A talented multi-instrumentalist, Paul Jacobs resides on fences between genres. His recent solo work draws elements from Garage Rock, Psychedelia, Country and even Post-Punk, often rolled into an understated produced, Folky/Poppy format. No matter what the umbrella might be, the sense of melody and original song writing should win over just about any music fan. The visual aspect of his music, perfectly in synch and hand drawn by Paul himself, adds depth to the slightly distorted reality his songs evoke.
While you’ll find Paul fronting his band, playing guitar, he remains a drummer at heart, currently a member of Montréal band Pottery. His undeniable groove stands as a rock solid foundation for the Indie/Post-Punk band’s wide spectrum of influences, all converging into epic danceable jams.
Joining Paul for this interview was Meg, found on synth, percussions and back vocals duties in Paul’s eponymous band.
Paul Jacobs’ 2021 LP, Pink Dogs on Green Grass, is available through Blow The Fuse.
Pottery’s latest album, Welcome to Bobby’s Motel, is available through Partisan Records.
What have you been listening to the most listening?
Lately, I’ve been listening to no music at all. I’m getting back into recording so I’m trying to flush my brain out, I guess. But I guess when summer kicked in, we were listening to a lot of Classic Rock stuff. Listening to STEVE MILLER band again, stuff that you can sing along to and sing harmonies.
Is that a recurring theme in summertime, to go to Classic Rock?
I think it must be because it’s just a feelgood kind of thing, right? The hits that are on the radio, that’s all I wanted to hear. Stuff from when I was a kid, and I didn’t really care about music. Maybe that’s why…when you get too in depth with music, trying to find something new, it’s kind of cool to step back and listen to stuff you heard when you didn’t really care about music. It was just a background thing.
What are some of your typical go-to’s?
I guess the BYRDS. KURT VILE, I still like the new stuff. AMEN DUNES just put out a new song. I like his music, I was listening to it a lot at the beginning of the pandemic, when shit got kind of freaky. That Through Donkey Jaw album was really cool.
Otherwise, with the Classic Rock stuff, BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD I was listening to a bunch. Or just the BEATLES…the typical stuff.
So mostly 60’s stuff, over the 70’s?
Yeah, but we went right into 70’s too, though, because that’s when the vocal harmonies started. Even the cheesy stuff like the EAGLES I’ll put on. It’s more the singles I’m listening to than the albums.
What is it that catches your attention when you listen to something new? You mentioned vocal harmonies, but is that central?
That’s the hard thing, because lately I’m trying to figure out, what do I like? How is music evolving? I guess I’m liking percussion more, for right now. Just trying to find how to enjoy music without typical songwriting structures. Maybe that’s why, listening to the 70’s, that should have been the end of that kind of concept for music. Now, should it change? I don’t even know how to explain it. *Haha* I’ve been going through a weird thing, because I’ve started to write again. I was recording before I came here, so I’m kinda messed up!
Is it something that you struggle with, to keep a balance between listening to music for enjoyment, as opposed to analyzing it?
Yeah, definitely. It goes back and forth. Sometimes it gets to, I don’t want to listen to anything. I just want it to be quiet. That’s why talking about music right now is such a hard time. I think we went a whole week with listening to nothing. Like cleaning the house listening to nothing.
Meg : Yeah and then I’m like, “I’m sad. Why am I sad? Oh, yeah, I gotta put music on!” I gotta get back to that.
Yeah, it got to me during the pandemic as well, I definitely realized that it regulates my mind. The longest I spent without music, I didn’t feel right and I didn’t know why. But that was it.
Meg : Yeah, that’s what it is!
Also, earlier in the year, I was doing those animated music videos. I was working for 10 hours a day listening to music. It got to a point where, if it’s not stimulating anymore, then I got to like get rid of it. It’s like giving up a drug when it starts to not work anymore. Take a little break, get back to nature, kind of.
What would you say is the album that you’ve listened to the most in your life?
Maybe that KURT VILE, Childish Prodigy. For the past 10 years, I feel like that’s been an album that’s gotten through a lot, or else the CASS MCCOMBS’ A album. Back when you’re a kid, with music, you know how it’s like, you like a band and then, two years later, you’re like, I don’t like that music anymore. Then, I like this for two years. Then when you hit 20, I feel like things start to stick. So those are albums that I heard when I was starting to mature, and that’s stuck with me for a long time.
If we go all the way back, do you remember the first time music had an impact on you?
Yeah, I downloaded MODEST MOUSE, one song from them called A Different City. I was trying to download somebody’s skatepark from this skateboard video, and then I just got that song. It was nothing like I’ve ever heard before, ’cause it wouldn’t play on the radio, this kind of music, and it shook me up. You know, this feeling like the world is huge, there’s so much I don’t know.
So before that, music was just around, but you weren’t experiencing it?
