Jawbox

I was reading something the other day that addressed the interview process. According to the writer, rock musicians have their answers memorized because each new day brings the same questions from a different person. They are supposed to reply with rote-learned answers fed to them by corporate offices. I always try, and sometimes succeed, at doing it a little differently. These Jawbox people are smart. They are much smarter than me. I’m doing some heavy editing, and I hope they don’t get angry. J. Robbins (guitar, voice) is a good conversationalist. He can talk for hours. The publicist told me I’d be speaking with Kim Coletta (bass) or W.C Barbot (guitar, voice), so I was a little surprised by who was at the other end of the phone. Jawbox has been criticized for leaving the DIY climate of Dischord for a major label. I don’t really care, but they are from DC. That’s where the first question came from. The band is involved in the creative end and the business side. They own their own record label and release records by bands they like. Most of this conversation concerns the business of music and the sorry state of life in the inner city of our nation’s capital. Food reviews and in-depth influence analysis are best left to corporations.

SLUG: Who is this?

JB: This is J.

SLUG: First question. Will Washington DC survive as a city?

JB: Wow, wild question. I don’t know. Where are you calling from?

SLUG: Salt Lake. I just saw a CNN News thing. They were debating whether Washington DC would survive as a city and since you’re from there…

JB: It’s a good question. I mean, it has to survive. You know, as the government. But the actual government that governs the city is pretty shabby, so I don’t really know what they are going to do. There are a bunch of different solutions. People were talking about statehood for a while, but I mean, DC is really barely fit to run itself as a city. At the same time, what they have now and what they have had for most of the history of the city is a control board that is actually part of the federal government and is subject to the whims of the federal government. It definitely sees the city from the perspective of the federal government. I think the fact that DC is such a scrappy city has played a large contributing factor to why the sort of music and arts underground is so good here.

SLUG: I can see that. So you think that all the problems contribute to the arts part of it.

JB: Yeah, kind of. Just because the infrastructure is kind of lame in general. DC is very polarized. On the one hand, you have a government-centered, mainly white, rich kind of stratum and then on the other hand, you have an urban population that is mostly Black and poor — not very much in between to speak of. So there is a really powerful kind of grassroots underground music like the go-go scene. It totally sprang out of nowhere and definitely has had to be responsible for itself because there is no music business to speak of. There is no real connection to the so called entertainment world, whatever that is. The go-go scene had to pretty much create its own venues and be responsible for itself. For rock music and punk rock and stuff there were only two venues ever really in the history of DC. There has never been more than a couple of established places to play at a time and I think that is why people start their own labels here. It’s a much more feisty, underground scene, because it had to create itself from scratch — there was no existing world for it to plug into. If you grow up in New York, maybe you can say, “Oh well someday I’m going to join a band or be in some major label”… there are all those kinds of worlds around you. In DC it is much more… you have to kind of create that world for yourself more. I think that was definitely true when the punk thing started happening around here and now it is a very established scene in a way. I think people make a point of keeping the spirit alive. That’s one of the very special things about DC.

SLUG: Close knit. It’s a close knit group. Okay, totally changing the subject. Is the CD out?

JB: It’s not going to be out until July 2nd. It was supposed to come out in the middle of June. They shuffled the release dates around, but it is coming out July 2nd. We are putting the vinyl out ourselves in the middle of June.

SLUG: That was another question. So the vinyl’s coming out in the middle of June? The vinyl is on DeSoto. You are still running DeSoto?… I guess you’re coming to Salt Lake on July 27th. Who are you touring with this time?

JB: We’re bringing Shiner with us. Which is a band we put out on DeSoto. Shiner is coming with us for most of the tour and they will be on that show and we’re playing with different bands in different regions. Like we’re doing some shows on the east coast with Candy Machine. We’re hooking up with Brainiac because they are going to be in Texas at the same time we are.

SLUG: Brainiac’s coming here too.

JB: We’re playing with Tanner on the west coast and I don’t know if they are going to be with us in Salt Lake or not. I can’t recall.

SLUG: (Tanner will indeed join Jawbox in Salt Lake City.) You come from a pretty strong independent background and you signed to Atlantic in 1994. Do you think it is any easier for bands… like for you with your label… is it any easier for bands on small labels to get exposure today than it was previously?

JB: No, I think if anything it is more difficult.

SLUG: Is that because there are so many?

