nl: Why don't we get the basics done first. Who plays what, and give a little bit of band history.

j: I'm Joe and I play guitar. Araby plays the bass.

a: That would be me. We both sing.

j: Chris, who is not here, plays the drums.

a: We started playing together in Boston about two and a half years ago and then moved here (San Diego).

nl: That was my next question. Why did you guys pick up and move cross country as a band...especially to San Diego?

j: Well, the situation was that when we met each other, we were all going to college in Boston. We all went to the same music school out there. We didn't really know what was happening for us as a band, so I came back to San Diego for the summer. Everyone else did their own things over the summer, and I found out that summer that I wasn't going to go back to Boston. We wanted to keep our band together so...Araby had been down with a lot of the San Diego music scene and so had Chris. We figured that San Diego would be a cool place to stay for awhile.

nl: So you're from San Diego?

j: Yeah.

nl: So why did you decide to go to school in Boston?

j: Well, I got accepted to a really good music school out there. I guess it's one of the best music schools. Araby graduated from there.

nl: Did you all graduate?

a: No. Chris and Joe stopped going. They weren't doing exactly what they wanted, so it wasn't offering them as much as the band was.

j: Yeah. To be in a band and to go on tour. Just to able to fuck around and have fun all day. (laughter)

nl: Do you think you fit in with the San Diego music scene?

j: I don't think we fit in at all.

nl: Neither do I. That's why I asked.

a: I don't think we do either.

j: It's only because we really haven't done any all ages shows here. We've done them in Santa Ana and Huntington Beach, and they all kicked ass.

a: We've played in Arizona a lot too. We're really well accepted there. A lot of the kids like us.

j: Yeah, the crowds are always super nice to us there.

a: We just haven't hit that scene here yet.

nl: How long have you lived in San Diego as a band?

a: Since January.

j: Yeah, going on a year.

nl: Cool. Okay...why the name Jejune? Is it "jay-june" or "juh-june"?

a: It's "jay-june".

nl: It seems everyone either has the name June or Jazz in their name...or both. I don't know if that meant anything to you.

a: Yeah. We played with the Jazz June in Elkton. (laughter). We were all joking around and saying stuff before the show like `Okay, who had the name first?' (laughter)

j: The Elkton, MD show was really crazy. We had this big volleyball game with the Get Up Kids, Mineral, and us. It was a huge volleyball tournament. Lots of screaming...blood was spilt. (laughter)

nl: So who won?

j: I did. (laughter)

a: Yeah, Joe. It came down to just Joe.

nl: So why the name Jejune?

j: Well, it's in the dictionary. It's a real word. There are three definitions to it. The first is `lacking significance', the second is `lacking maturity', and the third is `lacking nutritive elements'.

nl: So how did you come up with that name?

a: Joe was just thumbing through the dictionary, and it just happened.

nl: Do you think it's relevant to the band?

j: Yeah, it's snappy. (laughter)

a: Yeah. We just like the way it rolled off our tongue.

j: I like the definition a lot.

nl: How did your last tour with the Get Up Kids and Mineral go?

a: Fucking awesome. It went really really well. Tons of fun. We got back and I walked in the door and sat down on the couch and was like, `Okay, everyone back in the van. Let's go.' (laughter) I didn't want to be home yet. I wanted to go back out. It was too fun.

nl: How long were you out for?

a: About a month. We covered the whole east coast, down into south Florida, and the south, and Texas. All the shows went really well. I think a lot of it was being on tour with two other bands that had real cool people [in them]. We got to be real good friends with them, so no matter where we were, or even if the show was shitty, we still had a great time, because there were thirteen of us who were always itching to get into trouble. Do fun stuff.

nl: Was it hard to find places to stay with thirteen people?

a: It was really funny. Kids would come up to one of us in any of the three bands and ask if we needed a place to stay. Immediately the person would be like, `Yeah, cool. There is thirteen of us. Is that okay?' (laughter)

j: The only place we ran into trouble was in Chattanooga, TN. It was a total Christian town...nothing but Christian kids there. We told them that we needed a place to stay and one of the kids suggested that we needed to find a different place for Araby to stay.

