From South Carolina to the Cathedrals of France
by Jen Epting ‘03 / photos by Nick Rounds'03

Vance made it happen.  Vance is some type of manager for the band Jump, Little Children, and it was Vance who I approached and shyly introduced myself to and asked if it would be possible to interview the band sometime before their sound check. 

“Sure,” he said.  “Wait ten minutes.”

Ten minutes later, Vance called to Evan who was setting up his drum set and said, “Hey Evan, take Jen into the dressing room and let her interview you ok?”

I was impressed that he remembered my name.  When you’re a reporter, no one remembers your name, they just know that you’re someone who wants to ask them questions and who wants to steal a few minutes of their time.

Evan took me back into the dressing room where the four other band members were, eating humus and lounging in “nicest greenroom” they’ve ever had. 

JLC’s unique sound comes from a variety of different instruments.  From accordions, to cellos, to harmonicas, and the traditional guitar and drums, the overall sound becomes a mixture of folk and rock.  The following interview is the majority of what we talked about that afternoon.  Though they insist they still have much to learn, I would argue that they’ve already learned quite a lot about music, touring, and themselves.  

Jen: So what’s the best about doing this?  Why not take the regular post-college 9-5 job?

Matt: Well first of all take a look around this room.  Honestly, this is the very, very nicest reception we’ve ever had.  I mean, you would definitely choose this over the regular job. 

J: So you get nice rooms, but what about when you get onstage?  Does it do anything to you?

Ward: Yeah, that’s the best part for me.  Being on stage, there are times when it feels like work, driving from place to place, sound check, stuff like that.  That’s hard work, but the onstage part is the part that definitely doesn’t feel like work and it kind of gives all the other work stuff a purpose.  I mean, obviously we do make our living doing this, but I think we all like having a job that feels purposeful, interesting. 

J: So what is the purpose?

W: Making people happy, entertained.  Music to me is essential, you know.  It has been for a long time, and I feel like it’s essential to a lot of other people.

J: So it’s not your typical two guitars and a drum set.. what’s different about that for you?

M: Well, much like classical music we have a cello and a base.  Actually, that’s post-Bach really.  So we just feel like it’s twice the base for your money.  We started out playing folk music, it was time for us to write our own stuff, it’s more the rock and roll thing. 

J: Do you consider yourself rock and roll now?

M: With some hesitation, yeah.  Certainly in the sense that REM or U2 or Radiohead is a rock band.  You have electric guitars and you have drums and everything else is kind of squirrelly.

J: Do you have a CD player on your bus?   M: Uh huh. J: Who do you listen to? M: Dixie Chicks.  Queen.  W: We each individually bring our headphones, we don’t share music very much.  But when I’m driving it’s Dixie Chicks, I’m really in the country bluegrass phase. M: I like the new Moby CD a lot.  Jon: The new Moby CD that’s been out forever. M: Right, right.  Jonny, thanks.  Jon: No, I’m just saying. M: Praise to Moby.  Evan has just found Outkast. Evan: Now they’re great. M: Jay just got a box of Cuban CDs.

J: Who writes your songs?

M: Jay writes most of our songs.  And then Evan writes songs and I write one or two.

J: Ok, so let’s talk about Napster.  Has it helped you?

W: Yes.  I think it has.  I don’t think it’s bad, but I think it’s important for musicians to be paid for what they do.  But I mean, the technology’s there… I don’t worry about it that much, not like I think it’s going to completely 100% change everything about the music business.  I think it’s just CDs and every time there’s a new technology it gets incorporated in.  I think it’s going to be the same.  I mean, I definitely see why people are upset about it, because for people sweating it out, writing songs, I think it’s important for them to be compensated.

