THE BOMB
Interview with guitarist Jeff Dean
By Janelle Jones
Having somewhat recently released their latest record, a fabulous eight-song EP called The Challenger (No Idea), it seemed like a good time to talk to Jeff Dean, guitarist of Chicago punk heavyweights THE BOMB. The band features NAKED RAYGUN vocalist Jeff Pezzati and bassist Pete Mittler and drummer Mike Soucy who were formerly of THE METHADONES. Pete additionally plays in THE NEUTRON BOMBS and also with Jeff in EXPLODE AND MAKE UP while Mike’s playing in DAN VAPID AND THE CHEATS. But enough about all these other bands! Read on to find out what Jeff, who was busy at his day job mixing a record when I called him up, had to say about THE BOMB.
How did you hook up with No Idea?
The second record, well, the first record that I played on but the second record the band put out, Indecision, we did that on Thick Records originally. Thick had stopped issuing vinyl at that point and No Idea reached out and asked us if they could release it on vinyl. We were really excited about that. That’s what led to us working with them exclusively.
I only found out about you guys when Speed Is Everything came out. But I didn’t realize Jeff had the band out before as a trio…
Yeah, when he originally started it, it was him playing bass and singing and he had these other guys playing. They were cool but it definitely was a little bit of a different sound than what the band is now. When I joined playing guitar in the band I talked to Jeff and was like, “Look, I kinda wanna take things in a little bit of a different direction. Are you cool with that?” And he was totally into it. So I kinda just took the reins as far as the songwriting went and kinda ran with it. I guess that’s how the sound of the band developed.
Yeah, ‘cause I [have the download of] this last one, The Challenger, and I know you re-recorded four songs and that one “Can Jeannie Come Out Tonight,” I’m like, where was that from?! [Laughs] I didn’t know.
Yeah, that was from the first album.
Anyway, I was just wondering, how did you guys decide on this new one which songs to re-record because personally, at least two of those are my favorites, “The Kids” and “Indecision.” That song is awesome. How did you decide?
Oh thanks. We had an opportunity to do this live session while we were in England on tour and we could record four songs, so we were like, well, since we were touring on Speed Is Everything we should probably do two songs from that record, but we kinda wanted to do one from each of the other records just to have a good cross-section of what the band has done at that point. With that song “Can Jeannie Come Out Tonight,” when that song was recorded for the first record the bands was a three-piece and neither me, Pete, or Mike had played on that so we kinda thought it would be cool to do a version with all of us playing that song, how the band is now.
But the other two albums you’d played on, was it hard to narrow it down to just three songs?
That song “Indecision” is one of my favorite songs that we ever did and since it was the title track of that album it seemed like all right that’s the one we should do, and then as far as “Can Jeannie Come Out Tonight,” that’s the only song we play off the first record. We didn’t have time to learn anything else at that point. [Laughs]
Even “The Kids.” I have to bring that up because I love that song.
That’s one of my favorites too. Vocal-wise, that was the last song we finished for that record. We got done with everything that night at about 4am. There’s a lot of really interesting things that happened with that song coming together and the way it ended up happening, I don’t think the song would be the same if it didn’t work out the way that it did. So that’s awesome you like that song. [Laughs]
Oh, one thing, I remember when Speed Is Everything came out, I got the press release and the guys at No Idea are saying that it’s right up there with the best of the NAKED RAYGUN records. How does that make you feel? When someone compares it to that?
It made me feel awesome. There was I think four years in between Indecision and Speed Is Everything and there was a lot of things that happened with the band at that point. We didn’t know if we were gonna do another record and then it all came together in this really crazy way. And obviously being a fan of NAKED RAYGUN, to have Var and those guys feel that that record was on par with those records, ‘cause I know what huge fans those guys are of RAYGUN so it’s an amazing compliment to have. It made me feel really good about the album, that’s for sure! But it’s weird because I don’t feel like the two bands really sound like each other at all. There’s always going to be comparisons because of Jeff, but I think our band has a completely different sound than what they sound like.
