July 15, 2025 • 46 mins
Cullen and Mason chat with Chris DeMakes from Less Than Jake about the band's history, their legacy in ska, if they are making new music, and their upcoming show at Furnace Fest.
Check out Less Than Jake here: https://lessthanjake.com
Get tickets for Furnace Fest here: https://www.furnacefest.us
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Check out Less Than Jake here: https://lessthanjake.com
Get tickets for Furnace Fest here: https://www.furnacefest.us
Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/theblacksheeppodcast
Subscribe to our YouTube channel: youtube.com/@theblacksheeppodcast
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-blacksheep-podcast-presented-by-hm-magazine--2258933/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Thinking sage.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's a way how you looked at how you wagged
in how you say great and not the same.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Thinking sag.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
That's a way why you looked in how you wagged
in how you think the.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Same. Today we've got Chris from Lesson Jake super excited
to chat with you. Chris, Lesson Jake is a legendary band,
legendary and so it really truly feels like an honor
to chat with you.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
So we'll want to talk all about Lesson Jake history.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
We'll want to talk about obviously at some point your
influential albums.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
But before we get into all of that, how you doing, tod.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I am doing fantastic. We were scheduled to do this
interview excuse me last week, but I was I was
still on the road, and I did not want to,
uh to record a podcast from phone, so I thought
this would be better. And here we are. So I
just got home two days ago, and uh, yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
A true pro that probably comes from your Christen makes
a podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, and that's why I was embarrassed the other day
because you know, I knew it was a podcast, but
before we started a rolling, I was, I was mentioning
that a lot of times these days it'll be a podcast,
but you don't know if it's audio video. A lot
of times they'll just they want to see your face
for vocal cues and then they'll transcript it later. But
then what I saw you guys were trying to do,
(01:32):
I was like, nah, so this is this is yeah,
this is better.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
We're a serious operation. Because I'm a serious follower, I.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Can see that.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Well, I'm it's funny that you you mentioned that you're
you get embarrassed because we've got a common a mutual friend,
Leonor obviously Leonor from five Iron Frenzy. I'm sure you've
hung out with Leonor enough to know that she doesn't
get embarrassed by any Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, well, I don't mean embarrassed like it's gonna crush
my day. It's just it's it's amateur hour. I don't
I don't play like that, right, I don't miss interviews.
I don't mess around, and so when I do, or
something something happens, I feel the need to apologize. So
we're good.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Well, well, apology accepted. And also there's no reason to
apologize anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
But that's true.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Fair enough, Well, let's get into the very history of
Lesson Jake. I guess before we even really dive into
the specific history of Lesson Jake, how did you get
into music to begin with? What it made you want
to pick up a guitar start singing?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And my mom and dad were musicians, and my earliest
memories were, you know, playing music around the house, listening
to my mom and dad sing. They played everywhere from
nightclubs to the holiday in lounge to weddings, graduations, bar
mitzv was whatever there was that they would get hired for.
(02:46):
In addition, my dad worked a day job. He was
in real estate. So music was just a part of
my life. It was accepted. There was always albums around,
and you know, I'm dating myself. Albums, eight tracks, then
cassettes and CDs, and then albums came back again, and
then it went digital and who knows what format we're
at now. It keeps keeps trudging forward. But yeah, it
(03:09):
was it was just, uh, you know, it was something
that I think was not only passed on to me
through my mom and dad's jeans, which it was, but
it's you know, just become a passion of mine. As
the years went on.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
What kind of what kind of tunes did Your parents liked?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Everything? Most everything from fifties, sixties, you know, standards to
old rock and roll, classics, motown, seventies stuff. They they
went up all the way into probably the late nineties.
You know, anytime a new hit would come out, you know,
they would try to to you know, nothing too crazy.
They weren't. They weren't rapping or anything or going into
the into that world learning any Snoop Dogg. But you know,
(03:50):
they stayed, they stayed as current as they could for
for their audience.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Did they ever cover a less than Jake too?
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Kind of sort of? They we did did Less than Karaoke.
It was a warm up show for this big festival
we do in Gainesville in twenty fifteen, and they were
there and they got up and sang, uh, that's awesome. Yeah,
I love that.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Love that so obviously I imagine that inspired you to
start making a music.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Especially in high school.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
I saw that you guys were in a like you were,
or at least you in particular were in a band
before Less than Jake, and then you know, eventually that
kind of broken up, and then eventually Less than Jake starts.
But yeah, what like what what kind of was? It
was a good grief was.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
You know, I never I've only been in one band.
I've been in Less than Jake, and i've been I'm
kind of proud about that. You know. Yeah, there was
there was some what I refer to as your first
starter bands. We never played any shows, you know, we never,
we never. I was in high school, the town I
was in, I couldn't even get into a bar to play.
There was no such thing as a VFW halls or
(04:54):
you know, we don't have basements in Florida. You dig
three feet and you're you're in the ocean. So there
was not enough like that in this little retirement beach
community that I grew up in. So it wasn't until
I got to Gainesville to go to the University of
Florida that you know, things really really started to expand.
And that's when Less Than Jake really really became a thing.
Prior to that, I was with our former drummer, Vinnie,
(05:16):
him and I started Less than Jake. And prior to that,
you know, him and I had played in bands, but
once again, it was just bands by name, something to name.
We were just back back bedroom jamming with each other.
That was trying to trying to learn how to play.
I mean that's really what.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Have Do you even recorded anything then before Lesson Jake?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, we had recorded some stuff which remarkably never never
found its way onto the internet. We probably sold one
hundred cassettes in high school. Yeah, but it was nothing memorable.
I think that's why nobody ever put it on. It
was that bad that nobody even wanted to. You know,
It's like you could be like, oh, listen to the
first Slipknot demo. It sounds horrible, and people are like, yeah,
it sounds like shit, it does, and we just I'm
(05:58):
glad no one ever put it out there. But yeah, anyhow,
there was that, There was that, but you know, really
it was it was Vinnie and I that were doing that.
So it was really always an extension of less than Jake.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Sure, what what was the spark for SKA music there?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Well, you know, I think just overall it was at
first it had started out and just kind of as
three cord punk rock, you know, kind of in the
vein of Screeching Weasel and you know, Bad Religion and
a lot of the bands we were starting to get
into at that point Descendants, and then we had heard
a band from England called Snuff. They had a trombone player.
(06:37):
They were primarily a punk rock band, and that really
inspired us to to maybe start looking into horns. And
it was just around that time that everything just started
crashing in. It was just all at once, like Fishbone,
Boss Tones, Operation Ivy. You know. It was like breakneck
speed where every time you get you know, every every
month or two or three you turned around, there was
another band you were discovering. So it was kind of
(06:59):
those were kind of all the early influences.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, that was that was that where it started for
you then? Is that were you were you like, hey,
I love this sound. We want to replicate that, we
want to make it our own.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Well, I mean I think, I think for me. You know,
when I first got to Gainesville because Vinnie wasn't there,
I was up there for a year by myself, and
I had taken it, so I was eighteen. I had
taken my brother had this guitar under his bed, excuse me,
he had this guitar under his bed that was collecting dust.
And I took it with me to college and I
got up there and I started answering ads at the
(07:36):
record store, and I was just going to be a
singer at this point, you know, I was looking for
a singing gig. And you know, nineteen ninety one was
such a weird time in music. We were coming out
of the eighties. Nirvana was about to hit, and here
I was like going to auditions and like there'd be
like a dude in a Pearl Jam shirt and then
like you look over and then the other guy like
(07:57):
in a sex pistol shirt and this guy's in a
Queen's Right shirt, like like okay, And then I did
like one or two auditions, and that was kind of
it for me. I just went home and took that
guitar out and just I was blessed with my father's ear.
I never took a music lesson in my life. I
just started I just started going, Okay, what cord is this?
I can figure this out, and just started playing every
(08:19):
day and connecting those dots to where we finally ended
up meeting everybody else, you know in the band at
the time in Gainesville and started playing shows, and there
was no grand master scheme. It was you know, is
there any beer there? And maybe there's some girls, and
who knows what will happen after that, and you know
all the things. As a young band, you just want
(08:40):
to write songs and you want to go have fun
and play for your friends, and that's that's what it was.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
So you mentioned a little bit about you know, just
like again quote unquote band that you were jaming with
in high school, and you mentioned like, you know, you
would put out some music and you you know, said
that you know, it's kind of crap. Point did you
feel like, you know, once you got into Lesson, Jake,
at what point did you feel like, oh, like, maybe
there's something here, like this isn't just crap, Like maybe
(09:07):
there's something here. Because I would imagine again, like you know,
first that first week or whatever, it probably still kind
of sounds like crap. But I'm sure at some point
you feel like you've matured enough in your songwriting or
your talent or whatever where it's like, okay, wait, there's
like something here. Like at what point did it feel
like that with Lessons?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
When we recorded our first seven inch record in May
of nineteen ninety three, and I was playing those songs
for friends who just wouldn't bs me. They wouldn't lie
to me, and they're they're flipping out over this stuff.
And you know, really quickly we were you know, we
(09:47):
were going to shows every night. We're making friends with
bands and just kind of networking, you know, I guess
you would call it, and getting on this gig and
getting on that gig. And you know, after we had
played everywhere we could in Gainesville, and we started hearing
about bands and from Daytona or bands, you know, from
Orlando that came up to gainsl Hey, we'll trade shows out.
We'll play up here, we'll play down there, and from there,
(10:10):
you know, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, then over the other coast,
Fort Myers, Sarasota. We played every nook and cranny that
you could possibly play. And you know, by that point,
we were building up crowds around Florida to three to
five hundred kids everywhere we were going, so people were
showing up, people were buying the seven inches, and finally,
(10:32):
in the summer of ninety five, it would have been
we left June and ninety five. We left on our
first start, did our first show outside of outside of Florida,
did our first US tour, and we were confident at
the time because we did exactly what we did in Florida.
We found bands in every city we were going to
that had a following. We couldn't, you know, make it
(10:53):
happen everywhere. There were certainly nights of playing the two
people in the bartender and wherever, but for the most part,
you know, it's like, oh, hey, we were on a
comp and Madison, Wisconsin. Great, we're gonna play with the
bands on that comp it's at this hall. You know,
there's gonna be a couple hundred kids there. And there
were that first US tour, we did forty eight shows
in like fifty one days or fifty days. Yeah, it was.
