October 22, 2024 • 8 mins
Before flying into New Zealand to play at the Powerstation in Auckland, American ska band Less Than Jake called up for a chat about life on the road, their previous trips to NZ including visits to Hamilton and Rotorua and the reason you should try and stand out from the crowd when they're here.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Radio Hoda Keys Off the Record podcast with
Greg trev.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Let's have a chat with list than Jake Kyoder Buddy.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Hello, how's it going? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Really well. Thanks Kilda is a standard New Zealand greeting.
You'll hear that a lot when you arrive here very soon.
It's great to have you on the show and great
to have you in New Zealand soon. How's twenty twenty
four being for you?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Guys? Twenty twenty four has been fantastic.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
We went over to Europe in August and we did
a bunch of flyout stuff over the summer, so we've
been keeping ourselves busy.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
We are definitely excited to come back to New Zealand.
We have not been there in ages. I'm even trying
to figure out when the last time we played Ougland was.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I think it was about ten years ago.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
It was at least ten years ago.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Yeah, and I think the last time we're in Australia
was twenty seventeen, so it's still been It's been a
while for both places.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I'm not looking forward to the flight. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Europe and the States. How is the rest of the
world doing? You would have met up with some of
your fans. Is everybody in good spirits? Ups and downs?
What's the mood?
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Yeah, everyone's doing great. We're riding high right now. All
of us are somehow still friends after millions of years
of laying next to each other in a moving bus.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, we did things kick off for LEAs than Jake.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Technically we started in the year nineteen ninety two, so
last millennia. Wow, so it's been it's been quite a while.
We hit our thirty year point and stopped counting. Yeah,
and it kind of what you do in real life anyway,
right exactly.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I ah, just just a number after a while, that's right,
just a feeling.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I thought we'd go back and just play one of
your songs from back in the day. This one. We're
getting a lot of feedback on all my base friends
and middle heads.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Nineteen ninety seven and ninety eight here is when the
writing for that record took place, and the recording was
nineteen ninety eight. You know, that one actually has a
little bit of a conglomeration of people's stuff. I think
Roger had the most to do with the writing of
that one. And then you know, like usually someone comes
with like this is how all of us aren't ready
to go. Someone comes with an idea that's like a
either partially formed idea or a more well put together idea,
(01:57):
and then we kind of all get together and beat
it up with a stick for a while until a
song comes out of it. And back in those days,
many our drummer used to write all the lyrics, so
it's weird because he didn't, you know, sing any of it,
but he wrote the lyrics. So it was we'd always
have to like fudge things together. So it was really
a big melting pot of sorts back then. A lot
of the times now someone will come in with a
song that's like a lot more done because we all
(02:18):
have our own studios, so people will bring things to
the table a little bit more complete, but then they
still get beat around. You know, everyone's got to throw
their opinion in there.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah. Sure. How many people are in the band these days.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
It's just five of us still, Yeah, so it's been
five most of the time.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
It was six. Actually at that time. It was six
people during when metal Heads was going on, but we
had three horns. But then at some point we whittled
the horn section down to two and we've just been
the same for a long time. So there's you know, drums, bass, guitar,
the guitar and bass, both sing and sacks and tenor trombone.
And our sax player sings too. I sing as well,
(02:52):
but not as well I sing also.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, back then, a lot of your friends from Middleheads.
You still got many mates that are into the medal
or are they more skyheads these days?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
I think we're all pretty eclectic in our mix of
music that we like. Everybody likes a lot of common
ground stuff in the punk world and sky world, but
we veer off quite a bit on a lot of
other things. Like Chris, our singer, still obsesses over metal,
like he still follows metal sludge and all these different
like online blog things about like what's currently going on
with metal rogers, what's a pretty big metal hid growing
(03:24):
up as well?
Speaker 3 (03:24):
So that's where that stuff comes from for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well it all led to this from the Hello Rockview
album This is less than Jake with all My best
friends and metal heads. Ready a hod I, That's less
than Jake with all my best friends and metal heads
from their third album Hello Rockview. We have their troubmone
(03:49):
player Buddy on the zoom with us now before they
play at the power Station in Auckland tomorrow night. Buddy.
The horn section always been a big part of your
Guys sound.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
We never dipped out, even during the years like Scott's,
you know, kind of making a comeback. We tend to
not really follow the trends or anything or try to
like play whatever's popular at the time. We just kept
just kind of written what comes out of us, and
it keeps going. We weren't one of those bands that
dipped out for a while and then came back either.
