Jakob: First Past The Post-Rock (Interview)

Hailing from the Hawkes Bay, New Zealand trio Jakob has been causing all kinds of commotion with the release of their fourth album, Sines. The band…Jeff Boyle (guitar), Maurice Beckett (bass), Jason Johnston (drums) is just about to play two NZ shows…April 11 at San Fran in Wellington and April 18 at Auckland’s Kings Arms…before heading overseas for their first headlining European tour. The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to Jeff Boyle about the enthusiastic reception their new album has received but first, there was the matter of the cricket…

Click here to listen to the interview with Jakob:

Or read a transcription of the interview here:

MD: You been following the cricket?

JB: Oh hell yeah. I live for cricket and that game on the weekend was pretty much as good as it gets.

MD: I agree. As you can tell I’m American but I’ve lived here for like 20 years, but its only in the last 3 weeks that I’ve figured out how cricket works and it’s just in time to see these amazing games that have been going on.

JB: Well I’ll tell you what, did you actually watch Martin Guptill’s entire innings?

MD: I did indeed. It was amazing.

JB: Well I’ll tell you what, that’s about as good as it gets. As far as one day international batting innings go, that’s as good as one can possibly get.

MD: Oh yeah. So what’s your prediction for tomorrow?

JB: I don’t have one, I’m just quietly shitting myself, to be honest with you because that team is amazing, you know what I mean with Amla and De Villiers and Dale Steyn, they could take anyone apart.

MD: Yeah.

JB: But then again so can we. So it just really comes down to who wants it more tomorrow and I think they want it pretty bad cause they’ve never won one, they’re like the All Blacks, always the best team in the world but never manage to take a World Cup.

MD: Yeah. We’ll see what happens.

JB: Yeah.

MD: Anyway we should talk about some music I suppose.

JB: Yeah.

MD: You’ve got a tour coming up, you’re doing a couple of dates in New Zealand and then you’re heading overseas right?

JB: Indeed we are.

MD: Yeah. So I know it’s been quite a few months since the album came out and you’ve had amazing response to the album. Is it kind of what you expected, were you surprised by it?

JB: I was surprised, I’ll be honest with you, I was a wee bit surprised. That was a long arduous sort of process getting that album done and when it takes that long you sort of, you lose sight of how good it actually is.

MD: Yeah.

JB: You forget your intentions and it just becomes like an all-out assault just to get it finished. You know what I mean, and you’re sort of left with no idea whether it’s good or not, you’re just glad that the process is over. So I really, honestly didn’t know what to expect from the fans and from the music reviewers, but the response has been phenomenal from both.

MD: I’m curious, how old are the songs, I mean did you write them a long time ago and just couldn’t get the recording together or did you have to wait and then the creative process all happened, kind of near when the album was released?

JB: It’s all spread out like Magna Carta was the first one we wrote for this album back in 2008 when we got back from Europe with ISIS and Harmonia was written pretty much after that as well. Whereas Blind Them With Science and Resolve was written like in 2010/11.

MD: Right.

JB: And Darkness and Sines were written and recorded in 2013. So it was all across the place, it’s just because of what was happening with our injuries and financial situations and all sorts of things, It was a big process, but I mean, the good thing, amazing result from all that which was accidental really, was how eclectic it is because you’ve got songs written in 2008 and songs written in 2013, five years later, do you know what I mean?

MD: Yeah.

JB: There’s a real sort of varied song writing on there. So it accidentally came out really cool though.

MD: When you say song-writing, I think a lot of people when they hear music that’s all instrumental like this, they assume that you’re probably just in the studio jamming together and hoping something comes out. How much of a process of composition is there with the music you do.

JB: Our first couple of albums we’re very much jamming for those songs, with Solace our third album it was quite a bit more crafted. It was sort of a cross between jamming and crafting whereas this album was really crafted, Like I said it was meticulously pulled over with a fine-toothed comb, many, many times.

MD: Right.

JB: So, yeah, compared to the first couple of releases that was the total opposite really.

MD: And do you prefer working like that?

JB: No. Not at all. I love it when it’s just freely sort of flows, you know what I mean, you put your hands on an instrument and all this great stuff comes out and you have it, that’s a take, you know what I mean.

MD: Yeah.

JB: And which, like I said, the first couple of albums were like that and that was so relatively easy. Like the results were pretty awesome but the process was pretty intense.

MD: Right. Now I was hoping to talk to you a little bit about guitar playing as well. You guys get compared to all sorts of bands, Mogwai and Tool and all these guys, but I’m wondering who you listen to and who you would say that you kind of took any cues from as far as your playing goes?

