YAMMER JAW - Decades Of Noise Meet Sharp Angles ! (Usa - Punk-Rock/Noise-Rock - Interview with Stephen, Chris, Richie).

Hello! Can you introduce yourself and tell us how it all began for you - your encounter with this musical universe, what appealed to you, what fascinated you and what made you want to get into music?
Stephen: I play guitar and sing. The first time I heard the Violent Femmes say the f-word on a record, I was hooked. I needed to write songs with f-words and make records too.
Chris: I play guitar as well and yell on occasion. My parents have always listened to a lot of music so I was pretty immersed in it. My dad played guitar some when I was young, but I was never interested in playing it until I got into trouble around 13 years old and my parents grounded me for the whole summer break. I didn’t have shit to do so I asked my dad to teach me a few chords on his guitar. He showed me the basics, but also show me how to play power cords, so I just started trying to play along with all the bands I listened to at the time. Once I realized that I could write my own riffs, I started jamming with friends and everything took off from there.
Richie: When I was in middle school I tagged along with my brother to see a local punk band, the Apple Smaxx. These guys were all 5-6 years older than me and I just completely fell in love with live music. My brother played the guitar so I thought “I should play the drums.” 

Tell me about the band. How you meet, the current line-up, past experiences, and WHY the need to form THIS band?
Stephen: Chris and I met decades ago in Murfreesboro, and we’ve been playing music together in many projects throughout the years. Yammer Jaw is the latest iteration. We knew how important it was to have a solid, hard hitting drummer, Richie was the first person that came to mind. I knew from his other projects that he would be perfect for what we were trying to do. We needed a musician to play bass, and I was reminded of Ian’s role in Watcher, and the fact he could sing. I knew he would be a perfect fit. Knowing everyone from the scene made things so much easier and we knew our tastes in music aligned well.

Describe your sound — and explain why we should listen to your band ?
Stephen: Post-punk post-hardcore noise rock, with odd timing and toe tapping rhythms.
Chris: I just realized that Stephen loves to say “toe tapping rhythms.” I think his passion for big band music really comes through in some of our songwriting.
Richie: Is angular a thing? It has sharp angles.

What are your lyrical and musical inspirations/influences? How important are lyrics to you? Are there any specific messages or thoughts you try to develop and share through your lyrics?
Stephen: I pull a lot from either anthematic themes, and from the frustrations of life, either there’s hope, or there isn’t. Words, grammar, inflection, it’s all fair game. I like to add more than one point of view or maybe you ought to read between the lines. Sometimes I just want something to rhyme.
Chris: I watch way too many movies, so a large majority of my influence comes from the weird films that I watch. I was rewatching Twin Peaks: The Return with my son at the time we wrote our song “Golden Shovel,” so some of those lyrics were inspired by a few specific things in that season of Twin Peaks - mostly Dr Jacoby ranting about the current state of the world and how awful corporations and politicians are. I’m not very confident in my lyric writing abilities so after sitting on it for a while, I asked Stephen to rewrite most of it. It’s a lot better now.
Richie: I’ve always focused more on the toe-tapping rhythms than the lyrics.

Tell us about your latest release: where and when was it recorded, what's it about, who did the artwork, what formats is it available in, and where can people get it? Stephen: We recorded "Burth" at Shibby Poole’s house in Nashville, the culmination of our latest creative juices. Themes include the futility of doing someone else's labor, Bystander Apathy, Social Media addiction, etc. I used old Time, and Look magazines from the 50s and 60s, as well as some new publications to collage the cover art as well as the lyric booklet. It will be available in Vinyl, CD and cassette.
Chris: You can preorder or buy the EP from our Bandcamp. Or better yet, come to one of our shows and steal one.

Future plans?
Stephen: Just keep writing and playing!
Chris: I think it would be pretty rad if we could play some regional festivals. It’s something we all have to kind of figure out as we go since we all have regular jobs, but it would be tight if we could go on tour with some of the bands that we jam with 
Richie: What Chris said, plus I’d like to get on the road sometime soon.

What's the most insane dream you have for this band?
Stephen: I try to keep my head out of the clouds as it's too easy to get caught up in that stuff. I’m so grateful to be playing music I love with a group of friends I love.
Chris: I’d love to play at Donald Trump‘s funeral. That would be the peak for me. (Let's make it a BIG party ! Ed.)
Richie: To play on Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney, or any talk show.

What was your BEST and WORST show as a band, and why?
Chris: I feel like we don’t have enough shows under our belt since we’re such a new band, but I do a pretty good job blocking any bad shit from my memory. I think our best show was probably when we played Donald Trump‘s funeral in my dream the other night.
Richie: We played an outdoor show a few years ago where we could barely hear ourselves and our singer at the time was spraying beer all over me and the drum kit. That was both the best and worst.

Next live-appearances?
Stephen: September 22nd at Drkmttr with Iron Lung, Hologram, Zero Sum, Human SHield and Yammer Jaw. 

Some words on your local scene — any bands you're close with that you'd like to name?
Stephen: Soot is doing some really cool things. Pale Apollo hasn’t gotten enough attention.
Chris: Yeah, Soot is great and making music unlike any other bands around town. I really dig Human Shield and Woundflower -  gnarly stuff. Our homies in Serotonin are coming back with a new EP, so that’s pretty awesome as well.
Richie: On the punk front I’ve been enjoying Sinkers and Wesley and the Boys.

What’s the question you’ve always dreamed of answering but have never been asked?
Richie: The question that Will Ferrell asked when he portrayed famed Cubs announcer Harry Caray: “If you were a hotdog would you eat yourself?” And the answer would be, “yes” !