: That was trying to trying to learn how to play.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: I mean that's really what.
• 5:33
  Speaker 4: Have Do you even recorded anything then before Lesson Jake?
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we had recorded some stuff which remarkably never never
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: found its way onto the internet. We probably sold one
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: hundred cassettes in high school. Yeah, but it was nothing memorable.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: I think that's why nobody ever put it on. It
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: was that bad that nobody even wanted to. You know,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: It's like you could be like, oh, listen to the
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: first Slipknot demo. It sounds horrible, and people are like, yeah,
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: it sounds like shit, it does, and we just I'm
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: glad no one ever put it out there. But yeah, anyhow,
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: there was that, There was that, but you know, really
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: it was it was Vinnie and I that were doing that.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: So it was really always an extension of less than Jake.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Sure, what what was the spark for SKA music there?
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think just overall it was at
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: first it had started out and just kind of as
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: three cord punk rock, you know, kind of in the
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: vein of Screeching Weasel and you know, Bad Religion and
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: a lot of the bands we were starting to get
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: into at that point Descendants, and then we had heard
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: a band from England called Snuff. They had a trombone player.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: They were primarily a punk rock band, and that really
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: inspired us to to maybe start looking into horns. And
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: it was just around that time that everything just started
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: crashing in. It was just all at once, like Fishbone,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Boss Tones, Operation Ivy. You know. It was like breakneck
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: speed where every time you get you know, every every
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: month or two or three you turned around, there was
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: another band you were discovering. So it was kind of
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: those were kind of all the early influences.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was that was that where it started for
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: you then? Is that were you were you like, hey,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I love this sound. We want to replicate that, we
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: want to make it our own.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean I think, I think for me. You know,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: when I first got to Gainesville because Vinnie wasn't there,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: I was up there for a year by myself, and
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: I had taken it, so I was eighteen. I had
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: taken my brother had this guitar under his bed, excuse me,
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: he had this guitar under his bed that was collecting dust.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: And I took it with me to college and I
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: got up there and I started answering ads at the
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: record store, and I was just going to be a
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: singer at this point, you know, I was looking for
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: a singing gig. And you know, nineteen ninety one was
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: such a weird time in music. We were coming out
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: of the eighties. Nirvana was about to hit, and here
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: I was like going to auditions and like there'd be
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: like a dude in a Pearl Jam shirt and then
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: like you look over and then the other guy like
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: in a sex pistol shirt and this guy's in a
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Queen's Right shirt, like like okay, And then I did
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: like one or two auditions, and that was kind of
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: it for me. I just went home and took that
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: guitar out and just I was blessed with my father's ear.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: I never took a music lesson in my life. I
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: just started I just started going, Okay, what cord is this?
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: I can figure this out, and just started playing every
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: day and connecting those dots to where we finally ended
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: up meeting everybody else, you know in the band at
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: the time in Gainesville and started playing shows, and there
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: was no grand master scheme. It was you know, is
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: there any beer there? And maybe there's some girls, and
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: who knows what will happen after that, and you know
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: all the things. As a young band, you just want
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: to write songs and you want to go have fun
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: and play for your friends, and that's that's what it was.
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: So you mentioned a little bit about you know, just
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: like again quote unquote band that you were jaming with
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: in high school, and you mentioned like, you know, you
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: would put out some music and you you know, said
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: that you know, it's kind of crap. Point did you
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: feel like, you know, once you got into Lesson, Jake,
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: at what point did you feel like, oh, like, maybe
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: there's something here, like this isn't just crap, Like maybe
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: there's something here. Because I would imagine again, like you know,
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: first that first week or whatever, it probably still kind
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: of sounds like crap. But I'm sure at some point
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: you feel like you've matured enough in your songwriting or
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: your talent or whatever where it's like, okay, wait, there's
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: like something here. Like at what point did it feel
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: like that with Lessons?
