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The Arrogants
2.2.00 Charles: Would you guys like to introduce yourself? Jayd: Go for it Janna Janna: I’m Janna Jeffrey: I’m Jeffrey Jayd: And my name is Jayd, The Arrogants. Charles: And you had no problems finding the place. Jayd: None at all, perfect Charles: And one of you is a student here. Janna: Yeah Charles: What are you studying? Janna: Liberal Studies. Charles: I wont ask you too many questions. Jayd: She’s all shy. She just came to rock. Charles: We’ll definitely get to that later on. Ummmm, the questions just faded from my mind.. Jayd: It’s all right. Jeffrey: We’ve got some questions for you. Charles: These guys have been quizzing me for twenty minutes now, about all the technical aspects. So how long has the band been together? Jayd: About two years this month. We’ve gone through a couple of line up changes, like we acquired him after a while. Janna has been there from the start as well as my brother who plays drums. Temporary bass players that come in with us for times, hopefully we’ll be ironing that out soon. Roughly two years on and off. Charles: How did you all meet, aside from being brothers. Jayd: Three of us are brothers so we’ve known each other for a bit. It was kind of a natural thing. It’s nice having brothers in a band because you can yell at each other and they’re not gonna go anywhere. Janna is like our adopted sister. She used to sing in a band called Majestic 12, they’re now called Majestic. They’re a very good local pop band. Have you heard of them? Charles: No. Jayd: We should have brought the cd. She used to sing with them and we met her through that. One day my brother John and I were messing around and put together some tunes, called her up, had her come down, and had her come down. The rest will be on VH! Some day. Charles: If you’re lucky, eh? Jayd: Yeah, Behind The Music…..yeahhh. Charles: How have things been between the point where you were just starting and now, where you’re releasing the ep. Jayd: Actually, it’s weird. Lately we’ve changed a lot. When we first started out we were really really really mellow. We would play house parties and Jeffrey wasn’t even in the band. What was it like watching us early on? Jeffrey: Early on. I’d go to the shows. Honestly. It’s my brothers, and Janna is my friend. It was really mellow….it was boring. Really boring. Jayd: There was a decent vibe, but it was too much. Charles: Especially for a house party? Jayd: Yeah. Welcome to your Friday night, we’re the Arrogants. Just destroying people. Lately we’ve gotten very big. Not in a Motley Crue big, but in a full band way. The sound is full now. It sounds good now. You can come to our shows and stay awake, don’t be too depressed or anything when you leave. The ep is a bit mellow though. Contrasting to how we sound live to the ep, we’re much bigger live. Charles: I remember seeing you at the Glass House last year. Jayd: Which show was that? Charles: It was an Indie Night. Jayd: The Café Blue night? Janna: Popscene where we had all the technical difficulties. Jayd: That was a mellow night. Charles: There were two bands that I remember from that night, you and The Lassie Foundation. Entire band: Yes, they’re great. Jayd: We’re great bands of The Lassie Foundation. We’re mellower, but we’re pulling out of it. We’ll always have a mellow, bumbed out vibe, but it’s bigger now. Even the songs on the ep sound fuller now, there’s more punch. Charles: We’ll get into some of your music later on, but for now I’d like to play some of the music that’s influenced you now and in the past. Jayd: This is , Jeffrey has especially been listening to this lately. We have a friend named Matthew in The Autumns who turned us on to this. They’re called Lift To Experience from Denton, Texas. It’s a three piece. We saw them live and it’s mind boggling. The biggest wall of sound we’ve ever heard. It makes My Bloody Valentine look like nothing. This is called “A Rise And Shine” from Lift To Experience. Music: Lift To Experience – Rise And Shine Adorable - Homeboy Charles: You’re back here on the Indie Shop. What did we just hear? Janna: Adorable Jayd: That was Adorable doing Homeboy. That’s like one of our favorite bands. Charles: That seems to be the one unknown band that everyone is influenced by. Janna: They are so good. Jayd: And before that we heard Lift To Experience from Denton, Texas. That is amazing. Charles: That was an experience. Jayd: I know you were drained, that was pretty long for you. Charles: Yeah, we usually have songs about 4 minutes in length. Jayd: For those in radio land, you have to listen to that about twenty times and you will