Less Than Jake - Vinnie Fiorello
Questions: Stuart Millen
21 years in rock n roll is a long time. But punk/ska greats Less Than Jake are still at it, sounding fresh as ever and, more importantly, they’re still having fun. Hailing from Gainesville, Florida, the 5-piece have just released their 9th studio album, See The Light, which was written and recorded in their own warehouse recording space and produced by vocalist/bassist Roger Manganelli. The band have toured Australia countless times and return once again in 2014 for their third Soundwave appearance.
Having just finished their Fat Tour across the US, drummer lyricist Vinnie Fiorello took the time to talk to Caught in the Mosh about the new album, the Internet’s effects on music and drinking VB.
You released your new album See the Light at the end of November and you recently finished the Fat Tour with Antiflag, Masked Intruder and Get Dead. How’s life in the Less Than Jake camp at the moment?
It’s good man. The tour was fun. And on top of that, our new record’s out and we had fun writing and recording it. And everyone is happy and healthy, so it’s a good thing.
The new album sounds great! It reminds me of old Less Than Jake. Did you have any preconceived ideas about what you wanted before you started the writing process?
I think we all wanted a record that felt and sounded naturally like Less Than Jake. We wrote specifically to that inspiration instead of trying to grind something out. It was a very relaxed atmosphere in our warehouse space where we were writing. Other than that, on the lyrical side of it, we all sat down and decided we wanted something that was a bit more positive than the negative. We looked back at the last few years and there’s a lot of negativity coming out, not only musically, but also generally speaking. The atmosphere is pretty dark in the US and around the world, whether it be the economy or the long-standing war. While Less Than Jake have never been a heavy handed political band, we’re most certainly had our dark moments on our previous records, so we wanted something a little more positive.
You’ve written most of the lyrics in the past. Is that still the case on See the Light?
Yeah... 90.... 98% of the lyrics is me. The other 2% is the dudes editing down my long-winded statements into something a little more logical.
So you write pretty much all the lyrics yet Chris and Roger are the vocalists; how do you decide who sings which parts?
Well, usually it’s dictated by which key the song is in. Once the song starts to form, when we have a melody line on it, it’s usually pretty evident who’s going to sing it and who’s not. It’s just naturally what timbre voice the melody line is shaping into. It’s worked so far. We tend not to over think it too much. There’s usually not any in-fighting. It’s more so what the song just calls for. It’s what you give the song. It’s the same as the horns; where to place them and how much to use. It’s what the song’s calling for. It’s not trying to fit a round peg in a square hole.
Having just finished their Fat Tour across the US, drummer lyricist Vinnie Fiorello took the time to talk to Caught in the Mosh about the new album, the Internet’s effects on music and drinking VB.
You released your new album See the Light at the end of November and you recently finished the Fat Tour with Antiflag, Masked Intruder and Get Dead. How’s life in the Less Than Jake camp at the moment?
It’s good man. The tour was fun. And on top of that, our new record’s out and we had fun writing and recording it. And everyone is happy and healthy, so it’s a good thing.
The new album sounds great! It reminds me of old Less Than Jake. Did you have any preconceived ideas about what you wanted before you started the writing process?
I think we all wanted a record that felt and sounded naturally like Less Than Jake. We wrote specifically to that inspiration instead of trying to grind something out. It was a very relaxed atmosphere in our warehouse space where we were writing. Other than that, on the lyrical side of it, we all sat down and decided we wanted something that was a bit more positive than the negative. We looked back at the last few years and there’s a lot of negativity coming out, not only musically, but also generally speaking. The atmosphere is pretty dark in the US and around the world, whether it be the economy or the long-standing war. While Less Than Jake have never been a heavy handed political band, we’re most certainly had our dark moments on our previous records, so we wanted something a little more positive.
You’ve written most of the lyrics in the past. Is that still the case on See the Light?
Yeah... 90.... 98% of the lyrics is me. The other 2% is the dudes editing down my long-winded statements into something a little more logical.
So you write pretty much all the lyrics yet Chris and Roger are the vocalists; how do you decide who sings which parts?
