Latest / The Scene Projects / J Bell on Harmony, Resilience, and Musical Roots

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J Bell on Harmony, Resilience, and Musical Roots · The Scene Projects

• 0:02
  Welcome into a very exciting episode of The Scene.
• 0:04
  I'm your host Bubba Starts, and with me today is Jay Bell from Jay Bell and the Lazy Susan
• 0:09
  band.
• 0:09
  Welcome to the show, brother.
• 0:11
  Hey, thanks for having me, man.
• 0:13
  Well, it's a pleasure.
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  I know we have mutual friends.
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  We've been chatting for a little bit off camera, but why don't you go ahead and
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  introduce yourself and the band, and then we'll get into it.
• 0:22
  Sure.
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  Well, my name is Jay Bell, and I front Jay Bell and the Lazy Susan band.
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  We've been, we've been spinning around the Twin Cities, since 02/2001, so we're coming up on a
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  twenty fifth anniversary.
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  But it's it's taken a bunch of different shapes, and there was a pretty big break in the
• 0:37
  middle there.
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  So I don't know if we can really call it twenty five years.
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  It's been around.
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  I would I will give you the quarter century mark, sir, and I and I love a good pun.
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  So thank you for the spin around the Twin Cities.
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  You were recently featured on the North Star Original Review show over at Big Wood Brewery
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  we were talking about.
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  Obviously, Corey and AJ are are big big proponents of what we're doing and vice versa.
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  What, you're the first one we've had on that has done the show.
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  So just being off of it recently, why don't you give us a little, review of the review?
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  Oh, okay.
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  Cool.
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  It was great.
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  There was four there's supposed to be five acts, and one of them couldn't make it.
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  So it ended up being four acts.
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  All the acts were great.
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  Like, it's you you know, you do showcats sometimes, it's like, these these acts are kind
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  of at different levels or this one's not really my cup of tea, but all four acts were really
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  great.
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  And, Corey and AJ are fantastic.
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  And the Big Wood Brewery is so cool.
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  They've been around for a long time, but they've only been in this spot for a year and
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  it's such a hip spot.
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  There's lots of stained glass and it's a real, like, chill atmosphere.
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  And then they've got a big outdoor stage too.
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  So I was a little jealous being there in February and looking out the window at the
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  outdoor stage because I wanna play there this summer.
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  Well, we were actually working with Jamie to try and make that happen for not just my band
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  starts and ends before scene projects, and maybe we can get you on a, on a review up there
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  with the scene projects and a songwriter showcase.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  We, we continue to grow up in that area.
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  But, why don't obviously, twenty five years is a long time to go back, and you said there was
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  a big break.
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  I'm assuming COVID was another break if you weren't going again there.
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  So why don't we kinda pick it up from there, and you can give us a little bit of the
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  backstory of the last five years or so of the band?
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  Yeah.
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  COVID COVID wasn't the break I was referring to, but that was that was tough.
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  We've been a gigging band since we started where where that's what we do.
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  And I've been gigging since I was in junior high, and so, like, not being able to was
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  really hard.
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  We did sixty four weeks in a row of livestreams from this room and, you know, we watched the
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  numbers and, like, two two of the guys in the band and I, we we were each other's bubbles.
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  Our families were the bubbles.
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  And even when the the numbers would go up even worse, we I'd do it by myself or my daughter
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  would come down here and do it with me.
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  And so that was the only way to stay sane was, like, connecting to, you know, handfuls of
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  people through that every week.
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  But, yeah, we definitely missed, definitely missed playing out.
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  And now coming back, is the band picking up where you've left off in the past, or was it
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  kind of a having to rebuild from the ground up as everything was just brand new again, it
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  seems like up there?
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  South Dakota had a much different experience, Jay, where we didn't really shut down anything
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  and the the you know, there was a few months of no concerts, but we jumped back in pretty
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  quickly.
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  And and, whether it was good or bad, I I guess the we'll never know.
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  But, why don't you, yeah, kinda kinda tell us about what you've been up to lately?
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  It was you know, it was weird.
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  There was an adjustment coming out of COVID for us because we overcompensated, like, because we
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  weren't used to playing.
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  We had a bunch of, like, contracted shows that just kept getting postponed under COVID.
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  And then when everything opened back up, we had all those shows to make up, and then everybody
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  started booking like that, and we were thirsty for shows, and we overbooked.
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  And so the year after COVID, when the world opened back up, we overplayed and really burnt
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  ourselves out a lot.
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  We had to have, like, a come to Jesus meeting of, alright, we can't we can't do this anymore.
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  So, we had to find a nice little a way to settle into a groove.
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  And I think in the last two years, we've done that.
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  We found a nice little groove for you know, we perform as a full five piece rock band and then
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  we also perform as an acoustic trio.