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: When we recorded our first seven inch record in May
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety three, and I was playing those songs
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: for friends who just wouldn't bs me. They wouldn't lie
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: to me, and they're they're flipping out over this stuff.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: And you know, really quickly we were you know, we
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: were going to shows every night. We're making friends with
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: bands and just kind of networking, you know, I guess
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: you would call it, and getting on this gig and
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: getting on that gig. And you know, after we had
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: played everywhere we could in Gainesville, and we started hearing
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: about bands and from Daytona or bands, you know, from
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Orlando that came up to gainsl Hey, we'll trade shows out.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: We'll play up here, we'll play down there, and from there,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: you know, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, then over the other coast,
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Fort Myers, Sarasota. We played every nook and cranny that
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: you could possibly play. And you know, by that point,
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: we were building up crowds around Florida to three to
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: five hundred kids everywhere we were going, so people were
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: showing up, people were buying the seven inches, and finally,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: in the summer of ninety five, it would have been
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: we left June and ninety five. We left on our
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: first start, did our first show outside of outside of Florida,
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: did our first US tour, and we were confident at
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: the time because we did exactly what we did in Florida.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: We found bands in every city we were going to
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: that had a following. We couldn't, you know, make it
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: happen everywhere. There were certainly nights of playing the two
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: people in the bartender and wherever, but for the most part,
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: you know, it's like, oh, hey, we were on a
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: comp and Madison, Wisconsin. Great, we're gonna play with the
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: bands on that comp it's at this hall. You know,
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: there's gonna be a couple hundred kids there. And there
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: were that first US tour, we did forty eight shows
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: in like fifty one days or fifty days. Yeah, it was.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: It was just Bank Bank, Bank, Bank Bank. A couple
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: were canceled. In all fairness, they maybe maybe two shows
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: that didn't happen. One in Dallas, Texas. I remember it
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: didn't happen. We got there and the places boarded up.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: You know, you couldn't you couldn't prepare for for things
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: like that, especially in those days. You didn't have cell phones,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: you didn't have you didn't have anything. You go to
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: the pay phone and be like, hey, we're here. But
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: we came home that first US tour, we came home
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: with three thousand dollars in cash. And that's when I
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: went game on because nobody goes on tour and does that.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: And I was like, okay, we have a blueprint here.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: We took what we did in Florida, we went up
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: the East coast. Now we continue and it wasn't long
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: after that that we got we got signed to Capital.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Wow, what are what are wild Ride to start with?
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I mean that's a that's a pretty quick turnaround with
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: some good success. I mean, but you guys hit the
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: ground running and a hard work paid off and it
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: showed that that this is doable.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, there was. There was a good four years there.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: You know, Vine and I did the first demo of
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: it was you know what was to be less than
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Jacob was just him and I. I played bass on
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: it and it was called a four track freebie demo
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: that I ended up when I got to school. I
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: was there that summer, that's right. We recorded the the
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: four track down on like October, and the idea was
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: I was going to go to shows and gainsl and
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: pass this out for free. So I remember going to
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: like Kmart. They used to have these like ten packs
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: of cassettes for like five bucks or something, the cheapest,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: crappiest cassette you ever heard. And I would just sit
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: there and dub off like twenty or thirty copies xerox
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: a little front cover that we had made up, and
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: I would just go, Oh, that guy's got a dough
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: Boys shirt, that guy's got a screeching weasel shirt, that
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: guy has a whatever shirt. Hey, check this out. So
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: I started passing passing those sets around, and you know,
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: then ninety two came. Then he moved to Gainesville in May.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: We had a different bass player. We did about twelve
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: shows with him. He never recorded on anything, but we
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: were doing shows and it was late. That's that summer,
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: early fall of ninety two. By chance, a roommate of
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: mine came home one night she said, hey, you know,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: I saw this guy. You got to get him in
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: your band. I'm like, oh yeah, and she's like because
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: she knew we had had had a falling out with
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: his bass player. And I said, well, who is it?
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: And she's like Roger and she's like, he plays bass. Well,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: it turns out that he didn't play bass. He played guitar.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: But I was kind of like, you know, whatever. I
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: kind of put it out of my mind. I came
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: home a week later. I think I was delivering pizzas
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: or something, and there's this dude sitting in my living
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: room with my roommate and he's like, hey, this is
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Roger I got. I'm like, what's up? Started talking music
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: and we went over to my room. I said, hey,
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: here's my guitar. You know. He picked up the guitar
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: and started playing and sing and I went, Okay, that's
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: the guy. And I'm like, and we were so young.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: This is what you do when you're that. You're like, well,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: you're a great guitar player, so you're gonna play bass
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: because I'm the guitar player and I can't play bass.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: And that was it.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Well, and who wouldn't Who would have known that that
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: your guys' voices would be so perfect for just gorgeous harmonies.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, what are the chances that he would have,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: you know, this, this beautiful kind of tenor voice, and
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: then you'd be here with kind of the grittier baritone.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean that and that kind of evolved too.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: You know, if you go back to the first record,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: first two records, I sang lead on almost everything. And
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: it wasn't that he couldn't. It was just when you're young,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: you put yourself in a box. It's like on the
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: guy stands in the little on the lead singer think
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: about it, and then after time you know it became
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: you know the what it is now. A lot of
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: that had to do with recording techniques and working with
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: producers like Howard Benson, who did our Hello Rugby record.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: We're one of the first bands to use pro tools.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: We were one of the first bands to be auto tuned.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: I know that because Howard knew everybody at the time
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: at auto tune. They would answer the phone back in
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight like, yeah, hey, what's up. You know
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: digit design he'd be like, hey, I'm having an issue
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: with the autotune plug in, which back then was like
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: a floppy disk. It was ridiculous.