a: Yeah! They told Scott, the guitarist for Mineral, that they could find us places to stay and then said, `Oh, by the way, are there any girls with you on tour?' Scott said `Yeah, there's one, Araby.' They were like, `Oh, okay. We need to know that for accommodations.' I was thinking great, all the guys will be staying in the monastery and I'll be sent to the convent. This is cool. (laughter) It ended up being okay though.

j: Yeah. It turned out to be really cool. We got to play on a sidewalk by this busy street. There were cops there too, but they were just chillin'.

nl: They didn't care?

a: No. They suggested it. They set it all up. It was pretty cool.

nl: So was that your first sidewalk performance?

a: Yeah. Our first. It was pretty cool, because it actually sounded pretty good.

nl: What would you say your influences are, either personally, or as a band?

a: My biggest influences right now, or at least the stuff that I listen to a lot and get inspired by, are actually just my friend's bands. There is a band from Boston called "The Wicked Farleys." I really think that they're doing great stuff. It encourages me that friends of mine are doing great things with music.

j: I'd say we are influenced by pop and punk.

nl: Oh those bands, huh?

j: Yeah! (laughter)

a: Classical...heavy classical stuff. And crazy old stuff like Falco. (laughter)

nl: Oh yeah. Falco is always a favorite.

a: Definitely.

nl: So how did you get hooked up with Big Wheel Recreation and Rama?

a: Rama was good friends with Chris, since I guess they knew each other from work. They were hanging out and got to be good friends. Rama started inquiring about our band, and since we hadn't played out, we just played him a little tape. He even set up our first show, which got the ball rolling. We ended up doing a small tour with the Promise Ring after doing our first show with them. Rama just listened to the tape and really liked our stuff a lot. I was working at a recording studio at the time, so we got all of our early work recorded real quickly. Rama just asked if we wanted to do a record with his label, and we were a little sketchy about it, because at the time it was a real super Boston hardcore label. He had 10 Yard Fight, 454 Big Block, and that type of stuff, but he was a really good guy and a good friend of ours, so we said what the hell, and it ended up probably being one of the smartest things we've ever done. He works his ass off for us. He's the coolest guy and he's just helped us out so much. It's been great working with him.

j: And I was going out with his mom. (laughter)

a: Yeah, that too.

nl: So do you plan on staying with him, since I assume you're going to do another album?

j: We're going to be rockstars. (laughter)

a: And we're going to bring Rama with us.

j: We're going to get a plane, and Rama is going to be the pilot. We'll just go places and fly around. He'll be serving us drinks and renting us videos.

a: And peanut butter will be our mascot. (laughter)

j: We'll trash hotel rooms and eventually some big rumor will get out about some horrible scandal.

a: Ooh ouch! (laughter) That's terrible.

j: What are you talking about? That's the kind of shit that happens when you get "there".

a: Rumors.

nl: Believe me. I know all about rumors.

a: That's why we start our own gossip.

nl: Okay. If you had to start one rumor about yourselves right now, what would it be?

j: Araby's cheap and easy. (laughter)

a: Oh come on. You know that's not a rumor. Wait a minute...

j: Um...(long pause followed by laughter) You can't think of good rumors about yourself. That defeats the whole purpose. I hate gossip of any kind. If anyone reading this interview has ever said anything about me, I hate you. (laughter)

nl: Okay. What have you guys released so far?

a: We've got the full length out on Big Wheel, we did a split 7" with Garden Variety, and then we've done a couple of songs for comps. We were on the Second Nature comp and the Extent zine comp. Also the Deep Elm comp which actually turned out cool. It was wierd at the time and we were kind of worried about it.

nl: I was a little leery of its name when I heard it.

