Sheffields much loved Jetski released their debut EP last month,
For The Family has fast become one of our favourite releases of the year especially recently released single 'Joey and Zoe', which has a hilarious video showing the band’s hunt for a new bass player, (We will put a link to that below)
Debuting in the summer of 2019 with single 'Easy Peeler', Jetski quickly obtained the attention of festivals such Ynot and 2Q..
We had a chat recently with Charles from the band about all things 'Jetski'
Hi Charles, thanks for chatting to us today. Firstly would you like to introduce yourself and tell us what you do in the band?
Hey I'm Charles and I play guitar and sing in Jetski!
Tell us a little about your band, how you got together and the story behind the name if there is one, cos it's an interesting name!
I've known everyone in the band since I was 12 - I met Alex (Pullen, Drums) and Eliot (Pullen, Guitar and Vocals) through hanging at the local skateshop and punk shows in our hometown and Jack (Gunn, Bass) I met at school and quickly became best friends with - we started jamming in 2019 after mine and Alex's previous band came to an end, me, him and his brother Eliot had been writing and jamming for a little while before then but with the introduction of Jack we properly formed as a band and realised we had created something special that we wanted to show to our friends and I guess anyone else who wanted to listen!
We often get asked about the origins of "Jetski" as a name - the truth behind it is, we wanted to be called "watersports" but soon found out this is a category of porn where people get pee'd on - we didn't want to compete with the search results so chose Jetski as its undoubtedly the coolest of all the watersports
Tell us a bit about your latest single "Joey and Zoe', what’s the story behind the song?
Our newest single "Joey and Zoe" is a tribute to the great british house party. During lockdown we found ourselves creating more music than I had lyrics for - In the midst of the lockdown I found myself missing a good house party - I didn't miss pubs and bars, they've never really been something I've enjoyed. So me and Jack sat down and wrote a story about a particular house party we'd been to when life was more normal and yeah that's it! There's no real meaning to the song, it's meant to just be fun, energetic and easily relatable from a lyrical aspect.
What is your writing process like? Do you start with lyrics and then come up with a melody or is it the other way round?
Our writing process changes massively from song to song, I often appreciate how easy we find writing as we are all songwriters - sometimes Alex might come with a fully formed demo that just needs little bits adding, sometimes Jack will come in with a small part of a bass line and we build a full song around it. Lyrics almost always happen at the exact same time as writing the music, while some of the songs we've written let people in on more sensitive topics. I've always got it in mind that everyone applies their own meanings to lyrics, so I often treat lyrics like a sport - trying to fit in complicated works and vocal patterns while still making it "hummable".
What bands were you listening to when you were writing this release? Do you think it had an affect on the end sound?
We all listen to pretty different kinds of music, Alex is almost always listening to something progressive... in other words, the most complicated music possible - stuff like Rush, Snarky Puppy and Vulfpeck. Jack has always been very eclectic with his taste, often stemming quite far from the music we make - he was jamming a lot of Trudy and The Romance and Superheaven in the studio which I think shows that eclectic-ness pretty well. Eliot was almost exclusively listening to the new Slaughter Beach Dog record at the time and I was in digging into a lot of the hardcore coming out of the US and UK like Drain, Guilt Trip and anything else with big riffs.
You have a brilliant music video to go along with this single, what is the story behind that, was it fun to make?
The music video for "Joey and Zoe" was such a blast to make, we had written a bunch of music videos for the EP but 5 weeks before shooting started Jack broke his back - which as you can imagine put a huge spanner in the works. We went through every option possible to work around it, from body doubles to full blown CGI with each presenting their own new list of issues. So I sat down and thought about how we could include Jack in the video given the circumstances resulting in basing the video around the search for a new bass player - concluding with Jack returning to save the day and rejoining the band.
I really think it turned out for the better, the video is hilarious and filled with references to the early 2000's music videos we grew up watching. Working with Aaran Mckenzie from While She Sleeps was absolutely seamless and so cool to see how larger scale video production works. We've written, shot and edited every music video before this so it was nice to be more hands off on the production and focus on writing and performing.
What can you tell us about the EP that the song has come from?
This is our first EP, after drip feeding singles over the last few years we wanted to present a body of work - we've tried our best to showcase the variety of songs we make. "Joey and Zoe" is bouncy, beaming - the most pit instigating, which to this point has been our bread and butter. "Jacks Song" shows are ability to sit back and let simplicity speak for itself, a huge singalong start to finish with energy towards to the end that you'd expect from a Jetski song. "Curbside" is a new direction for us, we've tried to create soundscapes and pull you into different emotional-spaces throughout the song. It's the one we're most proud of and can't wait to build upon the sounds we put on display throughout it and the EP.
What would people be surprised to know about you?
That's a tough one, I guess it's that we don't have any backing and that we're entirely independent. People often think because of the quality of our output that we are signed, or managed - which is a massive compliment but from every merch design, to our artwork, to our content and literally everything in between is done by us.
Do you have any shows coming up that we should get ourselves along to?
We've got a few headline shows to close out the year, in Liverpool on the 7th at Jacaranda Club. It'll be our first time there after years of fans asking us to come so very stoked for that one. Then we've got back to back Sheffield Hometown Headliners on the 25 and 26 of November and legendary venue Yellow Arch - it's our first time doing back to back hometown shows, already well on their way to selling out. I'd advise anyone who wants to come see us, come down to our hometown headliners - the energy is second to none.
Thanks for chatting to us Charles! We will definitely get ourselves to a show!
Check out Jetski' debut EP 'For The Family' is available on all streaming platforms now.
Find the band on social media
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