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: Oh my god.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: So you know once we we'd be in the studio
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: for Rockview and he'd be like, all right, I want
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Chris to do a harmony now, all right, and he'd
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: be in there with his piano ding ding ding, sing
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: that ah sing it again, Ah, okay, great, and I'll
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: sing the lyric with it. So whatever the lyric was,
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: and then he'd be onto the next thing sing this.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: I'd be like, what is this guy doing? You know,
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: But because again it was before everybody had home studios
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: and you knew what was on a grid and you
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: knew how things worked. So we would get in there
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: and listen to these rough mixes. He'd be, you know,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: mad scienting this shit all night, and then we'd get
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: up the next day and we'd walk in there and
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: he'd hit play and it would be like here it
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: is and you would listen to it and it's Saturday
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: maze and you're like, wow, this is this is great.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: And then you realize, well, now we got to replicate that,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: and and you know, to our you know, to our credit,
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: we could eventually, but we had to really work at
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: it to get those harmonies sounding like they were.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: Well I was gonna say so, you know, kind of
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: around that time then, like at some point you must
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: have been like, Okay, this is actually not just that, like, oh,
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: like we've got some good music here. But at some
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: point you're like this is a real thing, Like this
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: is a thing that's gonna pay some bills, Like this
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: is gonna you know, maybe to some degree pay the
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: groceries or keep a roof over my head. And I
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: don't know if you ended up during that time, like
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: going all the way through college at Gainesville or not,
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: but like at some point you probably had to justify
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: to maybe your parents or something like, hey, this is
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: what like this is what's gonna be paying the bills
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: at least.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: For the foreseeable future.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: So did you feel like maybe at some point, like
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: Lesson Jake Kunna got to that like level or yeah,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: what what was I?
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Yes? And no, I mean we just didn't know, because
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: you know, there was a lot that I missed in
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: the nineties. There's TV shows and sitcoms that you know,
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: we're on for eighteen months or two years. The people
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: like you don't remember that. I'm like, I have no
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: idea what then? Now, I know enough time has passed
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: where I went back, and you know, now everything's all
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: the reruns are on Netflix whatever, and everything's online. And
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: of course I know about what went on in the nineties,
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: but at the time I didn't. I was trapped in
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: four walls of a van with the same damn cassette
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: or CD going over and over till someone threw it
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: out the window and goes next. We got to listen
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: to something else. So I was in this van cruising around,
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: and one tour left to the next. I remember ending
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: a tour in Minnesota or somewhere in the Midwest and
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: being like, Okay, well, our next tour is in five
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: days in Boston. Like, we're not going back to Florida.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: We're living at rest stops and along the way and
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: dunkin Donuts for the next five days until we get
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: to that. So I was living in a van, you know,
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Once every couple of days or a week, I'd put
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: the quarters into the payphone or with a calling card
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: and call home and let everyone know when I was
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: alive and then go back to doing it. So it
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: wasn't and as far as like back home, you know,
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: we were we were happy to be paying our rent,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: but we weren't thinking of this as in making money.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: Especially the first couple records, it was everything was going
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: back into the band, to merchandise, to everything.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: So so it just sounds like a classic case of
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: you just literally worked your asses off to get to
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: the at least now, especially.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: I met the right people one hundred and ten percent
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: and I'm I know that now more than ever. And
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: I don't say this from an egotistical standpoint. None of
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: my guys ever got fed up on any you know,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: bad substances or yeah, we used to have fun. We
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: were kids, We had a good time. But there's not
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: a band that I you know that in our world.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: In my opinion, it takes this as serious as we do.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: We go out there now, all the years of experience
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: are all there, everything we've created, but we also have
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: time that has elapsed and memories that have elapsed for
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: people that you can't put a price on that. There
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: was no litmus test for this. When the Rolling Stones
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: were twenty five years old nineteen eighty nine, I thought
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: they were gonna die. Okay. They were like to me,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: like the Keith rich is gonna keel over? That was
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: in eighty nine, Okay, a band that was that old.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Then you're like, how long can this go? Well, it's
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty five, and guess what. Jagger's still run on
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty feet across stages.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Yea sore still has.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: Right, and they're more popular than ever because yeah, yeah,
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: thank god for viagra. But you know, it's it you didn't.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: There's nothing to gauge this off of. So now I'm
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: aware of the more time. If you're in a successful
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: band that does things right, that does cool things for
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: the fans, that about their craft, and it's all gonna
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: going to come full circle, which it has. Our tours
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: the last two or three years are just They're some
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: of the most fun I've ever had. It's a different
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: kind of fun. The crowds are still going ballistic. We
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: have to really really fight to get a good circle
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: pit because people are the audience is over thirty five.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: The teenagers that are there, they're the kids of the
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: thirty five.
