JAK'S, an indie garage power pop band

Unpublished article - Jonas Follonier

Remember those days, or the stories told to you by your parents, uncles or aunts. The 1970s, then the 2000s, when hundreds of garage rock bands sprang up like spontaneous generations. Since then, at least in Switzerland, this style has fallen somewhat into disuse. Although many locals continue to create rock in their garages, the fashionable thing to do is to pay more attention to the craft beers brewed there.

So, for once, forget the moss and make way for the riffs of JAK'S. Appearing in Grenoble in 2014, this French trio has a message that couldn't be clearer: «we like what goes fast, what hits hard and what stays irresistibly in the head!» Experience confirmed on listening to their debut EP Act 1 - the title was chosen deliberately so that journalists would write redundancies - released on April 4. The five tracks that make up this studio adventure are slamming, electric, catchy, wild and direct.

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A touch nostalgic, though. That sad side of gaiety found in rock music from the 70s onwards. It's a party, but it's already over, you might say. If My Head is clearly melancholy, based on a slow rhythm and languid lyrics, Lady Cocaine and This Morning are a kind of musical balancing act between muscle and muscatel. Another Love, the opening song, and Let Me Go Away are all about the extreme speed with which adolescence flies by. It's the music that makes it immortal. Garage rockers are eternal. teenagers.

But beware, beware, beware. If you want to nitpick, you can't just talk about garage rock - even if the fuzz pedal, generator of the famous distortions that characterize the genre, is obviously present. According to the cover - and to the guy who gave them this label, who «always puts long names to musical genres», as Joris, the band's drummer, explains to me - JAK'S makes’indie garage power pop. «We have a lot of indie rock, garage rock and power pop influences,» he explains. Okay, guys. Personally, I also saw a bit of The Cure in the vocals. Except that talking about new wave would be beside the point. And anyway, The Cure isn't new wave.

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Moving on. What a pleasure to hear from these boys that they've been touring all over France and... Eastern Europe for the last six years. With the times having played a strange trick on them, all the dates they had planned to present their first baby have been cancelled. And postponed to «we don't know when». The three members of the band took advantage of the confinement to develop their songs and compose things each in their own corner, which they then put together. In fact, that's how they work in the first place. «We record demos on our own, sometimes just riffs, then we send them to each other and meet up at rehearsals to put them together and make something out of them,» explains guitarist David.

Since they found themselves strictly stuck at home, like all the French, they tried a little remote music session, with sound cards and all the equipment it would be pointless to describe. Result: almost nothing worked. Olivier, David and Joris are therefore looking forward to resuming the many jams that were their daily routine in the famous «world before». And, of course, to get back on stage. For our part, we're looking forward to seeing them live. Maybe even in Switzerland - JAK'S has made a note of that.

Write to the author: jonas.follonier@leregardlibre.com

Header image: JAK'S © ADLSR

JAK'S
Act 1
Self-production
2020
5 titles