Jets
to Brazil
Pics: Tim Owen
Letters: Carla Clifford
Filling the four corners of night with their August release.
Blake Schwarzenbach, former Jawbreaker front man, is no longer
straightjackted into his punk coat. After releasing Orange Rhyming
Dictionary, on Jade Tree Records, Jets to Brazil began working
on new material. Their new record, Four Cornered Night, is long
awaited by many. “I would say the record is truer to that
inner sound, maybe more attuned to our four personalities”
says Schwarzenbach. He adds, “The feeling in the studio
was much more sure – and the feeling for me was, it’s
just us, let’s stand up and speak for ourselves.”
Having come from bands like Texas is the Reason, Handsome, and
Jawbreaker, the members of Jets to Brazil possess a wide variety
of musical backgrounds. Jawbreaker’s demise propelled Schwarzenbach
into a requisite mourning period, through which he continued
to write music. Writing brought about a sense of salvation,
enabling him to feel his life come back through his fingers
and voice. "The creation of JTB helped “to exonerate
myself as a writer”, he says, “ to prove I could still
write and sing and just be an all-around stronger musician.
Since I started playing music, I never felt I had much choice
in the matter, I just have to do it.
I think anyone who plays music feels this way, that you’ll
do whatever it takes, jobwise or whatever, just so you get to
hold a guitar on a regular basis or express yourself in some
way.”
Without having officially released any music, Jets had already
gained a strong fan base in America and toured Europe. Orange
Rhyming Dictionary, their first record, perfected a technique
that integrated melancholic lyrics and clipped vocal phrases
into a form of post wire pop. “This was a reflection of
where we [JTB] were at musically, depending on the day a certain
song would come together or get written,” Blake specifies.
The combined efforts of touring and releasing an outstanding
debut album established JTB as a rock and roll band able to
surpass the hype given to them through past projects.
Two years after their debut, JTB has produced their follow up
album, a thirteen song masterpiece entitled Four Cornered Night.
“Initially I was really freaked out, I felt I had a lot
to prove,” says Schwarzenbach, “but that neurosis
gave way to a much more positive feeling as we began to get
the songs on tape...it was deeply gratifying to see them work.
Fusing together organ, piano, an array of strings and J. Robbins’
production work has helped the band create, what the band calls,
“An American Record.”
On their latest release, JTB picks up on where they left off.
The lyrics contain imagery similar to the previous record, creating
fluid thoughts easily transferrable between albums. While the
last album left the listener feeling high on love, this one
helps them pick up the pieces of love lost. While Orange Rhyming
Dictionary was Blake’s own psychedelic anthem, this record
is the work of four band members returning to the forms they
grew up listening to. “The record is exactly what we, as
a band, wanted it to be.”
Four Cornered Night, an abhereation of a line in a Wallace Stevens
poem entitled “A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts”, represents
all four members of the band. Blake, reading the poem after
coming home from recording the record, decided it was a perfect
representation of the work — “A last song that could
have been part of the record. It’s all four of us, the
room, a night, and subjects i'm always going back to.”
The band will kick off their new release with a US tour.
How do they feel about touring? “Touring is a confounding
and necessary evil,” says Schwarzenbach, “I don’t
think I fully rock because I usually can’t allow myself
to just have fun and play. I think about it all the time, I
can’t drink or I’ll forget the words or have an emotional
episode, and I have to curb my smoking if I want to sing well.
So it becomes this kind of rigorous body trade for me, a surrendering
of a certain amount of psychic peace. That said, I really like
to play music, so provided I can keep it together I’ll
keep on doing it”.
Instruments
“I think good writing is being honest with yourself, having
access to that interior, because all people are right in some
way, and it’s a matter of allowing yourself to speak your
own version of the truth – being in a new band allowed
all these new voices to come out”
Filling the four corners of night with their August release.