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: I'd be handing out.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: I'd be prof fun, yeah, exactly. But you know, it's
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: a great place to be in. There's the best compliment
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: is bands. You know. We tour was strung out last year. Okay,
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: we had never done tours with them. We went out
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: and like this tour. A couple of Fishbone guys are like, man,
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: I haven't seen you guys in twenty years, and what
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: did I just see? And that's not me toot my horn.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: I just I know. We go out there, I'm as
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: hungry as I've ever been. It's not in a way
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: of We're gonna sell records and I'm gonna this face
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: is gonna sell tampon ads. That's not gonna happen. Okay,
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: like those days. Those days are gone. But I only
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: have to prove to myself that this show is going
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: to be better than the last one I played. And
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: that's all, you know, and that that excites me. I
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: hadn't had that passion. I lost that passion for a
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: long time. It was kind of going through the motions
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: and now all the noise that happened when you were younger,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: the where's the after party? Oh manager, the management call?
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: They want to know how many? How many records sales? Hey?
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Record label called? Hey, we gotta do these interviews. We
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: don't have to do anything now, you know. If I
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: want to talk to someone on a podcast or do
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: an interview, we do it. If I want to hang
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: out after the show, I'll do it. If I don't,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: I don't want to do it. And that took thirty
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: three years for me to realize that I didn't know.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: And you know, and I sound like a damn old man.
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: Give me a recliner in a hand to scratch my balls.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: At eight thirty at night, I'm gonna be sleeping. I'm done.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: This is Is this a Christian podcast? I'm sorry if
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: I'm going to No.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: No, it's a Christian. It's Christian.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Depends on what Christians. It definitely depends on what Christians
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: you ask.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's so cool that, especially in the sky world,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: but I think especially with less than Jake, I don't
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: care who you are. If you were like, let's let's
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: say you're playing like a show at a smaller venue
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and someone could walk up and and and hear you guys, right,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I think anyone would be intrigued enough and be like, hey,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: I think I want to go check that show out.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: That sounds like a good time. Do you feel that
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: way when you are playing? Like like, this is music
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: for everybody. This isn't just music for hardcore SKAFF fans
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. By the way, I got I
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: gotta say before we go on, there's a lot of
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: listeners here that are diehard SKA fans, and they are
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: the I don't want to say they're gatekeepers, but they
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: are militant if you don't know absolutely everything about Scott,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: which I think is hilarious. Okay, so just watch your tongue. Yeah, sure,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: you're careful.
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah right, Oh jeez, we're talking here. But uh yeah, no,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: I I don't I'm trying to think. I was going
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: to expound on something. I lost my train of thought.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: But go ahead.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Sorry, that's my that's my phone.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: No, that's fine.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: Do you think that your music is I'm sorry to
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: be for anybody to draw people, and that's what you
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: had ask.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. If it's the music, I definitely
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: know it's our personalities. You know. We have four front
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: men in the band. I got two horned players that
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: have live mics, and it's just it's chaos up there,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: and we're talking about things that most bands don't talk about.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: When you get out on stage and you have zero
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: fear of failure, that's the greatest feeling in the world
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: that I can get out there and I can just
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: start talking about the hot dog cart in front of
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: sixty thousand people and telling everybody how it fucked my
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: stomach up the night before, or sorry I'm a little
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: bit sluggish, it's the hot dog guy's fault. And they're
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: just like, why are you talking about this? You know,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: and that makes it fun for us if I had
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: to go out there, you want to talk about a job.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: You know, Hey, insert city, good to see you tonight,
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: Thank you for coming. Like I wouldn't have lasted.
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: It has to be off the cuff. It's classic, whether
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: you like it or not. It's it's three Stooges slapstick humor.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: That's what you know. We interject that with our music.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: So I think in that aspect, it's a good time.
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: The best compliment we get have ever gotten, is I
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: used to be parents. Now it's people of all ages,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: but back in the back in the day, we were
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: first starting to be parents, Like, I can't stand any
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: of this shit. My son listens to the bad religions,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: the misfits, But something about you guys, I like, I
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: like you guys, so you know, and they and the
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: parent would come to the show and be like that
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: was great. I really enjoyed it.
