A Conversation with JuiceBox and The Rad Trad’s Jamie Eblen – HuffPost 5.12.14

Mike Ragogna: Jamie! Okay, first of all, what is JuiceBox up to lately?

Jamie Eblen: JuiceBox is in a transitional phase. We just started working with new management and getting new gig opportunities. We also recorded an EP, First Cut, about a year ago, and at this point we’ve got about two more EPs’ worth of material, so we’re trying to figure out a time to get back into the studio more. And we’re gearing up for some shows this summer, so lots of things are in the works.

MR: Great. What are you doing regarding the EP? Is it only online, or are you pressing physical products?

JE: We do have physical CDs that you can order off our website, and we’ve also been making downloads available through iTunes and Band Camp, as well as CD Baby and I think Amazon.

MR: Do you find there are more sales from downloads or CDs?

JE: I’d say we get more downloads because the only place we’re really selling CDs is at shows, and the sales there are definitely less. It’s an impulse buy in a lot of ways.

MR: Gotta have the swag too, no?

JE: We’re working on getting some merchandise together. We don’t have shirts or anything like that at this point. It’s pretty much the CDs and the business cards… so you know where to find us!

MR: [laughs] How did you get your gig with JuiceBox?

JE: I was the last member to come in. The band kind of formed out of a collection of people at NYU. Our singer, Lisa Ramey, is the only other one who didn’t go to NYU, and I came on late in the game because they were going on a tour to Italy and the drummer couldn’t make it. Nick Myers, the saxophone player, called me and said, “Hey, man, you wanna go to Italy?” I had just come back from study abroad in Florence for five months, and I was about to jump on any opportunity to go back to Italy, so that’s kind of how I came into it. They had existed for about a year or two before I joined them.

photo credit: Daniel Gootnick

MR: But you came into it with a solid jazz background, in addition to a rock background.

JE: Yeah. My favorite drummer hands down is John Bonham, so I’m always coming from that and the jazz perspective, as well as funk and soul. But the band definitely has a jazz vibe to it, with the horns, guitar and organ; our organist Dave Mainella is fantastic. So it’s got a lot of different stuff happening, which is what I really enjoy about the band.

MR: Your parents, Ed Eblen and writer Robyn Flans, are pretty much music biz fixtures.

JE: They definitely are. Both have great faith in music, my dad being a drummer and my mom being a person who writes about drummers and musicians. So it’s been a life full of music education.

MR: Your dad taught you how to play, right?

JE: Yeah. I spent a lot of time digging up old drums with my dad and figuring out how to play rock beats that he taught me. When I was really young I had a little CB drum set. I got that when I was in sixth grade, and he taught me rock beats. Also he and my mom hooked up Ed Shaughnessy’s old drum set to be in my bedroom. So that was kind of amazing to have that.

MR: Was that inspirational?

JE: A little bit, yeah. The first groove I learned on that drum set that my dad helped me with was the “Come Together” groove.

MR: Nice. Your dad’s very experienced, having played in a lot of clubs and with different bands in California, Nashville, and all sorts of places.

JE: Yeah, Vegas, Nashville, New York recently; many different places. So over the course of time I imagine I will have travelled a lot of the same places as he has. I just went on tour with another band, and I was calling him from different places, like, “Hey, I’m in Indiana now, you ever been here?” It was funny.

MR: What are the elements of JuiceBox, insofar as how do you guys create the material?

JE: I would say it’s very democratic; someone brings an idea or a really fleshed-out song, it varies, and then we all sit together, play through it a bunch, talk about it, but we try to keep it mostly to the playing. I find that, as a band, when we get to work and just play the song over and over it sort of evolves over the course of a rehearsal. And then we record a tape, send it out, everyone listens to it, and then we workshop it the next time. But it all starts either with a jam vibe, which I’d say is less happening now because everyone’s bringing songs to the band then having band fully flesh them out. Or people will bring out fully written out charts. It varies.

MR: Are you hoping the listener is grooving to the music and wants to dance to it, and/or do you want them to just sit back and listen to the arrangements?

JE: Ideally, we play a room with a wide-open floor, no tables, no chairs, and a lot of people. That’s our ideal room. But we do a lot of other stuff. We play this club in New York called The General, and that’s much more of a dinner club vibe, and they’ve got tables and chairs and people sit. And they’re grooving, and I’d say that’s what we want. We want people grooving. If they’re grooving in their chairs, that’s fine with me.

MR: Did you bring in any of your Broadway experience into the group, you know, because you’ve been in Broadway musicals, etc.?

JE: Yeah. I’ve worked with Jason Robert Brown on various projects; Honeymoon in Vegas the most recent. There are a lot of things I bring from that experience. They all inform one another–the JuiceBox experience, the musical theater thing, playing a lot of different percussion, I’d say is an interesting thing about the Broadway world that I would be carrying over into JuiceBox. It’s hands-on a lot of different stuff which is a great sound for both vibes.

MR: You’re based out of Brooklyn. So they actually have music in Brooklyn? Whaaa?