JB: That’s a long and varied question. I don’t think any recent sort of artists that I’ve sort of taken cues from. I grew up listening to Dire Straits.

MD: Really, okay.

JB: Yeah. When I was a kid, 8 years old. I first started playing guitar when I was 6.

MD: Yeah.

JB: And my father listened to a lot of Hendrix and John McLaughlin

MD: Oh yeah.

JB: And Allan Holdsworth. Sort of Jazz and fusion sort of stuff.

MD: Right.

JB: And that had a massive influence on me and then I got into stuff like Dire Straits when I was a kid. Yeah, I don’t know, I suppose for the heavier stuff, both me and Maurice listen to Godflesh from a very young age and they were, Justin Broadrick and GC Green had a big influence on how we sort of approached heavy guitar playing. There’s no real sort of recent stuff that influences our guitar playing. I think we sort of found our thing relatively early and sort of went with that.

MD: Yeah. A lot of people like to throw all sorts of terms around when trying to describe what you do..post-rock to prog-rock to all these things.

JB: Yeah, yeah.

MD: What would you call what you do?

JB: I haven’t really sort of thought of a name for it. I mean I used to sort of get a bit irked when people call us post-rock because we didn’t really feel part of that scene, I mean we do now obviously cause’ there wasn’t really a post-rock scene when we first started, you know what I mean. Back when we started, back in 97’ there was no such thing as post-rock, it sort of got called it a few years later when Mogwai started getting really big and Explosions in the Sky started getting really big and we sort of started around the same time. So we’re like what’s this post-rock, what is it. But I suppose because it’s become a worldwide theme and we’re sort of a part of it, we sort of feel a bit more like a family now, but, I don’t know. I think it’s just, we’re playing music, we’re trying not to pigeon hole ourselves much like Radiohead has done, where they can play anything they want and get away with it. Mainly because its bloody good.  It’s just really good to not have to produce any one kind of music all the time, it gives you much more scope and that’s always been our plan. I mean, I remember when we first started up back in 97’ or end of 97’, early 98’, we sort of wondered across our first initial sort of goal was to try and cross Blowfish with Massive Attack, believe it or not. Our first EP, which we released in 99’ I think it was, which was kind of us attempting that.

MD: Right.

JB: And also elements of Bailterspace and HDU and all sorts of other things.

MD: I was wondering if you guys listened at all to Dirty Three?

JB: The Dirty Three?

MD: Yeah.

JB: No I personally haven’t listened to too much of it. We’ve been compared to them quite a few times.

MD: Oh have you, okay cause’ I was just listening to it today getting ready to talk to you and for some reason that kept sneaking into my head, yeah you might want to check them out.

JB: We’ve been compared to them many times. I keep thinking, man I got to listen to these guys but I never really got around to it.

MD: And you mentioned Mogwai. Did you see them when they were here in the country?

JB: Just recently?

MD: Yeah.

JB: No, the only time I’ve seen them was back in 2000 after they released Come On Die Young when they played at The Powerstation.

MD: Right, right. Yeah they were just here at The Powerstation again a few weeks ago, I was just wondering if you’d…

JB: I hear it was pretty good, I hear it was really loud and it was really loud when I saw  them 15 years ago. They’re a good band man, no doubt about it.

MD: You did a show supporting Royal Blood around the time of Laneway, right?

JB: Yeah

MD: When you see a band like that, I mean they’re kind of up and coming, they’re a bit unconventional especially with the fact that there’s just bass and guitar. Do you kind of make sure you check them out take anything from what you see from them?

JB: I think we all took a lot from those boys, yeah, they’re just young guys, you know what I mean.

MD: Yeah.

JB: But shit they’re super talented dudes and really good guys actually. I think we all took like I said heaps out of that show and I think they’ve just got an amazing formula that they’ve just sort of, that most bands usually, accidentally strike across something that works and what they’ve got going on is amazing. I wasn’t really overly stoked on hearing it on the CD, but when I saw it live it just blew my lights out, literally blew my lights out.

MD: I know what you mean.

JB: Incredible band live. Just the low-end that they produce. I was having a sneaky look at his paddleboard and talking to him about how he splits the whole signal up and it’s just like wow who would have thought of that and he did and he’s got something new and fresh and it’s taking the world by storm.

MD: Yeah. Now when we hear you in concert, when we hear you live, what happens to the music? Does the music change much from what people will be used to hearing, say on the album. Do the songs tend to evolve a little bit?