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: So I love that there is something about Scott that,
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: you know, you see this and many SKA bands, not all,
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: but many SKA bands just have this element of fun,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: whether it's their live shows or in the lyrics that
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: they they have like, but there's just this element of
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: fun that isn't exactly apparent in most alternative music.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it has always been fun regardless of the lyrical telling.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: A lot of Sky lyrics are very you know, Less
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: than Jake lyrics are very morose, very inward and introspective,
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: I should say, and Scott can be political, it could
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: be angry, but at the end of the day, it's like, whoa,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: now I'm zoning in on what they're singing about. But
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: you know it sounds so happy and happy and joyous
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: and free.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why. Yeah,
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: Scott is just it seems to be a such a.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: Unique music genre. Yeah, I'm just And obviously you guys
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: are huge contributors. That one thing you mentioned just a
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: b Togo is obviously your excitement about being still in
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: Lesson Jake and like just the opportunities you all have
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: is there again, knowing the legacy that Less Than Jake
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: has and knowing especially right now, like you're just as
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: excited as you were in year one of the band.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: Is there like a dream that you still have for
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: the band? Like is there a dream that maybe you
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: guys haven't quite gotten to that you're like, oh, I
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: would love that like maybe it's it's maybe it's as
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: simple as we'd love the tour at that band someday,
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: or we would love to do like explore this kind
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: of sound with our or I don't know, but is
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: there like a thing that you think about of like God,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: that would be amazing if we could maybe do that.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: So we open for Bond Jovie. I was at the
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Karrang Awards where we got presented a Karrang Award for
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: Best New Band in England, which was hilarious because we'd
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: already been a band for ten years. Best New Band
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: given to me by Billy Duffy and Ian Asbury from
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: the Cult. Roger and I went up and got this
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: as our table is sandwich between Slayer and Meat Loaf, Okay.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Marilyn Manson was there. Angus Young from ac DC was
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: there that night. Brian May from Queen I got to
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: meet him, had beers with Dave Grohl. Was that the
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: year I think Billy from Green Day was there. We
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: hung out that night. We saw David Bowie with the
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Green Day guys because Bowie played the night before we played.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: We played with green Day, no doubt. It was us
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: green Day and no doubt in a cricket field in Manchester, England.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: We opened for bon Jovi for two weeks on the
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Crush tour. We've done more warp tours than any band,
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: four hundred and forty two warped tour shows and counting.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: We're going to do four forty three in Long Beach
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: and four forty four in Orlando this year. And every
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: night we do VIP meet and greets where fans come
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: and they cry and they shake and they tell us
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: how much the music's meant to them. That's the dream.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: The dream's happening. The dream is now, the dream is.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: There's nothing else that I would want to accomplish with
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: this band. If you'd like to send me ten million dollars,
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: I would gladly accept. Other than that, we're good.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: It has to be ten million, twenty million.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: Thirty million. I don't care. Give me.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: Give me what if it's just one.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: Million, one million, I'd take it. I'd take one dollar
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: and guess what I'd take nothing. I am completely completely fulfilled.
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: Well that's what's happening with Spotify, so you're you're completely fulfilled.
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: I already got the right attitude for it. I already
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: knew I was gonna be grab my ankle.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: So I love that so kind of along the legacy
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: of scat, you know, just generally, you know again, like
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: I think it's such a unique sounding and just unique
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: genre of music. Like there really just is nothing quite
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: like it to me, And you know, obviously it really
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: had its you know heyday, mid mid nineties, late nineties,
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: and I don't know, like and I know that there's
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: like been certain SKA revivals, but yeah, it's just to me,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: it's like it's so unique sounding, and I really hope
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: at some point we really get this such sort of
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: revival that we saw in the nineties of a lot
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: of those you know, just the sound of SKA being
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: popular again. You know, a lot of times there seems
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: to be maybe like every twenty or thirty years, there's
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: sort of the resurgence of a certain sound.
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: I remember, like a few years ago, like a lot
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: of eighty cynthy kind of sounds start coming back. Actually,
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: Colin and I are in the heavy music world, so
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: a lot of like new metal sound is coming back,
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: and I just haven't really again knowing that there's still
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: SKA bands, but.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: Like you just don't really hear like really popular.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: SKA bands kind of pop off that are new bands.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: But I think at some point that's got to happen, right,
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: you'd think so, right?
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: You never I never say never'll yah. I you know,
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: things like that just kind of happen, you can. I've
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: seen record labels try to try to make it happen
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: and throw a bunch of money at something and they
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: just can't get it to click. It just has to
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: be has to be organic and do its thing.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I'm just waiting for ten pan Alley
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: bands to come back.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know good genre.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: When when you look at the future of Lesson Jake,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: So from here on, do you do you expect that
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: it's going to kind of continue to exist as is?
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Do you want to make more music? Do you want
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: to try new things? Is what should fans expect to
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: see from from the Lesson Jake camp?
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: All the above? Nice? You know, I mean, we're We've
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: always prided ourselves on releasing new music and pushing forward
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: as a band. That's what we I've always told bands,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: you know, they'll come to me a younger bands. W
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: how do I do this? I always say, how do
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: you make it, you know, and the first thing out
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: of my mouth is it has to start with a song.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: You know, you're already talking about making t shirts and
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: buying a van. You haven't written your first song yet.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: The song has to get what people. That gets what people.