(11:14):
It was just Bank Bank, Bank, Bank Bank. A couple
were canceled. In all fairness, they maybe maybe two shows
that didn't happen. One in Dallas, Texas. I remember it
didn't happen. We got there and the places boarded up.
You know, you couldn't you couldn't prepare for for things
like that, especially in those days. You didn't have cell phones,
you didn't have you didn't have anything. You go to
the pay phone and be like, hey, we're here. But
(11:35):
we came home that first US tour, we came home
with three thousand dollars in cash. And that's when I
went game on because nobody goes on tour and does that.
And I was like, okay, we have a blueprint here.
We took what we did in Florida, we went up
the East coast. Now we continue and it wasn't long
after that that we got we got signed to Capital.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Wow, what are what are wild Ride to start with?
I mean that's a that's a pretty quick turnaround with
some good success. I mean, but you guys hit the
ground running and a hard work paid off and it
showed that that this is doable.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Well, yeah, there was. There was a good four years there.
You know, Vine and I did the first demo of
it was you know what was to be less than
Jacob was just him and I. I played bass on
it and it was called a four track freebie demo
that I ended up when I got to school. I
was there that summer, that's right. We recorded the the
four track down on like October, and the idea was
(12:34):
I was going to go to shows and gainsl and
pass this out for free. So I remember going to
like Kmart. They used to have these like ten packs
of cassettes for like five bucks or something, the cheapest,
crappiest cassette you ever heard. And I would just sit
there and dub off like twenty or thirty copies xerox
a little front cover that we had made up, and
I would just go, Oh, that guy's got a dough
Boys shirt, that guy's got a screeching weasel shirt, that
(12:55):
guy has a whatever shirt. Hey, check this out. So
I started passing passing those sets around, and you know,
then ninety two came. Then he moved to Gainesville in May.
We had a different bass player. We did about twelve
shows with him. He never recorded on anything, but we
were doing shows and it was late. That's that summer,
early fall of ninety two. By chance, a roommate of
(13:17):
mine came home one night she said, hey, you know,
I saw this guy. You got to get him in
your band. I'm like, oh yeah, and she's like because
she knew we had had had a falling out with
his bass player. And I said, well, who is it?
And she's like Roger and she's like, he plays bass. Well,
it turns out that he didn't play bass. He played guitar.
But I was kind of like, you know, whatever. I
(13:38):
kind of put it out of my mind. I came
home a week later. I think I was delivering pizzas
or something, and there's this dude sitting in my living
room with my roommate and he's like, hey, this is
Roger I got. I'm like, what's up? Started talking music
and we went over to my room. I said, hey,
here's my guitar. You know. He picked up the guitar
and started playing and sing and I went, Okay, that's
the guy. And I'm like, and we were so young.
(13:58):
This is what you do when you're that. You're like, well,
you're a great guitar player, so you're gonna play bass
because I'm the guitar player and I can't play bass.
And that was it.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Well, and who wouldn't Who would have known that that
your guys' voices would be so perfect for just gorgeous harmonies.
I mean, what are the chances that he would have,
you know, this, this beautiful kind of tenor voice, and
then you'd be here with kind of the grittier baritone.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, well, I mean that and that kind of evolved too.
You know, if you go back to the first record,
first two records, I sang lead on almost everything. And
it wasn't that he couldn't. It was just when you're young,
you put yourself in a box. It's like on the
guy stands in the little on the lead singer think
about it, and then after time you know it became
you know the what it is now. A lot of
(14:49):
that had to do with recording techniques and working with
producers like Howard Benson, who did our Hello Rugby record.
We're one of the first bands to use pro tools.
We were one of the first bands to be auto tuned.
I know that because Howard knew everybody at the time
at auto tune. They would answer the phone back in
nineteen ninety eight like, yeah, hey, what's up. You know
digit design he'd be like, hey, I'm having an issue
(15:10):
with the autotune plug in, which back then was like
a floppy disk. It was ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
So you know once we we'd be in the studio
for Rockview and he'd be like, all right, I want
Chris to do a harmony now, all right, and he'd
be in there with his piano ding ding ding, sing
that ah sing it again, Ah, okay, great, and I'll
sing the lyric with it. So whatever the lyric was,
and then he'd be onto the next thing sing this.
I'd be like, what is this guy doing? You know,
(15:37):
But because again it was before everybody had home studios
and you knew what was on a grid and you
knew how things worked. So we would get in there
and listen to these rough mixes. He'd be, you know,
mad scienting this shit all night, and then we'd get
up the next day and we'd walk in there and
he'd hit play and it would be like here it
is and you would listen to it and it's Saturday
(15:59):
maze and you're like, wow, this is this is great.
And then you realize, well, now we got to replicate that,
and and you know, to our you know, to our credit,
we could eventually, but we had to really work at
it to get those harmonies sounding like they were.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Well I was gonna say so, you know, kind of
around that time then, like at some point you must
have been like, Okay, this is actually not just that, like, oh,
like we've got some good music here. But at some
point you're like this is a real thing, Like this
is a thing that's gonna pay some bills, Like this
is gonna you know, maybe to some degree pay the
groceries or keep a roof over my head. And I
(16:42):
don't know if you ended up during that time, like
going all the way through college at Gainesville or not,
but like at some point you probably had to justify
to maybe your parents or something like, hey, this is
what like this is what's gonna be paying the bills
at least.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
For the foreseeable future.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
So did you feel like maybe at some point, like
Lesson Jake Kunna got to that like level or yeah,
what what was I?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yes? And no, I mean we just didn't know, because
you know, there was a lot that I missed in
the nineties. There's TV shows and sitcoms that you know,
we're on for eighteen months or two years. The people
like you don't remember that. I'm like, I have no
idea what then? Now, I know enough time has passed
where I went back, and you know, now everything's all
the reruns are on Netflix whatever, and everything's online. And
(17:24):
of course I know about what went on in the nineties,
but at the time I didn't. I was trapped in
four walls of a van with the same damn cassette
or CD going over and over till someone threw it
out the window and goes next. We got to listen
to something else. So I was in this van cruising around,
and one tour left to the next. I remember ending
a tour in Minnesota or somewhere in the Midwest and
(17:45):
being like, Okay, well, our next tour is in five
days in Boston. Like, we're not going back to Florida.
We're living at rest stops and along the way and
dunkin Donuts for the next five days until we get
to that. So I was living in a van, you know,
Once every couple of days or a week, I'd put
the quarters into the payphone or with a calling card
and call home and let everyone know when I was
(18:06):
alive and then go back to doing it. So it
wasn't and as far as like back home, you know,
we were we were happy to be paying our rent,
but we weren't thinking of this as in making money.
Especially the first couple records, it was everything was going
back into the band, to merchandise, to everything.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
So so it just sounds like a classic case of
you just literally worked your asses off to get to
the at least now, especially.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I met the right people one hundred and ten percent
and I'm I know that now more than ever. And
I don't say this from an egotistical standpoint. None of
my guys ever got fed up on any you know,
bad substances or yeah, we used to have fun. We
were kids, We had a good time. But there's not
(18:57):
a band that I you know that in our world.
In my opinion, it takes this as serious as we do.
We go out there now, all the years of experience
are all there, everything we've created, but we also have
time that has elapsed and memories that have elapsed for
people that you can't put a price on that. There
(19:17):
was no litmus test for this. When the Rolling Stones
were twenty five years old nineteen eighty nine, I thought
they were gonna die. Okay. They were like to me,
like the Keith rich is gonna keel over? That was
in eighty nine, Okay, a band that was that old.
Then you're like, how long can this go? Well, it's
twenty twenty five, and guess what. Jagger's still run on
one hundred and eighty feet across stages.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yea sore still has.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Right, and they're more popular than ever because yeah, yeah,
thank god for viagra. But you know, it's it you didn't.
There's nothing to gauge this off of. So now I'm
aware of the more time. If you're in a successful
band that does things right, that does cool things for
the fans, that about their craft, and it's all gonna
(20:04):
going to come full circle, which it has. Our tours
the last two or three years are just They're some
of the most fun I've ever had. It's a different
kind of fun. The crowds are still going ballistic. We
have to really really fight to get a good circle
pit because people are the audience is over thirty five.
(20:25):
The teenagers that are there, they're the kids of the
thirty five.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
I'd be handing out.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I'd be prof fun, yeah, exactly. But you know, it's
a great place to be in. There's the best compliment
is bands. You know. We tour was strung out last year. Okay,
we had never done tours with them. We went out
and like this tour. A couple of Fishbone guys are like, man,
(20:50):
I haven't seen you guys in twenty years, and what
did I just see? And that's not me toot my horn.
I just I know. We go out there, I'm as
hungry as I've ever been. It's not in a way
of We're gonna sell records and I'm gonna this face
is gonna sell tampon ads. That's not gonna happen. Okay,
like those days. Those days are gone. But I only
(21:14):
have to prove to myself that this show is going
to be better than the last one I played. And
that's all, you know, and that that excites me. I
hadn't had that passion. I lost that passion for a
long time. It was kind of going through the motions
and now all the noise that happened when you were younger,
the where's the after party? Oh manager, the management call?
(21:34):
They want to know how many? How many records sales? Hey?
Record label called? Hey, we gotta do these interviews. We
don't have to do anything now, you know. If I
want to talk to someone on a podcast or do
an interview, we do it. If I want to hang
out after the show, I'll do it. If I don't,
I don't want to do it. And that took thirty
three years for me to realize that I didn't know.
And you know, and I sound like a damn old man.
(21:54):
Give me a recliner in a hand to scratch my balls.
At eight thirty at night, I'm gonna be sleeping. I'm done.
This is Is this a Christian podcast? I'm sorry if
I'm going to No.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
No, it's a Christian. It's Christian.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Depends on what Christians. It definitely depends on what Christians
you ask.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I think it's so cool that, especially in the sky world,
but I think especially with less than Jake, I don't
care who you are. If you were like, let's let's
say you're playing like a show at a smaller venue
and someone could walk up and and and hear you guys, right,
(22:35):
I think anyone would be intrigued enough and be like, hey,
I think I want to go check that show out.
That sounds like a good time. Do you feel that
way when you are playing? Like like, this is music
for everybody. This isn't just music for hardcore SKAFF fans
and stuff like that. By the way, I got I
gotta say before we go on, there's a lot of
(22:56):
listeners here that are diehard SKA fans, and they are
the I don't want to say they're gatekeepers, but they
are militant if you don't know absolutely everything about Scott,
which I think is hilarious. Okay, so just watch your tongue. Yeah, sure,
you're careful.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah right, Oh jeez, we're talking here. But uh yeah, no,
I I don't I'm trying to think. I was going
to expound on something. I lost my train of thought.
