Exclusive Interview: Jets Overhead

DeadJournalist.com Exclusive Interview: Jets Overhead
by Chuck Norton
02.20.10

Jets Overhead (Photo credit: Stephanie Hull)

Although less than two months in, 2010 has already been an unforgettable year for the Victoria, B.C.-based band Jets Overhead.

While, like many bands, they are finalizing tour and festival dates for Spring 2010, the band had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to perform twice at this year’s Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

The performances set in motion a year that could find Jets Overhead finally break into the limelight and find the success that seems overdue for a band of their talent.

Formed in 2003, the band has released two full length albums: Bridges in 2006 and No Nations, which was released last year. In addition to their 2003 self-titled debut EP, the band offered up several digital-only albums via the band’s Web site.

The band – comprised of Adam Kittredge, Jocelyn Greenwood, Lucas Renshaw, Antonia Freybe-Smith and Piers Henwood – will make their Coachella Music and Art Festival debut this year and they have also confirmed dates at several of the other major US and Canadian music festivals, including the Canadian Music Week, the Sasquatch Music Festival and SXSW.

For more information on the band, visit their Web site: JetsOverhead.com or on Twitter: @JetsOverhead or become a fan on Facebook.

DeadJournalist.com proudly brings you this exclusive interview with Adam Kittredge and Antonia Freybe-Smith of Jets Overhead.

With the 2010 Winter Olympics going on near your hometown, talk about the significance of being able to perform at the games?

AK: I wasn’t really prepared for what the games mean to our area of the world and our Country until I actually got there and saw the quality insanity that the games have brought to Vancouver. We were all floored at how great the city felt – like NYC on New Year’s Eve – but every night for over two weeks! It’s a mad house of fun and I want to go back.

What was the most exciting or interesting part of the Olympic experience? Where there any specific events that you are/were most excited about watching?

AK: Antonia and I don’t have cable so we weren’t that up to date on what was going on with the city and the events – apart from CBC radio updates, which is our mainline to the world these days. Let’s just say that I felt like a little kid in a very big candy shop arriving downtown last weekend to see thousands of people everywhere – lining up on every corner to get into an event, or a beer garden or OUR SHOW!

We just felt very blessed to be part of the organized chaos. Oh, and once there you can’t go anywhere without seeing events on the big screens everywhere, so we saw plenty of amazing sports action – speed skating is really cool to watch – wipe outs happen and it’s not pretty.

You will be performing at your first Coachella this year as you continue to tour in support of your 2009 album No Nations. Do you change the way you perform for a festival show versus a club? If so, what is the biggest difference in preparation between to two venue types?

Jets Overhead - No Nations

AFS: We always try and make a connection with the audience, no matter what size they are. That’s what it’s all about, I think: that amazing give and take of energy between a performer and the audience, the giving and receiving back and forth. It can be pure magic.

So even if it’s a big, festival size crowd, we try make eye contact, be ourselves, be present and perform as if it was just one person in a room.

AK: We can’t really predict how a festival show will shake down – they are often very “fly by the seat of your pants” (I don’t even know what the means but you probably get it). So if Coachella is anything like Bonnaroo for example, then I think you could say that we will be throwing our gear up on stage right before we play (no sound-check) plugging in, hoping everything works and then letting her rip with all cylinders firing. That’s how we did at B-roo and it worked out just fine.

Clubs? Well you at least usually get a sound-check!

How have your interpretations of the songs on No Nations evolved since they were first recorded? Is there a song in particular that has changed significantly in how you now perform it?

AK: I like this question. These songs have definitely morphed through the past eight months of performing them.

We’ve had to adapt our arrangements for different shows such as an intimate theater performance being recorded for radio vs. an outdoor festival. Those kind of stripped down intimate arrangements are great because they get us back in touch with the core of the song itself – we have to find what makes it really float, soar and lift the listener out of their person for a minute or three. That’s the goal and sometimes it’s harder than you’d think.

“Fully Shed” was one track that we all felt benefited live from this treatment – we stripped it down and “wolf” our drummer played a very different 16th note beat with tambourine and rim clicks. There’s a recorded version out there on the web through CBC radio 2′s website. Worth a listen if you have a little extra time. I really like that version; maybe even better than the album cut!

What is the biggest challenge of live performances? What is the most enjoyable part?

AK: Being consistent as a singer. That’s my biggest challenge. Vocal chords are the most unreliable instrument in the world! Having to rely on one’s health – physical and mental – is never more critical than for the singer. So all day before a big show I’m humming, and breathing and trying to exercise to get my stamina up.