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: If you want to start a clothing company, go start
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: a clothing company. But if you want people to buy
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: your band's shirt, you know, you have to be doing
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: something that is hitting them. You know, between the years
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: and the.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Heart some we're supporting. I can appreciate that. Yeah. By
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: the way, Mason and I have not yet made shirts
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: for the podcast, so there you go. I mean this
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: is not yet worth supporting. I don't know. Yeah, it's
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: been almost ten years.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: So you're we'll say, you're what you're singing is that
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: we can maybe expect some new Lesson Jake music in
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: the future.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we were always we're always writing songs, and we
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: really do it for ourselves. You know. We go out
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: and the cool thing is is we call them the
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: super fans. You look out and they're singing every word
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: all the new songs, and you just tell the audience,
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: you know, hey, we're gonna play a couple of new songs. Tonight,
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: and you're gonna hear all the classics you want to hear,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: but you know, give our new stuff a listen. We're
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: gonna we still enjoy playing new music. And I told
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: the guys, and we've kept the promise. We have like
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: seven or eight songs out of a twenty two set
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: song set list now that have been from twenty twenty
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: and after. And it's just it's just the belief that
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: if you keep playing these songs live, they'll become a
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: hit with your audience. You know, my very own Flag
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: from our pez Core record, that was a hit with
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: our audience before we recorded it. We were playing that
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: in Florida and people knew what the chorus of that
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: song was. So we're kind of taking the page out
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: of that.
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, every cloud, every crowd pleaser was a new song
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: at one point.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: It's a good points, very good point.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: Well, you are playing Furnace Fast here in October, Colin
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: and I are going to be there.
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: I'm trying.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: You guys didn't play in those like first couple of
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: years out of the second wave, right, so this is
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: your first one, right the first time?
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: Love it? Love it?
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: So Colin and I have been to Furnace Fast for
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: this will be our fifth year, so we went, We've
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: gone to all the new sort of iteration of Furnace Fast.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: So yeah, is there anything sort of different that maybe
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: fans could expect that you know, again, maybe it's just
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: like a sort of festival set that's going to be
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: a little different than what you guys normally play on
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: tour or I don't know, is there just anything that
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: we can maybe expect from this Furnace Fast set that
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: might be That's.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: A good question. I'm gonna say probably yes. Maybe it's
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: four months away, so I know that we're gonna do
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: something cool. We're not gonna that We're not gonna phone
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: it in if that, if that says anything. I don't
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: know exactly what what we're gonna play get or where
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: we're gonna be in that mode, but uh, you know,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: I I know it'll be fun if if if they're
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: asking us to come in and be one of the
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: main acts at this thing, you know, we're not gonna
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: not gonna come and uh phone it in.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well you do have big shoes to fill because
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: five Iron always does really well.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: All right, that's true.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: Those packages, those those sca those I mean again, like
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: you mentioned before, like you get all these like forty
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: year olds that are still skinking, And certainly that is
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: the case at at these five Iron Furnace Fast shows,
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: So I would imagine that they'll be the case for
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: you all too, I hope so as well as.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: The pop punk stuff. The pop punk stuff really does well,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: so kind of adjacent. But yeah, no, I'm I'm excited
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: to you know, just bounce around and have a good
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: time and and and listen to some good tunes. There's
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: there's not really another festival like Furnest in my opinion,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: So very excited to have.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: You guys were we are. We're excited. We're excited to
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: playing time. We can do something something new. It's cool.
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: Oh that's awesome.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: Are there? Are you?
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: Are you guys sticking around kind of the whole weekend?
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: Are you guys just playing just the shots again?
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: It's so far out. I we have, gosh, I don't
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: know how many shows. We got the second leg of
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: our summer tours coming up here in about three weeks,
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: and then we have probably another five or five or
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: six shows in September, just some flyout dates and whatnot.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: So Okay, I'm not we're not quite there yet.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: Well, if you do happen to be around for most
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: of the weekend, again, just highly recommend. There's so many
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: great bands. Obviously a lot of bands are super heavy bands.
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure if you're into that or not. But
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: there's just so many good bands and and awesome, Like
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: a lot of bands that came.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Out to talk to Jesse Leach from kill Switch Engaged
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: tomorrow for my podcast, So I love heavy there you go.
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: Perfect perfect then, yeah, exactly, so you know so.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: But I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of bands
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: too that kind of came up around the same time
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: as you guys did too, that are gonna be there,
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: So I don't know, hopefully you're able to like see
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: some old friends or see some people that you haven't
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: seen in a while. And I don't know, it's just
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: it feels like that kind of festival where it's just
• 35:14
  Speaker 3: it almost feels more like a family reunion rather than
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: like a music gotcha cool?
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so awesome. Well should we get into top five
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: top five I'm ready top five most influential album.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: All right, in no particular order. Pet Sounds by The
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: Beach Boys oh oh, Hice.
