{"id":2590,"date":"2018-07-18T06:12:42","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T10:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=2590"},"modified":"2018-07-19T17:59:46","modified_gmt":"2018-07-19T21:59:46","slug":"interview-jukebox-the-ghost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2018\/07\/18\/interview-jukebox-the-ghost\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW: Jukebox the Ghost"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo by Shervin Lainez<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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WTBU DJ Danya Trommer chatted with Tommy Siegel, guitarist of indie pop band Jukebox the Ghost, about the band\u2019s genesis, \u201cdemo-itis,\u201d and what\u2019s in store for the future. Check out the full audio here:<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Danya Trommer: I\u2019m going to start out with a question about your <\/b>Google Talk<\/b><\/a>. \u00a0You discussed how you guys all got together; you all come from different musical backgrounds and you said how your first practice it was kind of like, \u201cThis is strange.\u201d \u00a0How did you guys come to be comfortable with time and how did you come to mesh your styles together?<\/b><\/p>\n

Tommy Siegel: It\u2019s funny, I met them in college through putting a flyer up in the music department, and we had this one jam session. I was kind of in the process of forming my own band, but they already had their own thing going, and I was like, \u201cOk, sure! I\u2019ll check out what\u2019s going on.\u201d Then we had one jam session and I remember thinking, \u201cThis is strange, they don\u2019t even have a bass player,\u201d and [lead singer] Ben at that time was like, way more classical in his approach than he is now. I remember thinking, \u201cHuh, this is interesting.\u201d \u00a0But, after just a couple of hours of playing with them, I was like, \u201cThis could totally work.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: Oh, it was that quick?<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: Yeah, it was just so easy. We all got along immediately, even though we were pretty different as musicians. Before the band was ever doing anything seriously, we were just friends messing around in the practice space. It was very open; there wasn\u2019t like an agenda, which was nice. I think post-college it\u2019s hard to just start a band for fun. It gets a little more complicated. People have ambitions and things they want to accomplish. It was nice that we had this three year kind of grace period where we got to make mistakes and figure out what kind of band we wanted to be, but without any financial pressure or anything. \u00a0We were just making a lot of mistakes and learning from them, like having a song and being like [<\/span>dumb voice<\/span><\/i>], \u201cOk, we want this song to have a <\/span>Latin <\/span><\/i>breakdown,\u201d and playing a few shows and being like, \u201cThat\u2019s really corny.\u201d [<\/span>Laughs<\/span><\/i>] Thankfully, it was in a sort of pre-video internet where don\u2019t have to live with those decisions for all eternity. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: So it was nice having that kind of cushion?<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: Yeah. In hindsight, it feels very pure that we got to mess around. I can\u2019t imagine being a band now where every step of the way would be documented. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: Speaking of documentation, your live album was super great. I was at your Philly show and I could hear myself on one of the tracks, so like a gift was given to me [<\/b>Laughs<\/i><\/b>]. I feel like live albums and videos documenting tours are almost like gifts to fans. I love your <\/b>Long Way Home <\/i><\/b>mini-documentary back in 2015, were you guys thinking of doing anything similar for <\/b>Off To The Races<\/i><\/b>?<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: In term of a little documentary or something?<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: Yeah. \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: Well that was a funny thing. That was when we got signed to [record label] Cherry Tree. They wanted to put together almost like a promo reel to introduce people to the band, so that was kind of outside-funded. I don\u2019t think we would have thought of doing something like that. We were really stoked with how it came out. But yeah, as an independent band now, I think it would be tough. Stuff like that is really cool, but when there\u2019s no way to make any return on it, it\u2019s hard to be like, \u201cYeah! We\u2019re gonna make a documentary for YouTube!\u201d But, I do love that <\/span>Long Way Home <\/span><\/i>thing. I hope we get to do something like that again. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: Yeah, it was super cool. I noticed back in 2008 with <\/b>Let Live and Let Ghosts <\/i><\/b>there\u2019s like four songs referencing the apocalypse. There are songs with darker tones on <\/b>this <\/i><\/b>album like \u201cTime and I\u201d<\/b> and \u201cPeople Go Home,\u201d<\/b> there are some darker lyrics in there, but overall it feels like over the past ten years your songwriting\u2013or the <\/b>band\u2019s <\/i><\/b>songwriting has become a little bit less\u2013I don\u2019t want to say <\/b>nihilistic<\/i><\/b>, but there\u2019s no songs about the apocalypse anymore. \u00a0I was wondering what caused this shift in tone, and what would you say is the biggest difference in the songwriting process from ten years ago to now? <\/b><\/p>\n

