QRO beat the heat with Lord Jeff to catch up with the gonzo warlords of the Pioneer Valley. Sean Goggins and Orion Russell discuss (while third member Simon Thompson wandered around in the basement doing god knows what) their cross-country treks and travails, their debut album on Ecstatic Peace, the mysterious Kim Jong Chill, the Klu Klux Klan, unreleased new material, and having to pee in front of many men. QRO is thrilled to report that Lord Jeff is NOT dissolving, as the band reported on their Facebook site – just a prank, Lord Jeff marches ever onwards.
QRO: Hey guys, let’s start with a little background. Lord Jeff is a three-piece band based out of western Massachusetts (the glorious Pioneer Valley). You’ve released a self-titled debut on Ecstatic Peace and you’re currently working on new material at the moment.
Sean Goggins: We’ve all known each other since about third grade. I started playing with Simon, the current bass player, in third grade, and we started playing with Orion, the drummer, in 2001. We have played with lots of different people in the group, but it’s always been Orion and I (we also have a flautist right now, so we are a four-piece, but that changes by the week). We self-released some home recordings throughout 2004-2007-ish, while living in Los Angeles for a few years, and Boston, and Asheville, North Carolina.
QRO: LA and Asheville, really? What drew you out there? The weather? Work? Music scene?
SG: Well, first we moved to Asheville, NC for a very short time because our original bass player Mike was going to school there. We lived all three of us in a small shack, and we had to leave when the Klu Klux Klan burned a giant wooden bong on our front yard.
QRO: KKK – typical…
SG: We hightailed it to Los Angeles because we had read on a blog that it was a paradise for musicians of mediocre caliber – and we lived there quite happily until we had to come back to record the Ecstatic Peace album back in ‘08.
QRO: I read that you recorded with Justin Pizzoferrato (credits include J Mascis, Thurston Moore) – how was that experience?
SG: It was great. He is a great producer and engineer and it couldn’t have been a better experience recording with him. He did a phenomenal job with the small time we had to record.
QRO: Really, how quick did the album get recorded?
SG: 47 minutes.
QRO: That is remarkable; so you must have had pretty tight chops – no errors, no flubs.
SG:
QRO: There’s definitely a nice warmth to the album, and it’s a lot more laidback than I was expecting compared to your latest single "Spillwave".
SG: Oh yeah. "Spillwave" is sort of just meant to appeal to a specific demographic that doesn’t normally ‘get us.’ We tend to play ‘dad rock.’
QRO: Are you guys working on a new full album now? Or concentrating on smaller releases like "Spillwave"?
SG: We have several albums ready to be recorded.
We’re hoping for a benevolent benefactor to come along and invest in us. We have no plan of attack because we are constantly confused about what is hot on the internet. We want to appeal to country and hip-hop fans, because that’s where the money is and we have a lot of children to feed in the band.
QRO: Ahh, well "Spillwave" had a certain rustic quality to the production – but it worked. The money is definitely in hip-hop – which brings me to my bombshell question: ARE YOU (mysterious scourge of the Twitterwaves and controversial rapper) KIM JONG CHILL?
SG: I am not sure if I understand the question.
QRO: Playing coy, I see. OK, what about other side projects? Did I see Orion playing with Truman Peyote (QRO album review) at the Empty Bottle in Chicago?
SG: Yes you did.
Orion Russell: Yes, it was fun.
SG: Orion is a man of few words. But I know for a fact he loved every minute of playing with Truman Peyote as well as Many Mansions, which we both were and sort of still are a part of. We have several side projects going.
QRO: Was that Truman Peyote spot a one-off tour fill in thing, or have you regularly played with Truman Peyote?
OR: Just recording stuff.
SG: I’ve done several tours with Truman Peyote across America and Europe.
QRO: Tell me about the side projects.
SG: Well, we have a few secret rap projects in which we release highly offensive material under the cover of anonymity. We have a few electronic cover bands that are out there on the internet and are more popular than Lord Jeff because people like shitty music nowadays. Nowadays with the debt ceiling and all, we are just getting out there and making the money before it all goes to shit. We are investing in gold, doing smart things like that. We have off shore accounts, off shore drills, we are investing in investing – for Christ sake!
QRO: [laughs] Follow-up on the tour mentions – how was St. Louis on the Truman Peyote tour?