But go ahead.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Sorry, that's my that's my phone.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
No, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Do you think that your music is I'm sorry to
be for anybody to draw people, and that's what you
had ask.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, I don't know. If it's the music, I definitely
know it's our personalities. You know. We have four front
men in the band. I got two horned players that
have live mics, and it's just it's chaos up there,
and we're talking about things that most bands don't talk about.
When you get out on stage and you have zero
fear of failure, that's the greatest feeling in the world
(23:51):
that I can get out there and I can just
start talking about the hot dog cart in front of
sixty thousand people and telling everybody how it fucked my
stomach up the night before, or sorry I'm a little
bit sluggish, it's the hot dog guy's fault. And they're
just like, why are you talking about this? You know,
and that makes it fun for us if I had
to go out there, you want to talk about a job.
(24:12):
You know, Hey, insert city, good to see you tonight,
Thank you for coming. Like I wouldn't have lasted.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
It has to be off the cuff. It's classic, whether
you like it or not. It's it's three Stooges slapstick humor.
That's what you know. We interject that with our music.
So I think in that aspect, it's a good time.
The best compliment we get have ever gotten, is I
used to be parents. Now it's people of all ages,
but back in the back in the day, we were
(24:39):
first starting to be parents, Like, I can't stand any
of this shit. My son listens to the bad religions,
the misfits, But something about you guys, I like, I
like you guys, so you know, and they and the
parent would come to the show and be like that
was great. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
So I love that there is something about Scott that,
you know, you see this and many SKA bands, not all,
but many SKA bands just have this element of fun,
whether it's their live shows or in the lyrics that
they they have like, but there's just this element of
fun that isn't exactly apparent in most alternative music.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, it has always been fun regardless of the lyrical telling.
A lot of Sky lyrics are very you know, Less
than Jake lyrics are very morose, very inward and introspective,
I should say, and Scott can be political, it could
be angry, but at the end of the day, it's like, whoa,
now I'm zoning in on what they're singing about. But
you know it sounds so happy and happy and joyous
(25:37):
and free.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why. Yeah,
Scott is just it seems to be a such a.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Unique music genre. Yeah, I'm just And obviously you guys
are huge contributors. That one thing you mentioned just a
b Togo is obviously your excitement about being still in
Lesson Jake and like just the opportunities you all have
is there again, knowing the legacy that Less Than Jake
has and knowing especially right now, like you're just as
(26:08):
excited as you were in year one of the band.
Is there like a dream that you still have for
the band? Like is there a dream that maybe you
guys haven't quite gotten to that you're like, oh, I
would love that like maybe it's it's maybe it's as
simple as we'd love the tour at that band someday,
or we would love to do like explore this kind
of sound with our or I don't know, but is
there like a thing that you think about of like God,
(26:29):
that would be amazing if we could maybe do that.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
So we open for Bond Jovie. I was at the
Karrang Awards where we got presented a Karrang Award for
Best New Band in England, which was hilarious because we'd
already been a band for ten years. Best New Band
given to me by Billy Duffy and Ian Asbury from
the Cult. Roger and I went up and got this
as our table is sandwich between Slayer and Meat Loaf, Okay.
(26:54):
Marilyn Manson was there. Angus Young from ac DC was
there that night. Brian May from Queen I got to
meet him, had beers with Dave Grohl. Was that the
year I think Billy from Green Day was there. We
hung out that night. We saw David Bowie with the
Green Day guys because Bowie played the night before we played.
(27:15):
We played with green Day, no doubt. It was us
green Day and no doubt in a cricket field in Manchester, England.
We opened for bon Jovi for two weeks on the
Crush tour. We've done more warp tours than any band,
four hundred and forty two warped tour shows and counting.
We're going to do four forty three in Long Beach
and four forty four in Orlando this year. And every
(27:36):
night we do VIP meet and greets where fans come
and they cry and they shake and they tell us
how much the music's meant to them. That's the dream.
The dream's happening. The dream is now, the dream is.
There's nothing else that I would want to accomplish with
this band. If you'd like to send me ten million dollars,
(27:57):
I would gladly accept. Other than that, we're good.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
It has to be ten million, twenty million.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Thirty million. I don't care. Give me.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Give me what if it's just one.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Million, one million, I'd take it. I'd take one dollar
and guess what I'd take nothing. I am completely completely fulfilled.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Well that's what's happening with Spotify, so you're you're completely fulfilled.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I already got the right attitude for it. I already
knew I was gonna be grab my ankle.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
So I love that so kind of along the legacy
of scat, you know, just generally, you know again, like
I think it's such a unique sounding and just unique
genre of music. Like there really just is nothing quite
like it to me, And you know, obviously it really
had its you know heyday, mid mid nineties, late nineties,
(28:42):
and I don't know, like and I know that there's
like been certain SKA revivals, but yeah, it's just to me,
it's like it's so unique sounding, and I really hope
at some point we really get this such sort of
revival that we saw in the nineties of a lot
of those you know, just the sound of SKA being
popular again. You know, a lot of times there seems
to be maybe like every twenty or thirty years, there's
(29:04):
sort of the resurgence of a certain sound.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
You know.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
I remember, like a few years ago, like a lot
of eighty cynthy kind of sounds start coming back. Actually,
Colin and I are in the heavy music world, so
a lot of like new metal sound is coming back,
and I just haven't really again knowing that there's still
SKA bands, but.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Like you just don't really hear like really popular.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
SKA bands kind of pop off that are new bands.
But I think at some point that's got to happen, right,
you'd think so, right?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
You never I never say never'll yah. I you know,
things like that just kind of happen, you can. I've
seen record labels try to try to make it happen
and throw a bunch of money at something and they
just can't get it to click. It just has to
be has to be organic and do its thing.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I think, yeah, I'm just waiting for ten pan Alley
bands to come back.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I don't know good genre.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
When when you look at the future of Lesson Jake,
So from here on, do you do you expect that
it's going to kind of continue to exist as is?
Do you want to make more music? Do you want
to try new things? Is what should fans expect to
see from from the Lesson Jake camp?
Speaker 2 (30:21):
All the above? Nice? You know, I mean, we're We've
always prided ourselves on releasing new music and pushing forward
as a band. That's what we I've always told bands,
you know, they'll come to me a younger bands. W
how do I do this? I always say, how do
you make it, you know, and the first thing out
of my mouth is it has to start with a song.
(30:42):
You know, you're already talking about making t shirts and
buying a van. You haven't written your first song yet.
The song has to get what people. That gets what people.
If you want to start a clothing company, go start
a clothing company. But if you want people to buy
your band's shirt, you know, you have to be doing
something that is hitting them. You know, between the years
(31:02):
and the.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Heart some we're supporting. I can appreciate that. Yeah. By
the way, Mason and I have not yet made shirts
for the podcast, so there you go. I mean this
is not yet worth supporting. I don't know. Yeah, it's
been almost ten years.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
So you're we'll say, you're what you're singing is that
we can maybe expect some new Lesson Jake music in
the future.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, we were always we're always writing songs, and we
really do it for ourselves. You know. We go out
and the cool thing is is we call them the
super fans. You look out and they're singing every word
all the new songs, and you just tell the audience,
you know, hey, we're gonna play a couple of new songs. Tonight,
and you're gonna hear all the classics you want to hear,
but you know, give our new stuff a listen. We're
(31:44):
gonna we still enjoy playing new music. And I told
the guys, and we've kept the promise. We have like
seven or eight songs out of a twenty two set
song set list now that have been from twenty twenty
and after. And it's just it's just the belief that
if you keep playing these songs live, they'll become a
hit with your audience. You know, my very own Flag
(32:04):
from our pez Core record, that was a hit with
our audience before we recorded it. We were playing that
in Florida and people knew what the chorus of that
song was. So we're kind of taking the page out
of that.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah, every cloud, every crowd pleaser was a new song
at one point.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
It's a good points, very good point.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Well, you are playing Furnace Fast here in October, Colin
and I are going to be there.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
I'm trying.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
You guys didn't play in those like first couple of
years out of the second wave, right, so this is
your first one, right the first time?
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Love it? Love it?
Speaker 3 (32:36):
So Colin and I have been to Furnace Fast for
this will be our fifth year, so we went, We've
gone to all the new sort of iteration of Furnace Fast.
So yeah, is there anything sort of different that maybe
fans could expect that you know, again, maybe it's just
like a sort of festival set that's going to be
a little different than what you guys normally play on
tour or I don't know, is there just anything that
(32:57):
we can maybe expect from this Furnace Fast set that
might be That's.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
A good question. I'm gonna say probably yes. Maybe it's
four months away, so I know that we're gonna do
something cool. We're not gonna that We're not gonna phone
it in if that, if that says anything. I don't
know exactly what what we're gonna play get or where
we're gonna be in that mode, but uh, you know,
I I know it'll be fun if if if they're
asking us to come in and be one of the
main acts at this thing, you know, we're not gonna
(33:22):
not gonna come and uh phone it in.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Yeah, well you do have big shoes to fill because
five Iron always does really well.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
All right, that's true.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Those packages, those those sca those I mean again, like
you mentioned before, like you get all these like forty
year olds that are still skinking, And certainly that is
the case at at these five Iron Furnace Fast shows,
So I would imagine that they'll be the case for
you all too, I hope so as well as.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
The pop punk stuff. The pop punk stuff really does well,
so kind of adjacent. But yeah, no, I'm I'm excited
to you know, just bounce around and have a good
time and and and listen to some good tunes. There's
there's not really another festival like Furnest in my opinion,
So very excited to have.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
You guys were we are. We're excited. We're excited to
playing time. We can do something something new. It's cool.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Oh that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Are there? Are you?
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Are you guys sticking around kind of the whole weekend?
Are you guys just playing just the shots again?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
It's so far out. I we have, gosh, I don't
know how many shows. We got the second leg of
our summer tours coming up here in about three weeks,
and then we have probably another five or five or
six shows in September, just some flyout dates and whatnot.
So Okay, I'm not we're not quite there yet.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Well, if you do happen to be around for most
of the weekend, again, just highly recommend. There's so many
great bands. Obviously a lot of bands are super heavy bands.
