Lovers Jump Creeks debut EP Bless This Mess is quite threatening to all those who consider themselves in a similar tier. Recorded directly to tape, each song is dotted with slight blemishes but by no means does this sound amateur; in fact part of the attraction is just how professional and textured these songs are.
Kicking off with Half Chubbed’ the tone and the mood is set early. The band gives little warning before exposing you to the impeccable vocals of Mark Webber who’s bluesy pipes can really only be described as sexy as fuck. You’d be forgiven for mistaking this young band for a much older act, what with the technical guitar effortlessly played by Sam ‘Thomo’ Thomlinson and Jarred Young absolutely belting at the drums. It goes beyond though. First single of the EP Ditty is not only a bass driven groovy as track, but also a deeply personal story, the lyrics are forceful and inescapable, Half Chubbed sets up the ball and Ditty punts it into the back of the net.
Though as the EP continues, meandering, twisting and turning between hard to soft, light to heavy and somehow everything in-between, gems such as ‘French Kiss’ show up. The blues intro gives bassist Ferg Mac a time to shine, rocking out over a lead guitar riff that, lets face it, is one of the best things you’ll have heard this year. Then boom, the song drops. It’s obvious through songs such as French Kiss and following track Cadence and finale Shut Up And Touch Me that each member of the band brought their only flare in the writing process. Hint’s of indie rock, new wave Australian rock, and… is that some post-hardcore-esque rhythm I hear there? Yes, I believe it is.
This EP is a great glimpse into the future of Australian rock. Catering for so many different tastes with such class, style and energy. Though this EP is no where near long enough holding only five tracks, you’d be seriously touched in the head if you aren’t impressed by at least one. An unbelievable achievement for a first release, Jump on board now so you can claim you listened to these guys before they were big.
Blessed Are The Obsessed: What’s your name and what’s your role in the band?
Jarred Young: Greetings. My name is Jarred Carl Young, but I go by ‘Jaz’ or ‘Darkie’ and I play drums.
BATO: How long have you guys been jamming? Tell us the tale!
JY: Well… Ferg, Macca (our original guitarist) and I used to jam a lot in high school. And then when I had my 18th birthday I wanted a band to play so I got Mark involved because I heard he could kinda sing. He absolutely wouldn’t have been invited if he couldn’t… But yeah, we started there and then kept rehearsing and played as many shows as we could, wherever we could for a couple of years. Macca left in a dramatic episode in Bathurst (No bad blood though, we loves him) and then Sam came along and blew our musical minds, egos and loads. We are all the best of pals now and we love each other and playing and writing and recording.
BATO: You guys have made a name for yourself through relentless gigging, where’s the best place to play?
JY: Well. I don’t know if we could name just one, but our show at the Gaelic Theatre when we dropped the EP in December was awesome. We played with some great bands and had a lovely big turnout.
And then there was the show with the Angels at Dee Why RSL and Dave Gleeson shat in our dressing room toilet (when there was an empty one he could’ve used). That would’ve been great if it was a prank, but he didn’t say anything to us… he just left awkwardly with an undesirable odour lingering behind him.
And then we once played in Adelaide at this self-confessed dive (I forget the name) and it was just the vibiest place! We must’ve met everyone in the bar and all the staff and everyone was just so friendly and the room went off when we played. I think the best shows depend on how an audience receives you, not the venue or the amount of people there. We love that we get to meet so many people through playing so much; we’ve made some really good friends through it.
BATO: You’re recently dropped your debut EP Bless This Mess, what can you tell us about it?
JY: Indeed. It was recorded live and to tape at Linear Studios in Leichhardt. And t’was produced by this awesome dude called David Hemming. David just knew exactly what we wanted to go for and completely understood our style. For example at the end of “French Kiss” there’s this weird slow-down ending that accents oddly and after the take was done David said “That [take] was disgusting… we’re keeping it”.
The idea for the EP was to capture the energy and passion of our live performance and we feel it’s pretty damn spot on. You hear a lot of bands say how tedious and draining the recording process is but for us it was a whole lot of fun. We’re really excited to start recording again and we’ll be doing it in our rehearsal studio this time around, which is even more exciting. We have this dingy little basement that goes by “The Warehouse” and it will be really nice and organic recording in our natural habitat.
BATO: Just caught the clip for French Kiss, I just couldn’t look away! Feel free to give us a bit of an explanation
JY: Haha, oh shit. Sorry bout that. We were going to release a serious clip first. But it kind of just happened. Oh well. We were filming our video clip for our first single “Ditty” and we had just wrapped it up and our mate Skinny from All My Alien Sex Friends was hanging out, and he’s a bit of a loose cannon so we asked him to do a dance for us to “French Kiss”. He did a few takes of what were essentially perverse stripteases and it got a bit out of hand. The video is very tame compared to what we witnessed on the night. Genitallia Galore. Those poor girls on the couch, we had only just met some of them that night and quite understandably we haven’t seen them since. If you’ve ever been to one of our shows, Skinny is the dude who gets up on stage and screams in the last section of our regular closer “Sugar”.
BATO: Personally, what’s you’re favorite track on the EP and why?
JY: French Kiss for sure. I just love playing it and it’s still my favourite to listen to. I like it’s odd structure, it’s got a fair few sections in it. We played around with it a bit for the EP version too.
BATOL It’s been an awesome start to the year for you guys, what else can we expect to see from you in 2012?
JY: For now we’re going to play a few shows and start recording again. We have about 14 tracks to choose from for our next EP’s
