Interview: Aaron North of Jubilee

Anyone who caught Jubilee's first UK tour at the start of this year will know that this group mean business. Having played in some of the biggest bands in rock history, (Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, Icarus Line etc) these boys know what it means to 'rock the shit'. Heaven or Las Vegas caught up with Aaron North, frontman of this prodigious band, and co-founder of America's most esteemed indie label, Buddyhead Records, to find out what this latest project has in store for us all.

http://www.jubilee.la/

http://www.myspace.com/Jubileeband

HOLV: First off, how are you?

AN: Excellent. You? Los Angeles is starting to warm up again, and the smell of the smog in the air is always comforting to come back to… Smells like home.

HOLV: It would seem that you are placing a bigger emphasis on the UK market at the moment, what’s the reasoning?

AN: Not necessarily. I dunno. The only “markets” I ever think about are the ones where you can buy vegetables and Gas-X. Playing the UK first wasn’t some sort of “scheme” or anything. I just hate playing in LA, and thought it would be interesting to see if this band could figure out how to be just that… a band… somewhere outside of our comfort zone. Somewhere far from the distraction of friends and family on the guestlist. Seemed to do the trick too.

HOLV: As you all come from bands that people are familiar with there are the obvious pitfalls of pre-conceptions to avoid. Is it something you’re concerned with, or did you just start playing to see what would come out?

AN: Honestly, I couldn’t care less. Obviously people are going to expect a certain thing from all of us in this band. It’ll be pretty clear once we start playing that this band has little to do with anything any of us have done in our previous groups. Sure, there are similar reference points, and it’s all just rock n’ roll, but the main difference between Jubilee and everything else that I’ve personally done before… I’ve already done way more than my fair share of either creating or playing music that has mainly explored the darker corners of humanity. With Jubilee, the focus is more about celebrating life. This is something that’s taken me quite some time to move towards, and be comfortable with. When I quit The Icarus Line, I was convinced I’d never play “loud rock” music ever again. I was over it. I felt like we had become cartoons of ourselves, and that I’d been painted into a corner as the “crazy guitar player with an attitude problem” or something, when in actuality, I was listening to or playing mainly folk music in my own time. I loathed the idea of performing anymore for people who thought the whole “self-destructive, life sucks, do drugs til you die” thing that they had perceived to be our agenda was “cool”. I hated it, and had to get out. Then a couple weeks later, I went from playing coffee-houses “solo” with an acoustic guitar and harmonica holder, to playing in an even louder and sonically brutal band than I had before, headlining “enorma-domes” and playing “dark music” again. Go figure. If people dig this, and can relate with what we’re doing now, cool. If not, I’m not gonna lose any sleep about it, and it isn’t going to stop us from doing it how we want to anyway.

HOLV: Is there a danger that collaborating with people like Josh Homme, and Josh Freese is going to add to the idea that Jubilee is simply be a QOTSA/NIN supergroup? Is that a problem?

AN: No, cos those are only 2 of about a dozen different drummers on the album and singles. People are going to label this thing however they want no matter what we do or say, so let ‘em do it. The music is what matters. File our records in the “acid-polka-jazz” section of the record store, I don’t give a rat’s turd what people label us.

HOLV: Did they simply come in and drum the part given to them, or did they write the song with you?

AN: We’d pretty much written the songs entirely before anybody walked through the door. We would choose from about 40 songs we had written, and then decide what we thought would suit their style and approach. In that regard, everybody definitely added their own unique vibe, feel, swing, and panache to the tunes that would most times lend a feel to them we hadn’t envisioned before. It’s been a lot of fun so far.

HOLV: As for the permanent members, how did you all meet?

AN: I’ve known these dudes for years. I met Evan when he was 13 and coming out to see my old band play shows. Now he’s a grown man with more hair on just one of his arms than I do on my entire body. Ahhhh, the “Circle of Life”. I wish you could hear me singing that like Elton John from here. Yer missing out dude.

HOLV: How did the UK tour go? What were the highlights and lowlights?

AN: The feeling of us “gelling” onstage every night, and more progressively every show was the best. Is “gelling” even a word? Whatever. Playing these songs live for the first time ever was incredible. Lowlights? Either Travis almost getting arrested in Leeds, and then taking a dump so huge back at our friends place, that she had to physically shove the shit down, or… pizza in Wales.

HOLV: Do you feel that you win over new fans when you play? Are you well received?

AN: Hmm. I dunno. You tell me. Do you like it? (They rocked!- Ed) To tell ya the truth, I wasn’t paying attention, and again, I don’t really care. Way more people came out to the shows than I could have possibly imagined, and that’s cool, and I’m very grateful. Like everything else I always do, I expect to get completely shredded to pieces, and then some people here and there actually dig it. I’m just lucky to still be able to be doing this at all. I should be working at a Burger King somewhere, but somehow I’m still allowed to make music and travel the world doing it. The people who don’t like it… Doesn’t affect me. I can’t force anybody to have the same taste that I do. I don’t get mad when my next door neighbor listens to Maroon 5 all day either.

HOLV: When can we expect you back over here?

AN: Before you can say “Jacket Potato with prawns, baked beans, and mayonaisse” ten times fast.

HOLV: What should we expect of the new album?

AN: Something quite a bit different than what you hear on the “Rebel Hiss” single. Why that song was chosen first… I’m not really certain. We needed something out for the tour, and to give people a taste of what was going on, and it just so happened to be the first song we had finished. Then we wrote and recorded “Fuzz Are Down” in about 20 minutes, and spent about the same amount of time on the other songs. I like these songs, but I don’t think most people realize these are mainly “B-sides” or “throwaways”. Songs that aren’t as good as the ones going on the album. The album is a bit broader in scope. I like the songs on the single, but the songs on the album are obviously the ones worth waiting to hear.

HOLV: What can you tell us about Buddyhead Records? Will there be another compilation like Gimme Shelter?

AN: We run the label the way we feel like it at the time. We put out music we like, and feel like deserves to be heard by more people than it has. We don’t do it to make money or “strike it rich”. If we did, we wouldn’t be putting out such different stuff that’s all across the board. Our inability to be “pigeonholed”, or establish some sort of “Buddyhead sound” causes a bit of confusion sometimes with people trying to figure it all out. But good music is good music regardless of what “genre” people define it as. More comps? Probably not. They take way too long to assemble, and are a pain in the ass dealing with that many bands at once. Somebody’s always gonna be upset that their song wasn’t earlier than another band’s.

Interviewed by Parsons