I'm not sure if you're into that or not. But
there's just so many good bands and and awesome, Like
a lot of bands that came.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Out to talk to Jesse Leach from kill Switch Engaged
tomorrow for my podcast, So I love heavy there you go.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Perfect perfect then, yeah, exactly, so you know so.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
But I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of bands
too that kind of came up around the same time
as you guys did too, that are gonna be there,
So I don't know, hopefully you're able to like see
some old friends or see some people that you haven't
seen in a while. And I don't know, it's just
it feels like that kind of festival where it's just
it almost feels more like a family reunion rather than
like a music gotcha cool?
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, so awesome. Well should we get into top five
top five I'm ready top five most influential album.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
All right, in no particular order. Pet Sounds by The
Beach Boys oh oh, Hice.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Rest and Keith Brian will.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Go yeah, And that was kind of one of my
mom and dad's go to do.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
They were really into harmonies, and I think that that's
why I've been so into harmonies and that motown and
that doop stuff. It's it's incredible and that's one of
the reasons I think that. You know, and I know
Rogers was very much into that as well. But I'm
gonna go that's top influential album. Pet Sounds Live After
(35:58):
Death Iron Maiden, Yes O double live record. It kind
of introduced me to the band. I had heard some
songs before, but I saw that album cover and I
had to have it. And I lived that record back
and forth. I could, I could, I could recite all
the banter to this day at how many times I
listened to that album Operation Ivy Energy. I'm going for
(36:20):
that record just because you had to be there, you know,
you had to hear these songs at a time and
in your life. In my life where I didn't care
about production value. I didn't care that the drums sounded
like a tin can, that it was just mixed, not great,
but the songs came across and that gave a young
(36:42):
songwriter like me, it's like, Oh, these guys can play
three chords and bash away and and you know, I
think maybe I have a chance to do that too,
So it kind of leveled the playing field. Not to
say that there was talent on that record, I mean,
it's the talent's all over the place, but it was very,
very punk rock.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
They have such a unique like history because like how
many bands can exist for maybe just over two years
and have that level of influence on entire scene because
we hear Operation IVY a lot. And to think that
they have left their mark after literally only existing for
just over two years is kind of unbelievable. Like there's
not too many other things in the world that are
able to leave their mark with that short of it.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
And I don't know if they would have continued to
be a band, if anything would have ever lived up
to that. I think that they. I think it had
to be a one and done thing, and I think
that's why that's another reason why it's revered. It's the legend.
No disrespect to Tim Jesse the rest of the guys.
I have no interest in seeing an Operation I reunion.
I'm sure someday it'll happen. You can't recreate what those
(37:40):
seventeen year olds were doing in a garage. Then, you know,
the same thing could be said for my band. Well,
you guys don't sound like you did when you were
that age. Yeah, well we evolved, you know, and maybe
maybe they could have evolved. I guess. I guess Tim did.
He evolved with a Rancid. But I think Operation IVY
was its own standalone thing. And I said that because
out of all this SKA records that was that was
(38:01):
really the one Scott Punk that really turned my mind.
The next one, I'm just gonna go with general anything
NEI Neil Diamond's greatest hits, and again you're like, whoa,
but those types of crooning songs were played in my
house as a young kid.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
And then talk about learning how to write a song.
There you go, that's that's a school to write a song.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
And then last but not least, I got to throw
in Prince Purple Rain. Oh yeah, all right, and uh
yeah those are my top five.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
I always find it interesting when people who are into
the punk scene, especially punk and sky well I'm about
Scott necessarily, but punk, especially when they're into Prince because
it feels like it was kind of antithetical to the
punk scene at the time.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Well, I was into Prince before I heard punk rock,
so that probably has something to do with it. Oh
hell yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. In eighty four, God,
when that record came out, you know, I was listening
to hard rock and all kinds of stuff, But that
album I loved it then and it's only grown on me.
It's one I can listen to all the way through.
And you know, you maybe isn't the first thing you
(39:16):
think of when you hear a Less than Jake song,
but it's definitely in there somewhere.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Growing up, was you kind of defined by your music genre?
Because we've talked to a lot of people and you know,
if they were from they were growing up in the seventies, eighties,
early nineties, even up to the mid nineties. If you
were a punk rocker, you were a punk rocker, and
that's pretty much what you could listen to publicly, like
(39:42):
you couldn't let your friends know that you listen to
anything else. Or if you were a metal head, you
hung out with metal heads. Yeah, if you were a hippie,
you were hung out with the hippies. Was that like
that in Gainesville?
Speaker 4 (39:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (39:54):
I mean that's just life, right, I mean you learn
that in the sandbox in kindergarten. Now that kid looks different.
Oh okay, well was he a jerk? Oh? Maybe? I
don't know, let's figure it out. Uh, you know, for
for us, yeah, certainly there there was a little bit
of that, But I don't know. We kind of always
wore our influences on our sleeve.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
One of our biggest songs to call all my best
friends or metal heads, which is basically just pointing at prejudice.
I don't even want to say racism, you know, because
that racism just gets thrown around, just just prejudice of
other people. Like, wait, you're in a punk band. How
could your best friends be metal heads? Well, because they're fun, man.
You know, they got the best beer in towner but
the best you know, best weed. Okay, cool, I'm gonna
hang over there. So you know, we were always kind
(40:33):
of tongue in cheek and and and uh, we're kind
of never never really embarrassed about what we listened to.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
I appreciate that because I feel like I feel like
that's one of the things that the modern generation has
done a pretty darn good job of of really really
blurring those lines. You know that, you know, you can
listen to whatever you want. No one's gonna make funny.
But there was a time or that was like that.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah, yeah, I could. I could see that if you know,
you certainly you picked your spots, if you were somewhere
where people were talking about punk rock all you know,
you know, all of a sudden works not talking about
at Pat Boon record or something. All right, I went
out right you uh, you know so? But yeah, I
think that I can speak for the whole band when
(41:17):
I say that we're kind of an open palette when
it comes to music.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Cool and that's why that's why Princess is also.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
Allowed love that. Well, what would you like to plug?
Speaker 3 (41:31):
So it sounds like some obviously still some shows that
are gonna be played for the rest of the year
to yeah, maybe at some point some new music, but yeah,
what do you want to play?
Speaker 2 (41:41):
We're just working on new songs all the time. I
in the process of cleaning up some demos this month
that I'm home a lesson. Jake goes out on the
rest of the summer circus tour dates are and tickets
can be final less than Jake dot Com. The second
half is going to be with Fishbone and the Suicide
Machines returning and cat Bite's gonna pick me up, pick
up or bite me Bamby left off on the last run.
(42:02):
I'm still doing my podcast, Christen makes a podcast going
strong five years in over two hundred and seventy episodes.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
At this point, can we just say too, like your name,
your last name was just like it was you. You
were almost like predestined to be an artist in some way,
whether you were making music or making a podcast, but
you were obviously predestined to create some data.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
So well, I appreciate that because I hated it as
a kid because no one could pronounce it. You know,
they made it harder than it is. It's it's Greek,
so it the pronunciation is the Mikey's And so then
it was wondering, Yeah, so I get Demacus democus. I
never get the Mikey's Demacus democus demarx, like you know,
uh damacus, Uh you name it, so they never never
(42:45):
say it. So it was kind of kind of a
play on that, and uh yeah, if you want your
own custom song or jingle for your business. I've written
over three hundred of those in the last five years.
You can hit me up Christen makes at gmail dot com.
I'll write a song for you. You're cat, your bird,
your wife, your anniversary. If you hate your boss, I'll
write a song. I've done one of those too, so.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Oh that's tempting. Dog Shug and I have a great boss.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Wait, is that kind of like what's that app where
you can like connect with a celebrity and they can
like like say.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Happy birthday, cameo cameo?
Speaker 4 (43:19):
Yeah, camo?
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Does it almost feel like cameo? But but like for music,
you're just kind.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Of yeah and and I'm on cameo too. I you know,
these are all things you couldn't do in the nineties
when they would call you a sellout. It's like, give
me an income stream. Someone wants to talk to me
about my band, I'll talk all day longer some people
that are against that. Hey. I'll also be out at
the Punk Rock Museum again for like my fifth or
sixth time, giving guided tours out there in Las Vegas.
That'll be during the That'll be during the When We
(43:45):
Were Young Festival October I think I'm there like the
seventeenth to the twenty first. I think the shows are
the eighteenth and nineteenth or something. But yeah, and uh,
we'll be at Furnace Fest And I think that's about it.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Sweep it well, Chris, anything else you'd like to play?
Speaker 2 (44:01):
No, I just wanted to tell everybody out there a
little known fact. I was in the last episode of Seinfeld.
I'm in the last I'm in the last scene. You
will see me in the background. You can see my nose,
my side profile, I'm standing in the back. I was
one of the extras last episode of Seinfeld. Who knew. Wow,
that's incredible.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
That's two episodes in a row we've had. We've had
someone as an extra in in the background of a
popular show. This is really really cool. So was there
anything like were you hired to do it or was
it like, oh, you're just around and so here's.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I think it was something that was set up through
Capital Records. Probably Yeah. I can't I can't exactly. I
was never I was you know, I never got invited
to the cool parties. I was always at the you know,
I always got to the party when the keg was dry.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Did you at least get some good catering that day,
not that I recall, not that I recalled.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
I don't think they gave catering to the extras. Oh
that's shame.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
What in the world.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
So it sounds like, I mean you mentioned before like
you missed a lot of nineties shows, but I'm guessing
Seinfeld was one of the best.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Side felt was too big. It was like around for
ten years, so you know, when I was home for
a week or two at a time, I did catch Seinfeld.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, when I think of your nose,
I definitely think something exactly.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
That could be super anti Semitic.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
I yeah, if he's Jewish, agree, But if I was Jewish,
I wouldn't hate. You know, most of my Jewish friends
know they have big noses. That's okay.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
I probably should have said that acceptance is the first Yeah,
what was it?
Speaker 4 (45:34):
What do they say? Like, acceptance is like the first
part of you know, the Greek process.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
There you go, there you go, the Greek process, there
you go.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
Well, Chris, thank you so much for Chatty Moore about lesson.
Jake just again, just a legendary band, so much legacy,
and again we're just really excited to see you guys
play at Furnace Past, so we'll see you around and
we can't wait to see you in uh in just
a few.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
We're looking for like I said, any any festival that's
that's New New Territory. We're we're definitely excited to play
and like I said, we're we're just uh really happy
and in a in a good spot of of of
being being a band. And thanks for taking the time
to to talk to me.
