The Jagaloons – An Xperience Interview

The Jagaloons – An Xperience Interview – by Rob Smittix.

RRX: All right, so we got the Jagaloons on the line, very excited about this. If you can just let us know who you are and what you do in the band.

KS: Sure, this is Kurt (Stegemann), guitars.

GK: Geoff (Kelley), drums.

JW: Josh (Welf), bass.

RRX: Josh Bass (imitating Josh’s deep voice), he’s even got the bass voice going. I love it! So you guys got a lot of things going on – a new album release, a release show coming up at the Hangar on November 9. So it sounds like things have been pretty busy.

KS: Yeah, we got a little slow start to this part of the year. Josh was in a pretty nasty motorcycle accident, so we kinda eased off on some shows for a bit. Josh is back at probably 95% and playing with us again. So kind of ramping back up. The album we recorded last spring at White Lake Studios.

JW: In Albany.

KS: Brett Portzer recorded that for us. Some delays in getting it out there, but we’re with a different label now. It kind of got fast-tracked and we should have the records in a week or so.

JW: Full steam ahead.

RRX: Yeah. So Josh, sorry to hear about the motorcycle accident. Almost every friend or family member that I have who has a motorcycle has gotten into a bad motorcycle accident. They’re dangerous.

KS: The car is a dangerous thing.

JW: Motorcycles aren’t dangerous. I like to say I’m dangerous, danger is my middle name. What can you do? I’d like to thank Justin Birk for filling in a couple shows for me.

JW: Thanks Justin. He’s a good friend, sax player for Blase DeBris also plays bass. Who knew? Anybody can play bass really.

RRX: I don’t know about that. Brett Portzer … I’ve worked with Brett in the past. After you get the recording done with Brett … he’s really adamant about going out into the car and listening to it. The car test!

KS: Yup!

GK: Yeah.

RRX: That’s always been a thing with Brett. Although a lot of cars don’t have CD players anymore.

GK: It was interesting when we sent the mixes to the guy to master it. A big-name guy out in Los Angeles to master it, and he looked at the waves and he couldn’t figure out, why it was already so perfect. He’s like, “This can’t be right.” So, we had to tell Brett …

JW: Stop being so good!

GK: Give this guy something to do.

RRX: Right. Exactly. Tell us about the new album, what are we to expect?

GK: It’s 14 songs. We wrote 11 of them. There are three covers on there. Two of them are more surf songs to start, and then we did a Go-Go’s cover. So we’re doing “Vacation” on this.

RRX: Nice.

GK: The way the album came together was, we were playing some shows out of town and we ran into a guy. He liked us and said, you know, “I wanna work with you.” He was gonna put out our record and that gave us a jump start to write songs and have everything going. So we worked hard to get into the studio. It was April of last year with the expectation that the record would come out last year. That just didn’t work out. So now it’s coming out in about two weeks; we’re really pumped.

KS: It’s gonna be out on Tabu Recordings, out of Indiana.

JW: T-A-B-U

RRX: Well, that’s cool. You guys are on a label, and I know that’s kind of a weird phenomenon these days because a lot of people are doing it on their own. But at the same time, it’s good to have some support and as long as they’re treating you right.

JW: We’ve had a different label experience. We’ve had different releases on different labels. And they’re all different.

KS: I mean, these labels are small independent labels. So it’s not like we’re getting signed to like Arista or something.

GK: Is that still a thing?

RRX: I don’t know. I think so.

JW: We’re on the island in Arista.

KS: But it’s nice because you’re dealing with the people that run the label, for better or worse. The label that we’re with now – really solid guy, he’s good to work with. So we’re really excited about it.

JW: We’re just glad somebody likes us.

GK: Oh, and that’s the thing too. We’re a niche sound. It’s good to be on a label with somebody who knows what you’re trying to accomplish and can hook you up with other bands or other related things that can help you just get a little bit more exposure.

JW: Open doors.

RRX: How old are you guys now? You don’t have to tell me a specific age but are you in your forties?

KS: Yeah, still in our forties for now.

JW: In our mid-twenties. It’s all that partying we do, every day. We look like old men. Probably 45 is the oldest.

GK: I mean, we’ve known each other … I’ve known Kurt since the early ‘90s.

KS: Yeah. So we’ve all been in the music scene since that period and we’ve all been in bands with each other before.

RRX: From when we started in my band we were around for like 17 years or whatever. I know that it only took about two years maybe for the stars to come out of our eyes and to realize we’re just doing this because we love it. Do you guys still have those stars in your eyes? Do you have those kind of expectations?

JW: We just talked about labels! We’re obviously very big rock stars! Award-winning musicians here. I mean, we’re famous. I think that’s probably a good way of putting it.

KS: I mean, like I said, we’ve all been in a ton of bands for years. Probably combined over 20 different bands, I would say.

JW: Coming from the punk and hardcore scene, there’s not really stars in your eyes to begin with. I think you get beaten down pretty early to be like, well, this is just dumb fun. So I think I’ve continued that attitude my whole life, even with my real job, which is not dumb or fun but I have to make it dumb or fun.

KS: What’s interesting, probably out of all the bands we’ve been in, strangely, this is probably the most quote-unquote successful band we’ve been in.

GK: I think a lot of it is the past experiences and all the frustrations of having the stars in our eyes, and thinking this is gonna be our next big break. At this point, we’re all realistic about where we’re at and it’s when we have little bits of success … it’s surprising and probably more enjoyable.

JW: Geoff’s just really laid back with the whole thing because he’s independently wealthy.

(All Laugh)

KS: It also gets back to what Geoff was saying – it’s a smaller niche genre of music. So it’s a smaller pond to play in. When we’re playing punk and hardcore, there’s a bazillion bands, you know? It’s a little easier to stand out in a smaller scene.

RRX: And with the age thing, I always remind myself that Samuel L. Jackson didn’t start his acting career until his mid-forties. So anything could happen.

JW: Yeah, I like that.

GK: That’s great.

JW: That’s like Danny Trejo too, right? Because he was in jail and s**t!

RRX: Exactly. Yeah. he was definitely in jail and he’s got that famous tattoo on his chest.

JW: Yup, Salma Hayek. Put that in there. I’ll give you my number. Tell her to look me up!

(All Laugh)

JW: Tell her I’ll get a tattoo ASAP.

“Forbidden Words” Release Party at Hangar on the Hudson, Saturday, November 9. 6 pm doors, 7 pm music. With the Jagaloons, the Sound Minds, the Sci-Flies, and ShortWave RadioBand.

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