RR: Let’s look at that angle. What is the difference between writing with the Jackmormons and writing with the musicians in Stockholm?

JJ: I’ve been in the Jackmormons for 15 years. It’s pretty apparent. Me and Wally Ingram did a record a while ago [ Civility ], and then we got back together to write songs and we would sort of finish songs and say, “This is going on the Jackmormons’ record.” It was clear. (laughs) With Dave, at least from him, I’m much more into being edited, his take, and I’m concerned about his reaction—at least lyrically, which usually I could give a fuck what someone thinks. (laughs)

There’s a bunch of differences. For one, those guys in Stockholm are very interested in their positions in the musical community as players. They want to know if their guitar solo or their keyboard stuff is going to be on it, which is about 180 degrees from where I’m coming from. (laughs) So I have to think about that—“O.K., so, we’re going to make this record, and these guys are going to play the fuck all over it. How do we get it so it doesn’t sound like that?” Because the last thing that I’m trying to do is put some kind of musical…I’m not writing a canvas for your solo aspirations. (laughter)

Given that, I think we have to think about that when we’re writing songs. That’s a pretty major thing because you want to make sure, at the same time, that everybody’s voice is heard. I think we think about that a lot. I know Dave thinks about that far more because he’s always been one of the musicians as opposed to the lyricist, so he’s coming from this very different place than I am. Panic writes songs as a group; everybody has a sixth share in the songwriting. When I started working with Dave, I was like “there’s no fucking way I’m giving the goddamn bongo player a sixth share.” (laughter) You know—no disrespect to Sunny [Panic percussionist, Domingo Ortiz].

RR: Yeah, man. I know what you mean.

JJ: It’s a very different thing. It’s writing for a new group of people, it’s writing for a group of highly-charged egos, and through all of that, I’ve got as big an ego as anyone, but I don’t know if I’m worried about getting my voice across as much as I’m worried about getting something that doesn’t sound like a bunch of guys jamming and wanking in a fuckin’ room, and then, some guy came in and threw words over the top of it. However, I can do that, so, hopefully, it’s going back to the song and it starts with the song. Dave and I have a lot of similar musical tastes. He’s pretty good at going, “Well, you’re straying from it here.” It’s collaborative and I think that stuff is difficult to do. It’s hard to do collaborations and have everyone be happy. It’s like open marriages. Somebody’s getting laid a lot and the other person is home crying. (laughter) You have to be a little more cautious, you know?

RR: What were the circumstances surrounding that recording with Wally Ingram for what would become Civility? A few songs were picked up by the Jackmormons?

JJ: Wally was trying to get me out of the house in San Diego. My dad had just died, and it was all that kind of post-funeral drama. [ Civility ] came together really quickly. We’re making another record here in the next few months, and we also started writing for that. Of the four songs that we wrote for that, I just recorded three of them for the Jackmormons. (laughs) Wally’s actually coming up to play on those songs.

RR: Returning to Apollo, I wanted to talk about the lyrics for “That Which is Coming.” For whatever reason, last year, I was obsessed with the phrase whatever happened, happened – one cannot change events in the past. When I heard that song with those lyrics on Apollo, I thought, “The past is in a fixed spot, and, now, the future is in a fixed spot, too?” Where does free will come in to play in that equation?

JJ: That song comes directly, not a single word has been changed, from the Koran [Surah 56]. I figured Allah wouldn’t sue me. When it says things like “damned will be those on the left,” every so often people will be like “When did Jerry turn into a fuckin’ right wing reactionary?” (laughter) It’s the left hand side of God. There’s not a single word that has been altered, and I looked at a number of translations when I was doing it. Like the Bible—it depends on who was doing the translation—sometimes, the words fluctuate a little bit differently, but the one that I was leaning on is called That Which is Coming.

This was a while ago, I was on the first Stockholm tour and I was in a bunch of political heat anyways, and I thought, “It would be really awesome to get a thousand people to sing along with the Koran.” (laughter) Which, at times, they were all doing, and that was cool. But, it is; it’s kind of the opposite of what’s happened, happened. What’s coming’s coming, and here it comes.

RR: You also co-wrote a song called “Red Lightning” with Eric McFadden.

JJ: We were stuck in Charlotte, North Carolina. Eric and I were probably butting heads the most in the early Stockholm stuff. I think the thing that Eric and I had in common was that we were the two guys that weren’t in a big, huge famous band at that time. (laughs) That song was like a way of working out our differences. You’re sitting in a room, and, well, let’s write a song. I’m a big writer of titles. I have titles and I tend to write the song around the title. We had the title sitting there and off we went, which would bode well for more of that; we’re just rarely in the same room unless we’re on tour with Stockholm.

RR: There’s a beautiful friction on that song, but I can hear friction being used to good effect throughout Apollo. Speaking of…you wrote the title track for the album.

JJ: I wrote “Apollo” at my apartment in Harlem. I lived around the corner from the Apollo, and my health was probably not that great. (laughs) You know…I was roaming around Harlem at 4 in the morning. My wife was upstate, and I was just writing songs in New York, which I didn’t do very much in our little apartment. The Apollo was literally around the corner from me. I was on 127th and Apollo’s on 125th, and I was coming back from Marcus Garvey Park [aka Mount Morris Park], and the song was about what was happening right then with me in New York. I hadn’t even played it for the guys in the band until we were almost done recording. I think I played it for Eric and he said, “What the fuck is that ?” I said, “It’s this other song I’ve got.” And we ended up recording that. (laughs)

RR: All the tracks for Apollo were laid down at Prairie Sun Recording in Cotati, California, and then you did your vocals in Nassau, Bahamas, right?

JJ: [Prairie Sun] is a really nice studio. We recorded all the tracking there. It was kind of the reverse of the first Stockholm record where we recorded at Compass Point, and then finished it and did a lot of vocals with John Keane at Athens. This time, we tracked and recorded with John Keane, and, then, went to the Bahamas to mix and do the vocals. Both of those guys are pretty great, and, sometimes, it is easier for me to do the vocals while the mix is going. We’ve been fortunate to make these records in cool places.

RR: The Stockholm Syndrome tour begins in San Francisco at the Independent on February 18. What can we expect to hear on this tour?

JJ: I think we’re going to get to the other half of the record that we haven’t played live, which to me is a lot of the coolest songs. I hate to say “cool” songs; things I’m really proud of like “Fools Rush In” and I like that song “Cool Cool Cool.” They are just things to me that sound really different. I mean I love “Apollo” and I love “Emma’s Pissed.” Those guys are funny because every once in a while I’ll say, “I hate this fuckin’ song.” And they’ll say, “Then why the fuck did you write it?” And I’ll say, “Just because I wrote it, doesn’t mean I have to like it.” (laughter)

I’m excited to do some of that stuff. I excited because I think this Apollo record has some pretty good pop moments, and that is not what we tend to do when we walk out on stage with Stockholm Syndrome, but I don’t think anyone is trying to route us with Elvis Costello. He’s my hero. (laughter) I think one of the things with this jambands world is, for me, you’re rarely on the bill with someone that I like. I go to festivals and “Awesome, I can’t wait to see, you know, this horn section,” and nobody really invites us to play at All Tomorrow’s Parties. It’s a weird thing. You rev it up, and it’s a lot less in my control than most of the time I’m on stage. (laughs)

RR: Are you O.K. with that?

JJ: Yeah. I think it’s the nature of it; that’s where it gets exciting. It can also be really frustrating, and I think it’s as much a lesson in diplomacy as it is anything.

And I could use those lessons.

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