Interview: The Junction @ Clark Hall Pub Sat. Mar. 8
“I really, really like those albums that just capture something real, and don’t really hide from flaws and whatnot. I think music shouldn’t be perfect, you know? I think it’s the imperfections that make songs that much more real and beautiful,” said Brent Jackson, singer and guitarist for The Junction.
After seven years together, the Brampton band has finally released their first full-length album, a self-titled follow-up to 2004’s EP. Inspired by the small-room feel of albums like Nirvana’s In Utero and Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy, the three-piece recorded the album’s instrumentals off the floor in nine days, an intentional departure from the process behind the EP.
“We’ve been playing for so many years, and in that time so many people have told us that we’re very in tune with each other, or we have a very good energy,” Jackson said. “ … When we recorded the EP, it was kind of like our first time really … experimenting with recording and making a record. And I think we kinda let it all out in production, and we spent a lot of time doing lots of overdubs and whatnot, and we recorded all the tracks separately, and … even though it turned out to be a pretty decent recording for the EP, I think a lot of people kind of said, ‘This doesn’t really represent what you guys sound like.’ ”
While initial reviews of The Junction were lukewarm, the most recent press in Chart and Exclaim! has been more positive. The Junction may not have done themselves any favours with the album’s sequencing, an ittedly tall task for a record that has to connect uneasy funk (“Notions of Love”) with Radiohead-esque epics (“The Darkest Night”).
The Junction show their 905 stripes on the screamy, aggressive but aimless opener “Station Me,” then change clothes entirely for the near-Britpop “Put The Hammer Down.” Things don’t really lift off until a few tracks in, following the brief dissonance of “The Curtains!!! They Call,” when The Junction start proving their pop mettle with the eerie drift of “Untitled,” followed by the more direct “Frequencies” and relentlessly sunny lead single “Components of Four,” packed with radio-ready crunch and charming handclaps. It’s hard to tell exactly what Jackson is on about here, his limber falsetto aside— “A condescending century caused a flaw in my feet because the cause was caused aloof”?—but whatever it means, it sure sounds good.
“I think it’s just the kind of record that I think you have to give it some time, otherwise you’re really not going to get it on the first listen, and it demands a little more attention than just putting it on and making the call in the first couple of songs,” Jackson said. “There’s just a lot to it.”
“I really liked the fact that someone could put on this record and it’s like a time capsule. They can put it on and they can hear what we’re feeling at that moment, you know, what those songs meant to us at that exact moment. And what we’re all feeling is pretty much in there, and that’s really special.”
And if you doubt Jackson’s sincerity, you can just refer to “I’m Aware and Writing From The Heart.”
Jackson might be writing from the heart, but he couldn’t speak from the heart for several months during the band’s recording sessions when he lost his voice.
“All the band recording was done on the 11th of March, and I don’t think I started singing until the end of April, or May …—it was really difficult to find someone to help me get my voice back, because no one knew what was wrong with me. Like, I went to the hospital, I went to doctors, and a lot of them said, ‘Oh, you have like an infection’ or whatever, and then I couldn’t really figure out what my problem was.
“Eventually, I found out there was some voice specialist in Toronto, and … in the first ten minutes of him sitting down with me, he knew exactly what the problem was. He just said, ‘You have a polyp [tissue growth] on your vocal cord.’ So I had to go through training to learn how to, I guess, build my confidence back up and learn how to maintain the voice. It was really scary, you know? You lose—some days, it has a way of getting to you, and at a certain point, it’s just like, what if you don’t get it back? The point at which I found out what it was and started getting my voice back, it was almost three months or so where I didn’t really didn’t have even a speaking voice. It was an eternity.”
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The Junction plays Clark Hall Pub this Saturday with Linehaul, Persona and Cedar Speeder. ission is $7 and doors are at 9 p.m.
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