Thinking sage.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's a way how you looked at how you wagged
in how you say great and not the same.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Thinking sag.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
That's a way why you looked in how you wagged
in how you think the.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Same. Today we've got Chris from Lesson Jake super excited
to chat with you. Chris, Lesson Jake is a legendary band,
legendary and so it really truly feels like an honor
to chat with you.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
So we'll want to talk all about Lesson Jake history.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
We'll want to talk about obviously at some point your
influential albums.
Speaker 4 (00:47):
But before we get into all of that, how you doing, tod.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
I am doing fantastic. We were scheduled to do this
interview excuse me last week, but I was I was
still on the road, and I did not want to,
uh to record a podcast from phone, so I thought
this would be better. And here we are. So I
just got home two days ago, and uh, yeah, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
A true pro that probably comes from your Christen makes
a podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah, and that's why I was embarrassed the other day
because you know, I knew it was a podcast, but
before we started a rolling, I was, I was mentioning
that a lot of times these days it'll be a podcast,
but you don't know if it's audio video. A lot
of times they'll just they want to see your face
for vocal cues and then they'll transcript it later. But
then what I saw you guys were trying to do,
(01:32):
I was like, nah, so this is this is yeah,
this is better.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
We're a serious operation. Because I'm a serious follower, I.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Can see that.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Well, I'm it's funny that you you mentioned that you're
you get embarrassed because we've got a common a mutual friend,
Leonor obviously Leonor from five Iron Frenzy. I'm sure you've
hung out with Leonor enough to know that she doesn't
get embarrassed by any Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, well, I don't mean embarrassed like it's gonna crush
my day. It's just it's it's amateur hour. I don't
I don't play like that, right, I don't miss interviews.
I don't mess around, and so when I do, or
something something happens, I feel the need to apologize. So
we're good.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Well, well, apology accepted. And also there's no reason to
apologize anyway.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
But that's true.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Fair enough, Well, let's get into the very history of
Lesson Jake. I guess before we even really dive into
the specific history of Lesson Jake, how did you get
into music to begin with? What it made you want
to pick up a guitar start singing?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
And my mom and dad were musicians, and my earliest
memories were, you know, playing music around the house, listening
to my mom and dad sing. They played everywhere from
nightclubs to the holiday in lounge to weddings, graduations, bar
mitzv was whatever there was that they would get hired for.
(02:46):
In addition, my dad worked a day job. He was
in real estate. So music was just a part of
my life. It was accepted. There was always albums around,
and you know, I'm dating myself. Albums, eight tracks, then
cassettes and CDs, and then albums came back again, and
then it went digital and who knows what format we're
at now. It keeps keeps trudging forward. But yeah, it
(03:09):
was it was just, uh, you know, it was something
that I think was not only passed on to me
through my mom and dad's jeans, which it was, but
it's you know, just become a passion of mine. As
the years went on.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
What kind of what kind of tunes did Your parents liked?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Everything? Most everything from fifties, sixties, you know, standards to
old rock and roll, classics, motown, seventies stuff. They they
went up all the way into probably the late nineties.
You know, anytime a new hit would come out, you know,
they would try to to you know, nothing too crazy.
They weren't. They weren't rapping or anything or going into
the into that world learning any Snoop Dogg. But you know,
(03:50):
they stayed, they stayed as current as they could for
for their audience.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Did they ever cover a less than Jake too?
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Kind of sort of? They we did did Less than Karaoke.
It was a warm up show for this big festival
we do in Gainesville in twenty fifteen, and they were
there and they got up and sang, uh, that's awesome. Yeah,
I love that.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
Love that so obviously I imagine that inspired you to
start making a music.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
Especially in high school.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
I saw that you guys were in a like you were,
or at least you in particular were in a band
before Less than Jake, and then you know, eventually that
kind of broken up, and then eventually Less than Jake starts.
But yeah, what like what what kind of was? It
was a good grief was.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
You know, I never I've only been in one band.
I've been in Less than Jake, and i've been I'm
kind of proud about that. You know. Yeah, there was
there was some what I refer to as your first
starter bands. We never played any shows, you know, we never,
we never. I was in high school, the town I
was in, I couldn't even get into a bar to play.
There was no such thing as a VFW halls or
(04:54):
you know, we don't have basements in Florida. You dig
three feet and you're you're in the ocean. So there
was not enough like that in this little retirement beach
community that I grew up in. So it wasn't until
I got to Gainesville to go to the University of
Florida that you know, things really really started to expand.
And that's when Less Than Jake really really became a thing.
Prior to that, I was with our former drummer, Vinnie,
(05:16):
him and I started Less than Jake. And prior to that,
you know, him and I had played in bands, but
once again, it was just bands by name, something to name.
We were just back back bedroom jamming with each other.
That was trying to trying to learn how to play.
I mean that's really what.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Have Do you even recorded anything then before Lesson Jake?
Speaker 2 (05:36):
Yeah, we had recorded some stuff which remarkably never never
found its way onto the internet. We probably sold one
hundred cassettes in high school. Yeah, but it was nothing memorable.
I think that's why nobody ever put it on. It
was that bad that nobody even wanted to. You know,
It's like you could be like, oh, listen to the
first Slipknot demo. It sounds horrible, and people are like, yeah,
it sounds like shit, it does, and we just I'm
(05:58):
glad no one ever put it out there. But yeah, anyhow,
there was that, There was that, but you know, really
it was it was Vinnie and I that were doing that.
So it was really always an extension of less than Jake.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
Sure, what what was the spark for SKA music there?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Well, you know, I think just overall it was at
first it had started out and just kind of as
three cord punk rock, you know, kind of in the
vein of Screeching Weasel and you know, Bad Religion and
a lot of the bands we were starting to get
into at that point Descendants, and then we had heard
a band from England called Snuff. They had a trombone player.
(06:37):
They were primarily a punk rock band, and that really
inspired us to to maybe start looking into horns. And
it was just around that time that everything just started
crashing in. It was just all at once, like Fishbone,
Boss Tones, Operation Ivy. You know. It was like breakneck
speed where every time you get you know, every every
month or two or three you turned around, there was
another band you were discovering. So it was kind of
(06:59):
those were kind of all the early influences.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, that was that was that where it started for
you then? Is that were you were you like, hey,
I love this sound. We want to replicate that, we
want to make it our own.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Well, I mean I think, I think for me. You know,
when I first got to Gainesville because Vinnie wasn't there,
I was up there for a year by myself, and
I had taken it, so I was eighteen. I had
taken my brother had this guitar under his bed, excuse me,
he had this guitar under his bed that was collecting dust.
And I took it with me to college and I
got up there and I started answering ads at the
(07:36):
record store, and I was just going to be a
singer at this point, you know, I was looking for
a singing gig. And you know, nineteen ninety one was
such a weird time in music. We were coming out
of the eighties. Nirvana was about to hit, and here
I was like going to auditions and like there'd be
like a dude in a Pearl Jam shirt and then
like you look over and then the other guy like
(07:57):
in a sex pistol shirt and this guy's in a
Queen's Right shirt, like like okay, And then I did
like one or two auditions, and that was kind of
it for me. I just went home and took that
guitar out and just I was blessed with my father's ear.
I never took a music lesson in my life. I
just started I just started going, Okay, what cord is this?
I can figure this out, and just started playing every
(08:19):
day and connecting those dots to where we finally ended
up meeting everybody else, you know in the band at
the time in Gainesville and started playing shows, and there
was no grand master scheme. It was you know, is
there any beer there? And maybe there's some girls, and
who knows what will happen after that, and you know
all the things. As a young band, you just want
(08:40):
to write songs and you want to go have fun
and play for your friends, and that's that's what it was.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
So you mentioned a little bit about you know, just
like again quote unquote band that you were jaming with
in high school, and you mentioned like, you know, you
would put out some music and you you know, said
that you know, it's kind of crap. Point did you
feel like, you know, once you got into Lesson, Jake,
at what point did you feel like, oh, like, maybe
there's something here, like this isn't just crap, Like maybe
(09:07):
there's something here. Because I would imagine again, like you know,
first that first week or whatever, it probably still kind
of sounds like crap. But I'm sure at some point
you feel like you've matured enough in your songwriting or
your talent or whatever where it's like, okay, wait, there's
like something here. Like at what point did it feel
like that with Lessons?
Speaker 2 (09:24):
When we recorded our first seven inch record in May
of nineteen ninety three, and I was playing those songs
for friends who just wouldn't bs me. They wouldn't lie
to me, and they're they're flipping out over this stuff.
And you know, really quickly we were you know, we
(09:47):
were going to shows every night. We're making friends with
bands and just kind of networking, you know, I guess
you would call it, and getting on this gig and
getting on that gig. And you know, after we had
played everywhere we could in Gainesville, and we started hearing
about bands and from Daytona or bands, you know, from
Orlando that came up to gainsl Hey, we'll trade shows out.
We'll play up here, we'll play down there, and from there,
(10:10):
you know, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, then over the other coast,
Fort Myers, Sarasota. We played every nook and cranny that
you could possibly play. And you know, by that point,
we were building up crowds around Florida to three to
five hundred kids everywhere we were going, so people were
showing up, people were buying the seven inches, and finally,
(10:32):
in the summer of ninety five, it would have been
we left June and ninety five. We left on our
first start, did our first show outside of outside of Florida,
did our first US tour, and we were confident at
the time because we did exactly what we did in Florida.
We found bands in every city we were going to
that had a following. We couldn't, you know, make it
(10:53):
happen everywhere. There were certainly nights of playing the two
people in the bartender and wherever, but for the most part,
you know, it's like, oh, hey, we were on a
comp and Madison, Wisconsin. Great, we're gonna play with the
bands on that comp it's at this hall. You know,
there's gonna be a couple hundred kids there. And there
were that first US tour, we did forty eight shows
in like fifty one days or fifty days. Yeah, it was.
(11:14):
It was just Bank Bank, Bank, Bank Bank. A couple
were canceled. In all fairness, they maybe maybe two shows
that didn't happen. One in Dallas, Texas. I remember it
didn't happen. We got there and the places boarded up.
You know, you couldn't you couldn't prepare for for things
like that, especially in those days. You didn't have cell phones,
you didn't have you didn't have anything. You go to
the pay phone and be like, hey, we're here. But
(11:35):
we came home that first US tour, we came home
with three thousand dollars in cash. And that's when I
went game on because nobody goes on tour and does that.
And I was like, okay, we have a blueprint here.
