This Warped Tour, we sat down with Chris of Less Than Jake to discuss the band’s newest EP, ‘Greetings from Less Than Jake…’, their Anthology DVD, their 20th anniversary as a band,and the state of the music industry. Click ‘more’ to check out the entire interview with Less Than Jake.
Can you tell us who you are?
LTJ: My name is Chris and I play in Less Than Jake.
RTS Nick: Recently you have released your Anthology DVD. Why did you release it now? Why at this time?
LTJ: Umm. I think because our trombone player finally got done editing it. *laughs*. When he got done is when we put it out. He was compiling footage for years.
RTS Nick: Are there a difference in the DVDs that are on the Anthology and the DVDs that are on the reissues of Hello Rockview, Losing Streak, etc. etc.?
LTJ: They are the same, but there are bonus discs and bonus footage that are not on the original ones.
RTS Nick: Care to share some of the footage that we can be seeing?
LTJ: You can see my father getting up and making an ass out of himself in Florida when he was completely drunk. He tried to play a song on the guitar and he completely shit the bed. Stuff like that…
Next year is going to be your 20th anniversary as a band. What do you guys have planned for your 20th anniversary?
LTJ: We don’t know yet! We are definitely going to be reissuing some more stuff. Probably put out some more music next year. We will are going to go on a package a tour together that will make the kids come to the shows.
You guys just released surprise EP called, ‘Greetings from Less Than Jake…’ Why was it out of the blue?
LTJ: There is no reason to hype anything any more. In terms of our band, we’re not on the radio and we are not on a label. We know the people that are going to listen to the albums are our fans and it really didn’t need any hype. The people that know about our band are the people that are going to know about the EP. If you hype something to much, it will never live up to people’s expectations.
RTS Nick: Do you think that you already have your established fan base?
LTJ: I don’t mean it that way… I don’t think we need 3-4 months in which they call “Set Up Time” for a record. You know, get all the record stores ordering, do special deals. Not a lot of people are buying music any more. We didn’t even put this on iTunes. Why would we want them to take our money? With iTunes you’d probably reach out to a wider audience, but right now we just wanted it for the fans and for this Warped Tour.
Was the album successful at all? I’ve read all your retweets on the album and a lot of fans seemed to have bought it, but was it a “successful” release?
LTJ: I don’t know how many we sold. Probably a couple thousand though. We sold a lot on the Warped Tour too. We also sold it through our website and… it’s going to do as good as it is going to do in the economy. In these times and this economy, why would you want to pay for something that is free? It’s like if you go to a sandwich shop and you got subs for free since the time that your remember… Are you going to go pay for a hoagie? You’re going to say “Fuck no. I’m not paying for that. It’s Free.” That’s a 13 year old kids mindset now. They don’t know any better.
RTS Nick: Would you give out all your music for free then?
LTJ: No. I don’t think any band would give away music for free. If someone wanted to give us money for a CD then we will have them available.
RTS Nick: Have you heard the band Bomb The Music Industry!?
LTJ: Of Course.
RTS Nick: You can do their approach and give it out for free and then receive donations.
LTJ: Yeah…. but I don’t back that theory. I know those guys very well and they are good friends of mine, but I’m the one that got them to print fucking T-Shirts. They were punk rock that they didn’t even press T-Shirts. I’m like, “You guys can’t get from city to city because you don’t have gas money”. Then Rosenstock said, “Yeah man, it’s genius! We started making shirts and then we made some money”. I love those guys by the way.
With all this, how do you think we can fix the music industry?
LTJ: You just need to sell T-Shirts. You’re never going to sell 5 million CDs again. It will never happen. Those bands do not exist. People are not going to wake and say “I’m going to spend $14.99 on a hard-drive “this” big.” It’s not going to happen. Those days are over.
RTS Nick: Are you guys happy that you have reached your success in the peak of the music industry where people actually bought records?
LTJ: Yeah. Absolutely.
Well that concludes all the questions I have. Thanks for doing the interview.
LTJ: No problem, have a great day.
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