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Punk rock used to be simple - music for kids, by kids, written in bedrooms, performed in basements and VFW Halls. Grownups were pretty much left out of the equation. Then along came Green Day and all of a sudden, you could hear punk rock on the radio and watch it on MTV, sandwiched in between Pearl Jam and Dave Mathews. All the old definitions flew out the window, and for a while, it started to seem as if punk rock didn't really stand for anything anymore.
But don't try telling that to Less Than Jake.
One quick listen to Hello Rockview, LTJ's fifth album (and second for Capitol), and you'll know that punk rock still means something to these guys. You can feel the energy and passion exploding from the instantly memorable melodies, aggro guitars and punchy horns, yelping vocals, and ska-inflected rhythms. This isn't background muzak for bong parties, or headphone listening for the chronically sullen; it's rock 'n' roll that kicks you in the seat of the pants and makes you want to dance around your bedroom like a giddy seventh grader in the thralls of his first big crush.
But there's a lot more to being punk rock these days than a few jerky ska riffs and a catchy chorus here and there. Punk rock means caring about the kids who dig your music, the kind of caring that comes from spending years on the road in an overcrowded van, eating Taco Bell for breakfast and hoping the money from last night's show buys enough gas to get you to the next town. It means keeping the door prices low and your merchandise affordable, and putting on a whale of a show every single night, regardless of whether it's in an outdoor arena before tens of thousands of screaming fans or in a club so small that the first row of kids threatens to topple the mike stands.
"I've never really thought of Less Than Jake as a political band," says drummer Vinnie. "But in the last year, we've started to swing that way, especially playing on the Ska Against Racism Tour and working with the ARA (Anti-Racist Action), and it's all an extension of how we run things in the band - making sure the shows are always all-ages and making sure the t-shirts and door are low-price. It's not like we set out to be champions of this or that, it's just kind of turned out that way."
That concern is reflected in the more mature and reflective lyrics to Hello Rockview, which knowingly explore the emotional turmoil of adolescence, that special, once-in-a-lifetime underworld of illicit cigarettes and endless confusion, raging hormones and broken hearts. It's no wonder Less Than Jake inspires such rabid devotion in its fans, just as it's easy to understand why each performance erupts into a fevered singalong. This music is fun, but it's more than that. It touches its audience in a way that other pop-punk bands, with their throwaway anthems to cars and girls, can't.
Vinnie, guitarist/vocalist Chris, and bassist Roger founded Less Than Jake in 1992 as a pop-punk trio in their hometown of Gainesville, Florida, and added the horn section about six months later. A relentless touring schedule - the band averages eight or nine months a year on the road - and a slew of indie-label and DIY releases quickly established the group as a favorite in the exploding ska-punk underground, allowing Less Than Jake to graduate from hall and basement shows to larger venues, and eventually capture the attention of Capitol Records.
LTJ's obsession with punk's grassroots, Do It Yourself ethic - the band still books its own tours, produces its records, and designs its own merchandise - might seem in direct contradiction to its association with Capitol. After all, to many punk-rock purists, "major label punk band" remains an unresolvable oxymoron. But Less Than Jake doesn't see it that way.
The Capitol deal affords Less Than Jake the benefits of major label distribution and marketing for new albums, but leaves the band free to release as many independent-label singles and compilation tracks as it wants. That's important, because LTJ has always been unusually prolific - in the band's six-year existence, it has been featured on over 50 different releases, from DIY 7-inches to international compilations.
1998 found Less Than Jake as busy as ever, ceaselessly touring behind 1997's Capitol debut Losing Streak, including a headlining spot on the headline-making Ska Against Racism tour and a stint on the summer's Vans Warped Tour. The band returned to its homebase in Gainesville just long enough to record Hello Rockview.
But even with that kick-ass horn section, which includes Buddy (trombone), Derron (bari sax) and newest member, Pete, who takes over for Jessica, don't make the mistake of lumping Less Than Jake in with the small army of ska-punk pretenders littering the CD bins these days. Hello Rockview enlarges LTJ's punchy groove with pop and punk and even a little metal. "I think we stand out because we come from a rock and roll background," stresses Chris. "I didn't grow up listening to ska, and neither did Roger or Vinnie. And you can hear that. It's not like we've reinvented the wheel, but we're a lot more than just a ska band. I learned to play guitar jamming to Green Day, 7 Seconds, Screeching Weasel, Dag Nasty, Down By Law, Descendents... that's where our heads were at. Then Vinnie came to me one day with a Specials record, and we started throwing some ska strokes into the mix."
And the rest, as they say, is history. Punk rock history.
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Albums
| Year | Label | Title | |
| 1993 | Asian Man Records | Pez-Core | |
| 1994 | No Idea | Losers, Kings & Things We Don't Understand | |
| 1995 | No Idea | Greased | |
| 1996 | Capitol/EMI Records | Losing Streak | |
| 1998 | Capitol/EMI Records | Hello Rockview | |
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