EXCLUSIVE: Jackson Rathbone on 100 Monkeys, puppets and Breaking Dawn
So we've all appreciated Jackson Rathbone's beauty, talent and pained blood-craving face as Jasper Hale in the Twilight movies but did you know that he's in a band too? It's called 100 Monkeys and we guarantee you won't have heard anything quite like them before.
The band is comprised of actors and musicians Jackson Rathbone, Ben Graupner, Jerad Anderson, Lawrence Abrams and Ben Johnson. Thier music is as diverse and colourful as a bag of Haribo - funk, rock n' roll, blues, jazz, a little bit of country... they're not afraid to remix any genre into their own unique sound.
The mischeivous monkeys are known for their free-style gigs where the band often switch instruments, vocalists, music genres and make up songs on the spot based on audience requests. Sounds pretty fun, right?
If you're interesed or already a fan you'll be pleased to know 100 Monkeys are currently on their world tour and will be rocking out British venues from December 12th.
We caught up with Jackson Rathbone for a quick chat on the phone. If only we could have seen his pretty face too...
How did you end up in the band 100 Monkeys?
"Well the band started about four years ago, it was kind of an experimental thing. We recorded the first album - which was completely improvised in our living room recording studio - in one take I think. It was so much fun, something we were doing for kicks. Then we started playing live, we'd just jam and make up the words. It started almost as a comedy based live show with jazz and blues, interacting with the audience to make songs. Then we started writing our own material."
So tell us about the new album, Liquid Zoo, where did that name come from?
"There are a bunch of different reasons for the name. A lot of it input stemmed from from different musical artists and other artists. Also Bruce Lee would always talk about how important it is to be liquid, flow through life. In terms of the way we work we are very liquid on stage - we all move around between instruments and genres. Liquid zoo was also the name of a fantastic little bar down the street from where we were recording our album. We'd pop over their, they'd have a mic night and we'd just band jam."
Your puppet theme video for Modern Times is really cool, where did that idea come from?
"We were having a meeting with director Chris Buongiorno, playing him the rough tracks before the album was finished and we had to pick a song. We picked Modern Times and came up with the idea of the marionette and were lucky enough to get one of the lead puppeteers from Team America on board and then had hysterical marionette versions of ourselves made. We're keeping them to make more videos..."
Do you ever play with your puppet self?
"Er... no... I don't play with my puppet self. I actually haven't actually seen it in physical form - it's in a studio somewhere. If I did have my puppet I'd play with myself all day long."
You guys have cited women who 'cheat and steal' as one of the inspirations for the album, is this based on any of your ex-girlfriends?
"We've all in life had exes that inspired certain songs but in 100 Monkeys we don't really focus on love songs. We've only written a couple like ones about lost love or love that's stolen from us... but I guess there's a little bit of reasoning behind that phrase."
So you've been promoting Breaking Dawn like crazy and now you're touring Europe, are you tired or loving it?
"I'm loving it. I love being busy, staying in one place for too long usually bores me and makes me more tired. I'm ready to rock and roll over Europe."
Do you have pretty passionate European fans?
"Yeah we've definitely got some passionate European fans, some have travelled all the way to America for our tours so we thought we'd repay the favour and head across the pond."
A lot of Twilight fans come to your shows, do you think you convert them over to loving the music?
"There's definitely a lot of fans who hear about the band thought Twilight, then there are fans who just hear about the music, or come a long with their friends, or who like the name 100 monkeys, or people who want to find something new and experiemental. A lot of people just really like the live nature of our shows, we switch around instruments on stage and genres, our live shows are very theatrical, a bunch of guys jumping around like crazy."
How many instruments do you play then?
"I practise the guitar and piano every day and bass and drums on and off. I grew up with the idea I wanted to teach myself a little bit of everything so whenever I'm in the studio I can be recording demos and songs as much as possible by myself, I'll bring it to the band and we build up songs like that. All of 100 Monkeys write songs."
So which one of your songs do you think could accompany the Breaking Dawn birth scene?
"It's definitely a darker scene so something like... Prayer?"
Goodbye Jackson.
"Goodbye, I love you."
Source => Sugarscape / Via => Jackson Rathbone Online
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