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: Rest and Keith Brian will.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: Go yeah, And that was kind of one of my
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: mom and dad's go to do.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: They were really into harmonies, and I think that that's
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: why I've been so into harmonies and that motown and
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: that doop stuff. It's it's incredible and that's one of
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: the reasons I think that. You know, and I know
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: Rogers was very much into that as well. But I'm
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: gonna go that's top influential album. Pet Sounds Live After
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: Death Iron Maiden, Yes O double live record. It kind
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: of introduced me to the band. I had heard some
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: songs before, but I saw that album cover and I
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: had to have it. And I lived that record back
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: and forth. I could, I could, I could recite all
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: the banter to this day at how many times I
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: listened to that album Operation Ivy Energy. I'm going for
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: that record just because you had to be there, you know,
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: you had to hear these songs at a time and
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: in your life. In my life where I didn't care
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: about production value. I didn't care that the drums sounded
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: like a tin can, that it was just mixed, not great,
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: but the songs came across and that gave a young
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: songwriter like me, it's like, Oh, these guys can play
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: three chords and bash away and and you know, I
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: think maybe I have a chance to do that too,
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: So it kind of leveled the playing field. Not to
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: say that there was talent on that record, I mean,
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: it's the talent's all over the place, but it was very,
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: very punk rock.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: They have such a unique like history because like how
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: many bands can exist for maybe just over two years
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: and have that level of influence on entire scene because
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: we hear Operation IVY a lot. And to think that
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: they have left their mark after literally only existing for
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: just over two years is kind of unbelievable. Like there's
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: not too many other things in the world that are
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: able to leave their mark with that short of it.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: And I don't know if they would have continued to
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: be a band, if anything would have ever lived up
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: to that. I think that they. I think it had
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: to be a one and done thing, and I think
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: that's why that's another reason why it's revered. It's the legend.
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: No disrespect to Tim Jesse the rest of the guys.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: I have no interest in seeing an Operation I reunion.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: I'm sure someday it'll happen. You can't recreate what those
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: seventeen year olds were doing in a garage. Then, you know,
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: the same thing could be said for my band. Well,
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: you guys don't sound like you did when you were
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: that age. Yeah, well we evolved, you know, and maybe
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: maybe they could have evolved. I guess. I guess Tim did.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: He evolved with a Rancid. But I think Operation IVY
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: was its own standalone thing. And I said that because
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: out of all this SKA records that was that was
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: really the one Scott Punk that really turned my mind.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: The next one, I'm just gonna go with general anything
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: NEI Neil Diamond's greatest hits, and again you're like, whoa,
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: but those types of crooning songs were played in my
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: house as a young kid.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: And then talk about learning how to write a song.
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: There you go, that's that's a school to write a song.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: And then last but not least, I got to throw
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: in Prince Purple Rain. Oh yeah, all right, and uh
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: yeah those are my top five.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: I always find it interesting when people who are into
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: the punk scene, especially punk and sky well I'm about
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: Scott necessarily, but punk, especially when they're into Prince because
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: it feels like it was kind of antithetical to the
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: punk scene at the time.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Well, I was into Prince before I heard punk rock,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: so that probably has something to do with it. Oh
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: hell yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. In eighty four, God,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: when that record came out, you know, I was listening
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: to hard rock and all kinds of stuff, But that
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: album I loved it then and it's only grown on me.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: It's one I can listen to all the way through.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: And you know, you maybe isn't the first thing you
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: think of when you hear a Less than Jake song,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: but it's definitely in there somewhere.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Growing up, was you kind of defined by your music genre?
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Because we've talked to a lot of people and you know,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: if they were from they were growing up in the seventies, eighties,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: early nineties, even up to the mid nineties. If you
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: were a punk rocker, you were a punk rocker, and
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: that's pretty much what you could listen to publicly, like
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: you couldn't let your friends know that you listen to
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: anything else. Or if you were a metal head, you
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: hung out with metal heads. Yeah, if you were a hippie,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: you were hung out with the hippies. Was that like
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: that in Gainesville?
• 39:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: I mean that's just life, right, I mean you learn
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: that in the sandbox in kindergarten. Now that kid looks different.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, well was he a jerk? Oh? Maybe? I
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: don't know, let's figure it out. Uh, you know, for
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: for us, yeah, certainly there there was a little bit
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: of that, But I don't know. We kind of always
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: wore our influences on our sleeve.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: One of our biggest songs to call all my best
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: friends or metal heads, which is basically just pointing at prejudice.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: I don't even want to say racism, you know, because
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: that racism just gets thrown around, just just prejudice of
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: other people. Like, wait, you're in a punk band. How
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: could your best friends be metal heads? Well, because they're fun, man.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: You know, they got the best beer in towner but
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: the best you know, best weed. Okay, cool, I'm gonna
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: hang over there. So you know, we were always kind
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: of tongue in cheek and and and uh, we're kind
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: of never never really embarrassed about what we listened to.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that because I feel like I feel like
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: that's one of the things that the modern generation has
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: done a pretty darn good job of of really really
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: blurring those lines. You know that, you know, you can
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: listen to whatever you want. No one's gonna make funny.
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: But there was a time or that was like that.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I could. I could see that if you know,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: you certainly you picked your spots, if you were somewhere
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: where people were talking about punk rock all you know,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: you know, all of a sudden works not talking about
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: at Pat Boon record or something. All right, I went
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: out right you uh, you know so? But yeah, I
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: think that I can speak for the whole band when
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: I say that we're kind of an open palette when
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: it comes to music.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Cool and that's why that's why Princess is also.
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: Allowed love that. Well, what would you like to plug?