Yes, but I think once I started skateboarding, music became more…Like, I’ve always played drums too, all my life. I’ve always listened for drums in music. But when I started skateboarding and filming and stuff, we started using music to round it up.
Skateboarding and music have a long history together, and there’s been a lot of trends over the years, say Punk Rock, Hip Hop, etc. What’s the ideal combination for you?
If you know Toy Machine, back in 2006 to 2008, that’s when they were using a lot of Modest Mouse and DINOSAUR JR. and things like that. They had that art vibe. That’s the era that impacted me. That’s where I go back to, weird animation, noisy music and then skateboarding.
Was that your go to as well when you were skating?
Yeah. I remember when the iPod came out, I’d be listening to Dinosaur Jr., Modest Mouse. I guess that’s what molded me.
I’m a big Dinosaur Jr. fan myself. What’s your favorite era?
You’re Living All Over Me. That song Kracked because they use that on the intro of this Toy Machine video. It was just really cool. With that crazy, fuzzy solo stuff, and he’s filming a light bulb. Like a psychedelic acid trip noise.
It’s great when music has a visual point of reference like that. Something really specific.
When you see something and it pumps you up too, because with skateboarding, you’re like, Oh, cool. The music’s good, and the art, and you’re motivated to go do something.
Do you have some of these moments in movies as well? Where the soundtrack takes over and elevates it.
I think that’s what makes movies good, right? The music. I probably can’t pick out an exact thing that I like…I’d have to really think about it but music is what makes movies work.
Are you into listening to soundtracks?
Not really. I’m not too into that kind of stuff. Sometimes music is really theatrical too…I don’t know how to describe it…like a Disney show or something, you’re watching Aladdin or The Lion King, that theatrical kind of singing.
Following that Modest Mouse era, what were some of your next milestone in terms of music discoveries?
Well, that whole period was Indie days with BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE and TOKYO POLICE CLUB and WOLF PARADE and all that kind of stuff. Then, I ended up getting into Death Metal and Metal a lot because I just wanted to join a band. I was playing drums more and I just wanted to join something and my buddies were playing Death Metal. That was the scene in Windsor. Everybody was going to Death Metal shows and Hardcore shows and it just what you had to do. Then I got into really fast drumming and shit, so I was only listening to heavier Death Metal.
What were some of the your favorite local bands back then?
I can’t even remember names, I don’t recall too many. DESPISED ICON was a band I liked a lot then, but they’re from Montreal. That kind of stuff, Metalcore or whatever. But I don’t know of any bands that would have came to Montreal? I don’t know anybody who went anywhere. Windsor seems like a place where people just stayed there.
After a while, it became the same show over and over and over, the same bands playing all the time. Then we’d go to places like Sarnia, or London, maybe? Other little Ontario towns. Never made it to Toronto.
Was there anything worth traveling to Detroit for, back then?
Yeah, but after 9-11, it just became such a hassle across the border. Maybe because they made passports mandatory and people didn’t have them. Everybody used to take the bus to cross the border all the time. A lot of bands would go play in the states with no work visas, but at the same time, it’s pretty risky. We would go to Detroit and watch shows, I just never played there until recently, for the first time, two years ago.
What were some of the most memorable shows that you’ve seen in your life?
Seeing KURT VILE was cool. I guess seeing anyone that you’ve listened to for a long time, and years later, you see them, it’s kind of like, “Holy shit!”
(???) was really cool to see, in 2019. Back in the day, seeing the OH SEES a lot.
Meg: It changed my life, the first time I saw that show. It was in Toronto, I think at Garrison or something like that. I’d never seen anything like it cause I was just introduced to that music and we went to the show. It was like, I entered a world. “Oh my god, this is great!”
I saw NINE INCH NAILS, that was my first concert I went to and that was pretty cool. QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE opened for them.
I like to see, even like, when we’d be walking home and it’d be a Cuban band playing outside and I always love seeing Cuban drummers, they’re so good. Just to learn those cowbell beats and stuff. That stuff always pumps me up. Actually, that’s the music I’ve been listening to mostly this year. I think from the pandemic, a lot of drummers stopped touring, right, so then they’re just stuck at home and they’re trying out different drum setups and stuff. Pushing the envelope on drumming a bit. I feel like drumming got bigger over 2020, people are doing different things.
What’s the most impressive band that you toured with? The one that you had to watch their set, night after night?