M: I do get at least a letter a day from people on Napster.  They might have looked up Guster, they might have just randomly found us. I actually got a letter from someone who was looking through J’s and they just listened to something.  I can’t tell you the percentage of people who download something who went out and bought the CD, but most of them talk about doing something like that.  That’s our stand, we play a lot of live shows that are on Napster.  Download those till your heart’s content and send it to your friends, but if it’s a song that’s on an album, please buy it.  If you want to be nice to us, if you want good karma, if you’d like to go to heaven basically.  We’re pretty supportive of Napster.  If it changes Napster, which I guess it’s about to, somebody else will come up with something else.  It’s too late, it’s already here to stay in music, so people have to work around it.

Jay: I think one of the major problems with Napster is the independent record stores.  There’s one in Charleston, the guy who owns it really isn’t too happy.  A lot of the obscure things he might be able to get for you are easily downloaded off Napster. 

J: What’s the one song people download the most? M: There’s a song called “Cathedrals” that you can still hear in drugstores and hair salons across America.  Home Depot… [‘Cathedrals’] was our radio hit, it took us to the west coast, mid-west, France, Canada.  A lot of people will hear that song and find out who sung that song. J: Where were you when you first heard it on the radio? M: When we first heard it on the radio? J: Yeah, did you ever see the scene in that movie “That Thing You Do”?

M: Yeah, actually I was just going to say that… well, we were played on the radio a lot in Charleston for our first album.  So the first time we heard one of those songs on the radio, someone warned us and said ‘they just said they’re going to play a song of yours,’ so we turned it on, and I can remember cranking it up, and I was in my bedroom and Ward was in his, and I just started jumping on the bed.  It was very ‘That Thing You Do,’ it was very much that.  We ran around the house, it’s an amazing moment when you hear your song on the radio.  It’s pretty amazing. 

J: Do you think you are different people now that you’ve become famous?

W: Well, I wouldn’t even consider us that famous.  I mean, everyone changes every single day so I’m sure that everything in our job would definitely change anybody.  But in terms of us just as our ethics or the way we look at life, not at all.

Evan: We’re all self-serving egomaniacs.

W:  That’s right, we were all that to begin with. 

M: Yeah, but I think that in terms of being more confident human beings, I mean being able to go to Paris and play solely on the fact that you play music, is a confidence builder and I hope that that will continue, that trend of being more confident.  Because it’s a business, the part that we’re doing sitting here right now is the business side.  We’ve already written the songs and recorded the music.  That’s the hard part.  You hope after six, seven years in a business to grown and change, and I think we’ve done that. 

Ward: If we were to sell a million records or something off this next record, then that would be the time to see if it would get to us. J: Is that your goal?  Would you say that your goal is to become really famous and sell millions of records and make millions of dollars? Jay: No, I wouldn’t want that.  I think it would be really… Ward wants that. W: I mean, I’d like to make a living. Jay: I don’t want to be any kind of mega-star. M: It would be nice to support ourselves. Jay: Yeah, to support ourselves, but also to have a really nice fan-base across the country.  That kind of thing would be really great.  But to have some kind of spike of sudden fame, that’s so unappealing.  Because how many bands go through that and then they are forced through so much change and they can’t handle it? M:  Our music isn’t music that will ever do that.  I mean, our success has happened very slowly.

W: I don’t really want that.  I don’t want to be a phenomenon that’s just kind of, you know.  I would like for us to all be able to support ourselves, which we can do now, but I would like for us to not only be able to support ourselves but also our families, whenever they enter in the picture.  And respect, I’d like for as many people as possible to enjoy it, but I don’t really give a shit about People magazine or anything of that kind.  It means a lot more to me if other musicians and people would enjoy what we do, but I don’t think any of us have any desire to be gossiped about in the tabloids.

Evan: I do.  I’d like to be incredibly famous. 

Jon: After this interview, you three guys are all fired.

Evan: (Evan is eating strawberries at the moment) Hey did you guys know that they’ve spliced strawberries with fish genes?  There’s this type of fish that handles the cold really, really well, I can’t remember what kind of fish it is, but strawberries are extremely prone to die in the frost.  And they’re going to take that particular gene that allows the fish to adapt to cold water and put it in the strawberries.

M: So that mean if you eat strawberries, you’re eating meat?  Or does that mean that strawberries are cold-blooded?