a: Yeah, that whole "Emo Diaries" thing, but everywhere we've been kids have been real excited to hear it and they've asked us about it.

nl: Are all the songs on the comps unreleased material?

a: Yeah. They're all different songs. And then we just recently finished up that split 7" with Jimmy Eat World.

nl: Who was responsible for the layout of the LP?

j: Pretty much all Rama and Dicky Cummings.

nl: Why didn't you put lyrics or anything in there?

a: Probably because you didn't get the insert. I should say that right now just so people who read this know. They were supposed to put this insert in the CD that was an actual blueprint with all the lyrics, credits, and the rest of the stuff you'd expect to see in a CD. When they sent the inserts to the pressing plant, they forgot to put them in, because they thought it was a catalog or something. Rama had to send them back to Lumberjack to get them redone. The ones we took on tour, we had the inserts with us, but a lot of the time kids were buying stuff so fast, we couldn't keep track of who had one and who didn't. A lot of the kids probably got the CD, but not the insert that went with it.

nl: I didn't get the insert then.

a: You can get it from Rama at the Big Wheel address.

j: No one's worthy of knowing my real lyrics anyway. (laughter)

nl: There's that rockstar coming out.

j: What are you talking about? That's more punk! (laughter)

nl: So what other tours have you guys gone on besides this last big one?

a: We went to the east coast and back in June. It didn't go as well as this last one did. We were by ourselves and we were doing the whole thing by ourselves. It was our first real extensive tour, so it was hard to get really good shows.

j: We got to play with the Trans Megetti and Rye Coalition.

a: Yeah, that was fun. We got a bunch of good shows, but it got cut short, because the van we were in blew up and we had to go back to San Diego and rent another one. It ended up being fun, and we all had a good time.

j: We played with Joan of Arc for a bunch of shows. We played with Jason from Christie Front Drive's new band called Blue Ontario. Amazing.

nl: There is that other band called Antarctica that...

j: Yeah! Eric Richter's new band. That guy is just the man. He's just too impressive.

nl: Why the nautical theme for the album?

a: You mean the junk thing? I don't know. At the time we came up with the layout and the ideas for design, I was still in Boston working with Rama on the whole thing, and Chris and Joe were back in California. We spent a lot of time on the phone, but a lot of it was just me, Josh Hooten [the guy who designed it], and Rama sitting around bouncing ideas off each other. For some reason we were talking about boats and I didn't want to do a straight out boat thing, but then the Chinese junk thing came up. I think it came up because Rama and I had the idea to do the blueprint thing, either a machine or something else. I said that a blueprint of a boat would be cool. And so it just happened from there.

nl: Do you want to explain exactly what a Chinese junk is?

a: It's a boat...a Chinese boat with sails. It's shape is...uh...

j: It goes on the water and when you get in it, you can go across the water without sinking.

a: Yeah. There is a lot of water near the Orient.

nl: So it's one of those things that floats?

a: Yeah! You can steer it where you want to go. It's a lot like our band.

nl: Does "junk" have more than one meaning, or is that it?

j: It's also Araby's excessive heroin usage. (laughter)

a: It's also how we feel about the CD now.

nl: Are you not satisfied with the CD?

a: Well, we love the stuff, but it's just the first songs we wrote.

j: It's a product of a limited amount of time in the studio.

a: Yeah. Who is going to be completely satisfied with their first songs?

nl: Yeah, true. Let's talk about song lyrics. I don't know them, nor the names of the songs, because I wasn't lucky enough to get an insert, but let's talk about track 2.

j: Greyscale. Everybodys favorite.

nl: You say something about `give me back my records'? What's going on there?

a: I don't know. I was just pissed off.

j: My lyrics are pretty simple for that song. `Gray is the world for me.' That's pretty explanatory right there.

a: It's one of those pissed off songs.

nl: Was there any specific person you wrote it about?

a: Not at the time. It was a combination of a few people, all smushed together, making one really terrible thing that I wanted to yell about.

nl: Do you think it came off well?

