Jetboy Guitarist Talks About Upcoming CD
JETBOY GUITARIST TALKS ABOUT UPCOMING CD:
March 2, 2009
In a recent interview with Sleaze Roxx, Jetboy guitarist Billy Rowe gave some details about the band’s upcoming CD release. The entire interview can be read at https://sleazeroxx.com/interviews/billy-rowe-interview/.
Sleaze Roxx: What’s cool with you guys coming back is that you’re not just gonna do the old stuff over and over. You’re gonna actually start writing some new stuff.
Billy Rowe: Yeah, we already have man. We’ve got one called “Eddie’s Revenge” that we worked on last night. We’ve got one called “Goin’ Down Under the Clouds,” “That Guy is a Creep,” and “Dying Inside.” We’ve got four songs pretty much done. I’d say by March we’ll have a good 10 or 12 brand new songs. And then we’ll record. Mick lives in LA so Fern and I drove down two weeks ago to work with him. Again it was fuckin magic. We just sat down and had three songs. It was effortless, fun, no stress, no nothing. We all said, man we took this shit for granted. You don’t realize when you’re in it, you don’t see it. You get a away from it for a while you realize when you get back together with these guys that wow, this is no struggle at all like its been all these other years trying to do other projects. We’ve all done other music things. It’s a learning experience on top of it. We’ve grown a lot.
Sleaze Roxx: How does the song writing process go?
Billy Rowe: Jetboy has always worked in a real basic process. We worked with songwriters on the second record but it was still the same process, the same formula. Fern and I write music. Then we sit down and play the riffs for Mick. Then we go from there. Sometimes Mick would have a melody. He had one on one of these new songs. He sang it and had words. Then I started playing the melody and riff part along with what he had. Then it was how about switchin to this? Try singing this. For the most part Fern and I write the music. Fern and I balance magically as well. I’ll play something, he’ll play something, vice versa. Then it just flows. We sit around with acoustics and we start strummin away with a tape deck – an old rickety fuckin Realistic Radio Shack special like we’re in 1980. (laughs) That’s pretty much how it’s done. Mick has the words finished and we finish and arrange a song sitting around with acoustics. We’ve always done it like that for the most part. Not always, but 99% of the songs were written that way.
Sleaze Roxx: When did you say you would probably have songs ready to go to the studio with?
Billy Rowe: Ah…I’m hoping, in my head, (I’m just talking for myself) March. The pattern we’re going, if we follow the pattern of what we’re doing – we go to LA one weekend, Mick comes up 2 weeks later and we rehearse it. By the end of March, early April, we’ll have a record done. We are digging out some old songs that were released on some of these independent labels, Perris Records and Cleopatra, through the years which I had put out in the 90s and early 2000s. Songs that I’ve always felt (and everybody else felt) were great. Songs that were written for Feel The Shake or Damned Nation, or even some prior to Feel The Shake. We’ve pulled a couple of them out and dusted ’em off, turned the screws on ’em, and they fuckin rock. They were just never given the tender love and care in the studio because they were just demos. We just threw them against the wall as reference.
Sleaze Roxx: Is there a certain label that you’ve worked out anything with to put it out?
Billy Rowe: Nope. No, not right now. There’s some people that we’re going to be talking to. Jimmy Ashurst, the bass player from Buckcherry, is a long time friend of ours from back in the day. Stevie D, the guitar player, he’s become a good friend as well so that’s a couple good guys who will be out to help us when we get to the point of a new record. That’s about it with that right now. I think the first step is to write a great record and record a great record and let’s take it from there.
Courtesy of www.sleazeroxx.com and www.jetboyrocks.com