TS: A little background on the first record: we\u2019d been playing as the Sunday Mail before we were Jukebox the Ghost; we had a different name. We all went and did semesters studying abroad and were apart for six months or nine months or whatever. When we came back, Ben and I had a lot of new material and when <\/span>he <\/span><\/i>was away, he developed [songs] \u201cGood Day\u201d, \u201cHold It In\u201d, and \u201cVictoria\u201d. \u00a0When <\/span>I<\/span><\/i> was away, I got this idea in my head that I wanted to write a concept album about the apocalypse, kind of like playfully reinterpreting the Book of Revelation. I was studying abroad in Italy, and there are these amazing apocalyptic Medieval paintings everywhere in old churches, so I was taking a lot of inspiration from that. I was just backpacking around Europe with a guitar and a Book of Revelation and writing my little concept album. I envisioned it as it\u2019s own thing, but when we got back and I heard Ben\u2019s songs I thought they could work together and we could thread them in a way\u2013it was sort of half concept record and half not. So that\u2019s how <\/span>Let Live <\/span><\/i>came to be, and to be honest, I still write that kind of stuff\u2013it just tends to get funneled into other things nowadays. I write about more stuff than the apocalypse now.<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: You have another band, right?<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: Yeah. I feel like that thread of songwriting still exists, but it\u2019s generally more with [band] Narc Twain. One of my goals for [Jukebox the Ghost\u2019s] next record is to reinterpret that voice in a way that compliments Ben\u2019s songwriting and could work for Jukebox. I\u2019ve got the seed of some interesting ideas that I\u2019m playing with right now in a very early stage. But yeah, I wouldn\u2019t say that thread of writing has gone away; it just comes in and out of being dominant. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: Are you ready to reveal any of those seeds or are you keeping those under wraps?<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: I\u2019m just sort of in the playful stage right now where I haven\u2019t really decided what it\u2019s for or what it is, but I\u2019ve been taking some inspiration from the Book of Genesis and playing with that. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: So you\u2019re doing a biblical thing again?<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: Yeah, just all those archetypal images\u2013that imagery sits well with me. I enjoy writing from that sort of surreal place. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: Gotcha. \u00a0So in an interview you said that your demos are sounding more and more like finished products, because you guys have become like studio engineers on your own time. Do you each individually make demos and then come to each other with the product or do you make demos together?<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: We do all of the above. Sometimes we do it completely separate and sometimes we come together. For example, specifically on the last record, \u201cDiane\u201d\u2013the finished recording of that\u2013sounds almost exactly the same as the demo, just a better version of it. \u00a0Or \u201cJumpstarted,\u201d Ben did by himself like I did with \u201cDiane,\u201d and the demo is <\/span>pretty <\/span><\/i>close to how it turned out. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: So I was wondering when you make those demos individually and they\u2019re almost sounding like the finished product, does that make collaboration a little bit harder because it\u2019s not as much of a collective building from the ground up process?<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: Yeah. It\u2019s good in the sense that it\u2019s made us better writers and coming to the band with stronger material. It sort of knows what it is from the get-go, but sometimes you can get trapped. People call it \u201cdemo-itus,\u201d where you get hung up on how the demo sounds and you\u2019re not open to new ideas. The trick is, for us, making a demo that gets your point across, but not being psychologically married to whatever decisions you made and being open for other people to improve it. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: So I\u2019m going to move on to some questions about your live shows. \u00a0I know you guys started Halloqueen [three date tour in which the band performs half as Jukebox The Ghost and half as Queen] as doing something for a friend\u2019s wedding and it spiraled into a much bigger thing. I actually went to one of your Halloqueen dates dressed up as Ben, I love those shows. I\u2019m fortunate enough to live by Philly where you guys do the show, \u00a0but have you ever considered a mini October Halloqueen tour? <\/b><\/p>\n

