Australian–bred Indie pop/alt rock band Atlas Genius is coming to Philly’s TLA on Saturday, October 12. The core of the band is comprised of the Jeffery brothers: lead vocalist/guitarist Keith, drummer Michael and formerly bass guitarist Steve (who left the group before their first album release), and they’re joined by band mate Darren Sell on keyboards. The band gained immense popularity with their surprise hit single “Trojans,” which gained an incredible amount of radio play, especially on satellite stations, in 2011. They were soon signed to a major US record label, and released their first album, “When It Was Now” in early 2013. A North American tour with Imagine Dragons really put them on the map, and they’re now headlining their own tour.
We caught up with lead vocalist and guitarist Keith Jeffery in what he labeled a “talkative mood” to talk about the songwriting process, the true value of good pop music, and just how cool Nirvana is.
Street: Could you tell me a little bit about your most recent studio album “When It was Now,” from dealing with the success of your first single, “Trojans,” and then transitioning into producing your first album? Keith Jeffery: The album, for the most part, was written after “Trojans,” we had a couple of songs arranged for the album, but “Trojans” was the first song that really went out into the world. So we had a bunch of songs, but there was nothing that was kind of really finished, so the plan was just to slowly put music out there on our own. But then because of the surprisingly huge success of “Trojans,” we felt this was an opportunity here for us really to get some more music out there and build a fan base. So we said let’s make a career out of this rather than this [music] just being a side project we do once a week. So “Trojans” was first put out in May 2011, and the album didn’t come out until the beginning of this year. Most of the album was done in the middle of the last year, but we still had a few things to finish, so it was probably a good year of writing and working on songs before the album was done and finally released.
Street: How did you get started playing music? KJ: When I was a little kid actually, I was really young, probably 11 or 12, I was still in primary school, and my dad took me to [guitar] lessons for six months. It was cool, and I enjoyed it, and it was kind of like this bonding thing where my dad and I would just go once a week to see this teacher. It was set up in this little caravan in the back of a music store and I enjoyed it, but it was one of those things where I enjoyed the social aspect of it, so I would go along and play, but I was a bad student in that I would go along and play but I would never rehearse what I’d learned each lesson. I’d go back next week, and just kind of pick it up. The teacher was really surprised that I was able to play this stuff without doing any rehearsal in between, but I was a little too young. I hadn’t really caught that bug, that musical bug where you catch on to how powerful music is and how much you love it. So I sort of quit music for a few years, and I sort of got more into surfing and other things that young kids do. Then, when I was around 15, I really discovered the power of music, so bands like Nirvana and Led Zeppelin and that kind of stuff, and I was really just driven to put all my time into music. And so that’s where I really sort of started playing guitar.
Street: So did you go to University at all when you were 18? KJ: I did, I was studying architecture, but it was a little later on.
Street: But you fell into the music thing while you were in university? KJ: Yeah. After a while, I just realized I love music so much, and I wanted to make a career out of it. For the majority of musicians, it’s a really hard slog to try and make a career out of music. After a bunch of years, sort of playing shows with different bands and doing all sorts of things to make money, playing covers to make money and stuff, I thought “you know what, maybe music is just… I’ve gotta sort of relegate that [playing music] to the backburner. It’s more of a hobby rather than something I can do as a profession,” that’s why I went back and started studying architecture. And while I loved architecture, it’s really a fascinating and beautiful vocation, I felt like music was really my number one thing. So when “Trojans” started to take off, I felt like it was an opportunity to really properly make music a career. It wasn’t a hard decision to make, for any of us really, to focus on music again.
Street: Had you been to America before you came here to tour? KJ: Well, we actually came over earlier last year to meet with a bunch of record labels that had offered us record contracts. We came to New York and LA to help us make the decision of which label we wanted to go with. That was the first time that we’d been.
Street: What would you say is the biggest difference between playing here and playing in Australia? KJ: Well, I feel like there’s just a basic difference in the way the crowds in Australia and America react. Like at the end of a song, you know, Americans are really vocal and if they’re getting into the music they’re really let you know. I feel like Australians are a bit more reserved, just as a culture, we’re just a bit more reserved and quiet. I think that’s something that a lot of bands know. Friends that I know who toured Australia for the first time, that’s something they really noticed. It was funny to see Robert Plant in my home city of Adelaide earlier this year. Robert Plant, legendary rock musician [of Led Zeppelin], the biggest band of all time and apparently he was getting really frustrated with the crowd because I think the crowd was getting into it, but I think because the crowd wasn’t giving him the reaction he was expecting, the loud yelling and clapping, that kind of stuff, he was taking offense to that. So that was something, it’s a different place to play.