Well, usually it’s dictated by which key the song is in. Once the song starts to form, when we have a melody line on it, it’s usually pretty evident who’s going to sing it and who’s not. It’s just naturally what timbre voice the melody line is shaping into. It’s worked so far. We tend not to over think it too much. There’s usually not any in-fighting. It’s more so what the song just calls for. It’s what you give the song. It’s the same as the horns; where to place them and how much to use. It’s what the song’s calling for. It’s not trying to fit a round peg in a square hole.
Your website says “at the end of tracking it, we all felt we made something special”. Did you do anything different with this album?
You know, the only thing we set out to do that was different, and we did it, was that we got into our warehouse space, brought in all the ideas for the songs, and kind of hashed the songs out on acoustic guitars. When we had completed songs we got on our respective instruments and shredded it until the songs were fully cooked. Sometimes we’ve got a touring schedule and sometimes because of release schedules for record labels, occasionally you might tend to under-cook a song, or over-cook a song. This time round, we just let the song progress naturally and did what we needed to do. There was no pressure, there was no over thinking. And it was just fun.
And it should be fun. Less Than Jake music IS fun.
Yeah! You know, 21 years into it, if it’s not fun, then we have a serious problem.
You’ve done a track-by-track commentary for the album. It offers a nice look into the creation process. What lead to doing it?
I had a listen to the Pearl Jam one and thought it was really wild. We wanted to do one and we had offered but we wanted to put our spin in it though. So we went over to the place were we recorded the album, which was Roger’s studio, and just sat around and listened to the record. As we listened to it, we just thought about it. It was just one take and not over thought. Again, it was something fun we were doing. We figured fans might want to hear some of the side-bars, some of the inside jokes, that went along with doing the record.
You certainly seem to be having a lot of fun with the new CD. The new video for My Money Is On The Long Shot is made up of clips of your friends singing along to the track. It made me smile. It must‘ve been fun putting it together. Where did the idea come from?
Yeah, we called a bunch of friends and called in some of favours and we pieced it together. It’s something that we just wanted... again, the song’s fairly heavy lyrically, but we didn’t want to start off, visually speaking, with this sort of heavy-handed approach. So we talked about it internally, and just came up with the idea. We reached out to a bunch of friends and they sent back gold. I’ll be honest with you, every time I watch it I kinda smile about it and I kinda laugh and I wanna pay it over again, just because it’s dudes that are kinda goofing around or just kinda feeling the song, guys that you wouldn’t expect to feel the song and to be goofing around.
Were you surprised by what everyone sent in?
I didn’t know what to expect, but everyone who sent video in exceeded my expectations. For the life of me, if you told me 15 years ago that Dickie Barrett from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones would be skankin’ around their practice space, singing along to a Less Than Jake song, I would’ve said that you’re crazy. But there he is, in all his glory, doing that. So yeah, it exceeded my expectations all round.
You know, the only thing we set out to do that was different, and we did it, was that we got into our warehouse space, brought in all the ideas for the songs, and kind of hashed the songs out on acoustic guitars. When we had completed songs we got on our respective instruments and shredded it until the songs were fully cooked. Sometimes we’ve got a touring schedule and sometimes because of release schedules for record labels, occasionally you might tend to under-cook a song, or over-cook a song. This time round, we just let the song progress naturally and did what we needed to do. There was no pressure, there was no over thinking. And it was just fun.
And it should be fun. Less Than Jake music IS fun.
Yeah! You know, 21 years into it, if it’s not fun, then we have a serious problem.
You’ve done a track-by-track commentary for the album. It offers a nice look into the creation process. What lead to doing it?
I had a listen to the Pearl Jam one and thought it was really wild. We wanted to do one and we had offered but we wanted to put our spin in it though. So we went over to the place were we recorded the album, which was Roger’s studio, and just sat around and listened to the record. As we listened to it, we just thought about it. It was just one take and not over thought. Again, it was something fun we were doing. We figured fans might want to hear some of the side-bars, some of the inside jokes, that went along with doing the record.
You certainly seem to be having a lot of fun with the new CD. The new video for My Money Is On The Long Shot is made up of clips of your friends singing along to the track. It made me smile. It must‘ve been fun putting it together. Where did the idea come from?