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  A real big piece for us is three part harmony.
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  Almost everything has big three part harmony, and so the guys that sing the sing the three
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  part are the trio.
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  That's awesome.
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  I I am a I love harmony.
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  Right?
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  I I'm I'm not of the generation of hippies, but I was kinda raised by hippies.
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  And even my parents are too late to have made that, but, you know, grew up with bands like
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  the Grateful Dead and Crosby Stills and Nash and and all of that music, that old folky kind
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  of music from the sixties, right, was all about harmony.
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  And the way that voices come together and blend.
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  It just makes music so much more.
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  And now that we're in this era, you don't really have it.
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  We're in the era of the pop star.
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  We have been for, you know, thirty years now, it seems like, and you don't have a lot of
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  groups that are doing that.
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  It's very singularly focused on one voice, and I believe that there's power in those harmonies
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  and power in the the the band and not just the the pop star, you know, kind of take on the
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  music business.
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  Yeah.
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  That's such a great point.
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  I I feel like, you know, a lot of people are singing with, like, harmonizer pedals now.
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  And even if people don't know what three part harmony is or aren't very musically inclined,
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  when they hear it live, they know something special is happening.
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  And so I feel like we get I I joke that we our band gets away with a lot because we we we have
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  these harmonies and it distracts people from the fact that they might not know our songs.
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  And so they they get kinda brought in.
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  We also have a couple of horn players.
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  So we we say we have a part time horn section.
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  And so live horns and constant three part harmony isn't something you see a lot.
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  So I feel like we get to cheat a little bit by by getting people to eat their broccoli by
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  listening to more original songs.
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  No doubt.
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  And I myself, I mentioned my band before.
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  I I usually play as a trio, and it's just me.
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  I'm singing all night.
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  We're playing four hour bar shows and and just being that one voice out in the front while it
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  is efficient because I'm not worried about, you know, relying on someone else to have to do,
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  you know, their singing parts and things.
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  It it doesn't have the it doesn't have the power.
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  I think there's something incredible about when, because we all wanna be lead singers.
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  I think for the most part, people who sing are used to being out in the front of that.
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  There is a power in the pulling back and saying, no.
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  I'm going to support this other voice and and that kind of giveaway to the song that is so
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  powerful.
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  And I think a lot of musicians, I think a lot of singers forget about that.
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  And I love that you guys are just really digging into that.
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  I mean, obviously, it's been part of the band probably for, you know, a couple of decades, so
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  it's not like it's going anywhere.
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  It's a big part of who you are, but, I think it's great.
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  You I hope that that comes back in this, you know, this next generation of art that is
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  emerging right now.
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  Yeah.
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  For sure.
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  I really like like, mentioned people using harmonizer pedals before.
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  I I'm just the I'm an old school organic guy.
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  I wanna hear wood and metal vibrating like the I'm just I don't dig the playing of the backing
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  tracks.
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  I don't I don't like, the the the drum buddy that everybody's playing with isn't really my
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  thing.
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  Although having said that, like, some of the bloopers out there are really good.
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  The guys that, like, build the loops, like, like, naturally.
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  It's so cool.
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  And that's and that's different.
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  Right?
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  I would say that that's a little bit different because you you you're building it still in an
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  organic way.
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  And it's much different while the sound and the look of it can be similar to like a backing
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  track to a layperson listener.
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  What's actually going on is pretty insane when you're you know, that they're doing bass
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  tracks.
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  They're doing drums, and and it's the one guy on stage with an acoustic guitar.
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  A guy you may be familiar with, l Dub.
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  Oh, yeah.
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  He, just one of the best out there.
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  Obviously, guys like Keller Williams been doing it forever and building that, but I think it's
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  incredible.
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  And the amount of talent that it takes like, I can play guitar.
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  I can sing.
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  I can play bass.
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  I can do all those things.
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  But to do them and then be able to control it on a machine that's this big and to have it all
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  going and working at the same time and to sound good.
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  Yeah.
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  And to be entertaining while you're building it.
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  Like, it's like, you you gotta be able to hit those the first time through because nobody
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  wants to watch you, like, retake a take alive.
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  I was in Key West A Few Years ago, and there was this guy who was so good and it took him so
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  long to build up a song, but it was so interesting.
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  He told me he only does four songs a sec because it takes that long to get it all built
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  up.
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  I followed him to three gigs that day because I was just I just wanted to watch him do that.
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  So, yeah, you're right.
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  There's something super unique about that.
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  Yeah.
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  And it's just something that I don't have.
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  Maybe it's because I'm a little technologically inept in some areas.
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  I learned how to use Zoom, and I was like, no.
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  This is good enough.
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  You know, in the podcasting world, Everybody's, oh, well, you gotta use Riverside, and you
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  gotta do all these other ones.