JE: [laughs] I think it’s at a great place. There’s a lot of great music to find pretty much every night, and a lot of it’s close to me, and there’re music clubs opening up all the time. I’d say it’s definitely a burgeoning scene. I don’t know if there’s anything specifically at the helm of the Brooklyn scene because there are so many different things happening. It’s indie, and whatever it is that encompasses that. Folk rock; funk and jazz; it’s kind of a hodgepodge, which I think is what Brooklyn’s great at, but it’s also not necessarily focused. Right where I live in Prospect Heights there’s two jazz clubs within walking distance, and lots and lots of musicians. We have sessions at my apartment all the time with various jazz guys, or the Trad jazz band that I have.

MR: So, Jamie Eblen of Juicebox and let’s not forget The Rad Trads. What do you want to do with your life, young man!

JE: [laughs] It’s an interesting time right now. There’s a lot of different stuff that’s happening, but not necessarily a lot of stuff that’s happening right now, if that makes sense. This Broadway thing’s on hold; all this JuiceBox stuff is happening, and JuiceBox is my passion project; I write for this band and it’s very important to me. So I’m trying to go where the wind blows me, but I’m still involved in all of these things which is ideally what I want. It’s a limbo moment.

MR: What influences have Brooklyn and Manhattan had on your music?

JE: The vibes from across the river and in Brooklyn are very different, but you can find a lot of the same things in both places. I’d say every time we play a Brooklyn show, we’re playing to a lot of really excited young people, which is what we love to do. People who are either just out of school, still in school, or ten years out of school. And sometimes when we play Manhattan, especially at more dinner club vibes, that’s definitely an older crowd sitting and grooving to the music, which we love equally as much. But it is a much different vibe and we bring a different energy…not that we bring a different energy, but there’s a different energy in the room when we play those opposing shows.

MR: Where to do you feel jazz is going?

JE: Honestly, I don’t know. Modern jazz is modern jazz and that will be a thing that’s happening. I listened to a lot of it years ago, and my personal taste has taken me elsewhere. I’m sure I’ll come back to it, but there’s an interesting resurgence of hot jazz and that kind of thing in New York City. People love that, and there’s tons of it.

MR: Does it feel like your career is coming at you quickly now?

JE: It’s kind of an illusion; it feels like that, but it’s not necessarily the case. I’ll wake up every day and think, “Okay, same thing,” and I never think it’s going to be a thing where I wake up and something’s different. But as I said, a lot of things are on hold, so it seems like I’m just in a crazy place.

MR: You also have a wonderfully talented musical sister, Taylor Leigh Eblen, right?

JE: [laughs] I do. She’s currently working on her teaching degree at Queens College. She’s doing really well, she loves teaching and working with kids.

MR: Does she ever jam with you?

JE: Most recently, we’ve just been working on music together. She has to learn a lot of percussion and other instruments for her classes. She has to be able to do everything at least a little bit, so I’ve been working with her on percussion stuff, so we haven’t really had time just to jam recently.

MR: Do you think that may be coming down the pike at some point? The Eblen assault on the music world?

JE: Definitely. I’d love to collaborate with her and record some stuff.

MR: What’s your advice for new artists?

JE: It depends on where you are. I’m very New York City-minded right now, but I’d say to just keep on keeping on. That’s my thing, because you go through very different phases, highs and lows, and you have to be as stable as you can be and still enjoy every moment of it.

MR: Stable as in trying to have a stable life?

JE: Stable as in not letting what you do affect how you live. If things aren’t going well, then not treating that as an excuse to not live healthily.

MR: Nice. Speaking of living healthily, rumor has it you currently are living in an apartment with about ten people…

JE: [laughs] I’d say during the weekdays, it’s five and during the weekends, it’s twelve. We have a lot of people coming through this apartment–people from Boston, people from Philly, etc.; friends to play music. It’s crazy but it’s really fun. So yes, I currently live with four other guys also doing music and writing-relating adventures.

MR: Has the environment evolved into a workshop?

JE: Yes, in a lot of ways. Everyone’s been picking up the sticks recently and we have drum circles, and people listen to other people’s songs and we learn and play them, so it’s a pretty cool vibe we’ve got going on here.

MR: We spoke about Manhattan and Brooklyn, but you’ve been a bit of a globetrotter, as well. Is it a goal to play more places in the world?

JE: Oh, definitely. That’s a major goal for me. That’s my motivation for all of this, the motivation to travel. I love doing that and playing music abroad and experiencing different cultures, through music especially. I find that sharing that experience with any audience is pretty universal, but it’s also different in each place you go, and that I love. JuiceBox went to Italy twice now, and both times were so incredible.

MR: How do you picture yourself five years from now?

JE: That’s a tough question. I’m loving living in New York City right now, but I would say that with how expensive things are here, I would need to be at the next level musically, gigging and all that, just to be able to live comfortably. And going back to L.A. isn’t really a thing I want. In five years I want to be here but also traveling. I’d love that. Spending a little time in New York and a lot of time somewhere else, and using New York as a launching pad. Traveling the US is something I’d really like to do, too, because I haven’t done a lot of it.

MR: Think you might be working on any sort of father/son project with your dad?

JE: There’s been nothing talked about, but that sounds awesome. I’d definitely be down to record some drums. We’ve jammed and worked on music in the past, but nothing is officially documented, and that is something to be done.

photo credit: Michael Fatum