not be able turn away. Charles: We’re gonna play something in a few minutes by you. Jayd: Do we have to? Charles: We can just play your choices all night, you have good taste. I have the cd here. Who did the cover? Jayd: To be honest none of us have ever met the guy. It was a guy that used to do some flyers for Café Bleu. He just contacted us one day and said hey I like your sound and would like to propose some art. He sent that to us and we were like, yeah that looks good! To this day we’ve never met him, he’s moved to New York. Charles: I have a link for your band page under the band links page. Do you wanna give them the link here? Jayd: I’ll spell it out. W.W.W.A.R.R.O.G.A.N.T.S.C.O.M. Charles: There’s a picture of the cd on there, it’s really great and it truly captures the sound. Jayd: We’re kinda stokes, not to brag. We’ve already sold out the first round. You can get it through distributors. Apparently it’s going fast and we don’t know whose buying it. The whole beauty of the internet, random people all over the world are buying it. Charles: Janny! Jayd: If Janny in England is listening thank you very much. I think she’s still sleeping. Charles: I think she said she would wake up early. Jayd: Hopefully she’s hanging out. Charles: I’m sure she’s bought twenty copies and is giving them away. Jayd: She is our UK distributor at the moment. Charles: Do you feel like you’re part of any scene at all? Janna: To be honest, we’ve been clumped in with the pop scene but I don’t think we have a direct sound. Jayd: To be honest, and not to sound arrogant, we really don’t care. We’re just doing our own thing Janna: We’re doing what we love. Jayd: Fortunately people give us gigs. As far as writing songs we’re not trying to be in this scene or that scene. Here’s what we do, if you’re in to it, cool, more power to you. Janna: And we seem to have been taken in by the pop crowd. Jayd: In the pop crowd there are lots of old school kids that like the shoegazer mellow vibe stuff, so it’s awesome. Jeffrey: We’ve all played in bands that try to sound a certain way. We try to sound like the Arrogants, so everybody else can go away. Jayd: The ultimate compliment we got the other day. He said “You guys have the Arrogants sound”. This one girl told us “I heard this song the other day, I don’t know who it is, but it sounded like the Arrogants”. That was cool. Charles: How would you describe the Arrogants sound? Jayd: Amazing! Jeffrey: Boring! Jayd: Depressing! Jeffrey: Overdone! Jayd: No, I don’t know. How would you describe it? Melodic. Hopefully it’s catchy and there’s a vibe there. A lot of girls like it, so there’s something going on. I have to say this real quick, this 60 year old grandma told me once “You’re just so romantic”, so I don’t know what’s up with that. Charles: If you can capture the whole spectrum of audience you would be huge. Jayd: Our grandma dances to Let You Down. Charles: Swing? Jayd: Nah, she just gets up and does her little twirl around the room. So far we’ve gotten the most random fans, so as far as being in a scene, definitely not. I have a good friend that lives in Washington DC and is a standard office worker. She’s like “every worker in my whole section listens and loves it and every pod is playing it.” These people are nuts, so. Charles: What is your goal. You’re all working, and Janna is going to school. Jeffrey: All of us have legitimate jobs and Janna is in school. As far as, we’re not trying to quote unquote make it, but if something happens cool. Personally, I don’t need another job, this is just a hobby and entertainment for me. I already have a ten hour work day and I’ll go practice and hang out at night and have a good time. All of us, regardless of what happens, just love to play and play together. It’s irrelevant if Warner Brothers comes knocking or Shelflife releases the ep. To us it’s still rocking. Jayd: The whole goal is to have people hear the music. The more people that can buy it and spread the word, whatever. I put everything up on the internet site, if you want to download and listen, as long as you’re into it, it’s cool. Charles: I wanted to ask you about that. It seems odd to me that you’re releasing an ep, yet everything is available for free on the web site. Jayd: Well, you know how it is. We’re like that ourselves. I’ll download stuff to listen to, and if I like it I’ll buy it. I believe that. If there’s people that don’t buy it, whatever, I’m not stressed about it. If people download a few songs and are into yet don’t buy it, no problem. Charles: As long as they show up to the shows? Jayd: It would be cool if we could make a living off this, but we don’t have