We took what we did in Florida, we went up
the East coast. Now we continue and it wasn't long
after that that we got we got signed to Capital.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
Wow, what are what are wild Ride to start with?
I mean that's a that's a pretty quick turnaround with
some good success. I mean, but you guys hit the
ground running and a hard work paid off and it
showed that that this is doable.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Well, yeah, there was. There was a good four years there.
You know, Vine and I did the first demo of
it was you know what was to be less than
Jacob was just him and I. I played bass on
it and it was called a four track freebie demo
that I ended up when I got to school. I
was there that summer, that's right. We recorded the the
four track down on like October, and the idea was
(12:34):
I was going to go to shows and gainsl and
pass this out for free. So I remember going to
like Kmart. They used to have these like ten packs
of cassettes for like five bucks or something, the cheapest,
crappiest cassette you ever heard. And I would just sit
there and dub off like twenty or thirty copies xerox
a little front cover that we had made up, and
I would just go, Oh, that guy's got a dough
Boys shirt, that guy's got a screeching weasel shirt, that
(12:55):
guy has a whatever shirt. Hey, check this out. So
I started passing passing those sets around, and you know,
then ninety two came. Then he moved to Gainesville in May.
We had a different bass player. We did about twelve
shows with him. He never recorded on anything, but we
were doing shows and it was late. That's that summer,
early fall of ninety two. By chance, a roommate of
(13:17):
mine came home one night she said, hey, you know,
I saw this guy. You got to get him in
your band. I'm like, oh yeah, and she's like because
she knew we had had had a falling out with
his bass player. And I said, well, who is it?
And she's like Roger and she's like, he plays bass. Well,
it turns out that he didn't play bass. He played guitar.
But I was kind of like, you know, whatever. I
(13:38):
kind of put it out of my mind. I came
home a week later. I think I was delivering pizzas
or something, and there's this dude sitting in my living
room with my roommate and he's like, hey, this is
Roger I got. I'm like, what's up? Started talking music
and we went over to my room. I said, hey,
here's my guitar. You know. He picked up the guitar
and started playing and sing and I went, Okay, that's
the guy. And I'm like, and we were so young.
(13:58):
This is what you do when you're that. You're like, well,
you're a great guitar player, so you're gonna play bass
because I'm the guitar player and I can't play bass.
And that was it.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Well, and who wouldn't Who would have known that that
your guys' voices would be so perfect for just gorgeous harmonies.
I mean, what are the chances that he would have,
you know, this, this beautiful kind of tenor voice, and
then you'd be here with kind of the grittier baritone.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, well, I mean that and that kind of evolved too.
You know, if you go back to the first record,
first two records, I sang lead on almost everything. And
it wasn't that he couldn't. It was just when you're young,
you put yourself in a box. It's like on the
guy stands in the little on the lead singer think
about it, and then after time you know it became
you know the what it is now. A lot of
(14:49):
that had to do with recording techniques and working with
producers like Howard Benson, who did our Hello Rugby record.
We're one of the first bands to use pro tools.
We were one of the first bands to be auto tuned.
I know that because Howard knew everybody at the time
at auto tune. They would answer the phone back in
nineteen ninety eight like, yeah, hey, what's up. You know
digit design he'd be like, hey, I'm having an issue
(15:10):
with the autotune plug in, which back then was like
a floppy disk. It was ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
So you know once we we'd be in the studio
for Rockview and he'd be like, all right, I want
Chris to do a harmony now, all right, and he'd
be in there with his piano ding ding ding, sing
that ah sing it again, Ah, okay, great, and I'll
sing the lyric with it. So whatever the lyric was,
and then he'd be onto the next thing sing this.
I'd be like, what is this guy doing? You know,
(15:37):
But because again it was before everybody had home studios
and you knew what was on a grid and you
knew how things worked. So we would get in there
and listen to these rough mixes. He'd be, you know,
mad scienting this shit all night, and then we'd get
up the next day and we'd walk in there and
he'd hit play and it would be like here it
is and you would listen to it and it's Saturday
(15:59):
maze and you're like, wow, this is this is great.
And then you realize, well, now we got to replicate that,
and and you know, to our you know, to our credit,
we could eventually, but we had to really work at
it to get those harmonies sounding like they were.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
Well I was gonna say so, you know, kind of
around that time then, like at some point you must
have been like, Okay, this is actually not just that, like, oh,
like we've got some good music here. But at some
point you're like this is a real thing, Like this
is a thing that's gonna pay some bills, Like this
is gonna you know, maybe to some degree pay the
groceries or keep a roof over my head. And I
(16:42):
don't know if you ended up during that time, like
going all the way through college at Gainesville or not,
but like at some point you probably had to justify
to maybe your parents or something like, hey, this is
what like this is what's gonna be paying the bills
at least.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
For the foreseeable future.
Speaker 3 (16:55):
So did you feel like maybe at some point, like
Lesson Jake Kunna got to that like level or yeah,
what what was I?
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yes? And no, I mean we just didn't know, because
you know, there was a lot that I missed in
the nineties. There's TV shows and sitcoms that you know,
we're on for eighteen months or two years. The people
like you don't remember that. I'm like, I have no
idea what then? Now, I know enough time has passed
where I went back, and you know, now everything's all
the reruns are on Netflix whatever, and everything's online. And
(17:24):
of course I know about what went on in the nineties,
but at the time I didn't. I was trapped in
four walls of a van with the same damn cassette
or CD going over and over till someone threw it
out the window and goes next. We got to listen
to something else. So I was in this van cruising around,
and one tour left to the next. I remember ending
a tour in Minnesota or somewhere in the Midwest and
(17:45):
being like, Okay, well, our next tour is in five
days in Boston. Like, we're not going back to Florida.
We're living at rest stops and along the way and
dunkin Donuts for the next five days until we get
to that. So I was living in a van, you know,
Once every couple of days or a week, I'd put
the quarters into the payphone or with a calling card
and call home and let everyone know when I was
(18:06):
alive and then go back to doing it. So it
wasn't and as far as like back home, you know,
we were we were happy to be paying our rent,
but we weren't thinking of this as in making money.
Especially the first couple records, it was everything was going
back into the band, to merchandise, to everything.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
So so it just sounds like a classic case of
you just literally worked your asses off to get to
the at least now, especially.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
I met the right people one hundred and ten percent
and I'm I know that now more than ever. And
I don't say this from an egotistical standpoint. None of
my guys ever got fed up on any you know,
bad substances or yeah, we used to have fun. We
were kids, We had a good time. But there's not
(18:57):
a band that I you know that in our world.
In my opinion, it takes this as serious as we do.
We go out there now, all the years of experience
are all there, everything we've created, but we also have
time that has elapsed and memories that have elapsed for
people that you can't put a price on that. There
(19:17):
was no litmus test for this. When the Rolling Stones
were twenty five years old nineteen eighty nine, I thought
they were gonna die. Okay. They were like to me,
like the Keith rich is gonna keel over? That was
in eighty nine, Okay, a band that was that old.
Then you're like, how long can this go? Well, it's
twenty twenty five, and guess what. Jagger's still run on
one hundred and eighty feet across stages.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
Yea sore still has.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Right, and they're more popular than ever because yeah, yeah,
thank god for viagra. But you know, it's it you didn't.
There's nothing to gauge this off of. So now I'm
aware of the more time. If you're in a successful
band that does things right, that does cool things for
the fans, that about their craft, and it's all gonna
(20:04):
going to come full circle, which it has. Our tours
the last two or three years are just They're some
of the most fun I've ever had. It's a different
kind of fun. The crowds are still going ballistic. We
have to really really fight to get a good circle
pit because people are the audience is over thirty five.
(20:25):
The teenagers that are there, they're the kids of the
thirty five.
Speaker 4 (20:28):
I'd be handing out.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
I'd be prof fun, yeah, exactly. But you know, it's
a great place to be in. There's the best compliment
is bands. You know. We tour was strung out last year. Okay,
we had never done tours with them. We went out
and like this tour. A couple of Fishbone guys are like, man,
(20:50):
I haven't seen you guys in twenty years, and what
did I just see? And that's not me toot my horn.
I just I know. We go out there, I'm as
hungry as I've ever been. It's not in a way
of We're gonna sell records and I'm gonna this face
is gonna sell tampon ads. That's not gonna happen. Okay,
like those days. Those days are gone. But I only
(21:14):
have to prove to myself that this show is going
to be better than the last one I played. And
that's all, you know, and that that excites me. I
hadn't had that passion. I lost that passion for a
long time. It was kind of going through the motions
and now all the noise that happened when you were younger,
the where's the after party? Oh manager, the management call?
(21:34):
They want to know how many? How many records sales? Hey?
Record label called? Hey, we gotta do these interviews. We
don't have to do anything now, you know. If I
want to talk to someone on a podcast or do
an interview, we do it. If I want to hang
out after the show, I'll do it. If I don't,
I don't want to do it. And that took thirty
three years for me to realize that I didn't know.
And you know, and I sound like a damn old man.
(21:54):
Give me a recliner in a hand to scratch my balls.
At eight thirty at night, I'm gonna be sleeping. I'm done.
This is Is this a Christian podcast? I'm sorry if
I'm going to No.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
No, it's a Christian. It's Christian.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Depends on what Christians. It definitely depends on what Christians
you ask.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
I think it's so cool that, especially in the sky world,
but I think especially with less than Jake, I don't
care who you are. If you were like, let's let's
say you're playing like a show at a smaller venue
and someone could walk up and and and hear you guys, right,
(22:35):
I think anyone would be intrigued enough and be like, hey,
I think I want to go check that show out.
That sounds like a good time. Do you feel that
way when you are playing? Like like, this is music
for everybody. This isn't just music for hardcore SKAFF fans
and stuff like that. By the way, I got I
gotta say before we go on, there's a lot of
(22:56):
listeners here that are diehard SKA fans, and they are
the I don't want to say they're gatekeepers, but they
are militant if you don't know absolutely everything about Scott,
which I think is hilarious. Okay, so just watch your tongue. Yeah, sure,
you're careful.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah right, Oh jeez, we're talking here. But uh yeah, no,
I I don't I'm trying to think. I was going
to expound on something. I lost my train of thought.
But go ahead.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Sorry, that's my that's my phone.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
No, that's fine.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Do you think that your music is I'm sorry to
be for anybody to draw people, and that's what you
had ask.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Yeah, I don't know. If it's the music, I definitely
know it's our personalities. You know. We have four front
men in the band. I got two horned players that
have live mics, and it's just it's chaos up there,
and we're talking about things that most bands don't talk about.