JB: Not as much as they used to. I mean, like I said back in the early days there were much more jammed which left us a bit of room to sort of manipulate them a little bit live. Like I said Solace and Sines have been quite crafted songs which sort of makes them a bit tighter as far as how you can reproduce them live, do you know what I mean?

MD: Yeah.

JB: But I mean there’s always added little elements when you’re in the studio that you can’t do live which you’ve got to try and sort of appropriate, you know what I mean?

MD: Yeah.

JB: Which sort of leads to a bit of that because you’ve got to sort of try and, I don’t know, appropriate what you’re doing which can produce new cool things.

MD: Right.

JB: There’s parts of songs from Sines where I might have put 3 different guitars on when we recorded it and then when I’m playing it live I’m trying to play 3 different parts at once.

Click here to listen to Magna Carta from Sines:

MD: Yeah.

JB: Which isn’t easy.

MD: Yeah.

JB: But it also can sometimes produce something new and different for that song which can be quite cool.

MD: You head off to Europe after you’ve played the 2 shows here in a couple of weeks. Do you have to do anything different when you go across internationally? Do people look at what you do differently… does it change?

JB: I don’t think so, we just do what we do. Last time we were in Europe, we were supporting a band called Isis who are no longer together, quite fortunately because that name…

MD: That name isn’t going to do well is it?

JB: Yeah.

MD: It’s even worse than Shihad.

JB: Yeah I know, much worse than Shihad these days. Yeah, poor guys, I mean they’re great dudes and they’re a great band and we did a lot of touring with them and they don’t deserve the slack they’re getting because of this.

MD: Right.

JB: And they were around much longer than this terrorist group, but they still get daily hate mail.

MD: Unbelievable.

JB: It’s just because they happen to have a name called Isis, it’s pretty pathetic. But anyway, they’re a great band and they were getting great sort of numbers to their shows over in Europe last time we were over there supporting them. Yeah, we’re just doing as we normally do and the response was really incredible, like especially in Germany and in, well just around Eastern Europe, they seem to really love it. So I’m really looking forward to getting over there.

MD: And are you headlining this time or are you supporting again?

JB: Yeah, this is our first headlining in European tour actually.

MD: That’s got to be pretty exciting.

JB: Yeah man, it’s going to be great.

MD: Are there advantages or disadvantages to being an all instrumental band, does that come up at all?

JB: There are massive advantages and I can’t think of any disadvantages.

MD: Give me a couple of advantages then.

JB: Well there’s the fact that, for example playing live.

MD: Yeah.

JB: When you’ve got no vocals there’s much more head room for the instruments and you don’t have to worry about leaving space for vocal sort of frequencies.

MD: Yeah.

JB: So everything can be much more open and bigger and with the foldback coming back at you, you don’t have to worry about any for the cross over going on there, so you just get a full response coming back at you for your instruments.

MD: Yeah. Cause’ I guess people don’t really realise, audience members don’t know how the monitoring system works and the foldback and how that affects your playing, but I assume it does, right?

JB: It’s massive, it’s huge. I mean the thing is your everyday punter that hasn’t been a musician before has  got no concept of that and to a musician it’s the most important thing because that’s how you perform. I mean if you can’t hear yourself, you’re not going to perform very well.

MD: Right.

JB: So it’s really massive. It’s just like in New Zealand for some of the smaller venues, some of the owners or the guys running these venues are a little bit hard to get them to spend more money on same good gear to keep the musicians happy but what they don’t realise is that if you go to a venue in the monitoring system’s not that great, you don’t really want to go back because that’s your enjoyment of the show.

MD: Yeah.

JB: I mean the front of house can sound great, the audience will love it but if you struggle with it yourself as a musician you’re not that keen to go back because it’s hard work. Yeah the monitoring thing is really important.

MD: To look at the positive side, are there particular venues in New Zealand that are really good at providing what you need?

JB: Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah. The San Fran is as good as it gets.

MD: Oh right.

JB: That’s my favourite, I love playing that place, yeah I really, really do.

MD: Cool.

JB: And the Kings Arms has been getting better and better over the time we’ve been together and these days it’s fantastic.

MD: Yeah, I think they’ve revamped their sound system in there.

JB: Yeah, absolutely. I mean back in the old days when we started, back in the late 90s, it wasn’t to shit hot, it was a bit of a fight. But over the years they kept upgrading and upgrading and these days it’s actually really shit hot so.

MD: Excellent.