J: Who’s been the worst people to tour with.

All: Guster. (laughs)

Evan: We toured with a band that was also on Atlantic, they just had a very strange… they’d just had a small bit of success, and they weren’t actually bad people, they just didn’t know what they were doing. 

J: Well, we can name names.  The Gufs, they weren’t nice guys, they were huge in Milwaukee, but nowhere else.  Like, 100 miles outside the city they couldn’t play a gig.

M: But they acted like they were famous everywhere, so it was really hard.  I don’t think they knew what they were doing to us, but they really, really, really pissed us off. 

J: Well, who was the best band you’ve played with?

M: Guster.  I mean, just because we’ve been such good friends.  I mean, now, gone from two bands, one in the Northeast, one in the southeast, never would have really known each other, to friends who we spend time with, friends we have lunch with when we’re in the city, and who we call.  There’s a band called the Marvelous 3 who is really wonderful.  The Nields are really great.  We’re very easy to get along with, so usually, we try to extend love and peace to the people we’re playing with, either opening, or having openers and I think that the best world happens when you tour with the band and become really good friends.  I mean, we toured with Rusted Root one time, who was sort of on their decline or breakup, but they were really nice.  It’s not that hard if you’re pleasant people.  Cause these are your office workers, we don’t have 9-5 chats by the water cooler. Evan: In this business, or in life in general for me, it takes so much more energy to be mean and rude then it does to be nice.  J: What’s the one thing that you have to have in your dressing rooms? M: I usually call for a gun, some sort of firearm.  (all laugh) W: Probably water. J: Really?  Anything weird?

Evan: Guster has a funny writer.  Our writer really isn’t that funny.  We’re so boring.

M: We like whiffle bats.

W: Humus; humus is the thing we usually get because Jay’s a vegetarian, so it’s hard to do the deli thing.

J: Who’s the dream band to tour with?

Evan: Reunited Police.  That would be awesome.  I would give my left leg.

W: Radiohead.

M: What if Jesus Christ had a band?  If he comes back, he’s gonna have a rock band.  I know he is, that’s going to be awesome…

Evan: I would dream about touring with U2.  Definitely.  I think there’s so much I could learn about them. 

J: What’s your opinion on ‘NSYNC or Backstreet Boys?

W: In the words of Eminem, ‘all you boy and girl groups, all you do is annoy me, so I have been sent here to destroy you.’  I mean, they’re doing what they want to do, or what someone wants them to do, they’re making a lot of money.  When it first started happening again, it was funny.  It’s not as funny anymore.  I mean, it’s not my taste, but they’re obviously serving some kind of purpose for somebody.

M: It’s going to end soon.  I really think it is.  It’s winding down.

Evan: That’s not the music that sends me into a blinding rage though, that’s not it.  I don’t like to listen to it, but it’s not repulsive to me.  What’s repulsive to me are all the bands who are slagging, bands like Limp Bizkit and Kid Rock and stuff.  That’s the music that drives me insane because the boy bands don’t pretend they’re anything that they’re not.  They’re pretty much pop bands, and you get what you get.  But Limp Bizkit or Kid Rock or these other misogynistic assholes, really believe they’re artists, and that drives me insane.  They suck.

J: The new album, what’s different about it and what’s exciting about it?

M: It’s a moodier album, it’s a bit darker than the first one, but it’s a lot truer.  The sentiments are truer, they’re more, I think in general you can say that it’s a more mature album, but in a good way.  I think in a lot of ways, emotionally and musically and that’s very exciting.  I think it’s going to be exciting to our big fans because it is reminiscent of our earlier work in the sense that it’s a little more carefree, it’s a little more heartfelt, a little more yearning and hungry I’d say.  I think our fans react to that.  It’s very exciting; it’s going to be very exciting.  I think you’ll like it.

***Note: If you are interested in the story behind JLC, there is an incredibly well-written story by Matt, one of the band’s lead vocalists, on the website, www.jumplittlechildren.com.

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