TS: From my perspective, I really want to do it. It\u2019s really a taxing show on Ben vocally [singing as Freddie Mercury], so we can\u2019t do a lot of them in a row because he starts to lose his voice, so we\u2019re limited by that a little bit. I would love to play a national Halloqueen tour, even if it meant taking a lot of days off in between. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: Yeah because not everyone gets to experience it and it\u2019s such a great time. \u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: I know, I wish we could tour around, but maybe someday we\u2019ll get to. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: Yeah! So, \u201cHold It In Supreme\u201d [where members of the band play each other\u2019s instruments] is one of my favorite live moments that I\u2019ve seen from you guys on a tour. \u00a0I was wondering how you came up with that and why play that specific song?<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: We chose \u201cHold It In\u201d for that one, because it\u2019s the only song in our catalogue that we <\/span>could <\/span><\/i>do that for. Any other song I think would be too difficult. But \u201cHold It In\u201d just requires the T-Rex finger chord position on piano. It\u2019s probably the only easy song Ben\u2019s ever written on piano [<\/span>Laughs]<\/span><\/i>. Most of the time he\u2019s adding in his classical training and those sorts of flourishes, but that one is real easy. So that made it so that I can get behind the keys and it would just be the <\/span>second <\/span><\/i>worst thing in the world, not the total worst.<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: Have you guys ever gotten through the whole song?<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: I think towards the end of that tour, we did finish it a couple of times. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: Oh, wow. Impressive [<\/b>Laughs<\/i><\/b>]. So, you describe your live shows as a Vaudeville act, and you guys have played over 1,000 shows. From just the collection of sound bites of show banter released on Spotify, it sounds like you guys say unique things at each show and don\u2019t really work off of a script. Is that how you avoid things getting stale on tour?<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: I come from the mindset where I really like to just have a totally new setlist every show, and [drummer] Jesse tends to like making a good setlist and sticking with it for a whole tour, so we\u2019re constantly kind of in a tug of war about whether to change the set list up or not. That\u2019s kind of our big tour debate. But yeah, you gotta change up the stage banter. We\u2019ve definitely been in situations where it\u2019s easy to find yourself regurgitating the same stage banter every night and then you start to feel a little bit like a robot [<\/span>Laughs<\/span><\/i>], so it\u2019s nice to avoid that. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: Is \u201cKeys in the Car\u201d [recorded live song] ever going to end up on a studio album?<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: Probably not, because we have that live version, we have a kind of studio version\u2013<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: The Buzzsession.<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: Yeah, we have a lot of people asking about that song, but we\u2019re coming from a different vantage point of knowing how much other material we have that didn\u2019t make it onto the record. Coming into <\/span>Off To The Races, <\/span><\/i>we probably had like 75 demos, and \u201cKeys in the Car\u201d\u2013I don\u2019t think it was in anybody\u2019s top ten [to get on to the record]. It\u2019d be great to have the budget some day to record all of these songs so people can hear everything we\u2019re working on. We sort of felt like a third version of \u201cKeys in the Car\u201d would be too much [<\/span>Laughs<\/span><\/i>], especially with all those other songs. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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DT: So, since I\u2019m technically interviewing you for Boston University right now, I\u2019m kind of obligated to ask: can we look forward to a Boston date on your next tour?<\/b><\/p>\n

TS: That\u2019s a good question. I am not sure, I think so! We have a tour coming up this fall, I can\u2019t remember off the top of my head if Boston is on it, but you\u2019ll be hearing news about it shortly. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[Interview edited for length and clarity]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  WTBU DJ Danya Trommer chatted with Tommy Siegel, guitarist of indie pop band Jukebox the Ghost, about the band\u2019s genesis, \u201cdemo-itis,\u201d and what\u2019s in store for the future. Check out the full audio here: Danya Trommer: I\u2019m going to start out with a question about your Google Talk. \u00a0You discussed how you guys all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13221,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16],"tags":[26,134,29,449,450,25],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13221"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2590"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2594,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2590\/revisions\/2594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}