CHERUB will be rolling into Pittsburgh September 13 to play Rex Theater with guests Frenship and Booseeka.The electronic duo of Jordan Kelley and Jason Huber formed in Nashville in 2010. Since then they have released 3 EP’s, 2 albums with a 3rd, “Bleed Gold, Piss Excellence” due out October 14. Check out our interview with Jason and Jordan below with SSE photographer Zach Nellis as they dive into topics like drinking, Lollapalooza and the bands inception.
Sound Scene Express: You guys just released your single “Bleed Gold, Piss Excellence”, is that from a whole album you’re working on?
Jason: Yes, “Bleed Gold, Piss Excellence” is the title track off of our new upcoming record “Bleed Gold, Piss Excellence”. It’s a full length album that we’ve been working on for definitely the last two years, almost even a little bit longer than that and we’re super super stoked to be putting it out this fall and we cant wait for people to hear it.
SSE: Is there any cool features or anything else like that you can tell me about the album?
Jason: Nothing we can speak of just yet or nothing we’re allowed to speak of yet, but yeah we’ve got some features, we’ve got a couple of our friends also helping us out with some instrumental tracks on the record, theres a whole bunch of really cool stuff throughout the record that we’re really excited about.
SSE: I see that this Fall tour is going to be a pretty long one, what do you guys do with your time off on tour?
Jordan: I always get drunk on my off days.
Jason: Thats a pretty solid answer, but yeah one of the things is before shows on show days we make a point not to drink just so yeah on those off days we definitely take advantage to uhhh have a cocktail…
Jordan: WE GET DRUNK MAN!
Jason: But yeah one of the other nice things that definitely pays off is our tour manager always tries to organize some sort of group activity for the tour, I mean sometimes we’ll just go out and take a hike and take the dog for a walk or something like that but sometimes we’ll go play paintball and take out all that aggression that we’ve been holding up against each other while we’re trapped on a bus touring around, but yeah we try to get out and have some fun, we don’t just sit around.
SSE: So after this fall tour what do you guys have next on your agenda?
Jason: Directly after fall tour we’re all going to Thailand for a week, probably gonna take an excessive amount of drugs, we’re all gonna find ourselves and who knows maybe thats where the next album will be born.
SSE: Yeah that sounds hella inspirational
Jason: Yeah this is the longest tour we’re going on so we’re making a point to take a lot of the crew and go on a short little vacation and then we’re gonna be getting right back in the studio and you know work on some music in between tours, before we head out for the winter tour.
SSE: Festival season is coming to an end, did you guys have a favorite festival you played this summer?
Jordan: The most epic one for me personally was Lollapalooza. Its really a no brainer for us, all the festivals were kind to us and they were all really badass and fun.
Jason: Yeah all of them, like Jordan was saying, all of them were amazing, but Lollapalooza was the one where we just really lucked out with our time slot and everything, we got the chance to play for the biggest crowd that we’ve ever performed for, so it was just a really special experience for us…My dad was there in the front row.
SSE: So your dad was riding the rail, front row at Lollapalooza for you guys?
Jason: He always does! I always ask him if he wants to come up to side stage and hang out and he’s like No No No No No, he says and I quote, “I’ll be down there with my people.”
SSE: Thats awesome
Jason: Yeah, every single time I can find him right there right on the rail.
SSE: So is there any festivals that you guys haven’t played yet that you’ve got your eye on.
Jordan: I cant say a specific name of a festival, but i think that theres a lot of festivals overseas and in some of these other countries outside of The United States that are you know really badass and not know in the States that we would like to travel and go play. We’ve done a festival in Tokyo that was really really fun, then we did a festival in the UK called Glastonbury thats very well known. I mean theres just a whole bunch of festivals around the world that you know are just fucking epic that we just don’t really find out about in the States.
Jason: I personally, I am a festival kid. I’ve grown up going to festivals for ten plus years…I guess twelve now actually. And yeah like Jordan was saying, we did play on a small stage at Glastonbury that was kinda hidden off to the corner, so it would be really cool to play on a bigger stage there, Fuji Rock in Japan would be a rad festival, any of the Lollapalooza’s down in South America. Thats one of the ones we would really like to get on because South America is a continent that we haven’t really gotten to explore yet and you know, culturally we think we would really agree with it down there. So we’re really looking forward to hopefully getting a chance to get down there, especially playing some of these big festivals internationally is a great way to break out of this market because your getting a bunch of people that are going to these with an open mind which is really cool.