I haven’t toured with that many bands, but I guess VIAGRA BOYS were like that because they’re really tight. I actually learned a lot from the drummer of that band too, because he’d be really strict. They’re all crazy, but they’re really strict when they play the music, because they want to make it like real Techno where it’s going on a BPM perfectly. As crazy as it is, it’s really controlled, which was kind of impressive. And they really had a good energy to it. The drummer’s playing like *humming a typical VB drum pattern* constantly, so it’s like you’re at a rave or something. And the bass too *humming a riff*, it’s really good. I like that kind of stuff. That’s what I’m thinking, when I was saying earlier, getting away from song structuring, it’s just not my thing anymore, and almost trying to embrace more Electronic music, the way that it can be one thing going that is just infectious. I kind of had my doors closed to a lot of Techno stuff growing up. I’m not listening to Techno now, but I’m just that mindset of rhythm. I started listening to CAN more too over the last year and that was kind of cool. Hearing really good drumming being the focal point of an album.
When shows start again, who’s on top of your list of artists you’d like to see live?
AMEN DUNES would be cool. For right now at least, because nobody’s even been putting out music it seems. Also, DOUGIE POOLE. I was listening to him a lot recently and for some reason, even after listening to him, every morning, I wake up and one of his songs is in my head. The first thing of the day.
Meg: It’s like weird Country music almost. He’s got a song called Vaping On The Job.
He writes good lyrics too. I almost feel like he’s sold his soul to the devil and that’s why it’s sticking in my head. You know, how some of these artists that just got something, like the BEATLES or whatever, people go, “they must have sold their soul to the devil”. *Haha* I don’t know, It’s something that just goes into you.
What’s your reflex when you have something in your head like this, is it to listen to it to flush it out or to just ride it?
Something listen to it or sometimes I just end up singing it. Me and Meg, we always sing around the house. Even when we’re not listening to music, we’ll end up making a song about whatever, we’re just always making joke songs. That’s why we were listening to so much Classic Rock too because, it was like the end of the lockdown, and it would be like, get a six pack and listen to Classic Rock and try to sing any harmony you can anywhere and we kind of over did it.
Meg: Hitting the high notes on More Than A Feeling. I love doing that.
Do you have any unpopular music opinion that you’d like to defend? Stuff that you truly love, but can hardly find anyone to agree with you?
I guess TUCKER ZIMMERMAN. It feels like he doesn’t have a lot of recognition. He’s a Folk guy and I heard his music on Spotify. When I first got Spotify a few years ago, I came across a lot of unknown old artists, which was cool. F.J. MCMAHON, TED LUCAS and KENNY KNIGHT, these kind of Folky guys and they put out one album and they just didn’t make it. It seems like they got a new cult following. Tucker Zimmerman. I really liked. Nobody’s repressing his records but I think it’s really good. It inspired me a lot for writing the album I just put out, his lyrics and stuff. Pretty good composition.
Any other example that come to mind of artists that put out one fantastic release, but just stopped after that?
Maybe NICK DRAKE, but he died, right? I even feel like that happened with GENE CLARK. That No Other album was really good, and then after, it seems like he didn’t really put out an album as big as that. I kind of see that in the same way. There a bunch of bands that do that, a lot of those Indie bands did that. I feel like in the 2000’s, their one album’s great. It’s like when people go through fads. It’d be like, this album’s really cool right now, and by the time they brought their next one, it’s almost redundant. You already did that. There’s probably a ton of bands like that.
Yeah, especially around that time, it was the tail end of the last gasp of air for the music industry. Then a whole bunch of bands got dropped and it was never the same.
The commercial things ruined it. Like the band HOLY FUCK, I started listening to them again. They’re really amazing. Their one album was so huge back when it came out, and then they kept putting out more albums, but it didn’t get any attention like their first. Maybe it was because of the commercial vibe back then, I don’t know.
Is there any up and coming artists that you’d like to give a shout out to?
I don’t know…It’s not like we’ve been hanging out with anyone either.
Meg: NICK POWER’s EP is cool.
Yeah, Nick Power does cool stuff. He hasn’t done anything in a while because the pandemic. Everybody’s feeling like, “I can’t write.”
Also, another band that I wanted to see, though, that I forgot to say would be Holy Fuck, because they’re pretty dope. That last KEXP was really heavy. It was so cool, pretty inspiring.
Also, BLACK MIDI, they put out a good live stream recently. That was pretty cool to see, they’re super good.
Is that something that you got into more than usual, watching more live video and live stream?
Yeah. A lot of the music industry changed because of pandemic too. I noticed a lot of people were getting more recognition for just playing their instruments on Instagram and stuff. Artists that are more popular, for their Instagram, little loop videos. I got into a lot of the drummers doing that, they play a beat and you see them really playing, and it’s really cool. But yeah, watching full performances was pretty sweet, too. You can watch a bit, pause it, watch it later, but I was always into KEXP sessions, it’s always been there. I can’t wait to get back to the real world, play real shows.
Any final thoughts? Things you’d like to promote? Is that a solo record that you are recording right now?
Yeah, I’m doing another one. I’m not planning on putting anything out for a while, I’m just getting back into the writing motions. Trying to flip my brain over and get weird again. Starting to happen, I can feel it.
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