Yeah, we called a bunch of friends and called in some of favours and we pieced it together. It’s something that we just wanted... again, the song’s fairly heavy lyrically, but we didn’t want to start off, visually speaking, with this sort of heavy-handed approach. So we talked about it internally, and just came up with the idea. We reached out to a bunch of friends and they sent back gold. I’ll be honest with you, every time I watch it I kinda smile about it and I kinda laugh and I wanna pay it over again, just because it’s dudes that are kinda goofing around or just kinda feeling the song, guys that you wouldn’t expect to feel the song and to be goofing around.
Were you surprised by what everyone sent in?
I didn’t know what to expect, but everyone who sent video in exceeded my expectations. For the life of me, if you told me 15 years ago that Dickie Barrett from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones would be skankin’ around their practice space, singing along to a Less Than Jake song, I would’ve said that you’re crazy. But there he is, in all his glory, doing that. So yeah, it exceeded my expectations all round.
You’re heading to Australia for the Soundwave Festival next year. How do you go about choosing your festival setlists?
One of the beautiful things about the Soundwave Festival, and just touring in general, is the amount of records and songs we have. We have a core song lineup of songs that people wanna hear. Lets call that half a set. For the other half, we just throw in songs we didn’t play the night before. We continually change it, continually morph our... not to call them our B-sides songs, not the core set list songs, but the other songs that people want to hear. You know, the Science of Selling Yourself Short, or Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts. On this past tour, we’ve been mixing it up, but I think we have 90 songs in rotation.
You’ve been playing music for a long time, with Less Than Jake starting when you were just 18. There’s a Dave Grohl quote from earlier this year that says something like kids should just go out and play music, regardless of whether they know how to or not. Did you guys know what you were doing back then?
No one knows what they’re doin’ man, it’s punk rock! That’s why you gravitate to it. If I knew what I was doing back then, I’d be playing progressive metal or something. When you’re playing punk rock... Punk rock was originally the music for suburban kids to gravitate towards when they didn’t know what the hell they were doing. In modern times it’s a slightly different story, just because of some of the influences, you know? When you have an influence like, say, Travis Barker, it makes kids strive to be a better drummer, because they hear this excellence in the instrument. But dude, I was listening to Angry Samoans and I was listening to the Ramones and while not complex, the feeling was there. The passion was there. And the energy and the anger was there. And that’s what made me gravitate to it. You didn’t necessarily have to know how to play an instrument to play punk rock, but you had to be passionate about it. And in some cases, you had to be angry, enough, to not really give a shit and to just do your thing. And I was there, in all shapes and forms. So, it’s a beautiful thing. You know, punk rock, still to this day, perhaps to a lesser degree, is the music you go to when you don’t know what to do, or how to do it, or what to say. You just let the passion go with it.
You’ve started a number of record labels yourself, Fueled by Ramen, Sleep It Off Records, Paper + Plastic. What prompted this addition to your musical career?
You know, it started out as me just having extra time. It started out as me being an insomniac and a workaholic. Now it’s more so me wanting to give back to a genre that has given me, I think, everything, for 21 years. Every possible moment of happiness I’ve had, punk rock gave me. So I try to give back as much as possible.
One of the beautiful things about the Soundwave Festival, and just touring in general, is the amount of records and songs we have. We have a core song lineup of songs that people wanna hear. Lets call that half a set. For the other half, we just throw in songs we didn’t play the night before. We continually change it, continually morph our... not to call them our B-sides songs, not the core set list songs, but the other songs that people want to hear. You know, the Science of Selling Yourself Short, or Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts. On this past tour, we’ve been mixing it up, but I think we have 90 songs in rotation.
You’ve been playing music for a long time, with Less Than Jake starting when you were just 18. There’s a Dave Grohl quote from earlier this year that says something like kids should just go out and play music, regardless of whether they know how to or not. Did you guys know what you were doing back then?
No one knows what they’re doin’ man, it’s punk rock! That’s why you gravitate to it. If I knew what I was doing back then, I’d be playing progressive metal or something. When you’re playing punk rock... Punk rock was originally the music for suburban kids to gravitate towards when they didn’t know what the hell they were doing. In modern times it’s a slightly different story, just because of some of the influences, you know? When you have an influence like, say, Travis Barker, it makes kids strive to be a better drummer, because they hear this excellence in the instrument. But dude, I was listening to Angry Samoans and I was listening to the Ramones and while not complex, the feeling was there. The passion was there. And the energy and the anger was there. And that’s what made me gravitate to it. You didn’t necessarily have to know how to play an instrument to play punk rock, but you had to be passionate about it. And in some cases, you had to be angry, enough, to not really give a shit and to just do your thing. And I was there, in all shapes and forms. So, it’s a beautiful thing. You know, punk rock, still to this day, perhaps to a lesser degree, is the music you go to when you don’t know what to do, or how to do it, or what to say. You just let the passion go with it.