JB: Yeah, I feel like there are like 18 billion bands. I feel like there are more bands now and especially more bands in roughly the same genre of music than there ever have been before. So, it’s pretty weird. But I always think of it…I tend to think of music scenes or the band world. I mean being in music the fad is kind of a rapid one. I tend to think in terms of true believers. True believers will seek music out. A good example is, you know that band Kepone, they’re on Touch and Go, or actually Quarterstick? You know that band?

SLUG: I know of them. I haven’t heard their stuff.

JB: They’re a totally amazing band. I think they are an incredible band and they are a band that has been around for awhile. They have been around maybe five years touring constantly. They fucking rock. I would just think that they’re a band that if anybody saw them they would go tell 20 of their friends. If somebody from a major label they would have contract hounds on their heels. But for whatever reason. I saw them a few weeks ago and there were maybe 50 people at their show and they were incredible. I know that the 50 of us who were at the show… I won’t be overly dramatic and say that we had our lives changed by it, but it really meant something to us. There are shows we play where we’re wondering why nobody came to this show, but we still played the best we could play and we still meant it. We mean it whether there are 10 people or 1,000 people there. I guess the point I’m trying to make is…I feel like there are certain people and there will always be people who are looking for something in the experience of music that doesn’t have anything to do with the kind of cultural validation that they get from MTV. For a band like Trench Mouth or Kepone or Candy Machine or whomever — among the best bands ever — who really say something. If you keep doing this and doing this and it doesn’t seem like anybody is interested after a while in practical terms it can be really difficult and probably can cause the end of a lot of bands. Really great bands — people who are interested in being challenged by music — are interested in some more difficult bands which I think are the more interesting bands. There are always going to be people who are going to see that stuff, there just aren’t 5,000 of them in a given city. There might be 50 of them. ‘Cause part of the thing is independent labels.

SLUG: They’re selling more now. 

JB: You think so?

SLUG: According to Billboard Magazine 21% of the market is independent labels and how they’re growing and that major labels might be losing market share to them soon.

JB: I think that would be great. The whole point is that it is supposed to be a free market, I think that would be awesome. I have a sense on the other hand, just from people I know and bands I know and people who have labels, it seems more difficult now to have an independent label than it was even a few years ago.

SLUG: That’s because all the small stores are closing. The big stores are forcing them out. That’s why it’s tougher. But if you can get into the big stores people are being more independent releases. It’s a problem.

JB: Like you said there is no solution. I think there is a need for an underground to exist and part of being underground is that it is not easy or not easily accessible and it’s not going to view success in the same terms as the mainstream views success. Anyway, it’s not like that I have a point in saying this. It’s just something that I think about ideologically. But in practical terms…

SLUG: ‘Cause you’re involved in it.

JB: Yeah, in practical terms it has been difficult to run…DeSoto runs at a loss all the time. DeSoto does not run for profit and…

SLUG: Well, keep at it. You only need one to break out.

JB: I guess it’s not hopeless. I guess it must just be us.

SLUG: Is there any reason you aren’t going on Lollapalooza or Warped Tour?

JB: I don’t think that we got asked to do the Warped Tour. People were talking about Lollapalooza as a possibility. We had a really great time when we toured with Stone Temple Pilots. I think it might be fun to do another tour like that, but one of the problems with big tours if you’re a small band is that a giant operation doesn’t schedule itself around you. We were talking about a bunch of different tours that might have been possibilities and no answer was forthcoming at all. The William Morris agency will make up its mind whenever it makes up its mind. It operates on its own schedule and meanwhile for us the most important thing is to go on tour. After a certain point were like…

SLUG: Just book it yourself.

JB: Those tours can be a lot of fun but our tours are the most fun. The best thing we can do for us, you know mentally, is to get in the fucking van, bring our friend’s band with us and go play a lot of shows. Those are the kind of shows that are much more of what our band wants to be about. A show where we are in an experience with an audience of a comprehensible size and there can be some sense that it is a shared experience instead of a show that is so giant you feel like you might as well be watching a movie.

SLUG: As a member of the audience I would have to agree. The smaller shows are much better than the huge ones.

JB: I never used to go to arena shows and when we toured with Stone Temple Pilots I was freaking out. We had an awesome time but when I would go out and watch the show from the audience I couldn’t imagine enjoying an experience that I am sharing with 50,000 people.  

Jawbox will play Salt Lake City on July 27th. They are bringing their friends Shiner and Tanner with them. As if Jawbox wasn’t difficult enough for MTV brains, have a listen to Shiner. Now that is difficult. The new record will see store shelves on July 2nd. It is even better than the last. Certainly better than the current “hot” product at the retail and radio level. —BMFDA

Read more interviews from the SLUG Archives:
Girls Against Boys
Cyco Miko