any pretensions that’s gonna happen. Don’t get me wrong, it would be awesome if it happened. In the meantime, if we’re not looking to make cash, we just people to get into it. We’re all hard core music fans. We know how it is when you buy a cd and thing “Awww I love this”. If we can give that to someone else that’s awesome. That’s probably the ultimate goal. To have other people buzzed on our music. Janna: To make other people make us feel like others have made us feel. Charles: That must be the greatest high. Jayd: It’s awesome. It’s a trip. These guys know, now that the ep is out we’re getting these crazy e-mails. We got one from this guy in the Philippines who said he’s totally into it. We’re just this band from Orange County. The internet changes the rules and we can hook up people from everywhere. Jeffrey: The joke lately has been that these people are into it more than we are. We don’t even like it this much. I’m only joking of course. Charles: Any plans to release a full album? Jayd: Eventually we’ll release a master debut album. I think they will back me up when I say that my main goal is, when it’s all been said and done, to be able to walk away and have one good album. To look back and think we made a killer album. Like Adorable, where ten years from now people are still busting it, and they’re like “this is good”. If we can pull that off it would be awesome. Charles: Speaking of your sound why don’t we play something off the ep. We’ll play Costa Rica. Can you tell us something about the song? Jayd: We have to take our hat off to Dex or Jeffrey, his nickname is Dex, who put the embellishing touches on it. It put a really good vibe on it. Charles: This is the Indie Shop on K-Beach Radio. We’ll be right back. (Lovesick is mis-cued and starts to play) Charles: Ok, I did this two weeks ago. Was it track three or four? Jayd: Four, sorry about that. Charles: Ok, Costa Rica here. The Arrogants – Costa Rica – Your Simple Beauty ep The Autumns – Lotus Leaves – Boy With The Aluminum Stilts ep Charles: We’re back here on the Indie Shop with the Arrogants. Janna: That was The Autumns and that was Lotus Leaves. Jayd: Janna is so talkative tonight! Janna: That’s my favorite band Charles: I’m trying to get them in studio as well. Jayd: Those are our homeboys. Sorry, too much information. Charles: No problem, information is always good. Of course before that we had Costa Rica from your ep. The whole cd is great. The band is quite involved with Café Bleu and you’re on the Café Bleu cd. How did that come about? Jeffrey: Here’s the story as I recall it. We’ve been wanting to play there for sometime. I burned a cd of old demo versions of Let You Down and Nothing Good Will Ever Come Of This, both of which are available in updated versions on the cd. Jayd: The original versions are on the web site. Jeffrey: I handed a cd over to Piper or her sidekick, and months later she decided to listen to it while cleaning her house and was getting into it. She called us up and we went and played. Than we were getting calls about them wanting us for their compilations and we want to put you on Star Search… Jayd: No, we’re not into Ed McMahon at all. Jeffrey: It was a lot of fun Jayd: Pipers cool. Janna’s a regular at Café Bleu too. We used to go a lot, it’s a fun place. Charles: I had never been until a year ago, and it’s a trip to go into a club and hear music that you like other than regular club music. Jayd: I remember the first time I heard Chapterhouse and tripped out. Charles: I heard Gene, which is my favorite band, and totally tripped out to seeing people dance to them. Jayd: “I’m not alone in the world” Charles: How about touring. Any shows recently? Jayd: If anyone wants to pay for a tour of Japan. Janna: We’ve played every weekend this month. Jayd: We’ve had some invites to go up north to Northern California. As far as a monster tour, I don’t see it happening. If someone wants to finance it, cool. Charles: You might have some financing in the UK. Jayd: That would be awesome. If Janny is awake now, hello, props to you! Charles: She should be awake now, it’s about 6. Jayd: Like you’d be awake at this time? Charles: She’s getting ready for work. We talk about Janny a lot. She’s a listener in the UK and has been very kind to both the show and band. She’s kinda like a common thread. One of the reasons I’m mentioning this is that we’re going to play a band that she knows personally. This is an English band. Jayd: A quick history. This is the Trembling Blue Stars. The guy grew out of an old band from the early 90’s called The Field Mice. A really good band that, at least for me, is up there with Adorable as a core