You’ve started a number of record labels yourself, Fueled by Ramen, Sleep It Off Records, Paper + Plastic. What prompted this addition to your musical career?
You know, it started out as me just having extra time. It started out as me being an insomniac and a workaholic. Now it’s more so me wanting to give back to a genre that has given me, I think, everything, for 21 years. Every possible moment of happiness I’ve had, punk rock gave me. So I try to give back as much as possible.
Speaking of labels, Less Than Jake have released material on a number of labels over the years. Do you have difficulty keep track of who owns the rights to your various works?
Over the last 10 years we’ve slowly been accumulating all of our rights back to everything. We have... Right now we have... two... actually, four records that are out there right now that are owned by other people. But we’re working on getting two back. We know who owns it. But we own a lot of the music and we own all of the publishing as well. But no one owns the songs. They own the masters of the recordings. But like I said, we own about 80% of the music now, even the masters.
See the Light leaked two weeks prior to its official launch. Any ideas on the source of that leak?
I don’t know, but I’m sure I could find out if I wanted to. But I really don’t care. The amount of time I would spend trying to figure that out, I could be doing something else that is certainly more productive. There’s no reason to try to figure out who uploaded it. Look, there are tonnes of people that work at record stores that make a... not a living, but make a name for themselves for uploading music to torrent site and things like that. So look, there are ways to figure it out but really, at this point, after 21 years of being a band, I don’t really care. It’s part of being in a band. It’s going to leak. People are going to get it for free. But you know what? People got records for free before man. They had cassette dupes. And there were a thousand and one things that could’ve happened. And people burned CDs and now people trade in 1s and 0s, digitally, online. It doesn’t really bother me because when I was 13, the only reason I heard half of the punk rock bands I had heard of was because people were giving me cassette dupes of those bands. Was it a problem to those groups back then? Well, probably. But now, you can do it much faster because if the Internet.
Given your involvement with your labels, what do you think artists can do to entice people back to purchasing music in these days of downloading from the Internet?
Well, I think that’s a loaded question in respect to which genre of music... Pop music started out as a single driven genre. If you think back to 45s, it was a single with a B-side. And you put your single out and the single got whatever. And then you went to do another single. And that’s how most people did it. And then in the 60s and 70s, it turned into more of an album headspace. And now, again, pop music is a very single driven thing. Punk rock’s always been about the albums. You know, I don’t want to get long winded about it, but it depends on which genre you’re talking about. If you’re talking about just punk rock or some semblance of that genre, it’s just making quality records. And true fans of music. Bridging the gap between bands and the fans and have them want to show support by buying, not to make it into a commodity. We’re back to relying on grass-roots support of fans for bands to continue to be creative.
Over the last 10 years we’ve slowly been accumulating all of our rights back to everything. We have... Right now we have... two... actually, four records that are out there right now that are owned by other people. But we’re working on getting two back. We know who owns it. But we own a lot of the music and we own all of the publishing as well. But no one owns the songs. They own the masters of the recordings. But like I said, we own about 80% of the music now, even the masters.
See the Light leaked two weeks prior to its official launch. Any ideas on the source of that leak?
I don’t know, but I’m sure I could find out if I wanted to. But I really don’t care. The amount of time I would spend trying to figure that out, I could be doing something else that is certainly more productive. There’s no reason to try to figure out who uploaded it. Look, there are tonnes of people that work at record stores that make a... not a living, but make a name for themselves for uploading music to torrent site and things like that. So look, there are ways to figure it out but really, at this point, after 21 years of being a band, I don’t really care. It’s part of being in a band. It’s going to leak. People are going to get it for free. But you know what? People got records for free before man. They had cassette dupes. And there were a thousand and one things that could’ve happened. And people burned CDs and now people trade in 1s and 0s, digitally, online. It doesn’t really bother me because when I was 13, the only reason I heard half of the punk rock bands I had heard of was because people were giving me cassette dupes of those bands. Was it a problem to those groups back then? Well, probably. But now, you can do it much faster because if the Internet.