When you get out on stage and you have zero
fear of failure, that's the greatest feeling in the world
(23:51):
that I can get out there and I can just
start talking about the hot dog cart in front of
sixty thousand people and telling everybody how it fucked my
stomach up the night before, or sorry I'm a little
bit sluggish, it's the hot dog guy's fault. And they're
just like, why are you talking about this? You know,
and that makes it fun for us if I had
to go out there, you want to talk about a job.
(24:12):
You know, Hey, insert city, good to see you tonight,
Thank you for coming. Like I wouldn't have lasted.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
You know.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
It has to be off the cuff. It's classic, whether
you like it or not. It's it's three Stooges slapstick humor.
That's what you know. We interject that with our music.
So I think in that aspect, it's a good time.
The best compliment we get have ever gotten, is I
used to be parents. Now it's people of all ages,
but back in the back in the day, we were
(24:39):
first starting to be parents, Like, I can't stand any
of this shit. My son listens to the bad religions,
the misfits, But something about you guys, I like, I
like you guys, so you know, and they and the
parent would come to the show and be like that
was great. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
So I love that there is something about Scott that,
you know, you see this and many SKA bands, not all,
but many SKA bands just have this element of fun,
whether it's their live shows or in the lyrics that
they they have like, but there's just this element of
fun that isn't exactly apparent in most alternative music.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Yeah, it has always been fun regardless of the lyrical telling.
A lot of Sky lyrics are very you know, Less
than Jake lyrics are very morose, very inward and introspective,
I should say, and Scott can be political, it could
be angry, but at the end of the day, it's like, whoa,
now I'm zoning in on what they're singing about. But
you know it sounds so happy and happy and joyous
(25:37):
and free.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why. Yeah,
Scott is just it seems to be a such a.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Unique music genre. Yeah, I'm just And obviously you guys
are huge contributors. That one thing you mentioned just a
b Togo is obviously your excitement about being still in
Lesson Jake and like just the opportunities you all have
is there again, knowing the legacy that Less Than Jake
has and knowing especially right now, like you're just as
(26:08):
excited as you were in year one of the band.
Is there like a dream that you still have for
the band? Like is there a dream that maybe you
guys haven't quite gotten to that you're like, oh, I
would love that like maybe it's it's maybe it's as
simple as we'd love the tour at that band someday,
or we would love to do like explore this kind
of sound with our or I don't know, but is
there like a thing that you think about of like God,
(26:29):
that would be amazing if we could maybe do that.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
So we open for Bond Jovie. I was at the
Karrang Awards where we got presented a Karrang Award for
Best New Band in England, which was hilarious because we'd
already been a band for ten years. Best New Band
given to me by Billy Duffy and Ian Asbury from
the Cult. Roger and I went up and got this
as our table is sandwich between Slayer and Meat Loaf, Okay.
(26:54):
Marilyn Manson was there. Angus Young from ac DC was
there that night. Brian May from Queen I got to
meet him, had beers with Dave Grohl. Was that the
year I think Billy from Green Day was there. We
hung out that night. We saw David Bowie with the
Green Day guys because Bowie played the night before we played.
(27:15):
We played with green Day, no doubt. It was us
green Day and no doubt in a cricket field in Manchester, England.
We opened for bon Jovi for two weeks on the
Crush tour. We've done more warp tours than any band,
four hundred and forty two warped tour shows and counting.
We're going to do four forty three in Long Beach
and four forty four in Orlando this year. And every
(27:36):
night we do VIP meet and greets where fans come
and they cry and they shake and they tell us
how much the music's meant to them. That's the dream.
The dream's happening. The dream is now, the dream is.
There's nothing else that I would want to accomplish with
this band. If you'd like to send me ten million dollars,
(27:57):
I would gladly accept. Other than that, we're good.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
It has to be ten million, twenty million.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Thirty million. I don't care. Give me.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Give me what if it's just one.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
Million, one million, I'd take it. I'd take one dollar
and guess what I'd take nothing. I am completely completely fulfilled.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Well that's what's happening with Spotify, so you're you're completely fulfilled.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
I already got the right attitude for it. I already
knew I was gonna be grab my ankle.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
So I love that so kind of along the legacy
of scat, you know, just generally, you know again, like
I think it's such a unique sounding and just unique
genre of music. Like there really just is nothing quite
like it to me, And you know, obviously it really
had its you know heyday, mid mid nineties, late nineties,
(28:42):
and I don't know, like and I know that there's
like been certain SKA revivals, but yeah, it's just to me,
it's like it's so unique sounding, and I really hope
at some point we really get this such sort of
revival that we saw in the nineties of a lot
of those you know, just the sound of SKA being
popular again. You know, a lot of times there seems
to be maybe like every twenty or thirty years, there's
(29:04):
sort of the resurgence of a certain sound.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
You know.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
I remember, like a few years ago, like a lot
of eighty cynthy kind of sounds start coming back. Actually,
Colin and I are in the heavy music world, so
a lot of like new metal sound is coming back,
and I just haven't really again knowing that there's still
SKA bands, but.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
Like you just don't really hear like really popular.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
SKA bands kind of pop off that are new bands.
But I think at some point that's got to happen, right,
you'd think so, right?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
You never I never say never'll yah. I you know,
things like that just kind of happen, you can. I've
seen record labels try to try to make it happen
and throw a bunch of money at something and they
just can't get it to click. It just has to
be has to be organic and do its thing.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
I think, yeah, I'm just waiting for ten pan Alley
bands to come back.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I don't know good genre.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
When when you look at the future of Lesson Jake,
So from here on, do you do you expect that
it's going to kind of continue to exist as is?
Do you want to make more music? Do you want
to try new things? Is what should fans expect to
see from from the Lesson Jake camp?
Speaker 2 (30:21):
All the above? Nice? You know, I mean, we're We've
always prided ourselves on releasing new music and pushing forward
as a band. That's what we I've always told bands,
you know, they'll come to me a younger bands. W
how do I do this? I always say, how do
you make it, you know, and the first thing out
of my mouth is it has to start with a song.
(30:42):
You know, you're already talking about making t shirts and
buying a van. You haven't written your first song yet.
The song has to get what people. That gets what people.
If you want to start a clothing company, go start
a clothing company. But if you want people to buy
your band's shirt, you know, you have to be doing
something that is hitting them. You know, between the years
(31:02):
and the.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Heart some we're supporting. I can appreciate that. Yeah. By
the way, Mason and I have not yet made shirts
for the podcast, so there you go. I mean this
is not yet worth supporting. I don't know. Yeah, it's
been almost ten years.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
So you're we'll say, you're what you're singing is that
we can maybe expect some new Lesson Jake music in
the future.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Yeah, we were always we're always writing songs, and we
really do it for ourselves. You know. We go out
and the cool thing is is we call them the
super fans. You look out and they're singing every word
all the new songs, and you just tell the audience,
you know, hey, we're gonna play a couple of new songs. Tonight,
and you're gonna hear all the classics you want to hear,
but you know, give our new stuff a listen. We're
(31:44):
gonna we still enjoy playing new music. And I told
the guys, and we've kept the promise. We have like
seven or eight songs out of a twenty two set
song set list now that have been from twenty twenty
and after. And it's just it's just the belief that
if you keep playing these songs live, they'll become a
hit with your audience. You know, my very own Flag
(32:04):
from our pez Core record, that was a hit with
our audience before we recorded it. We were playing that
in Florida and people knew what the chorus of that
song was. So we're kind of taking the page out
of that.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
Yeah, every cloud, every crowd pleaser was a new song
at one point.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
It's a good points, very good point.
Speaker 3 (32:22):
Well, you are playing Furnace Fast here in October, Colin
and I are going to be there.
Speaker 4 (32:27):
I'm trying.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
You guys didn't play in those like first couple of
years out of the second wave, right, so this is
your first one, right the first time?
Speaker 4 (32:35):
Love it? Love it?
Speaker 3 (32:36):
So Colin and I have been to Furnace Fast for
this will be our fifth year, so we went, We've
gone to all the new sort of iteration of Furnace Fast.
So yeah, is there anything sort of different that maybe
fans could expect that you know, again, maybe it's just
like a sort of festival set that's going to be
a little different than what you guys normally play on
tour or I don't know, is there just anything that
(32:57):
we can maybe expect from this Furnace Fast set that
might be That's.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
A good question. I'm gonna say probably yes. Maybe it's
four months away, so I know that we're gonna do
something cool. We're not gonna that We're not gonna phone
it in if that, if that says anything. I don't
know exactly what what we're gonna play get or where
we're gonna be in that mode, but uh, you know,
I I know it'll be fun if if if they're
asking us to come in and be one of the
main acts at this thing, you know, we're not gonna
(33:22):
not gonna come and uh phone it in.
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Yeah, well you do have big shoes to fill because
five Iron always does really well.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
All right, that's true.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
Those packages, those those sca those I mean again, like
you mentioned before, like you get all these like forty
year olds that are still skinking, And certainly that is
the case at at these five Iron Furnace Fast shows,
So I would imagine that they'll be the case for
you all too, I hope so as well as.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
The pop punk stuff. The pop punk stuff really does well,
so kind of adjacent. But yeah, no, I'm I'm excited
to you know, just bounce around and have a good
time and and and listen to some good tunes. There's
there's not really another festival like Furnest in my opinion,
So very excited to have.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
You guys were we are. We're excited. We're excited to
playing time. We can do something something new. It's cool.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
Oh that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Are there? Are you?
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Are you guys sticking around kind of the whole weekend?
Are you guys just playing just the shots again?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
It's so far out. I we have, gosh, I don't
know how many shows. We got the second leg of
our summer tours coming up here in about three weeks,
and then we have probably another five or five or
six shows in September, just some flyout dates and whatnot.
So Okay, I'm not we're not quite there yet.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
Well, if you do happen to be around for most
of the weekend, again, just highly recommend. There's so many
great bands. Obviously a lot of bands are super heavy bands.
I'm not sure if you're into that or not. But
there's just so many good bands and and awesome, Like
a lot of bands that came.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Out to talk to Jesse Leach from kill Switch Engaged
tomorrow for my podcast, So I love heavy there you go.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Perfect perfect then, yeah, exactly, so you know so.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
But I mean, I'm sure there's a lot of bands
too that kind of came up around the same time
as you guys did too, that are gonna be there,
So I don't know, hopefully you're able to like see
some old friends or see some people that you haven't
seen in a while. And I don't know, it's just
it feels like that kind of festival where it's just
it almost feels more like a family reunion rather than
like a music gotcha cool?
