Although
having only been together in their current form for a short time, Melbourne (Victoria,
Australia) based outfit Jericco certainly created quite a buzz for themselves
in the underground scene with their much talked about hybrid mix of world music
influences, all out progressive rock, and their much talked about powerful live
performances.
Having released their self-titled EP in late
2008, and with the band recently officially celebrating the launch of their debut
release in Melbourne, I caught up with vocalist Brent McCormick to talk about
the band's multicultural background and the unique influence its had on the six
tracks on 'Jericco', playing live and the McCormick's early belief in Jericco's
potential - even before hearing a single note from the band.
"The
formation of Jericco took place over a two year period, with me joining the band
around eighteen months ago. Six months prior to that, Roy Amar (Bass player) and
Luke Halstead (Drummer) had been jamming together and looking for other members.
At the time, I was playing with my old band Jasper. We had been playing together
for around four or five years at that point. We really wanted to go places, but
we never actually got off our asses to do it properly. I had seen the ad that
these guys had placed in Beat Magazine advertising for a vocalist for about a
month, so I just decided to give it a go. I was still with Jasper at the time
when I went and had an interview with Amar. But when I met him, he was just electric.
He was such an unstoppable force. As soon as I met him, I knew that I had to make
music with this guy. That was before I had even heard him play bass! (Laughs)
We had a couple of jam sessions, and we knew pretty much straight away that the
chemistry felt right. Apparently Amar and Halstead went through sixty odd singers
before they found me. We needed a guitarist, so it wasn't long before Jordan Nagle
(ex-Jasper guitarist) joined up, with Fetah Sabawi (Ex-Superheist/Revolución
Street keyboardist/programmer) the last addition to the band."
Much
like the gradual coming together of the band's members, Jericco's debut recording
effort was a lengthy one. But despite the drawn out sessions, both McCormick and
the band are more than happy with the end result.
"The
EP took a long time to complete. Overall, it took us somewhere between four and
five months to finish, because Nagle went on holidays and Amar went back home
to see his family for a while. So while the recording sessions were a little disrupted
within that time, the whole thing eventually came together for us in the end,
and we're relatively happy with the results. In terms of the song writing, before
I joined the band, nearly all of the songs had been pretty much written. So for
most of the songs, it was pretty much me singing whatever I felt over the top.
It was a case of me turning up to rehearsals and them saying, 'Here's the riffs,
and here's the songs. See what you can do'. We've spent a lot of time on the vocals,
and chopping up the songs in order to come up with the songs we have now. I think
what we ended up with is pretty raw, but also something that has a lot of energy.
So my job was to come up with something that would fit in with what was already
written instrumentally before I entered the picture. There's a lot going on there.
Apart from the first single 'Sun', which was written as a whole band, no song
was the result of the band sitting down and putting together these songs at the
one time. 'Sun' is possibly the only song on the EP that has more of a togetherness
feel than the others. It doesn't feel as chopped up and put together as the others.
And there are Sabawi's keyboards. Because he was the last addition to the band,
all his keyboards were put down during the last stages of the recording process.
We had already completed ninety percent of the EP, and getting ready to mix it
when Sabawi added his parts. I agree that there are some sections on the EP where
the vocals are pulling in one direction, and the music is pulling in another way,
but we're really happy with the way it's come out."
As
mentioned earlier, Jericco have a different take on the standard progressive rock
sound, with Amar's Israeli cultural influences and Sabawi's Palestinian musical
heritage adding a world music element to the band's overall sound. But while the
line-up features both an Israeli and a Palestinian, McCormick states that the
band isn't what you would call a political entity.
"There's
a definite progressive rock and world music influence throughout our EP. We try
and incorporate that because of Amar and Sabawi's backgrounds. You can find those
Middle Eastern grooves throughout the whole EP. Those songs that you hear on the
EP, apart from 'Sun' of course were nine minute jams before I joined the band!
(Laughs) Amar and Halstead would put together like four of five riffs into these
songs and just jam endlessly on them. But the influence of Amar and Sabawi is
purely on a musical level. I mean we're not pushing the whole Israeli and Palestinian
angle. We're certainly not political, or out to change the world. What I find
we're trying to do is bridge that gap. It's more about putting it out there and
letting people know what's going on in the world. I was never all that interested
in the Israeli and Palestinian angle until I met these guys. We were just sitting
down and then the war broke out just a couple of months ago overseas, and Amar
was getting text messages from his brother saying that he was going in with the
ground forces. And then it was Sabawi getting messages from his wife's family,
who live in Gaza where buildings were getting blown up beside them. It's hearing
it through those guys that I'm playing with, and seeing how it affects them, that
really brings it all home with me. It never clicked until that moment. With the
lyrical content, I made an effort not to get caught up in political debate. I
don't write wholly and solely about those issues. I'm quite an introverted person,
and I write from the heart. All of my lyrics pretty much come from personal stories,
and where my life has taken me. 'Rujm (Pile Of Stones)' is one of the exceptions
to that. The riffs in there are so heavy and in your face, so it's definitely
one of our heaviest songs. It was while I was writing the lyrics that Amar suggested
that I imagine the music as a background to war, and angle the lyrics more from
his perspective. So I sat down with him, and he told me some of the most amazing
stories. Amar has obviously served in the war, and he told me stuff that I would
never have imagined possible. So that's where that song actually came from. And
it was good experience for me, because it was a different way of writing lyrics
and something that I had never taken on before. I tend to write about my own experiences.
