Interviews -Jubilee-

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Aaron：It's about not being so precious about songs. We would have songs written for the most part before the drummers came in, but just not being precious about " It's gotta be this way!" So when all these different people come in to play, we respect, whether it's Josh Homme or Kevin Haskins, they can actually contribute to the song whether that would be the structure or the format , or the feel or the vibe. We kinda were setting the songs , " This song would be good with this guy." and we have been dead on pretty much every time. So for musician, it's fun for us just getting to play with different people. They are all great in their own way. Carla to Josh Homme to Josh Freesh, it's all across the board of different styles, but it still sounds like us. It's just making the album more interesting to listen to, and more fun to make, I think. Technically it might be harder because most bands practice the song and play it over and over and over, then go somewhere, to the studio to record. But we have our own studio, so we can skip that thing, and it's kinda fun to be more on the fly, just like do it tonight and see what happens.

It's kinda like Queens of the Stone Age back then.

Aaron：Kinda. Except for us, it's just a drummer. To me, the drums, I've always listened to the records which had a loud drums. It's always has been my favorite part of rock' n roll, cause rock' n roll is about the beat. All the energy and sex, and everything comes from the beat. And Having not the same feeling on everything is way more exciting to me.

Yeah. But who would play drum on tour?

Jeff：We just did this tour in the UK, and we took our friend Robi who played 2 trucks on the record, and he played on that tour with us, and he is great.

So Robi would play on next tour too?

Aaron：Most likely Robi, Robi is a great drummer. He plays on... one song is gonna be a B-sides, one song might be on the album. But he is a really good drummer. His role in the beginning, funny enough, when we were like, ok we are going to record some stuff if this is going to be a band. and we had these different drummers coming in, and we were going to do it for real, but with all different drummers, we are going to need a drum tech. Because everyones walks in, every drums sound different. So he was referred from a friend of mine Jeremy who happens to be Queens of the Stone Ages' and NIN's drum tech. So Robi came out initially just as a drum tech for everybody. But Jeremy was like "this kid is great, he can play". Then We would notice, when we set up microphone, we hear him play, man, sounds like this kid's very good. And we got this song, and we intended a couple of drummers, no one could ever really get it right. So we threw that song to Robi just to see what happens, and he totally killed it. It was like, wow, this kid is really good. He plays in another, like 7 bands or something. Then we were like "Let's put a single out" or " Let's go out on tour". We recorded all this music but we never played live, we didn't know what to call the band.

Then how did u come up with this band name, Jubilee?

Aaron：I was dead set on Buggy Spandex, and... what was it?

Michael：Kangaroo Keyboards?

Aaron：Yeah, Kangaroo Keyboards. There was this board, and when we were going to think of the name of the band, everyone was just writing weird things on the board. Anyway last minute we pulled it off. Band names are, no matter what you do, you can't win. You think it's something gonna fall from a sky, from god, it's gonna be the most obvious thing, and then you are not being... whatever.

Michael：Shit buster.

Aaron：Yeah, shit buster.

I think it's a good name.

Aaron：Yeah, it was like the best of all. Another idea of the band was, for me, where i was coming from, I always has been with the band that focused on a negative energy, i wonder if that makes sense.

yeah.

Aaron：Or it was coming from negative space, focused on the darker aspect of the humanity. And the idea here was to have something that was more about celebrating life, about how good life could be. And because of different drummers coming in, this uplifting, kind of celebratory, party type vibe, Jubilee seemed most appropriate for that thing.

I listened to 4 songs on EP, they were really interesting. As Travis already mentioned on your myspace, I heard various influences from american rock bands like Replacements, CCR, Bob Dylan, Neil Young which you covered, but at the same time, I felt the feeling of British rock, like Oasis, Stone Roses, The Verve...

Aaron：Yeah. Someone brought that up, and I thought it was really interesting. We all love complete americana bands, from Neil young to Creedence Clear Water to Tom Petty, stuff that is very american sounding. But at the same time, we love stuff that is very British, from the Verve to Blur to Stone Roses, stuff like that. So I think our influences in our sleeve are pretty hard( to figure out )in that regard.

So you had a concept of mixing all those influences into your music?

Michael：Not with specific bands, we kind of wanted to experiment with the sound, just getting away from other things we already played, no one wants to be a band that sounds like exactly with other bands. I think it is just because we have such a eclectic taste of music, you know...

Aaron：We spent all younger years trying to be like how many different time signature changes, or how weird can we make this song or... even younger younger years when we are all growing up on punk, how fast and heavy we can make, how brutal we can be. And some of them were conscious effort to be like, in the beginning, we were like, "let's see if we can bomb everybody out, and put out whimpiest, poppiest stuff", and then ended up rocking a little more. In the end, that's just who we are.

But was there any songs you wrote before you started Jubilee, like songs you kept in the closet?

Aaron：Yeah.

Michael：A lot of them.

Aaron：Or pieces, like I would have this pieces of a song I had back to 7 years ago or whatever, and there was pieces that he had forever, or lines of guitar he had forever. We weren't like let's try to make a song like this, it was like... people might not believe me, I don't know, but honestly, this is the best group of musicians that I've ever played with. Ever. Hands down. Musically, it's like way above and beyond anybody else I played with. For example, I was in the Icarus Line for 9 years, and we wrote 30 songs in those 9 years, because 80 percent of them was garbage, you know. But We are all coming from the same place, I mean if you look around ( in this studio), that's pretty much it. We are underground, Dylan, and Petty and Creedence, Neil Young, and The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Doors.. it's just like, whatever you put it in, it comes out. If you listen to good music, it's gonna come out as a good music. If you sit around and listen to Yellow Card all day, your band gonna sound like...

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