We've just been somehow trudging along year after year, so
we're still here.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
There is a band in New Zealand and one of
the trombone players, as the show goes on, progressively gets
he's Lisa and Lee's clothes on. Do you guys have
some kind of a stade show going on with any
of the band members? Is there any gimmicky things.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
That's funny You mentioned the shirt off thing, because we actually, Uh,
it's funny. When I go back and look at old pictures,
I laugh at how often we had our shirts off
in the horn section because we were playing like small
hot clubs or like the Warps or something like that too,
and halfway through the show. My shirt would always be
off in those days for sure. But our at the time,
our sax player was this guy named Darren that played
Barry Sacks. He had this like harness that went over
(04:53):
your whole like chest and stuff that held his berry
Sacks up instead of just like a next strap. So
for him to take that off in the middle of
the show, I was a pain in the butt. So
he would just start the show with a shirt off.
So he would just come out straight up shirt off
and play the whole show I got. I don't know
that we have like gimmicky stage things as far as
our a strip tease show or anything, but we do
have a lot of stage props and fun exciting things
(05:16):
to add to the show.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
We'd like to bring people sometimes and ridicule them.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Oh okay for people from the crowd or people from
the crew.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Oh yeah, yeah, no, Biel from the crowd. It's been
known to happen.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Okay, So if we want to be a part of
the show, we should be in the front row.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah. Well, kind of the thing.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
At a comedy club usually you have to be prepared
to sit in the front row because you might get
a berated But yeah, it.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Doesn't have to be the front row.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
There are people that have been way in the back
and Crystal point them out and bring them up if
you have an interesting look, be wary.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
The thing about the power Station in Auckland that you're
playing it as well, is it has an upstairs portion,
a balcony that looks down on the crowd, so got
options up high as well.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
People, right, it would be tough to get them to
the state.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
We'd have to like play a song while they were
making their way to the stage or something, which we've
also done. But yeah, I think we played we've played
the power Station before. I'm pretty sure that's like a
quintessential place to play there in Auckland.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Absolutely, it's one of the beast venues in the country,
so a good choice.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Yeah, we're one of the US bands that's actually played
more than one place in New Zealand too. You know
a lot of a lot of American bands come in
and just play the power Station and leave. But we've
done Wellington and and my ex wife and I actually
went there the first time I went to New Person
our band went there. We actually tacked on a few
days before the tour started and did like a whole
trip around New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
So I've I've seen quite a few places.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
This time. A nice yeah, right, Hamilton, right.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Like it smells like sulfur because of but it looks cool.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I asked a couple of people whether they ever got
used to the smell living yeah, and they both answered
at the same time, and they both had opposite responses,
Oh weird.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Yeah, I was gonna say, I feel like you would
have to get used to it or you would move. Yeah,
it's kind of like that. There's stuff in the US there.
If you ever been around a paper mill, it's kind
of similar. It has a very distinct scent and it
just kind of takes over the whole town.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Like Savannah, Georgia is like that.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
We have one of those south of Hamilton, south of
Takoto on the way to Topeo, exactly that when you're
driving past. I quite like the smell.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
But people, yeah, it definitely is a distinct smell.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
We'll steer clear that when you fly in tomorrow, are
you playing in Auckland tomorrow night? Sharing tunes and stories
from your illustrious career.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
You know.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
That's what's crazy too about being a band as long
as just the amount of things that have changed technologically
in our career are shocking. So when we hear people,
you know, younger bands these days, complaining about certain things,
we're like, you don't even have any clue, like you know,
like like trying to get to the venue or something
like that. It's all done for you on your phone.
You just type the address and it tells you how
to get there. That's not how it used to be.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
We were like arguing in the van with the map
out fold out map. We knew we were getting close
to the club.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
If we were near a college or you saw people
selling crack on the street, They're like, well, it's going
to be one of these two places where the show
is going to be.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
You want to have those issues when you get to
Auckland on Wednesday, come wait to see you buddy from
Less than Jake, Save travels and yeah, all the best
for your tour coming back to New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Come enjoy your lovely island. Only one of them, I mean,
don't get to see the South. I've still never been
to the South Island. That's where all the Lord of
the ring stuff is and I would love to go
there one day.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Well there's always next year, that's right, Always next month.
Yeah maybe, thanks buddy. All right, well thanks for talking.