influence. This is his latest project and single. Janna: Brand new. Jayd: This is Janna’s song. Janna: It’s called Half In Love Charles: Here we go with an Arrogants pick on the Indie Shop. We’ll be right back. The Trembling Blue Stars - Red House Painters – Grace Cathedral Park Charles: We’re back on the Indie Shop with The Arrogants Janna: Grace Cathedral Park Jayd: Don’t tell me, tell the audience. Janna was actually at Grace Cathedral Park a few weeks ago. Janna: Yes I was. I went swinging on the swings in the park at five am in the pouring rain. Charles: And where is that? Janna: San Francisco: Charles: And is the band from there? Janna: Yes. Jeffrey: Anyone who loves music should buy that album. The second one from Red House Painters. It is amazing. Janna: Jeffrey does not exaggerate. Jeffrey: It’s in the top ten. Jayd: If we could recommend one album to buy it would be the one with the rollercoaster on the front by Red House Painters. Jeffrey: Tear jerker. Charles: And it wont put you to sleep? Jayd: It wont put us to sleep. Just somebody in the crowd. Charles: We’re joking about those in the AOL chat room. Janna: They say we put them to sleep. Jayd: It’s legit. Sometimes they’ll be hesitant. “Sometimes you people are mellow”. Not in person, the music. We know, not everyone is gonna get into it. Whatever. We’re not trying to please the masses, we’re just doing our thing. Charles: Which is what we have to do. Jayd: We have a lot more upbeat stuff as well, as you know. Your favorite song. Charles: Oh yeah. We’ll play that in a few seconds and segue that a bit later on. Jayd: Right on. Charles: I wanted to try and get a good feeling for what really influences you guys when you songwrite. Jeffrey: Everyone looks over here. Jayd: It’s weird, this whole concept of influences. I think all of us tend to dig moodier mellow melodies. Even a song like Lovesick is noisy in the back, but the melody is really mellow. Usually as far as making stuff up it comes at 2 or 3 in the morning and it just comes to you, pop you got something. Charles: In the shower. Jayd: Less in the shower and more lying on your bed, destitute after listening to Red House Painters. Charles: Half asleep no doubt. How do you divide up the songwriting? Does Janna do the lyrics? Janna: It started out with Jayd doing everything, but lately we’ve both been saying what we have. We both get ideas. I’ll get something and he’ll fix it. Jayd: Or I’ll start something and sit on it for 6 months and Janna will be… Janna: Sit down, we’re finishing this today. Jayd: For the most part we than show it to the rest of the band. Everything starts on guitar and voice. If it sounds cool there than wok, let’s give it to the rest of the band. Honestly Dex has the best job, as his whole job is to embellish, fill in the cracks and take it over the top. Janna: He plays keyboards. Jeffrey: I love it. Synthesizer, organ and stuff. It’s awesome Charles: We’ll hear about that in a little bit. Jayd: The guy with all the random instruments. Than as far as bass and drummer they throw down the backbeat. They’re the ones who give it a little lift. Charles: How personal do you feel about the music as a personal expression? Jayd: That’s always a weird question, because we’re all into it. But I’m not offended if people make fun of it. You see some musicians and they take it too seriously. I can divorce myself from the music and step back and think “ehhh, it’s good, whatever”. Janna: You can look at it critically. Jayd: Yeah. Totally. I realize that sometimes if I’m not in the mood its just ok, but other times it fits the mood and I’m into it. Matthew said this one time. He said we weren’t trying to be anything, just write music that we want to hear. The music sounds pure and is straight from the heart. Jeffrey: If I can interject. On the level. It’s such a personal expression that if people as how are you or how you feel I’ll bust into song and actually sing one of the songs because it will express myself better. Jayd: Honestly, this guy jokes around with it. He’ll tell people that we’re a girlie band and sell wussie songs. But when we play live…. Janna: He’s the most into it of all of us. Jayd: We have pictures on the web site capturing his facial expressions. It’s like, dude what is going on with you????? He’s just into it. Charles: It must be that inner perfectionist Jayd: All of us are hard core perfectionists. All of us have really good ears. When we recorded the ep we know what it needed and what was lacking. Even though we’re not technically great musicians we have good ears. That’s what we bring to the table, first and foremost. Charles: That really shows in your