I swear I could probably spend most of my time when off the road just mentally and physically preparing to sing for the next tour or big show. Jogging, biking, yoga – all essential to being a better singer and performer. And singing as much as possible too – it’s all muscles man – if you were a competitive athlete you’d be working the muscles needed for your sport daily. That’s how I feel about my singing voice. And it’s always changing – mood, climate, time of day, season, drink, drug, smoke, no smoke – it all effects it.

It’s not easy being a singer. That being said, I love it when it works – when my voice does what I want it to do and I don’t even have to think about it. Live, or in studio – when the vocal chords are right for the job it’s the best feeling in the world!

Which do you enjoy more, performing live or writing and recording?

AFS: I love both – because they are so different from each other! They each tap into different types of creativity. So different, but so dependent on each other. It’s like the hard work and joy of giving birth and raising a child, compared to the hard work and joy of releasing them into the world.

AK: Both are very exciting. I think if I had to choose one I’d take performing live (as long as there was always a decent sized audience to feed off of).

Are you working on material for a new album?

AK: We were smart about our last recording session and recorded several extra songs with the intention of holding them back to release either as an EP or to be augmented with a few more new tunes for release this year or early next. I think the latter is most likely, so we have to work out some new material then don’t we! I have a few ditties tinkling around in my cranium. And I am also really excited to start playing and mixing the existing songs as well.

How has the band matured since forming in 2003? Was there a band or artist who helped show you the ropes during the early days of the band?

AK: We have learned our craft so much more thoroughly. All sides of it – including the business end. How to handle our affairs more efficiently with less headache, how to get what we want out of an experience. And yet I feel as if we have years of more learning to do before we can say we are “mature” or, as they say in the wine world, ready to drink.

A band that helped show us some of the ropes early on was Our Lady Peace. They took us out on a full national tour and gave us a glimpse of that bigger picture game. It was a very interesting touring experience.

Jets Overhead (Photo credit: Stephanie Hull)

What was your first exposure to music? Was there a point where you knew being a musician was what you wanted to do for the foreseeable future?

AK: One vivid memory of my exposure to music and glimpse into a future in the field would have to be my love for the Fine Young Cannibals album and specifically “She Drives Me Crazy”. Grade 5 – I would spend the lunch break playing my cassette tape on the ghetto blaster in Mrs. Patterson’s room singing along with every word to a gaggle of girls, thinking: “I’ve got it, oh yeah, I’ve got it…this is where it’s at.”

AFS: I had the great fortune of growing up in a family with great taste in music: my aunt, and my older cousins, inundated me with Paul Simon, Joe Jackson, Bryan Ferry, Leonard Cohen, Dire Straits, Talking Heads, The Beatles, Beastie Boys, The Skydiggers, Tom Petty, Miles Davis and Leon Redbone … how lucky was I?

I had a band with my cousins as a kid called “The Imps”. Being a musician never entered my mind until meeting Adam, singing with him around camp fires and at parties, then doing some backups for Jets Overhead, then later joining the band! I still can’t really believe it sometimes.

Is there an artist that you’ve encountered recently that you’ve been recommending to your friends?

AK: The Handsome Furs album Face Control. Love it.

AFS: I am addicted to jazz and world music – and last year discovered a miraculous Brazilian singer songwriter named Ceu that I CANNOT STOP LISTENING TO. I hate flying and her album on repeat is about the only thing that will get me through it!

What were you listening to in 2000?

AK: Less ringing in my ears.

AFS: What was I listening to 10 years ago? Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen, Bjork, Massive Attack, Edith Piaf, Jamiroquai, the Stereophonics …

Which do you prefer: MP3, CD, Tape or Vinyl?

AFS: iTunes and vinyl

AK: If it’s old stuff vinyl b/c that’s what it was mixed for. CD (or imported AIFF) for modern day stuff makes me happy. But frankly, I don’t think about it much anymore – if it’s a song I want to hear I’ll take it any way I can get it!

Web site(s) you read regularly?

AK: None. I’m more of a Globe and Mail Paper guy. That and CBC radio.

AFS: I love TED.com. Addicted. I guess that’s not really reading though, is it?

One Drink; One Movie; One Album:

AFS: Dirty vodka martini with 3 olives; Point Break; Dire Straits Dire Straits

AK: A margarita (any tequila except for Jose Cuervo Gold – blech!) salted rim for sure (sea salt please); Avatar (I’ll see it a 3rd time in 3D, I swear it I will!); Today it has to be Fleetwood Mac – Greatest Hits! I can’t stop listening to Christine McVie’s Everywhere.