Jakals, the Boston based alt-rock band, stopped by 88.9 WERS for a quick performance on Wicked Local Wednesday. Afterwards, the band sat down with WERS’ Owen Murray to talk about their favorite concert moments and how a fire affected their first show.
Could you guys start by introducing yourselves and what you do in the band?
Bredon Jones: Sure, I’m Bredon and I play guitar and sing a little bit of harmony.
Katie Solomon: I’m Katie, and I sing.
Jack Lewis: I’m Jack, I play guitar.
Zach Wulderk: I’m Zach and I play bass.
Teryn Citino: I’m Teryn and I play drums.
KS: We started playing together like four years ago, in college.
JL: It was acoustic guitars; it was an acoustic duo and then we met Bredon in the Boston scene and we started playing with him and we were writing these new songs that we really felt needed a whole band behind us, and Zach and Teryn were are really good friends in college and we were living with them in Boston and they played drums and bass so it seemed apt to get drums and bass from them! [laughs]
You guys came to Boston after college?
KS: Yes!
Where did you go to college?
KS: Connecticut!
JL: We went to Wesleyan University.
TC: The three of us [Zach, Jack, and I] were freshman year roommates in a forced triple. ZW: And we still live together! Ten years later!
So how long have you guys been playing together?
KS: As a full band, about two years now.
Tell me about your first show.
KS: Well, our first band show was actually after the four of us were in a fire and Teryn had the worst of it and he messed up his foot.
TC: I shattered my heel jumping out of a window so at our first show I had to play with this special pedal, I don’t really know how to explain it. I was in a wheelchair then. I had to drum with my other foot and transpose it.
KS: Yeah, that was our first show ever.
ZW: It was also our album release so the band all got together for recording before and we did a couple open mics but I don’t think we ever got to play as the five of us. We recorded an album and then we had a big release show which actually ended up being the first time the five of us were able to be on stage and actually play all of the songs together live. So that was fun, interesting.
BJ: It was at the Burren at Davis Square in Somerville.
JL: Don’t ever let me live down that C major I started with on a song that was in B minor!
TC: Ha! Ha! Ha! Music jokes!
What are some of your major influences?
KS: They’re all very different.
BJ: Oh, so many but Paul Simon and The Police were my first musical loves and then definitely like Pearl Jam, and more recently The National... I can’t even think.
KS: When I was young I listened to a lot of broadway and then more recently, like in the last four years or so, I got into indie rock music like The National, also PJ Harvey, really like Father John Misty.
JL: When I was younger Coldplay was the band that really made me want to start writing my own music. Also The National and Death Cab for Cutie.
ZW: Radiohead, Bob Dylan, and Pile who’s a local Boston band.
TC: And I always really liked really fluid, loose, rhythmic stuff and I listened to a lot of jam bands growing up and a lot of world music inspired stuff now.
How do you guys usually go about writing your songs?
KS: They usually start with us [Brendon and I] and we kind of bring them to the band. There’s one song, “All the Same” which ended up being a real band collaboration.
ZW: I’d say “Able” was the first song that was really written after the band got together because all of the songs before “Able” which is on our first album were written with two of us or three of us and then the drums and bass were added later, but “Able” was written with the band in mind when we already had the band together.
You mentioned Pile as a local influence. Do you have any other local influences?
KS: I’ve been listening to a lot of Speedy Ortiz, though they’re kind of past local at this point.
ZW: Krill, is another now defunct—although they may have gotten back together with a different name—local one.
KS: And I listen to a lot of the musicians around here. We kind of started out in the singer-songwriter scene so like our close friends are in that scene so I wouldn’t really say they’re influences to our music, but I do listen to them. I’ll shout out Tory Silver, Gentle Temper.
What has been your most memorable performance together?
JL: Being on tour!
KS: We went to St. Louis this summer, St. Louis and back. And then in January we went up to Rochester and back down.
BJ: Well, we tried.
JL: [Laughs] We got snowed in.
ZW: Oh! The tornado!
KS: But that’s not our most memorable show...
ZW: That was in between two shows though.
So you had a show one night, and one in another place the next night and there was a tornado in between?
ZW: Driving across the flat lands of the Midwest and all of a sudden the sky just goes black!
KS: And I’m like a really scared person so I was like pretty scared but I thought as long as Bredon is calm then we’re good and we looked up and he was like “uh oh”.
BJ: That’s not accurate!
KS: No! You were!
BJ: I was like “we’ll be fine.” I said, “this looks like tornado weather, but we’re good” and everyone freaked out.
TC: [laughs] I almost had a panic attack while sitting in the back.
KS: But I felt really good about Great Scott.
JL: I was about to say the same thing.
KS: We played our first show at Great Scott like three month ago and it felt really good.
What would you guys be doing if you weren’t in a band?
JL: Looking for a band!
TC: Sadly writing music in my room.
KS: Working in an animal sanctuary maybe?
So where can people find your music?
KS: Any streaming services, I think all of them. Are we on Tidal?
ZW: We are on Tidal! Jay-Z! Pumped!
Have any shows coming up?
KS: We’re playing at Club Passim at their Campfire Festival on May 25th and in July we’re playing at the Great Scott.
