BANDwith Xperience: JJ Savage & Ashley Purdy (Black Veil Brides) Form Supergroup -Interview By: Rob Smittix -Photos By: Stephanie J Bartik

RRX: So how many different music projects do you have going on these days?

JJ: I’ve got my solo project which has been running a few years now since I went to California. And then…for the past year as well I’ve been working with Ash Purdy, who’s the old bass player from Black Veil Brides. We’ve been writing and sending each other sh*t for the past few years. It was weird. At the moment I reached out to him on Instagram, we were both going through dark moments in our lives. It was really cool to start writing music with somebody. It’s a different place from where it’s coming from, not just hey let’s write some songs. 

RRX: That’s pretty encouraging man. Black Veil Brides are pretty big these days too. 

JJ: Yeah, they’re doing good and I think this project with Ash could be bigger!

RRX: Nice! What’s the band called?

JJ: I don’t think we have a name announced just yet. I don’t want to say too much about that. 

RRX: You just played in Albany not that long ago, that was your solo act, correct?

JJ: It’s the solo act JJ Savage. It was weird because the past few years I’ve been touring with Andy Galeon from Death Angel and Michael Butler from Exodus and those guys had to cancel the week before, so I had to manage to put together a full level line up and get those guys to learn the songs and rehearse two times during the week of Thanksgiving and all of that sh*t. The week before I got into a bar fight. It was not a fun time but once we got to the show I’m like f**k yeah, let’s do it! 

RRX: Wow, sounds like it’s been a wild ride. But when you are a songwriter and a musician, I know you’ve got to stay creative, or you’ll go nuts.

JJ: I just had a parent of one of our younger LA based bands hit me up and said our daughter is a huge fan and she wants to be a rockstar and all of this, what are your recommendations? In my head I think just don’t f**king do it. 

(Both laugh)

JJ: I said whatever path you end up going down, make sure it’s about the music no matter what. Don’t get distracted by record labels, producers or money. As long as it’s about the music and the music is good, you’ll do fine. You’ll find people that actually want to do it because they like it. As long as the music is good and you give a f**k about it, it always comes back to that. 

RRX: True that.

JJ: I’m just writing songs with Ash and sending it back and forth between Nashville and Oakland or wherever I’m at. That’s been working really well for us. When I hit him up, I had never met the guy before. I’m just this f**king guitar player on Instagram, when he got out of Black Veil Brides, I hit him up like a week later, like let’s write some music and sh*t. He was like let’s write one song and see how it comes out and next thing you know, we have like ten songs ready to go on an album. 

RRX: That’s dope! 

JJ: He’s got no ego. Usually when you hit guys up like that, from bands like that, they won’t even read your f**king message. He answered in a minute or two probably and that’s cool. 

RRX: That’s really cool and that’s rock n roll. The difference between that and let’s say the hip hop industry is that if I hit someone up of that pedigree and that caliber and asked for a collaboration in the hip hop world, they might say yes but there’s a price tag that will come along with it. That’s a big deal because to me it’s like do you want to make music together or not? 

JJ: With that genre, there’s really no instruments being played, everything is on like Ableton and you can copy and paste your beats and your choruses. You could throw together an album in a day or two but with a rock album it could take a year or two, sometimes three. It costs a lot more money too. 

RRX: Aw man, you’re not kidding. My band has been working on an album for almost three years now. So, I get it.

JJ: People just don’t understand that. They want more music and they want it faster, that’s how it is nowadays but it’s like please give us a year to make this album. Nobody’s buying sh*t, it’s all Spotify and they don’t f**king pay you sh*t so… Record labels don’t give you a budget anymore, where they say here’s a million dollars go make an album and get yourself a couple of ounces of cocaine to power through it! 

(Both laugh)

RRX: The good ol’ days. 

JJ: It’s gone but it’s important that people like you try to keep pushing for musicians, bands and the rock stuff. There’s too much of the other sh*t, you know pop and country, which is all good. I love a lot of that but there’s really just too much of it. 

RRX: Well it’s pop, it’s popular and unfortunately a lot of what has mass appeal isn’t timeless. It’s good for a few months and then it’s old. 

JJ: Exactly. Like Hendrix, you know? Nobody’s ever going to forget Purple Haze or sh*t like that will stick around for eternity. 

RRX: It definitely will. I was at a show the other day and everybody there was pretty old. A lot of times now when I go to the younger shows I might actually end up being one of the older guys but I was surely one of the younger people at this one. I leaned over to my friend and said man there’s a lot of old people here and he says yeah, thank God because without old people the music scene as we knew it is dead. We need them.

JJ: 65% of the crowd at our shows are 45-year-olds or 55 year old people. I love it because they respect it more and actually have appreciation for what we’re doing and they know good music from bad music because they grew up with a lot of good music. It’s good to have the other 35% of the crowd be younger because they’re being exposed to something that is actually good for once. They have fun and it’s just a good mixing pot. It’s good to have everybody in one crowd. If you go to a Metallica show I guarantee many people will be 60, married and miserable. You know? Which is cool. 

RRX: Totally.

JJ: But for local shows, it’s good to have people coming out to the same clubs they were 20 years ago, I think that’s rad.

RRX: Well, that’s the thing and that was the observation that the older music fans are keeping it alive but like you said on the flipside we need the younger audience too. This thing has to keep going.

Check out the newly released video from  Ashley Purdy – No Easy Way Out (Brock Purdy Rookie Highlights)

Credits: Produced and Mixed: Mitchell Marlow – Cuddle Death Studio Mastering: Howie Weinberg Solo Guitar: JJ Savage Cover Art: Renee Runfola Video: K Enagonio