a: Yeah. When you still think about the original thing that you wrote about in the first place when you're singing it for the 20 zillionth time on tour, I think it's pretty successful. Every time I sing the damn thing, I think about it, so I'm pretty happy with it.

nl: How about Hialeah, the song on the Emo Diaries comp?

a: That was the song I wrote in Texas. It's the name of a street in Texas and...that's really wierd. We also have another song that's the name of a street, and it's the same idea behind the lyrics too, but you can figure that out. I was in Texas and was in a situation that left me...

j: Dumped.

a: I wasn't dumped! Okay, well I was kind of dumped, which sucks.

nl: So you wrote it about the street?

a: No, I was walking and I looked up and saw the street name. I thought it was a really cool name, and I was thinking about writing the lyrics anyway, so I just called it that.

nl: Was the song strictly about being dumped?

a: It was about being dumped and how sucky it felt sitting in my car looking at the guys house across the street.

j: Just overall suckiness.

a: I hate being dumped.

j: I didn't even know. I was just guessing.

nl: The truth comes out. (laughter) What do you think the hardest thing about being musicians is?

a: Getting back and not having a job.

j: Shitty interviews. (laughter)

nl: Thanks.

j: I'm kidding. You're great.

a: Probably the stress of worrying about money. I hate it.

j: Yeah, that's the worst.

a: We're doing what we love to do, and it sucks that worrying about money has to go along with it.

nl: Did all of you quit your jobs when you went out on tour?

a: No. Chris and Joe have this really cool job where their bosses are awesome and give them their jobs back after tour. They're pretty much set. I didn't really quit, but I don't have a position like I used to.

nl: Do you think Jejune, as a whole, gets stereotypically lumped into that female singer category?

a: No. Actually I don't think we've gotten lumped at all. The only two instances I've heard of something like that were two reviews we got in a couple of zines. One said we sounded like Junction, and the other said we sounded like Pohgoh. Those were the only two instances where I felt like they were lumping us in, since I had never heard of either of those bands.

j: It would really piss me off too, because it shows that people aren't really paying attention to the music.

a: Yeah! Exactly. They look up and see me and think `Ah, girl band'. It sucks, because since I've heard those bands, I don't think we sound like either one of them. I can't even think of a girl band that we sound like that has the same line up as we do. I have a hard enough time trying to explain to people what we do sound like.

nl: So what do you say you sound like?

j: Guitar rock.

a: I have no idea what to call us or what we sound like.

j: Please please just call us emo-pop.

a: Or emo-core. Could we get called that one more time? (laughter)

nl: I can have it arranged.

a: Yeah! Cool. (laughter)

nl: What were your worst experiences on tour?

a: I think getting sick. I was deathly ill from Boston to North Carolina. I felt like I was going to die, which pretty much sucked. Other than that, I thought the whole trip was rad. There wasn't one bad experience.

nl: What about the best experience?

j: The best experience for me was just getting to know the Get Up Kids and Mineral. When you put kids together that are so creative and brilliant...I was just proud to be in those ranks.

a: Yeah. Just hanging out with them everyday. We got to be a unit, and nothing would break that up. It was like a touring family.

nl: Was it sad when it ended?

a: Yeah. We played our last show with them in Denton, TX, which was a story in itself. It was crazy.

nl: You can elaborate on that if you want to.

a: Well, we were in Austin kicking it with the guys from Mineral. The Get Up Kids had supposedly set this whole thing up with these two girls that had set up the show, who they had met in Columbus. I don't know the full details, so I won't elaborate on that, because I'd probably get it wrong and I don't want to be the starter of some big rumor. Anyway, there were these two girls that set up the show and they gave us directions to their house.

j: We kept asking why we needed to go to their house. We just wanted directions to the show. And she said (Joe's voice gets real high) `I just think it's a better idea that you guys come here.' We told her that we didn't understand why we needed to go there first, since we were already running late. So we get to her apartment building, which is out in the middle of fucking nowhere. It was completely out of the way from a direct route to the show. You'd think that once we got there, there would be a reason that we had to come all the way out there, but no. They come out and get in their cars and say `Let's go.' So we leave. We went out on this mission to find this place.