music. You can do a lot of loud punk like music and get away with imperfections. And they may even be a part of it. But with moodier atmospheric music you have to be able to string the moods together. Jayd: You can’t fake the vibe. Charles: Gotta have the love. Speaking of love. Jayd: There you go, the segue way! And being sick there of. Charles: We’re gonna play another track from the Your Simple Beauty ep. This is Lovesick , my personal version. I’ve been listening to this for about six months. It was available on your web page. Jayd: Have you heard the mellow version on the end of the ep? It’s an acoustic mellow version. Janna: It’s a lot sadder? Charles: How personal are the lyrics to this song? Janna: I don’t know. Jayd: I don’t know. Everyone looks at me. Honestly, I woke up one New Years morning about three years ago and had the tune in my head and sat down and wrote the lyrics. They’re not directly person and probably pulled from something. If you listen to the chorus you miss the feeling of being in love. Life is a little more exciting if you’re stoked on someone. That’s the whole point of the song. Jeffrey: It sounds so corny! Charles: Maybe we should just play the acoustic one. Janna: The track isn’t listed on there but it’s track 8. Charles: We’ll go with the acoustic version, and after the next few songs well have an acoustic performance. So stick around. The Arrogants – Lovesick (acoustic) – Your Simple Beauty You’re listening to the Indie Shop with The Arrogants. They’re about to perform live for us Janna: This is Nothing Good Will Ever Come Of This which can be found on the ep and also on the Shelflife compilation You Can Make Me Smile. Jayd: This features Jeffrey on Melodica. Charles: It’s all yours. In studio performance: The Arrogants - Nothing Good Will Ever Come Of This (live acoustic in studio) Charles: That’s beautiful. I feel so happy now. Jayd: that’s kinda our feel good number, or feel horrible number. Janna: This next song is a little more upbeat. It’s called Sometimes I Think About You. Jayd: You’ll like this one Charles, it’s the pop number. Charles: Ahhh, ok. Let’s get the tapes rolling. In studio performance: The Arrogants – Sometimes I Think About You (live acoustic in studio) Jayd: That should have been a little faster. Janna: That’s the slow version of our poppy song. Charles: You can go on for an hour if you want. I’m enjoying this. Janna: This is a new song. Jayd: We’ve never tried this with just acoustic and voice. Janna: This is an interesting version of it Jayd: This is the one that, when we play it live, everyone is awed. Janna: It’s called Anthony and Cleopatra. Jayd: Here it goes. Janna: Jayd wait.Look at me for when I’m supposed to come in. Janna: Like we said, we’ve never practiced this. In studio performance: The Arrogants – Anthony and Cleopatra (live acoustic in studio) Jayd: That’s totally different from when we play live. Charles: How so? Jayd: Everything is laid out and delayed. It’s good, I wish I had the real one to play. Charles: I’ll have to see you again soon. When is your next show? Janna: We don’t have one. Charles: Ahhhh Jayd: We don’t have one planned. Jayd: Should we try to bust Future Classic or not? Jeffrey: Yeah lets do it. Janna: Can we don done more? Charles: Yes, please. Jayd: this is another brand new one, so we’re not even sure how to play it. In studio performance: The Arrogants – Future Classic (live acoustic in studio) Jayd: That sounded ok. Charles: That was your first time? Jayd: We played it live a few times, but it’s brand new. The first time we’ve played it like that Charles: That’s nice. I’ll assume your lp will be out within a week. Janna: We have so many songs Jayd: The ep is mostly old songs. Janna: We have a lot of new songs. Charles: I’ll have to check you out soon. The band: Thanks for having us in. Charles: It’s my pleasure. Janna: We could play all night. Jayd: You’ll have to turn the mics off! Charles: I’ll have to have you back again. And when you have another show let me know and I’ll pass it on. Jayd: Check the web site for info on the cd and shows. Charles: There’s also a link on the band links page. To finish things off I thought I would play something from the Shack cd. Jayd: Yeah, I wanna hear this. Janny highly recommends this, saying it has a good Arthur Lee vibe. I wanna hear it. Charles: This is number 5, Lends some dough. Thanks again for coming by, it’s been sweet. Shack – Lends Some Dough – H.M.S. Fable The author reserves all rights for the above interview. Please notify me with any intentions or desires to re-broadcast the above in any manner.
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