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Yeah, so awesome. Well should we get into top five
top five I'm ready top five most influential album.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
All right, in no particular order. Pet Sounds by The
Beach Boys oh oh, Hice.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
Rest and Keith Brian will.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Go yeah, And that was kind of one of my
mom and dad's go to do.
Speaker 3 (35:38):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
They were really into harmonies, and I think that that's
why I've been so into harmonies and that motown and
that doop stuff. It's it's incredible and that's one of
the reasons I think that. You know, and I know
Rogers was very much into that as well. But I'm
gonna go that's top influential album. Pet Sounds Live After
(35:58):
Death Iron Maiden, Yes O double live record. It kind
of introduced me to the band. I had heard some
songs before, but I saw that album cover and I
had to have it. And I lived that record back
and forth. I could, I could, I could recite all
the banter to this day at how many times I
listened to that album Operation Ivy Energy. I'm going for
(36:20):
that record just because you had to be there, you know,
you had to hear these songs at a time and
in your life. In my life where I didn't care
about production value. I didn't care that the drums sounded
like a tin can, that it was just mixed, not great,
but the songs came across and that gave a young
(36:42):
songwriter like me, it's like, Oh, these guys can play
three chords and bash away and and you know, I
think maybe I have a chance to do that too,
So it kind of leveled the playing field. Not to
say that there was talent on that record, I mean,
it's the talent's all over the place, but it was very,
very punk rock.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
They have such a unique like history because like how
many bands can exist for maybe just over two years
and have that level of influence on entire scene because
we hear Operation IVY a lot. And to think that
they have left their mark after literally only existing for
just over two years is kind of unbelievable. Like there's
not too many other things in the world that are
able to leave their mark with that short of it.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
And I don't know if they would have continued to
be a band, if anything would have ever lived up
to that. I think that they. I think it had
to be a one and done thing, and I think
that's why that's another reason why it's revered. It's the legend.
No disrespect to Tim Jesse the rest of the guys.
I have no interest in seeing an Operation I reunion.
I'm sure someday it'll happen. You can't recreate what those
(37:40):
seventeen year olds were doing in a garage. Then, you know,
the same thing could be said for my band. Well,
you guys don't sound like you did when you were
that age. Yeah, well we evolved, you know, and maybe
maybe they could have evolved. I guess. I guess Tim did.
He evolved with a Rancid. But I think Operation IVY
was its own standalone thing. And I said that because
out of all this SKA records that was that was
(38:01):
really the one Scott Punk that really turned my mind.
The next one, I'm just gonna go with general anything
NEI Neil Diamond's greatest hits, and again you're like, whoa,
but those types of crooning songs were played in my
house as a young kid.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
And then talk about learning how to write a song.
There you go, that's that's a school to write a song.
Speaker 2 (38:25):
And then last but not least, I got to throw
in Prince Purple Rain. Oh yeah, all right, and uh
yeah those are my top five.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
I always find it interesting when people who are into
the punk scene, especially punk and sky well I'm about
Scott necessarily, but punk, especially when they're into Prince because
it feels like it was kind of antithetical to the
punk scene at the time.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Well, I was into Prince before I heard punk rock,
so that probably has something to do with it. Oh
hell yeah, yeah, you know what I mean. In eighty four, God,
when that record came out, you know, I was listening
to hard rock and all kinds of stuff, But that
album I loved it then and it's only grown on me.
It's one I can listen to all the way through.
And you know, you maybe isn't the first thing you
(39:16):
think of when you hear a Less than Jake song,
but it's definitely in there somewhere.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Growing up, was you kind of defined by your music genre?
Because we've talked to a lot of people and you know,
if they were from they were growing up in the seventies, eighties,
early nineties, even up to the mid nineties. If you
were a punk rocker, you were a punk rocker, and
that's pretty much what you could listen to publicly, like
(39:42):
you couldn't let your friends know that you listen to
anything else. Or if you were a metal head, you
hung out with metal heads. Yeah, if you were a hippie,
you were hung out with the hippies. Was that like
that in Gainesville?
Speaker 4 (39:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (39:54):
I mean that's just life, right, I mean you learn
that in the sandbox in kindergarten. Now that kid looks different.
Oh okay, well was he a jerk? Oh? Maybe? I
don't know, let's figure it out. Uh, you know, for
for us, yeah, certainly there there was a little bit
of that, But I don't know. We kind of always
wore our influences on our sleeve.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
One of our biggest songs to call all my best
friends or metal heads, which is basically just pointing at prejudice.
I don't even want to say racism, you know, because
that racism just gets thrown around, just just prejudice of
other people. Like, wait, you're in a punk band. How
could your best friends be metal heads? Well, because they're fun, man.
You know, they got the best beer in towner but
the best you know, best weed. Okay, cool, I'm gonna
hang over there. So you know, we were always kind
(40:33):
of tongue in cheek and and and uh, we're kind
of never never really embarrassed about what we listened to.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
I appreciate that because I feel like I feel like
that's one of the things that the modern generation has
done a pretty darn good job of of really really
blurring those lines. You know that, you know, you can
listen to whatever you want. No one's gonna make funny.
But there was a time or that was like that.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
Yeah, yeah, I could. I could see that if you know,
you certainly you picked your spots, if you were somewhere
where people were talking about punk rock all you know,
you know, all of a sudden works not talking about
at Pat Boon record or something. All right, I went
out right you uh, you know so? But yeah, I
think that I can speak for the whole band when
(41:17):
I say that we're kind of an open palette when
it comes to music.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Cool and that's why that's why Princess is also.
Speaker 4 (41:25):
Allowed love that. Well, what would you like to plug?
Speaker 3 (41:31):
So it sounds like some obviously still some shows that
are gonna be played for the rest of the year
to yeah, maybe at some point some new music, but yeah,
what do you want to play?
Speaker 2 (41:41):
We're just working on new songs all the time. I
in the process of cleaning up some demos this month
that I'm home a lesson. Jake goes out on the
rest of the summer circus tour dates are and tickets
can be final less than Jake dot Com. The second
half is going to be with Fishbone and the Suicide
Machines returning and cat Bite's gonna pick me up, pick
up or bite me Bamby left off on the last run.
(42:02):
I'm still doing my podcast, Christen makes a podcast going
strong five years in over two hundred and seventy episodes.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
At this point, can we just say too, like your name,
your last name was just like it was you. You
were almost like predestined to be an artist in some way,
whether you were making music or making a podcast, but
you were obviously predestined to create some data.
Speaker 2 (42:24):
So well, I appreciate that because I hated it as
a kid because no one could pronounce it. You know,
they made it harder than it is. It's it's Greek,
so it the pronunciation is the Mikey's And so then
it was wondering, Yeah, so I get Demacus democus. I
never get the Mikey's Demacus democus demarx, like you know,
uh damacus, Uh you name it, so they never never
(42:45):
say it. So it was kind of kind of a
play on that, and uh yeah, if you want your
own custom song or jingle for your business. I've written
over three hundred of those in the last five years.
You can hit me up Christen makes at gmail dot com.
I'll write a song for you. You're cat, your bird,
your wife, your anniversary. If you hate your boss, I'll
write a song. I've done one of those too, so.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Oh that's tempting. Dog Shug and I have a great boss.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Wait, is that kind of like what's that app where
you can like connect with a celebrity and they can
like like say.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Happy birthday, cameo cameo?
Speaker 4 (43:19):
Yeah, camo?
Speaker 3 (43:20):
Does it almost feel like cameo? But but like for music,
you're just kind.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Of yeah and and I'm on cameo too. I you know,
these are all things you couldn't do in the nineties
when they would call you a sellout. It's like, give
me an income stream. Someone wants to talk to me
about my band, I'll talk all day longer some people
that are against that. Hey. I'll also be out at
the Punk Rock Museum again for like my fifth or
sixth time, giving guided tours out there in Las Vegas.
That'll be during the That'll be during the When We
(43:45):
Were Young Festival October I think I'm there like the
seventeenth to the twenty first. I think the shows are
the eighteenth and nineteenth or something. But yeah, and uh,
we'll be at Furnace Fest And I think that's about it.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Sweep it well, Chris, anything else you'd like to play?
Speaker 2 (44:01):
No, I just wanted to tell everybody out there a
little known fact. I was in the last episode of Seinfeld.
I'm in the last I'm in the last scene. You
will see me in the background. You can see my nose,
my side profile, I'm standing in the back. I was
one of the extras last episode of Seinfeld. Who knew. Wow,
that's incredible.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
That's two episodes in a row we've had. We've had
someone as an extra in in the background of a
popular show. This is really really cool. So was there
anything like were you hired to do it or was
it like, oh, you're just around and so here's.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I think it was something that was set up through
Capital Records. Probably Yeah. I can't I can't exactly. I
was never I was you know, I never got invited
to the cool parties. I was always at the you know,
I always got to the party when the keg was dry.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Did you at least get some good catering that day,
not that I recall, not that I recalled.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
I don't think they gave catering to the extras. Oh
that's shame.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
What in the world.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
So it sounds like, I mean you mentioned before like
you missed a lot of nineties shows, but I'm guessing
Seinfeld was one of the best.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
Side felt was too big. It was like around for
ten years, so you know, when I was home for
a week or two at a time, I did catch Seinfeld.
Speaker 3 (45:13):
But yeah, yeah, yeah, when I think of your nose,
I definitely think something exactly.
Speaker 4 (45:20):
That could be super anti Semitic.
Speaker 2 (45:21):
I yeah, if he's Jewish, agree, But if I was Jewish,
I wouldn't hate. You know, most of my Jewish friends
know they have big noses. That's okay.
Speaker 3 (45:31):
I probably should have said that acceptance is the first Yeah,
what was it?
Speaker 4 (45:34):
What do they say? Like, acceptance is like the first
part of you know, the Greek process.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
There you go, there you go, the Greek process, there
you go.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (45:44):
Well, Chris, thank you so much for Chatty Moore about lesson.
Jake just again, just a legendary band, so much legacy,
and again we're just really excited to see you guys
play at Furnace Past, so we'll see you around and
we can't wait to see you in uh in just
a few.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
We're looking for like I said, any any festival that's
that's New New Territory. We're we're definitely excited to play
and like I said, we're we're just uh really happy
and in a in a good spot of of of
being being a band. And thanks for taking the time
to to talk to me.
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