Published: 06:00 AM, Mon Mar 08, 2010
Listen Up: Jettison Never
The members of Jettison Never have spent a great deal of their careers touring. Yet the alternative-rock outfit from Chattanooga, Tenn., is on a mission to get more fans, especially since their latest album, "Waiting For Apparitions," is set to be released this fall.
The three-piece band is embarking on a spring tour that will include a stop at The Rock Shop on Saturday. The show also will include local acts Oakcrest, Messenger of Hope and Dreamkiller.
Josh Gilbert, the band's guitarist and lead vocalist, said concert-goers can expect to hear some of their new music.
"We'll be performing three or four songs from our new CD that we've been working on this winter," he said.
Jettison Never formed in 1998 with Gilbert, his brother and bass player, Matt, and their cousin and drummer, Ben Phillips. They took their musical cues from influencing acts like Coldplay, The Killers and Kings of Leon.
Since they formed, the band has toured nationally with acts like Mute Math, Pillar and Cool Hand Luke.
In 2006, Jettison Never released its first EP, "Eye On The Sky." The full length, "They Fall From Heaven Unassembled," followed in 2007 and the "Unassembled" EP was released the next year.
Gilbert said the band tapped into a new "supernatural" sound for its forthcoming release that may come as a pleasant shock for listeners.
Gilbert spoke with the Weekender Street Edition about Jettison Never's upcoming show, tour and musical evolution.
Weekender: The title, "Waiting For Apparitions" is a unique title for your new album. What's the story behind that?
Gilbert: It has kind of a spiritual, supernatural theme to the music. Some of it is a little bit spooky, some a little bit questionable. But it still has the same flair as our old music, and it still has the same depth and passion, except we wanted to take the themes to another more poetic, supernatural feel.
Weekender: How has the band evolved from its first album EP in 2006?
Gilbert: We've gotten a lot tighter in our performances and more effective in our writing. And we've grown a lot in our lyric writing, being more poetic and trying to make the meanings count rather than just saying what I feel. It's saying things with a little more thought.
The music is more fine-tuned, and we made it more marketable. Instead of laying down a seven-minute set of a jam session, we're trying to make things more marketable and commercial and have a broader audience.
Weekender: What inspires some of your material now?
Gilbert: I guess I draw from personal experiences like any other artist. I would say that lately I've been trying to paint more pictures through poetry than eluding to personal experiences. Most of the themes are spiritual and dealing with raw emotions and raw passions and questioning the deeper things of life than taking what's in front of you. It's more of a thinker's music than a partyier's music.
Weekender: What do you hope listeners will take from your music?
Gilbert: My hope is to connect our personal experiences and our questionable sort of spiritualism and questioning of what life is all about with them through our performances and our CDs, rather than just partying together - even though we do like to have fun. We hope they'll enjoy some of our new stuff and the new lyrical content, as well, and appreciate it for being more thought out.
Weekender: So what's up next for Jettison Never?
Gilbert: We'll release the new album in the fall quarter. Then do another big college tour, probably go across the U.S. We did that two or three times last year. But once this year is going to be good enough. Then we're on to anything else we can lay our hands on: radio play, records labels and whatever kind of things we can do to promote our music to the next level.
Want more? Visit jettisonnever.com or myspace.com/jettisonnever
Staff writer Jessica De Vault can be reached at devaultj@fayobserver.com or 609-0649.