a: They were totally lost. We were driving up and down the same street in Denton like twenty times.

j: Then they took us down a one way street the wrong way, so we pulled over and they kept going.

a: It was just ridiculous. We were driving around Denton for a good hour trying to find this place.

j: Matt from the Get Up Kids and I looked at each other and said that if we pulled over one more time, we were just going to cut out on them. (laughter) Meet at the closest Denny's.

a: Then we finally get to the show and the kids were like `What the hell?' We just pointed to the two girls and said go talk to them. It all turned out okay and the show was good. After, we all just took off and it kind of sucked. It was pretty lame.

j: It's not like we're going to stop touring though. That's the cool thing about it. You make friends all over the nation. I can go see Chris from Mineral in NYC once he moves there.

nl: Are there any humorous stories, other than the Denton experience, that have happened to you guys?

j: Cedar City, UT.

a: Oh God.

j: The first time we took off out of San Diego for our first tour, our van blows up in this shithole town. So we're broken down on the side of the road and Chris and I go hike to find a gas station. We find one and this dude tells us who the only 24 hour towing company is. So we call them and they cruise out. And this guy, he was so scary...

a: Like 500 pounds.

j: Massive. His gullet was hanging out of his shirt. He looked like Leatherface's uncle or something. (laughter) Anyway, this guy helps us out and takes us back to where he works with his dad and his brother. The thing is that they all looked the same. They all looked like Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, (laughter) except his dad had this crazy ZZ Top beard that went down to his knees. Anyway, these guys ran this place and then there is this other guy that worked there named BoBo. Now BoBo was a little slow, if you know what I mean. He was a little on the...

a: Gypped at birth side. (laughter)

j: So when BoBo wasn't doing what these guys were telling him to do, like emptying the trash, he would get on his bike and ride in circles. Anyway, he was a musical genius.

a: Yeah. He would sit there and sing all of the keyboard parts to the Doors solos and Led Zeppelin songs. He used to play in a cover band I guess. Then he came over and gave us ice pops. After that he said `Yeah, I wrote this song when I was hiking in the Grand Canyon and I ran out of water. I made this song up to sing to God so He wouldn't let me die.' So he starts singing this song as he's walking around. After he's done, he says (Araby busts out some crazy Utah drawl) `You guys can use that song as one of your if you want to.' It was amazing. He was the coolest guy.

nl: So which song is that of yours? (laughter)

a: We haven't used it yet. We're waiting for something special. Call it "Tribute to BoBo".

j: "BoBo's plea to God". (laughter) "The Salvation of BoBo".

a: We actually got saved by Rick from Jimmy Eat World. He drove ten hours up to Utah to get us and all of our stuff. We ended up leaving the van there. He drove us down to Arizona and then back to San Diego too. He's the man. A huge thank you out to him.

nl: Yeah, they're all really nice guys. Okay, last question. If you could relive one moment in your life, what would it be?

j: Probably the only time I ever cheated on my girlfriend.

a: Ooh man. I don't know what I'd do. I'm pretty happy with everything I've done, bad and good. I wouldn't change anything. I don't regret anything that I've done.

nl: How about reliving it as something good that happened?

a: Gee...that's tough. I think I'd go back and play our first show again with the Promise Ring. That was cool, our first show ever.

j: I'd go back to the womb. (laughter) That fucking rocked. I'd just stay there and never come out.

nl: Good answer. Any last comments?

j: Yeah. Don't talk shit about bands, especially if you're not in one.

nl: So it's okay if you're in one?

j: Well...no, but... (laughter)

a: The wrath comes back and it's not worth it. Everyone is doing something for a reason, and obviously if their reason is good enough for them, it should be good enough for you too. Don't dog it.

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