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: So it sounds like some obviously still some shows that
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: are gonna be played for the rest of the year
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: to yeah, maybe at some point some new music, but yeah,
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: what do you want to play?
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: We're just working on new songs all the time. I
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: in the process of cleaning up some demos this month
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: that I'm home a lesson. Jake goes out on the
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: rest of the summer circus tour dates are and tickets
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: can be final less than Jake dot Com. The second
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: half is going to be with Fishbone and the Suicide
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Machines returning and cat Bite's gonna pick me up, pick
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: up or bite me Bamby left off on the last run.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: I'm still doing my podcast, Christen makes a podcast going
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: strong five years in over two hundred and seventy episodes.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: At this point, can we just say too, like your name,
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: your last name was just like it was you. You
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: were almost like predestined to be an artist in some way,
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: whether you were making music or making a podcast, but
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: you were obviously predestined to create some data.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: So well, I appreciate that because I hated it as
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: a kid because no one could pronounce it. You know,
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: they made it harder than it is. It's it's Greek,
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: so it the pronunciation is the Mikey's And so then
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: it was wondering, Yeah, so I get Demacus democus. I
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: never get the Mikey's Demacus democus demarx, like you know,
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: uh damacus, Uh you name it, so they never never
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: say it. So it was kind of kind of a
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: play on that, and uh yeah, if you want your
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: own custom song or jingle for your business. I've written
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: over three hundred of those in the last five years.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: You can hit me up Christen makes at gmail dot com.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: I'll write a song for you. You're cat, your bird,
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: your wife, your anniversary. If you hate your boss, I'll
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: write a song. I've done one of those too, so.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: Oh that's tempting. Dog Shug and I have a great boss.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: Wait, is that kind of like what's that app where
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: you can like connect with a celebrity and they can
• 43:16
  Speaker 3: like like say.
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: Happy birthday, cameo cameo?
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, camo?
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: Does it almost feel like cameo? But but like for music,
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: you're just kind.
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: Of yeah and and I'm on cameo too. I you know,
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: these are all things you couldn't do in the nineties
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: when they would call you a sellout. It's like, give
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: me an income stream. Someone wants to talk to me
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: about my band, I'll talk all day longer some people
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: that are against that. Hey. I'll also be out at
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: the Punk Rock Museum again for like my fifth or
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: sixth time, giving guided tours out there in Las Vegas.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: That'll be during the That'll be during the When We
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Were Young Festival October I think I'm there like the
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: seventeenth to the twenty first. I think the shows are
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: the eighteenth and nineteenth or something. But yeah, and uh,
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: we'll be at Furnace Fest And I think that's about it.
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: Sweep it well, Chris, anything else you'd like to play?
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: No, I just wanted to tell everybody out there a
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: little known fact. I was in the last episode of Seinfeld.
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: I'm in the last I'm in the last scene. You
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: will see me in the background. You can see my nose,
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: my side profile, I'm standing in the back. I was
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: one of the extras last episode of Seinfeld. Who knew. Wow,
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: that's incredible.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: That's two episodes in a row we've had. We've had
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: someone as an extra in in the background of a
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: popular show. This is really really cool. So was there
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: anything like were you hired to do it or was
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: it like, oh, you're just around and so here's.
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: I think it was something that was set up through
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: Capital Records. Probably Yeah. I can't I can't exactly. I
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: was never I was you know, I never got invited
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: to the cool parties. I was always at the you know,
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: I always got to the party when the keg was dry.
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: Did you at least get some good catering that day,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: not that I recall, not that I recalled.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: I don't think they gave catering to the extras. Oh
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: that's shame.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: What in the world.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: So it sounds like, I mean you mentioned before like
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: you missed a lot of nineties shows, but I'm guessing
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: Seinfeld was one of the best.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Side felt was too big. It was like around for
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: ten years, so you know, when I was home for
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: a week or two at a time, I did catch Seinfeld.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, yeah, when I think of your nose,
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: I definitely think something exactly.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: That could be super anti Semitic.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: I yeah, if he's Jewish, agree, But if I was Jewish,
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't hate. You know, most of my Jewish friends
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: know they have big noses. That's okay.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: I probably should have said that acceptance is the first Yeah,
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: what was it?
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: What do they say? Like, acceptance is like the first
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: part of you know, the Greek process.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: There you go, there you go, the Greek process, there
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: you go.
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:44
  Speaker 3: Well, Chris, thank you so much for Chatty Moore about lesson.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: Jake just again, just a legendary band, so much legacy,
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: and again we're just really excited to see you guys
• 45:54
  Speaker 3: play at Furnace Past, so we'll see you around and
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: we can't wait to see you in uh in just
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: a few.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: We're looking for like I said, any any festival that's
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: that's New New Territory. We're we're definitely excited to play
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: and like I said, we're we're just uh really happy
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: and in a in a good spot of of of
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: being being a band. And thanks for taking the time
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: to to talk to me.