I'll see you later.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Radio hod Aches Off the Record Podcast. Why not subscribe
so they download automatically and don't forget to rate us
five stars? Thanks mate. Find out more about this podcast
and the people who make it at hodache dot co
dot m z
Welcome to Radio Hoda Keys Off the Record podcast with
Greg trev.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Let's have a chat with list than Jake Kyoder Buddy.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Hello, how's it going? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Really well. Thanks Kilda is a standard New Zealand greeting.
You'll hear that a lot when you arrive here very soon.
It's great to have you on the show and great
to have you in New Zealand soon. How's twenty twenty
four being for you?
Speaker 3 (00:22):
Guys? Twenty twenty four has been fantastic.
Speaker 4 (00:25):
We went over to Europe in August and we did
a bunch of flyout stuff over the summer, so we've
been keeping ourselves busy.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
We are definitely excited to come back to New Zealand.
We have not been there in ages. I'm even trying
to figure out when the last time we played Ougland was.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
I think it was about ten years ago.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
It was at least ten years ago.
Speaker 4 (00:40):
Yeah, and I think the last time we're in Australia
was twenty seventeen, so it's still been It's been a
while for both places.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
I'm not looking forward to the flight. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Europe and the States. How is the rest of the
world doing? You would have met up with some of
your fans. Is everybody in good spirits? Ups and downs?
What's the mood?
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Yeah, everyone's doing great. We're riding high right now. All
of us are somehow still friends after millions of years
of laying next to each other in a moving bus.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, we did things kick off for LEAs than Jake.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Technically we started in the year nineteen ninety two, so
last millennia. Wow, so it's been it's been quite a while.
We hit our thirty year point and stopped counting. Yeah,
and it kind of what you do in real life anyway,
right exactly.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I ah, just just a number after a while, that's right,
just a feeling.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
I thought we'd go back and just play one of
your songs from back in the day. This one. We're
getting a lot of feedback on all my base friends
and middle heads.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
Nineteen ninety seven and ninety eight here is when the
writing for that record took place, and the recording was
nineteen ninety eight. You know, that one actually has a
little bit of a conglomeration of people's stuff. I think
Roger had the most to do with the writing of
that one. And then you know, like usually someone comes
with like this is how all of us aren't ready
to go. Someone comes with an idea that's like a
either partially formed idea or a more well put together idea,
(01:57):
and then we kind of all get together and beat
it up with a stick for a while until a
song comes out of it. And back in those days,
many our drummer used to write all the lyrics, so
it's weird because he didn't, you know, sing any of it,
but he wrote the lyrics. So it was we'd always
have to like fudge things together. So it was really
a big melting pot of sorts back then. A lot
of the times now someone will come in with a
song that's like a lot more done because we all
(02:18):
have our own studios, so people will bring things to
the table a little bit more complete, but then they
still get beat around. You know, everyone's got to throw
their opinion in there.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah. Sure. How many people are in the band these days.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
It's just five of us still, Yeah, so it's been
five most of the time.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
It was six. Actually at that time. It was six
people during when metal Heads was going on, but we
had three horns. But then at some point we whittled
the horn section down to two and we've just been
the same for a long time. So there's you know, drums, bass, guitar,
the guitar and bass, both sing and sacks and tenor trombone.
And our sax player sings too. I sing as well,
(02:52):
but not as well I sing also.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, back then, a lot of your friends from Middleheads.
You still got many mates that are into the medal
or are they more skyheads these days?
Speaker 4 (03:03):
I think we're all pretty eclectic in our mix of
music that we like. Everybody likes a lot of common
ground stuff in the punk world and sky world, but
we veer off quite a bit on a lot of
other things. Like Chris, our singer, still obsesses over metal,
like he still follows metal sludge and all these different
like online blog things about like what's currently going on
with metal rogers, what's a pretty big metal hid growing
(03:24):
up as well?
Speaker 3 (03:24):
So that's where that stuff comes from for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Well it all led to this from the Hello Rockview
album This is less than Jake with all My best
friends and metal heads. Ready a hod I, That's less
than Jake with all my best friends and metal heads
from their third album Hello Rockview. We have their troubmone
(03:49):
player Buddy on the zoom with us now before they
play at the power Station in Auckland tomorrow night. Buddy.
The horn section always been a big part of your
Guys sound.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
We never dipped out, even during the years like Scott's,
you know, kind of making a comeback. We tend to
not really follow the trends or anything or try to
like play whatever's popular at the time. We just kept
just kind of written what comes out of us, and
it keeps going. We weren't one of those bands that
dipped out for a while and then came back either.
