Turns out Will Smith was lying about Miami...
Miami is famous for a lot of things. Cocaine, pastel suits, Dan Marino, The Miami Dolphins and palm trees all spring to mind, but one thing that it certainly has no reputation for is garage rock music. In fact, musically speaking Miami seems like a massive English-speaking version of one of the Balearic islands, where house DJs in wrap-around J-Lo glasses cruise around on speed boats by day, and play to clubs filled with scantily clad women and aggressive looking rappers by night.
If you are a garage rock band from Miami then, it presents an interesting marketing challenge. These days, where the internet seems to have turned the music industry into a massive game of civic one-upmanship, where you come from matters, and if your city has no scene to speak of, you’d better come up with some way to get around it. In the case of Jacuzzi Boys the answer has come in two strokes of divine intervention – the first was when Iggy Pop mentioned them in a interview for Urban Outfitters (apparently it’s a big deal in the States) and the second came when a group of fans decided to make a video using just their vaginas, which then became an internet sensation. Don’t believe me, here’s the link. Warning: contains vag.
For once though, Jacuzzi Boys are a band that can live up to the hype. Their recently released second album ‘Glazin’ is a masterclass in how to make sun-drenched, feel-good garage rock that makes you want to surf your mate’s van down the high street like in Teen Wolf before heading to some weird dive bar and generally tearing shit up ‘til the wee early hours of the morning.
While they're over here afor their very first European tour, I caught up with bassist Danny to chat about Will Smith, boat shows and fan-made videos.
Jacuzzi Boys - Glazin' by Baptiste18
Let’s just get this out of the way, how did it feel when you found out a bunch of girls made a video using their vaginas?
Oh, we all loved it man. It’s a pretty cool thing to be sent by a fan. It didn’t make us feel weird or anything like that; we just wanted to get it out there immediately.
Did you anticipate the legal problems and what not?
Yeah, a little bit, but they’re sort of resolved now.
You guys are pretty into the whole psychedelic video thing. I mean the vid for Smells Dead makes my eyes hurt...
They more sort of turn out that way. None of us really know that much about video making, I mean we like how things look and stuff, but we have no idea about cameras and stuff, so we pretty much just let whoever is making one have full creative control.
What inspired you guys to start making garage rock?
I dunno – it kind of just happened organically. Gabriel, who plays guitar and sings and Diego who plays drums originally played as a two-piece when I saw them for the first time at a friend’s warehouse. It was kind of disaster show, they couldn’t really play, and couple of months after that I joined the band..
It’s not like we sat down and thought this city has no rock ‘n’roll bands; it’s just that we were all getting into playing our instruments and punk rock seemed the natural thing to play.
In my mind, Miami is famous for Miami Bass and Vanilla Ice...
Miami isn’t really known for its rock ‘n’ roll bands, it's way more about hip hop and things like that. I definitely got the vibe when we started playing round town that we were a bit of a novelty, and even today when we go on tour people come up to us and go ‘where you from, Miami? There’s no rock in Miami...”
So if you don’t like David Guetta you’re kind of screwed?
Yeah, that’s what’s here mostly. I mean bands come to town occasionally, but it’s not LA or Chicago or anything. We’re so far south that it doesn’t make sense for most bands to play. It’s like you have to drive all the way down into Florida and all the way out again.
Wow. Will Smith makes it sound so nice...
Yeah, yeah – everyone makes it sounds nice...
You have a bit of a reputation for being a party band – what can we expect from a Jacuzzi Boys show?
We definitely try and have a good time when we play and want people to jump around and go crazy or whatever, but we never really wanted to be a party band. We don’t set out to make it like Spring Break or anything, but we definitely want people to have a good time.
I should probably tell you that kids don’t really dance that much in London.
Oh OK, whatever. Will they nod their heads at least?
They’ll probably stare at you with their arms folded.
Oh right. Well, we’ve seen that before. Who knows? Maybe we could even get them to dance?
Jacuzzi Boys play The Shacklewell Arms on Friday and White Heat next Tuesday.'Glazin' is out now.
http://www.jacuzziboys.com
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