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  And I'm like, no.
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  I'm gonna stick with what I know has worked for me, and I and I know it.
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  I don't wanna learn something else.
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  And maybe I'm a little old school in that fashion, and, you know, I feel I'm 38.
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  I'll be 39 in May, and I I feel like we are kind of that tweener generation.
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  I was born in an analog world, completely analog world, and I remember growing up, first
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  artists that I was really into were the bands of the nineties, man.
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  Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Alice and Chili, like all that grunge stuff and then what
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  evolved in that.
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  And then by the time I'm in high school, it's dominated by the pop stars.
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  It's the Britney Spears and the N Sync.
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  And, you know, obviously, I love the hip hop community and and how it has come and brought
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  it into and the electronic side of that.
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  Right?
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  The producers really made a stance.
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  But now I feel like we're all trying to integrate all of that because even the
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  producers that are great at that, there's only so there's only so far you can go down that
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  path, and then it just keeps kinda repeating on itself.
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  And hence why you have the music that you have today and why it's, you know, especially
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  mainstream stuff is so boring.
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  Because they're just kind of rinsing and repeating what has worked before, and it's so
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  easy to copy and paste everything, right, that, I think people are ready for raw and real music
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  again.
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  Like you said, wood and metal vibrating together.
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  That that form of expression is starting to resonate again.
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  Yeah.
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  There's your pun again.
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  Well done.
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  I love them.
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  The name of my band is starts and ends.
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  Clever.
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  I like it.
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  Yeah.
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  I like it.
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  Yes.
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  You're talking about you're talking about, like, the nineties music.
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  I grew up in Winona, Minnesota, and I actually went to college in Winona, Minnesota too.
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  And I I remember very distinctly listening to the the Winona State College radio station and
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  hearing at at like midnight on a Monday a song that was just it just drove me.
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  I I couldn't understand what it was.
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  Was like a cowboy punk song.
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  It was just and they were screaming and it was terrible.
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  Then the next day, I I couldn't get it out of my head, and I went down to the to the record
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  store in Winona, and I learned that it was Soul Asylum, they were from Minnesota.
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  They were from Minneapolis.
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  And so I bought that record, and I listened to it over and over again, and I went from not
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  understanding it, to hating it, to kinda digging it to absolutely loving it and then
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  wanting to know everything about what was happening in the Twin Cities.
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  And I knew I had to move up here as soon as I could and the replacements were still going.
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  You know, the Jayhawks were taken off.
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  I I that's when I learned that Prince was from here.
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  And so I from a pretty young age, I knew I wanted to get up to the Twin Cities scene.
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  The fact that you learned later in life being from Minnesota that Prince was from Minnesota
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  makes me feel a lot less bad about not knowing Soul Asylum was from Minnesota.
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  Well, I was pretty young at the time.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  We're not so young now, though, are we?
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  It's it's weird for me because I'm kinda coming into this age, something you hit on there, you
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  know, the the local college radio station and just local radio in general, not being what it
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  was thirty five years ago.
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  I mean, that's why I have the podcast that I do, and I I'm building this platform to support
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  local independent artists like yourself because we don't have that outlet anymore that's out
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  there.
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  And while I was, you know, while we're disappointed in that, it also left a huge
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  opening for someone like me to come in and go, well, I'm gonna do this then.
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  I already love all of these musicians.
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  I I love connecting.
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  My network of musicians was already huge.
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  That's why the show kinda took off is because I already had a thousand numbers of other
• 13:04
  musicians just from being in So once I was like, oh, you're a podcaster.
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  Now I just started hitting everybody with a text.
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  Hey.
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  You wanna talk to me?
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  And then once that gets out there, then everybody starts texting you.
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  And that's the beauty of where we're at right now in in the history of the podcast.
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  We're not even a full year in, Jay.
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  And and look at what we've done.
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  We were nominated for content creator of the year by our Midwest Country music organization,
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  also founded in the Minneapolis area, but now it's spread from the Great Lakes to the Rocky
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  Mountains.
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  And it's a beautiful thing and it's community.
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  And and I hope that, you know, in the future, you you're a member of all of the communities.
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  Obviously, you're you're with the North Star guys.
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  Now you're part of the scene as well, and we're just gonna keep on growing.
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  That's super exciting.
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  And it's it's it's where people go I mean, in this age, it's hard to figure out where to go
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  to find new music.
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  Like, the story that I told, I went I had a local record store, and I could go in and say,
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  I heard this terrible song at midnight on KQAL, and it kinda sounded like this.
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  And the guy behind the corner said, yep.
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  That was Passing Sad Daydream by Soul Asylum.
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  They closed the show with it every night.
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  It's on this record.
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  And I could also say, why do I like this?
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  What is it?
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  Why do I like this?