We've just been somehow trudging along year after year, so
we're still here.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
There is a band in New Zealand and one of
the trombone players, as the show goes on, progressively gets
he's Lisa and Lee's clothes on. Do you guys have
some kind of a stade show going on with any
of the band members? Is there any gimmicky things.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
That's funny You mentioned the shirt off thing, because we actually, Uh,
it's funny. When I go back and look at old pictures,
I laugh at how often we had our shirts off
in the horn section because we were playing like small
hot clubs or like the Warps or something like that too,
and halfway through the show. My shirt would always be
off in those days for sure. But our at the time,
our sax player was this guy named Darren that played
Barry Sacks. He had this like harness that went over
(04:53):
your whole like chest and stuff that held his berry
Sacks up instead of just like a next strap. So
for him to take that off in the middle of
the show, I was a pain in the butt. So
he would just start the show with a shirt off.
So he would just come out straight up shirt off
and play the whole show I got. I don't know
that we have like gimmicky stage things as far as
our a strip tease show or anything, but we do
have a lot of stage props and fun exciting things
(05:16):
to add to the show.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
We'd like to bring people sometimes and ridicule them.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Oh okay for people from the crowd or people from
the crew.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Oh yeah, yeah, no, Biel from the crowd. It's been
known to happen.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Okay, So if we want to be a part of
the show, we should be in the front row.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah. Well, kind of the thing.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
At a comedy club usually you have to be prepared
to sit in the front row because you might get
a berated But yeah, it.
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Doesn't have to be the front row.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
There are people that have been way in the back
and Crystal point them out and bring them up if
you have an interesting look, be wary.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
The thing about the power Station in Auckland that you're
playing it as well, is it has an upstairs portion,
a balcony that looks down on the crowd, so got
options up high as well.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
People, right, it would be tough to get them to
the state.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
We'd have to like play a song while they were
making their way to the stage or something, which we've
also done. But yeah, I think we played we've played
the power Station before. I'm pretty sure that's like a
quintessential place to play there in Auckland.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Absolutely, it's one of the beast venues in the country,
so a good choice.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Yeah, we're one of the US bands that's actually played
more than one place in New Zealand too. You know
a lot of a lot of American bands come in
and just play the power Station and leave. But we've
done Wellington and and my ex wife and I actually
went there the first time I went to New Person
our band went there. We actually tacked on a few
days before the tour started and did like a whole
trip around New Zealand.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
So I've I've seen quite a few places.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
This time. A nice yeah, right, Hamilton, right.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Like it smells like sulfur because of but it looks cool.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
I asked a couple of people whether they ever got
used to the smell living yeah, and they both answered
at the same time, and they both had opposite responses,
Oh weird.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Yeah, I was gonna say, I feel like you would
have to get used to it or you would move. Yeah,
it's kind of like that. There's stuff in the US there.
If you ever been around a paper mill, it's kind
of similar. It has a very distinct scent and it
just kind of takes over the whole town.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
Like Savannah, Georgia is like that.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
We have one of those south of Hamilton, south of
Takoto on the way to Topeo, exactly that when you're
driving past. I quite like the smell.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
But people, yeah, it definitely is a distinct smell.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
We'll steer clear that when you fly in tomorrow, are
you playing in Auckland tomorrow night? Sharing tunes and stories
from your illustrious career.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
You know.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
That's what's crazy too about being a band as long
as just the amount of things that have changed technologically
in our career are shocking. So when we hear people,
you know, younger bands these days, complaining about certain things,
we're like, you don't even have any clue, like you know,
like like trying to get to the venue or something
like that. It's all done for you on your phone.
You just type the address and it tells you how
to get there. That's not how it used to be.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
We were like arguing in the van with the map
out fold out map. We knew we were getting close
to the club.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
If we were near a college or you saw people
selling crack on the street, They're like, well, it's going
to be one of these two places where the show
is going to be.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
You want to have those issues when you get to
Auckland on Wednesday, come wait to see you buddy from
Less than Jake, Save travels and yeah, all the best
for your tour coming back to New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Come enjoy your lovely island. Only one of them, I mean,
don't get to see the South. I've still never been
to the South Island. That's where all the Lord of
the ring stuff is and I would love to go
there one day.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Well there's always next year, that's right, Always next month.
Yeah maybe, thanks buddy. All right, well thanks for talking.
I'll see you later.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Radio hod Aches Off the Record Podcast. Why not subscribe
so they download automatically and don't forget to rate us
five stars? Thanks mate. Find out more about this podcast
and the people who make it at hodache dot co
dot m z
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Crime Junkie
If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people.