The song isn't that political, or based solely on any specific conflict, but more
based around ideas that I grabbed from the guys that are in my band. We all have
stories to tell, and this band gives us all a platform for that."
With
the EP now released, Jericco have firmly set their sights on playing as many gigs
as possible. And it's no surprise given the reaction to their performances in
support of Mammal in recent times.
"We've only been gigging
now for about nine months, so we've been pretty much living in our own shell of
a rehearsal studio in that time and writing our EP. We've probably only done around
twenty to thirty gigs. So far, they've only been small events, but having said
that, our second show was with Dead Letter Circus. That was amazing. We've just
come back from a tour with Mammal in Sydney actually. I'm still trying to come
down from it! The responses to the live shows were phenomenal. I had this young
girl come up to me and say, 'For the first band at the show, I never expected
that! You don't expect that from a support act!' We sold around one hundred and
twenty copies of the EP over the three shows we did in Sydney last weekend, and
we've been getting an amazing response to those too. The response in Sydney was
just phenomenal. There were two sold out shows on the Friday and Saturday nights,
and then we had the all-ages gig that was pretty packed out too. The kids just
loved it. We were having meet and greets and everything! (Laughs) The whole band
signed about fifty discs. It was just amazing. It was really great for us."
High
on the success of their recent interstate trek, Jericco hoped to repeat the same
reaction from gig goers with the official launch of their EP at The Esplanade
Hotel taking place just after this interview took place.
"That
should be an absolute ballbreaker! (Laughs) It's going to be insane. We're actually
playing with Bellusira, who are a band that we've played with a few times before.
They're a great, hard working band, and a band that have given us a lot of support.
We find it hard to find good bands that you can gel with, and stick together to
put on some good shows. We found that with Bellusira. They're great people to
work with, and have given us a lot of support. So we have them on the bill, as
well as Twelve Foot Ninja. They've just started playing a few shows, and they're
a great band as well. So it should be a great night on the front bar. The front
seems to have claimed us a couple of times! (Laughs) It's a hard stage to play
on. Before I went overseas, we played a show at the front bar with Ezekiel Ox
And The Fury, and we had a few guitar problems. Everyone who is anyone that I
look up to was there along with a bunch of bands, and we felt like we just blew
it! (Laughs) So this is our chance to redeem ourselves. We've headlined two shows
in The Gershwin Room, and there's been over five hundred heads in there, so we
don't have a shortage of people coming to our shows. There's a bit of a buzz happening
around our band and on the street at the moment, and I think it's all working
really well for us. It's going to be a pearler of a night. It's all about hitting
people in the faces, and I think people are captivated by that. There's plenty
of energy and an obvious chemistry that people can feel with our live shows. There
really hasn't been a bad word said about us. In fact, anything bad has come from
ourselves. We are our own biggest critics. So I think it'll be a great night."
And
as for the future, McCormick says the best is yet to come.
"The
EP is a good start for us, but we want to keep it moving. We're writing new tracks
at the moment. We're thinking about releasing a single within the next three or
four months. That's just to get something new out there, and to keep people interested.
If you keep with the same thing for a long period of time, people get bored very
quickly, especially within the Melbourne scene where there is so much music out
there every night of the week. We have to keep it fresh and new for people. The
stuff that we're coming up with now sounds incredible. Because we're such a new
band as well, we're still getting to know each other and feeling our way in the
directional sense. It's amazing what we've grown to be, and just how tight a unit
we've become as a band in our short time together. It's the most amazing thing
I've been involved in. The new songs we have are progressing a lot more than anything
we have on the E.P. We're fitting more together as musicians and song writers.
What we do find with our song writing technique, we just haven't found a good
technique to work with yet! (Laughs) I don't think that coming up with the stock-standard
technique for writing songs is the way to go. I mean we'll jam on a few riffs,
and if they work, we establish them further. But some of the new material that
we've come up with is just brilliant. So we can't wait to release something new
before the end of the year. But besides that, we're currently looking into distribution
for our current EP. We're in talks with MGM, so we'll see what happens there.
Outside of the EP, we're hoping to play all over the place this year. We're currently
talking to a few big booking agents at the moment to book a few shows for us.
We had a guy come and see us in Sydney recently, but I'm not allowed to talk about
that yet! (Laughs) In the meantime, we have a good booking agent in Aaron Podoba
at Third Eye Music. He's going at it at a million miles an hour for us, and doing
some good things for us. We're about to do a small festival with Mammal and Trial
Kennedy at the Queensbridge Hotel that's been sponsored by Triple M, so that should
be absolutely awesome too. So we have no complaints on that front. We know as
a band that we have a lot we need to work on, because this is really just a start
for us. But as it stands, we have a lot of people doing the right things for us,
and things are really looking great at the moment!"
I
would like to thank Brent McCormick for his generous time, and Aaron Podoba at
Third Eye Music for making the interview possible.
For more
information on Jericco, check out - http://www.myspace.com/jericcoband
© Justin Donnelly - justindonnelly@ozemail.com.au