OR: I think of America as like the ‘90s, but today I think of it as Amerika (with a ‘k’). [The St. Louis incident, in which local law enforcement showed little hospitality over a minor infraction,] sucked. I spent 24 hours locked up in a narrow room with lots of people. They would not tell me anything.
QRO: Did you have a bed? How did you go to the bathroom?
OR: No,
QRO: [laughs] Nice. OK, slightly more serious question. Do you guys have any plans for shows in Boston, New York City, or thereabouts, in the near future?
SG: Well, we are trying to but it’s a bit difficult at the moment to leave the Pioneer Valley because everyone has jobs and Simon has a child. So we can only make it to New York and Boston on certain days, like Saturday. We have to figure out a new lineup soon so we can get back to playing shows and touring, but right now we are just chilling out and not really worrying about shows so much. We did a ton of touring the last few years and it took a lot out of me.
QRO: Right on – what were some of your favorite stops last tour?
SG: We love the southern college towns like Athens, Georgia. The best show we ever played was a house show in Eugene, Oregon with Prince Rama and Manners and the great poet Brian S. Ellis. It was unreal. People there are magical. We also love all the big cities and Chicago is probably our favorite spot to stop in. We usually give ourselves an extra week to just hang around there.
QRO: Speaking of the southern towns, I get a sort of Southern vibe from your debut album sometimes. Not sure what it is. Do you all have any big southern influences?
SG: Dirty south hip-hop is probably the biggest influence; it’s what we actually listen to. And old blues like Charlie Patton, Blind Willie McTell, stuff like that. We like some of the California ‘60s music that sounds like southern music. We love The Grateful Dead, and The Band. Those are probably the biggest influences.
QRO: Definitely hear some of the Dead in there. Does the new material build on some of the same influences? And have you sorted the material into different potential albums at this point, thematically arranged? Because I hear a kind of electronic angle sometimes, and other times a cleaner rock angle.
SG: Yes, there is definitely some organizing going on. There are lines that we will write for an electronic song and will make its way into something we play live. Lately we have been doing a lot of my progressive rock ridiculous compositions.
QRO: Would you consider doing shorter EPs with all that material? Or is the ideal a full-length LP?
SG: We like doing full LPs; that’s what I would like to do. But I am going to be releasing stuff online as much as possible over the next few months. I think we’ll be getting into the studio in August to record my more legit Lord Jeff songs. Those all sound like more classic kinds of songs. There’s a few songs that are more modern sounding, but mostly country rock kind of stuff.
QRO: That sound really fits the Pioneer Valley, which is beautiful by the way. I lived out there for a bit, went to Hampshire College for a year – how’s the heat right now?
SG: It is very hot right now. There is only one air conditioner in the house and we have it blaring with a fan in front of it and every possible door and window closed and I think we are going to die. This interview would probably be more clever and witty, but I think we are all hallucinating from heat stroke.
QRO: I think you guys interview great! It must be all the practice that you’ve been doing. [note: Google "Lord Jeff Attempts To Interview Themselves and Then Makes Comedy Skit"]
SG: Yes, we are hoping to expand into mainly a YouTube comedy act and sort of phase out the band as soon as possible.
QRO: Well, instead of the pretentious album teaser vids, you guys could do a comedy skit series.
SG: Yeah, I enjoyed filming it. Oh, please tell all the lovely people they can gchat anytime with Lord [email protected].
QRO: Sure, we’ll include a bunch of weblinks – you guys seem very active on the Interwebz.
SG: Oh yeah we are getting out there.
QRO: Anything you want to shout out?
SG: Hmmm. Yes. I am calling out Tucker from Total Slacker for a shred off, to be held at a place to-be-determined sometime in the next few months. And any other buzzbands who want to ‘come at me’ and challenge me to a shred off can ‘come at me.’ I challenge the whole word to a shred off.
QRO: Oh shit, that dude does shred, but "Spillwave" shreds pretty hard too – I’d love to see that.
SG: Yeah, he shreds pretty hard, I guess.
QRO: This sounds like a show-in-the-making; somebody call the Pelly Twins!
SG: We’ll see, yes!
QRO: Cheers guys, thanks for the time. Looking forward to the new stuff, send it QRO’s way!
Explore Lord Jeff’s parallel interwebz life at all their site (http://www.lordjeff.net/), catch them on the Twitterwaves as @lordjeffband (and possibly as @K1MJ0NGCH1LL), and follow them for internet releases of new material, including their latest gnarly lo fi shredding single "Spillwave" (http://soundcloud.com/lordjeff/spillwave).
