[image-1]

JSB Squad
This Is Your Band

Forget that you haven’t been to practices, you can’t carry a tune and you look really awkward trying to figure out those frets on the guitar neck — you’re still in the JSB Squad. In fact, “everyone in existence”— save one grouchily antagonistic drunk woman— is in the band.

Jesse Shepherd-Bates has been playing music and writing songs since he was 13, being self-taught in both respects. Growing up in Commerce Twp., the product of “flower children” parents, Bates tells me “Music’s always been a big part of their life. My dad’s the best bass player I know.”

Bates, with guitarist George Morris, started The Satin Peaches in 2004. The local quartet’s fuzz-clambered, brit-pop-facilitated-art-punk-revivalism soon caught the ear of Island Records. By the time the band signed, Morris “and I went our separate ways,” says Bates. This is only after the Peaches went through five or so member shifts. The frustrating band jostling inspired the indestructible camaraderie and inclusiveness of the Squad.

Bates was eventually contacted by another young auspicious singer/songwriter, Mick Bassett, who asked Bates to join his new band, The Marthas.

“[Writing] is just a compulsive thing,” says Bates, “I needed an outlet ... to make sure I can play on my own.” Through '07 and '08, Bates started recording the weird pop songs he’d been writing since his Peaches departure — often aided by drummer Jeremy Smith. In February, the Squad debuted live with Bates, Smith and Eric Roosen. “It’s been expanding every show since," Bates says. "The next version was the warm-up for the CD release ... we were up to five, and then the next show there were eight.” In October, at a Garden Bowl show, there were 12, and most recently, they scaled back down to ten.

The live band includes (and has included): You, Bates, Smith, Roosen, Morris, Bassett, Gordon Smith, Ryan Weise, Ryan Hoger, Allison Young, Aaron Nelson, Alex Winston, Katie Long, Augie Vissochi, Steve Kempany, Emily Laquinta, Joel Sanders and Renee Lombardi.

Live, there's that "Free Bird" go-for-broke mentality to the fifth dimension, with pop-rock’s swing and a punk-shredded overkill that risks running off the rails but hangs together with shining chemistry. And at the heart of this wild symphony is the soul of a true songwriter, Bates, who now utilizes his friendships, his relations to other people and to the world, as instruments. The core of the experience is still Bates’ songs, and any touring version would likely be — as it has been on occasion — just Bates.

Most recently, Bassett and Bates established Sleek Speek Recordings (sleekspeek.com) — a label or perhaps just a vehicle to release recordings from the Squad, The Marthas and also, hopefully, The Satin Peaches in the coming year.

Last summer, Bates released the Squad's debut, Blue Circles, Rubber Bands, a range of soulful, sunny grooves, stripped piano balladry and cutting guitar-fuzz grinds. He describes his process less as writing and more as “building” — a construction site left open and malleable throughout its gestation to any influences (Beck, Flaming Lips, Broken Social Scene, etc.). Bates is revamping the FreEP and looks forward to more shows, be they with ten others or solo. “I think the Squad,” Bates says, describing the live performance, “is about energy.” But, he pauses, quickly correcting, “the Squad’s not about anything — it’s eclectic.”  | RDW

JSB Squad • 1/16 • Magic Stick



© Copyright by RealDetroitWeekly.com