SSE: So me personally, my group of friends and I (shouts out noodles) are huge fans of Electric Forest and we saw you in 2014 and you guys did a group camping set on top of an RV in the general admission as well as this year when Louis The Child brought you on stage, can you tell me a little bit about your time there?
Jason: Well we were actually there at the very first Electric Forest, and man we’ve been having fun at Electric Forest ever since. That first time we played on just a small little stage in the forest, its when that giant forest quote un quote secret stage was actually a secret stage inside the forest. We played there, then after the set we were all having a good time with all of our other friends and musicians as well and I had some speakers in the back of my car, so we took them over to one of the VIP tents and set up the speakers. Everybody started jamming, playing new tunes, having a good time stuff like that. Then the next year, the festival contacted our tour manager and asked if we wanted to do that in an official capacity, so thats what that good life, late night backstage stage, thats what that all spawned from. And then eventually, as that got super organized you know and there became a schedule for that, we were like “oh what do you mean we cant go over there and play whenever?” We started taking speakers everywhere else, and I mean part of the tradition was every year we would have to do at least one concert out in the general admission, normally on Sunday night because thats just whats fair to everybody, because you don’t only want to do stuff for people on the backstage (VIP). So yeah it started like that and its become this super fun tradition where who knows where we’ll end up popping up in the general admission. You know so when we show up to Electric Forest all of our other artist friends are coming up to us like “hey so when are we going to do this.” Its a lot of fun, its something that we really love doing, its our chance to go out there and throw a party with people instead of for people, you know there is no security, there is no barricades there is no anything. Everyones just kinda drinking and having a good time.
SSE: So what are some of your favorite totems you’ve seen this summer?
Jason: Uhhhh thats a tough one, I don’t ever like remember them, Im just like entertained by them for a split second while I’m on stage, I don’t like retain or hold it in my memory. I do remember the coolest one this summer though was these blow up…
Jordan: Ahhh you’re actually about to tell the same story as me!
Jason: Blow up men and women sex dolls. I think STRFKR played before us on the same stage and they were the ones that threw them out. You know it was just fun, I think at one point I had one person with a male doll and one person with a female doll making the dolls bang right in front of me which was pretty tight.
SSE: So you guys all met while in college, did you guys immediately start making music together or was it something that just eventually happened after hanging out?
Jason: No we met and then the music really didn’t start happening until like four or five years down the road. But yeah we all met while going to school, not only Jordan and I but also our producer/drummer, our guitar player, our tour manager we all met freshman year of college going to school for music production. So they kinda lumped all the music production majors into one set of dorms. Then we all became friends and hung out and we all had different bands and groups kinda going on for years until eventually this project came together.
SSE: So like you said there are a lot of people that involved in making your music, so as artists do you guys ever like butt heads or disagree on anything when you are making music.
Jason: Umm yeah i mean we do butt heads all the time, but you know everybody has kind of learned to work as a group and is able to come to a middle ground on most things.
SSE: If you guys weren’t making music for a living what do you guys think you’d be doing?
Jordan: In a gutter somewhere. Haha it is worth making music. Because I’d be in a dark dark place. Haha nahhh I’d be cool, I’d probably be somewhere tropical man.
Jason: I’d be in Hawaii teaching surf lessons man, and I don’t even know how to surf.
Jordan: Nahh I want to move to Hawaii and I would want to learn how to surf and live on beach man.
Jason: Hey man you cant steal my answer! You should come to my surf school though broh.
SSE: Alright last question, how many doses per mimosa do you guys recommend?
Jordan: I’d say one dose per one mimos.
Jason: Yeah so you know that way by the time you’re twelve mimosas in you’re…ready to sin…or you know something else that rhymes with in…
SSE: I’ll try to figure something else out for that.
Jason: Yeah figure something something else out that sounds better.
