Less Than Jake Talks Labels, Tours and Festivals

The night of Less Than Jake’s show, at House of Blues in Orlando, the ska-punk community was thriving, in and around the show, from all sorts of sights such as: checkered garb (suspenders, customized patchwork), Op Ivy and Link 80 shirts, to kids that just wanted to skank the night away. Before the show I sat down, in a classy, “grassy” aroma, tour bus outside of House of Blues, with the saxophone player from Less Than Jake, Peter “JR” Wasilewski, to flirt with their musical journey in the last couple years and to get his perspective on the music industry and how Less Than Jake fits in to the big picture. And this was one picture we captured.

Zach: So, you’re on tour with Cage and The Swellers…how’s that going?

JR: Well, Cage isn’t playing the show tonight…

Z: Yeah, I know. I have a question about that later. [hah.]

JR: Well, it’s been good, a lot of fun. Both acts are really good at what they do. It’s been cool to be on tour with both bands…acts. Cage isn’t really a band, he’s a DJ, but it’s cool.

Z: Yeah, from your tour updates online it seems like you’ve been keeping things interesting. I went to FEST8 this year and it was awesome – just like the first time I went for FEST6 – where I saw you guys play at The Venue. I know you guys played the FEST again this year…how was your FEST experience?

JR: It was different than the last couple years, I suppose. I make the Fest work for me. You know what I mean…a lot of people get worked by The Fest where they go and get drunk all four days…and don’t shower [hah]. I went and I saw the bands that I wanted to see and stayed away from when I didn’t need to be there. So the bands that I wanted to see I got to see…you know Dillinger Four, Dead to Me, I watched Rehatcher…who the heck played…I saw Sam I Am. That was cool. I showed up when I knew the bands that I wanted to see were playing. I saw the Flatliners play, Cheap Girls and a bunch of others. The one thing I guess we have over other people was that since it was our hometown… if I really wanted to see a band I knew each dude that owned the club and so I could just walk in.

Z: [hah] Yeah, must be nice.

And so my follow up question, did you notice any changes about FEST this year compared to recent years…?

JR: Yeah, I mean, it’s gotten bigger.

Z: Yeah, especially the line issue. There were some shows you couldn’t get into even if you waited an hour beforehand to get in. I know I went to wait in line, an hour beforehand, to see Lemuria and still didn’t even get close to getting into Common Grounds where they were playing.

JR: But if it became bigger than what it is right now, than I think Tony would have to do something different…I mean you have hundreds of bands and to do something better would mean they would have to do a Warped Tour…outside…day-type thing. That’s totally not what it is suppose to be.

Z: Fair enough. Since you guys are based out of Gainesville, where The FEST is held, do you notice any difference, over the years, in Gainesville’s music community?

JR: The music community is always pretty vibrant. It’s because it’s a college town. Because it’s a constant influx of kids and different creations, and everyone wants to be in a band. It’s cool, because if you’re in a band and you go there to play a show…if you play punk rock…then you’re guaranteed 70-100 kids because it’s a live music town. People go out to shows. There are a lot of towns you go to where people go out to shows, but Gainesville doesn’t get any better or any worse. It’s more of a constant.

Z: Yeah, we need more lively towns like that in Florida!

On a similar note, a lot of musical talent has been spawned and supported through the Gainesville music community with help from labels such as No Idea and Fueled by Ramen – both of which Less Than Jake has represented. What are your thoughts on the relationship with a band and their label? Is intimacy between them productive?

JR: What is sold to you is that it’s a symbiotic relationship where one can’t exist without the other. I firmly believe that is a true statement if you’re discussing it from the label’s perspective…because a label cannot survive with talent. Talent, on the other hand, can survive without a label.

The way that it should be is that artists should create their art and then the people who run the label should figure out how to market that art to the target demographic. On paper, in theory, in a book, that’s how it should be. And that’s probably what they will teach you in a music business class or a book you check out. In reality, what it is, is there are thousands of bands and there’s only… out of the thousand different bands… probably four or five bands that become successful. It used to be where labels would suggest “Oh you should sound more like this, or you should do more like this.” But now bands don’t even care they’re just like this what is marketable, this is what will make money.

[A second interviewer comes in: and doesn’t shut the tour bus door]

[JR goes to shut it and says on his way back…”Musta grown up in a barn!”]

But no, when I started playing music I played music to play music, and I played music to get free beer and maybe chicks. Now, when I listen to music, I would listen to the record and think, “Wow, this record sounds really good.” And I wouldn’t necessarily take note of who produced it. I would just listen to the music on the record. Nowadays, kids start bands to be famous…if you start a band just to do that then you might as well go to medical school and become a doctor because even if you’re a failed doctor then at least you’re still a doctor.

Z: That’s heavy stuff. I agree with you about just listening to the music. Music should be appreciated based on its content, not simply based on who produced it.

So then how would you describe your relationship to the label compared to all of this information?

JR: Our relationship with the label was how we tried to direct it, but ultimately the label is still bigger than the artist. Do you know what I mean…when I say the label needs the artist to survive…that’s true, but for every one there’s a thousand other [artists] that would take that one’s spot. They’d kill to have that spot. That’s how I perceive what it [label relationship] is and what it’s going to be. Honestly, I don’t think labels are going to be significant in the future. There’s a lot of resistance against the music industry these days where people just want to produce music their own way and so people are figuring out ways to do that. The information and methods of marketing, that are circulating these days, are reinventing a lot of new ways for people to think about music.

JR had a lot of insight on his experience with music and the marketing with labels. In the second half of the interview you can read about JR’s comments on working with Sire, compared to working on LTJ’s new label Sleep on It. Also, I asked JR what he thought of Cage not being allowed by Disney to play the show due to his music’s controversial reputation…and that was an interesting discussion as well!

This post was written by Zach Frmmel, a senior at UCF majoring in English Literature with a minor in Humanities. He plays in an indie band, GreatFriendofMine, and you can check out their music on Bandcamp here.

Tags: fueled by ramen, less than jake, Music Marketing, no idea, sleep on it, Zach Frmmel