Ben Meyerson interviews the headman of Jets to Brazil
Hazards: How do you feel about the direction of your new album, Pefecting Loneliness? Did it turn out the way you/the rest of the band wanted it to?
Blake: Albums always become their own things when physically realized, totally other than what you imagined -- stronger here, weaker there. I'm happy with it, it's our record, it's a transcription of the ghost dialogues.
H: It seems mellower than your first album, Orange Rhyming Dictionary, which had a lot of stuff that was rougher around the edges. How do you feel about this? Would you say that the addition of Brian Maryansky to the permanent lineup sort of smoothed it out?
Blake: There's a psychic violence to all my work which makes me resent the term "mellow". It's plenty harsh, it just doesn't want to punish the listener for its difficult ideas. My theory is tell the truth but enhance the sadness by trying to make pretty music to frame it in. Therein is the forgiveness -- we must recognize the truth but we can be sweet and reflective about it, we can collectively bear witness to the tragedy.
H: Your lyrics seem to be more poetic and sometimes abstract than those of other bands, but always with a greater meaning, like in Lemon Yellow Black. How do you feel about them?
Blake: I take great satisfaction in writing them.
H: How do you feel the band gets along?
Blake: We often communicate in gestures and grunts -- it's all coded.
H: What would you say is your favorite album that you've put out?
Blake: Volume IV, definitely.
H: Do you like your relationship with Jade Tree [records]?
Blake: They give us money and a place to stay, it's like surrogate parents. So far it's been really good. We do the work, they foot the bill, we make them money. Nobody says a word about content. It's total control which seems to be asking a lot these days, so I'm happy to have it.
H: How do you feel about the reactions you've gotten to your decidedly anti-patriotic statements on your website? Blake: I'd say anti-foreign policy, anti-administration, but I don't think neccessarily anti-patriotic. It's my duty as a citizen to voice my disapproval. I consider it a patriotic duty to resist belligerant warmongering and assisted genocide of the Palestinian peoples. The reaction has been about as split as our national psyche -- some people voiced support or positive critiques, others disagreed violently. Some threatened to kill me, which I felt was totally unnecessary. I mean, I'm not even foreign.
H: What's your favorite song off the new album?
Blake: "Perfecting Loneliness" and "Rocket Boy" -- they feel like new things, new forms.
H: How did the song "Orange Rhyming Dictionary" come to be on the album Four Cornered Night?
Blake: It was written after the album of the same name. The title just suited the song, the music. I was trying to weave some cosmos between the two records, some connectivity. When you enter Jets, you enter a certain world, a barren place with its own tribes and laws and rogue characters. It's like Star Wars but with no Ewoks or love stories.
H: What inspires you to write your lyrics? Like "Rocket Boy", definitely a downer song. Was it about something you experienced? Are many/any of your lyrics from personal experiences?
Blake: I went to high school in LA and my friends and I were non-rich skateboarders, musicians, writers who were in violent opposition to our environment (our school was super wealthy and celebrity obsessed). So, we used to do really stupid and dangerous shit. I guess like anyone in high school who is awake and crazed with feeling. We would tangle with the LAPD and get really drunk and drive and...you know, just crazy shit. So, that song is a lot of memory of fucking up. Of fucking up out of spite for life and godlessness and LA'ness. If there hadn't been the Minutemen and X and the Meat Puppets I think I'd be dead. That was the only positive thing happening at our level back then -- the eclectic, non-commercial music.
Jets To Brazil Official Website
