JIMKATA
“Feel In Light” EP
In early March 2014, Jimkata, an electro-rock infused indie jam band, released their third studio recording “Feel in Light” EP and announced a national spring tour. This EP explores a new sound for the band, similar to that of MGMT and Passion Pit. Soothing vocals over simplistic synth loops, mellow but powerful, relaxing yet dance worthy. The band’s website describes the new sound as “exploring themes of love, triumph and appreciating second chances in life.”
Even with the busy tour schedule on hand, Jimkata’s Evan Friedell found some time to answer a couple questions about the recently released EP. We feel they are immensely enthusiastic about the release and hope everyone gets the opportunity to catch them on tour or on the festie circuit.
How awesome does it feel to be touring nationally behind the new EP, Feel In Light.?! I know this isn’t your first national run, but how does the crowd reception compare to when you first started.
We’ve been touring pretty heavily for the past two years, starting with the tour off of Die Digital and in those two years we are really starting to see what I like to call stickiness. We’re at a point now where no matter how many people show up, they all seem familiar with who we are and are singing along, dancing, gettin’ down. That all started with just a few people coming out, checking out the music and telling their friends. It wasn’t always like this. We’ve played a lot to nobody and have racked up some funny stories in the meantime.
Like the first time we played Iowa City a few years ago no one showed up. We played our set, drank a few beers, left the venue and proceeded to get egged on our drive to whatever floor we were sleeping on that night. I remember how much it sucked to not only play a lot of shows to nobody but to get egged too! It was a random egging, cause I mean nobody knew us enough to hate us. But anyways, the next time there were like 7 people and the time after that it was like 150 people who all knew our music! So it’s a truly humbling experience to put yourself out there to little or no reception and then start to steadily gain fans. It makes you grateful and respectful of the idea that music is something far more powerful than ourselves as individuals.
Where is the farthest from home the tour will be taking you?
We’ll be heading out to Colorado to play Snowball and Breckenridge Beer Festival.
JIMKATA
When did the band decide to change it up and go with a mellower almost alternative feel?
We’ve never made a conscious decision as to which way our sound should go. It’s always been a natural evolution rather than a decision to make an abrupt change. And actually I think there are elements in Feel In Light and Die Digital that are present in everything we’ve done going all the way back to our very first demo EP. You can sort of hear the progression through all our work. I think gradually throughout the years we’ve been exploring different new sounds via analog synths and samples and that’s led to where we are now.
Talk about some of your influences for this EP and how they differ or have grown over the years that you guys have been together.
I think all of us have gotten into the production aspect of making music. Creating a good song with finely tuned sounds that make you wanna listen again and again. Aaron has been composing a lot with the Prophet synth and Ableton, I’ve been composing through Logic, Packy has become a master at Ableton especially live performance, and Rossi exploring the Bass synth. I think with all these new avenues of making music we’ve reached a point where we’ve got a wide palette and now we can choose exactly the colors we want. For example, maybe I’ll write a demo on my computer but we crack it open in the band room and decide that it would just sound way better with a live picked bass or with some guitars instead of whatever synth sound I created. Basically we’re utilizing electronic elements but always trying to keep in mind the sounds that really hit the gut emotionally, physically, and spiritually. And of course the end goal being that the lyrics and the song as a whole will make that impact.
“New Chapter, Second Verse…” Does this describe what Jimkata is right now, not necessarily a whole new sound but more exploring different paths in music production and encompassing all sounds into one?
Well originally that lyric came to me as a result of just feeling good in my own life. Falling in love, feeling content with where I was headed in life. I suppose it could relate to Jimkata as a whole but really I think every day is a new chapter, a second verse for all of us as individuals and as a collective. With every show, every new song, every new studio work we’ll be chasing after the sound that’s in our heads.
I’m curious to see how you guys will infuse Feel in Light EP with your past work in a live setting.
Its been fitting in quite nicely with all of our other stuff. We’re at a point where we have a lot of songs to choose from in writing a set. We try to play the new stuff but also try to always play something from every album because people are always requesting it. Its been cool to see how older songs can flow into new ones live.
JIMKATA
“Feel In Light” EP
Talk about being in the studio, only the third time recording.
We went back to More Sound Studios in Syracuse again with Jason ‘Jocko’ Randall and had a blast once again. It’s actually our fifth time recording at this point and our second with Jocko. So we’ve become pretty accustomed to the process but always excited by the possibilities and the outcome. This time it was sandwiched in between a lot of touring and the songs were mostly ones we’ve never played live before. That was new for us. So there was a lot of listening back to the recordings while we were on the road, then coming back to the studio to change things, make edits, write new parts, etc.
Do you guys prefer the studio recording over the live recordings?
They’re just different mediums each with their own magic. I love being in the studio because it really feels like you’re creating something fresh and new. Its fun to see something that started as an idea in my head bloom into a whole song with each new layer. Sometimes you might write a part in the studio that you didn’t have before that just clicks. There’s nothing like the feeling of hearing a new layer that just clicks with the song and ties it all together. I’ll never forget when Aaron, Jocko, and I discovered the vocal chant for “Beat the Curse”. We all were laughing and giggling like idiots. It was perfect. With live recordings its just capturing whatever happens in the moment and its fun when you hear something that went really well. Some nights there’s just an energy in the air and we all feel really connected with each other and the crowd. Other nights, complete and total chaos (at least in our eyes or ears). Both mediums have an element of not exactly knowing how its gonna go which makes it thrilling and keeps us coming back for more.
What festivals can we expect to see Jimkata at this summer?
So far we’ve only got a few announced but there’s much more on the way. Summer Camp, Snow Ball, Great Blue Heron, Buffalove, to name a few. Hope to see you out there!
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