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All the Way to (New) Mexico
An interview with Jadd of Spiritu
By Bob
Ignizio
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As crowded as the stoner rock and doom scenes are these
days, there’s always room for another band provided they’re good enough.
With their recently released self titled debut on Meteor City, Spiritu (Jadd
– vocals, Chav – guitar, John – bass, and Kenny – drums) have proven
themselves worthy. Hailing from Albuquerque, New Mexico, the band displays
the usual Kyuss and Black Sabbath influences, but without the more overt
copycat tendencies of so many other bands. They’re also lucky enough to
have a really good vocalist who sounds a bit like Chris Cornell crossed with
John Bush, and whose personal lyrics avoid the usual clichés of the genre.
As the founder of Meteor City records, Jadd initially
wasn’t planning on starting a band of his own. “The spring of 2000 I filled
in for this band called Iron Man as their singer on tour with pretty much no
notice. They were friends of mine, and they had me sing with them for about
a month,” Jadd said. “I’d never been in a band before, and when I was done
with it I was like. ‘Oh my god, this is awesome.’ When I came back I
decided to try and put something together.”
Enlisting his friend James on drums (since departed)
and lucking into guitarist Chav, the band still had to find a bass player.
“We placed an ad, local heavy rock band seeks bass player. Influences are
Black Sabbath, Fu Manchu, Jethro Tull and Kyuss. We didn’t get a single
call, then after three weeks we got a call from this guy John. He had been
trying to get a hold of us, but the number was printed wrong in the paper.
He had gone down to the office of the paper and demanded to know who placed
the ad and got the correct number and tracked us down. On the strength of
that we figured he was dedicated.”
With all the necessary pieces assembled, the band
started writing songs and playing out. Jadd told me, “We probably played
out about a dozen times before recording the album. Not a ton, but once a
month or so. There’s not much of a local music scene here in Albuquerque,
but whenever there’s a cool band coming through town that we dig we try to
get on that bill.”
Despite only playing a handful of shows, Spiritu have
nonetheless had some eventful ones. Jadd related one story involving fire
and large amounts of alcohol. “For a while at the end of shows I used to do
this thing with flaming drum sticks that I’d use to hit some roto toms
with. Right around Christmas last year I had the torches going and this guy
was right up front and I didn’t realize how out of it he was. He was up at
the microphone and screaming “yeah” so I reached down and gave him one of
the torches because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time. He
just started spinning around and waving the torch. The whole audience just
cut a wide berth and was thinking, ‘why did he give that torch to the
drunkest guy in the audience?’ At the end of the show he put out the torch,
came up, grabbed me and hugged me, took a gold ring off his finger, put it
in my hand, and told me that I had to have it because he’d never seen
anything like that and then stumbled off into the night. I’ve still got
that ring. I’ve never seen him since. I don’t know what that’s supposed to
mean, but thanks man.”
The band wrote and ultimately discarded a good bit of
material before winding up with the songs contained on their debut.
Describing the group’s songwriting process, Jadd says, “Chav is the main
riff writer, but we all work together and jam stuff. Everybody comes up
with their part so it’s definitely democratic. That can be tougher, because
usually somebody is going to be less into a part that everybody else likes,
but in the end I think it propels us to work harder to end up with songs
that we all really dig. I know from experience of each of us having tried
once or twice to bring in a semi finished piece that it always comes out
better when we work together than anything any one of us could do on our
own.”
Eventually Spiritu recorded a demo. Fearing how it
might look to release his band on his own label, and looking for honest
feedback, Jadd sent the demo anonymously to a few labels, including his
own. “We probably sent out half a dozen packages to labels, but I got
tired of waiting to see if someone else would pick us up so I just put it
out,” Jadd says. “I’ve come to feel in the long run that it was a good
move. It seems kind of foolish not to take advantage of something that you
have. I had a label long before I had a band, so it’s not like I did that
with self interest in mind.”
He also sent a copy to the legendary Jack Endino, who
ultimately wound up producing the band’s debut CD. Regarding Endino, Jadd
says, “We got some positive feedback from him. So I hit him up six months
later, and I was like ‘You know that demo I sent you? That was actually my
band, but we’ve got much better stuff now.’ It was awesome working with
him. It was also intimidating because you know who he’s recorded and what
he’s heard. It’s a little bit humbling. He managed to get a colossal
guitar sound. He really knows his stuff, and we’re pleased he got a sound
out of us that we didn’t even know we could make.”
Although Jadd can’t wait to get back on the road to
relive the touring experience that drove him to start the band in the first
place, personal commitments of other band members make that unlikely for
now. Jadd explains, “Our plan is to tour next summer for at least a month,
maybe two. We’ll be playing in Phoenix soon for the Stoner Hands of Doom
show. That will be our first taste of seeing what the crowds are like
outside of Albuquerque, which all of us are pretty damn anxious for.”
In the meantime, the band is already working on their
follow up album. “I think we’re maybe about a third of the way in writing
wise. It’s tough because we haven’t been doing it for a long time, and you
tend to impose all kinds of expectations on yourself and on the writing.
It’s a bad habit, and we’re trying to get out of it. Everything on the
first record was developed when we first got together, so it wasn’t like
things people had that had been waiting for the right time. I’m not too
concerned about being able to top that first record, though,” says Jadd.
As far as where the band sees themselves going, the
song “Glorywhore” on their album perhaps sums it up best. “It’s the
anti-rock star thing. It’s about being happy playing in a dark smoky bar,
but also hinting at the fact that it’s easy to fool yourself when you’re
doing it,” Jadd explains. “I would just like to be able to tour
constantly. There’s bands like Nebula, who are far from “making it”, but
they put out records, tour their asses off, and get to see the world. They
get to play their music for people who can’t wait to see them play again and
again and again, and that’s the ideal for me. It’s not a money thing for me
at all. I’d just like to be able to play as a way of life.”
More Spiritu on Utter Trash:
CD review:
'Spiritu' 10-24-02
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