Yeah, I know all you guys have your other bands, but people focus of course on you know… NAKED RAYGUN. I didn’t know if that bothered you sometimes when if a record comes out touting that it’s Jeff from NAKED RAYGUN and like you guys probably want it to stand on its own.
No, that doesn’t bother me. There’s so many records and so many bands these days. People need some kind of a description to get people interested in it, and of course people are gonna recognize Jeff from that or BIG BLACK so I get it. It doesn’t bother me really, but that said, I feel like the bands are two completely different sounds even though they’re punk bands.
Are you in any other bands at this point?
Me?! [Laughs] All of us play in a bunch of different bands but I think I’m the one that’s in the most bands. I play guitar for ALL EYES WEST, which is the band I’ve been touring with the most over the last year. I also play guitar for NOISE BY NUMBERS. I play guitar for EXPLODE AND MAKE UP as well. There’s a couple of other things I’ve been involved in here and there. So I’m pretty busy.
How do you find time for everything?
I guess I have a lot of free time. I’m a recording engineer at a place called Million Yen, so if I’m not recording music then I’m just playing it. My schedule gives me a little more freedom than I guess most people’s would.
I don’t have a physical copy of the record, so did J. Robbins record this one like the last one?
No. I actually recorded it but J. mixed it. He’s kind of like our fifth member. As long as we’re making records he’ll be involved in it somehow, in some capacity.
That’s awesome. How did the [collaboration] even happen?
Well he recorded the Indecision record and Jeff was friends with him from back in the day and I knew J. a little bit. We just had a really great time recording that first record and when it came to Speed Is Everything we collaborated a little bit more. He actually wrote music for one of the songs [“Haver”] on the record and did a good chunk of the backup vocals on there. It just seems to work out that way. [Laughs] He’s kind of our guy. We’ve all talked about it before – if J. lived in Chicago he’d probably play second guitar in the band which is saying something because I’m usually the guy who just wants to play guitar and not have a second guitar player. But I guess that’s kind of how important he’s become to the sound of the band these days. He’s always contributing something.
Last year I saw you played THE FEST and went to the U.K. Was that the first time you guys played over there?
Yeah, it was the first time we ever left the country, the band anyway. The response was really awesome. It was probably one of the most fun times we’ve ever had on tour. People seemed to be excited about it so we’re hoping to try to get back over again at some point. The band seems to go through phases, like we won’t do things for a really long time then all the sudden we’re really active for an amount of time and then we just don’t do anything forever. [Laughs] Someone was asking why we put out this EP instead of doing an album. It was one of those things where there was four or five years between the two records and I didn’t wanna wait that long. The way it seems with us as far as being motivated to write albums, it was like well, we’ve got these four new songs, we got this great live recording, let’s put this out so there’s actually a new record.
So now is the band going to be in silent mode?! [Laughter]
I’ve got ideas for three or four new songs so we’ve talked about jamming soon and trying to flesh them out. We’re trying to figure out if we should do another EP or if we should try to get enough songs for another album. We’ll see what happens.
From the EP, I’m loving that “Man…Atlanta” song. Is that about touring?
Yeah, it’s actually kind of about not this last tour we did but I think it was two years ago we did a pretty extensive East Coast tour where we went up to Boston and all the way down the coast. That song’s kind of about that whole tour. There was some pretty funny things that happened.
I don’t know if I’m hearing it right but does Jeff actually say, “Bring your meds” something about New Jersey?
The line’s kind of about Jeff. We’ve always had a really good fan base in NJ for some reason and we were playing at the Court Tavern in New Brunswick one night. Jeff had forgotten to fill the prescription for his medication and it ran out and he was in really bad shape and it just kind of somehow made the lyrics to that song. [Laughs]
[Talking about different lyrics from The Challenger…]
I think the lyrics for that song “Hey World” are the heaviest [Jeff] ever wrote. They’re definitely about him and what he’s been dealing with over the last few years. When we were recording that stuff I was sitting here at the board and I was just like wow. This is Jeff’s “fuck everybody” kind of song. It was a pretty intense experience to be tracking that.
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