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  Oh, you're probably you're probably biting on to, like, there's some country influence in a
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  hard rock band.
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  Like, you should also listen to this band.
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  And, like, that's how I discover music, and that doesn't happen anymore.
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  There really aren't record shops to go talk to people like that.
• 14:32
  So things like this, like your podcast, are where people find new music.
• 14:38
  Exactly.
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  And then come to meet the artist behind the music, and then they're connecting with the
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  live events.
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  I mean, the way I've explained, you know, the podcast and my larger vision for it to people
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  is that we not only want to be Rolling Stone and your local radio show, but we wanna be MTV,
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  VH one.
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  We wanna be Bonnaroo or Lollapalooza.
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  We wanna be all what all of those things were, and not necessarily that we needed to be at
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  that scale.
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  It's the vibe and the feeling and the community of that that we're trying to bring back because
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  losing a lot of those things I feel like is what has kind of brought us to how society is
• 15:16
  now anyway.
• 15:17
  We all became so disconnected from each other that we forgot all the similarities that we
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  have.
• 15:23
  We forgot that country folk, oh, also like hard rock, and hard rock folk like country too.
• 15:30
  Yeah.
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  And and I don't think that any place kind of exemplifies that quite as as well as the
• 15:36
  Midwest and especially Minnesota.
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  It's really nice that it's opened back up because that Minneapolis scene for us down here
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  in South Dakota, I'm on the East side of the state.
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  I'm still ninety minutes southwest of Sioux Falls.
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  But for us, we look to the cities as kind of our vibe check.
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  That's where we keep our pulse on or our finger on the pulse rather of the kind of national
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  scene.
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  That's where we're going to see the big names that are playing the stadiums, you know, that,
• 16:04
  you know, that can't come down.
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  Luke Bryan's not playing the 8,000 seat, you know, Denny Sanford.
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  He's playing, you know, and and Zach Bryan, who a mutual friend, you know, sundown forty seven,
• 16:16
  those guys got to open for him up there.
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  Like, they're not coming to play in South Dakota unless it's maybe the state fair or
• 16:23
  they're playing the Buffalo Chip during the Sturgis Motorcycle rally.
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  So there's always been a connection between the South Dakota scene and the Minneapolis scene.
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  And when we kinda I mean, it was like three years that you guy I mean, was a long time.
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  It wasn't just like, oh, 2020 and then upon no.
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  It's been a long process.
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  And in some ways, it feels like Minneapolis is just now waking up within the last twelve
• 16:48
  months to everyone being comfortable getting out again.
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  So I'm very grateful that, you know, not only have we survived, but we're beginning to thrive
• 16:56
  again.
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  And it's the independent sources that are really feeding this fire, whether it be, you
• 17:03
  know, the Scene Projects or the North Star Original Review.
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  I know, Andy Ellis is doing some writing up there and has his own podcast, and all these
• 17:11
  people are just feeding into this, and we're building something absolutely incredible.
• 17:17
  That's so fantastic.
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  It's, yeah, it's it's needed.
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  There's energy for it.
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  The just the goal of connecting people better is is is all that we need.
• 17:27
  Well, speaking of connecting, how can we connect with Jay Bell and the lazy Susan band?
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  Go ahead and plug everything and let us know about any shows you got coming up, here as we
• 17:37
  move into the summer.
• 17:38
  Yeah.
• 17:39
  Well, we are, you can get all of our stuff at jbellmusic.com, and then we're also on all the
• 17:44
  social media sites.
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  You can buy our music digitally wherever you you buy music.
• 17:48
  You could see our videos on YouTube, but all that stuff is linked at the website,
• 17:51
  jbellmusic.com.
• 17:54
  We have we're actually everyone's traveling in March, and so we we're taking March off, then
• 17:59
  we're we had a big, big February, and we're heading back at it in April where we play at
• 18:04
  River Siren Brewing in Downtown Stillwater right away in April, which is a favorite show
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  of ours.
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  We've got some really cool stuff coming up this summer.
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  We're gonna My favorite band of all time is Roger Klein and the Peacemakers.
• 18:14
  We've been on tour with them a couple of times.
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  They took us to Mexico once, and they're back in Minnesota this summer, so we're playing some
• 18:20
  shows with them that should be really exciting.
• 18:23
  We're looking forward to this green room show with North Star General Review in at the April.
• 18:27
  So just a lot of lot of big stuff.
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  And the trail is gonna go on a little tour, this fall where we're gonna hit, I don't know,
• 18:32
  six or seven spots.
• 18:34
  Fantastic.
• 18:35
  Well, Jay, thanks for being on the show with me today, and thanks for being part of the scene.
• 18:41
  Well, thanks for having me.
• 18:42
  This was super cool.
• 18:43
  I can't wait to, to check out all the other episodes.