Given your involvement with your labels, what do you think artists can do to entice people back to purchasing music in these days of downloading from the Internet?
Well, I think that’s a loaded question in respect to which genre of music... Pop music started out as a single driven genre. If you think back to 45s, it was a single with a B-side. And you put your single out and the single got whatever. And then you went to do another single. And that’s how most people did it. And then in the 60s and 70s, it turned into more of an album headspace. And now, again, pop music is a very single driven thing. Punk rock’s always been about the albums. You know, I don’t want to get long winded about it, but it depends on which genre you’re talking about. If you’re talking about just punk rock or some semblance of that genre, it’s just making quality records. And true fans of music. Bridging the gap between bands and the fans and have them want to show support by buying, not to make it into a commodity. We’re back to relying on grass-roots support of fans for bands to continue to be creative.
You played six of your albums in full over six nights back in 2007. Was it fun revisiting some of your lesser-played tracks?
Absolutely. It made us go back and appreciate the back catalogue. It was almost a blessing in disguise to play those songs at the album shows.
The shows were recorded and released together as Anthology DVD pack, which sold out pretty quickly. It’s now available as digital downloads, even in 1080 HD. What lead to the online releases?
I think that it just made sense. I feel that the DVD is a dying thing so why not just put a bullet into it instead of letting it limp along. So we just jumped the shark man. We have it readily available to download for the video and then we have the audio available on our website.
What do you have in store for Australian audiences next year? Can you give us any news on sidewaves?
We haven’t heard from AJ about sidewaves yet. We’ve already made the offer, saying that we’d be more than happy to do whatever he wanted us to do. I assume he’ll take us up on the offer, but at this stage, I don’t know. We haven’t heard. Which isn’t surprising, as we wouldn’t usually hear until closer to the shows. So I would assume in the New Year we’ll hear about a sidewave show or two. And as far as the Australian shows dude, you know, we’re going to go there, play a bunch of songs, have a great time. We’re going to enjoy the country; we’re going to enjoy the people. And we’re going to enjoy some VB.
Have you had a chance to try kangaroo on any of your previous visits?
No, I have not!
Well, put that on your list of things to do. Enjoy a VB with a nice kangaroo steak.
Righ on man, right on!
Absolutely. It made us go back and appreciate the back catalogue. It was almost a blessing in disguise to play those songs at the album shows.
The shows were recorded and released together as Anthology DVD pack, which sold out pretty quickly. It’s now available as digital downloads, even in 1080 HD. What lead to the online releases?
I think that it just made sense. I feel that the DVD is a dying thing so why not just put a bullet into it instead of letting it limp along. So we just jumped the shark man. We have it readily available to download for the video and then we have the audio available on our website.
What do you have in store for Australian audiences next year? Can you give us any news on sidewaves?
We haven’t heard from AJ about sidewaves yet. We’ve already made the offer, saying that we’d be more than happy to do whatever he wanted us to do. I assume he’ll take us up on the offer, but at this stage, I don’t know. We haven’t heard. Which isn’t surprising, as we wouldn’t usually hear until closer to the shows. So I would assume in the New Year we’ll hear about a sidewave show or two. And as far as the Australian shows dude, you know, we’re going to go there, play a bunch of songs, have a great time. We’re going to enjoy the country; we’re going to enjoy the people. And we’re going to enjoy some VB.
Have you had a chance to try kangaroo on any of your previous visits?
No, I have not!
Well, put that on your list of things to do. Enjoy a VB with a nice kangaroo steak.
Righ on man, right on!
Less Than Jake will be touring Australia as part of Soundwave 2014. Tickets on sale now from Soundwave and Oztix.
Sat 22nd February - Brisbane, RNA Showgrounds
Sun 23rd February - Sydney, Olympic Park
Fri 28th February - Melbourne, Flemington Racecourse
Sat 1st March - Adelaide, Bonython Park
Mon 3rd March - Perth, Claremont Showgrounds
Sat 22nd February - Brisbane, RNA Showgrounds
Sun 23rd February - Sydney, Olympic Park
Fri 28th February - Melbourne, Flemington Racecourse
Sat 1st March - Adelaide, Bonython Park
Mon 3rd March - Perth, Claremont Showgrounds