Street: Who would you say are your musical inspirations? I heard you mention Nirvana earlier. KJ: Nirvana—for the unique way that they—I’m going to get a little nerdy and technical, but what appealed to me about that band is that when Kurt Cobain is writing songs he takes these really angular chord progressions that are seemingly very out of key with each other. The chords are really unexpected, but he threads this pop melody through that makes sense of those chords and not only just makes sense but makes them really accessible, and really, you know, forgive this word, but catchy. It really gives this beautiful pop song delivered through this almost ugly chord progression. That’s what I love about them. And then the Beatles: the Beatles are sort of the master at writing songs that have depth, but also are extremely accessible. Something that I really appreciate and love is the art of writing of a good pop song, because pop has become such an ugly term for so many years now. You know, Top 40 bands, artisan bands where you’ve got these stupid cheesy lyrics and major-y happy melodies, they’re catchy but that’s about all they are. You’re not going to go and sit down and analyze the lyrics, it’s just for the masses, where the least common denominator can get into it. The really good bands, like the Beatles, the Police, Crowded House, those kinds of things, they’re songs that the masses are really able to get into. Just because they’re able to get into it, doesn’t mean it’s any less valid as art. It’s easy to take some really obscure artist that doesn’t appeal to as many people, that’s really alternative, and say “this is real art.” But what we don’t understand is that those bands that were able to make great art but also make it accessible; that is what’s really difficult to do. That’s a life long pursuit I think, the study of how you write a song that satisfies you as an artist, but also connects with the listener. I mean that was a long–winded explanation…
Street: …with a number of great points! Going off that, though, what is the process for you guys for writing a song KJ: I have a pool of lyric ideas and song ideas. Whenever anything comes to my mind, I’ll write it down. I’ve always got that floating around and it’s always there because it’s not always the right time to be writing a song. It’s kind of random when the song ideas come to you, so I’ve always got that there. And then when I sit down and start to write, it’ll start almost always with some kind of chord progression or some tinkering on the guitar sound, some sound that I find inspiring. And then that’s a jumping off point, that’s where you go “Okay, we’ve got something here, let’s see where this is going to go.” I really, myself, kind of try to avoid that strumming an open E chord on an acoustic guitar because a) it’s been done a million times and b) it just doesn’t strike that part of the brain, you know that part where you hear music and you don’t even know why you like a song sometimes, it just feels kind of new and something about the sound is kind of turning me on. So, I don’t think I’ve ever written a song with a standard E chord or a G chord, those chords that you kind of hear all the time, there’s got to be something slightly musical about it that sort of inspires you to want to keep going and see where the song goes. In the end, you don’t know where a song’s going to take you. You might write a verse, and then you might think what’s going to happen with this chorus or vice versa. And it’s exciting and extremely scary and sometimes extremely depressing—that whole process, you never know. When you’re writing, you always feel like you’re a beginner. No matter if you’ve had a song on the radio before, you sit down and it’s like shit I have a blank page, I have an instrument in front of me, is something going to happen? But I guess the one thing I’ve learned the more I do it is that you just have to sit down there and start because thinking about writing the next song and getting freaked about it is, in the end, not going to result in a song, so the whole process is that you kind of just have to sit down and just start and something will happen in that mysterious part of your brain that kicks in and just you know, it happens, and you thank your lucky stars that there’s this part of your brain that’s able to create.
Street: Are you guys coming out with a new album soon, are you working on new songs? KJ: We’re working on new songs, but we’re not working in the studio until early/beginning of next year. Maybe at the end of this year because we’re going home around Christmas, back to Australia. We’ll work on it when we get back there. I’m writing songs at the moment, and we’ll get together and turn them into Atlas Genius songs.
Street: Beyond that, what are you guys currently listening to? KJ: The last couple of weeks I’ve been getting into Cage the Elephant. I just saw them play last night, and we’ve had the privilege of playing with them recently as well. Great guys. Who else? I always draw a blank with this question, we’ll just say Cage the Elephant.
Street: What’s the craziest story you’ve got from being on tour in the US? KJ: The craziest PG story from being on tour in the US?
Street: I think it could be PG-13. KJ: (laughs) As I’ve said, we’re not exactly Motley Crue, I don’t think I have anything that crazy anyway, but I don’t know, crazy for me is like meeting the bass player from Nirvana. Probably not what you were hoping for, but we were in Portland, the last time we were there, and we were just walking out of our hotel, and Krist Novoselic is just doing the same thing and it’s like holy shit this is the bass player from one of my all time favorite bands. And then talking to him, and he knew who our band was and that means more sometimes I think than getting your songs on the charts and the radio and that kind of stuff, but like actually meeting somebody that you have so much respect for. That was crazy for me.
Street: Last question, do you have any advice for college students wanting to start a band or breaking into the industry? KJ: Yeah, I think, as an artist, you’ve got to be prepared to put up with extremely long periods of insecurity and hard work. Because, in the end, you’ve just got to believe that you’ve got something to say. And in the end that might never happen; you might never connect with anybody with your music, but the biggest reward is the satisfaction when you finish a song. And you listen back and it’s exactly how you want it to be. And then also you’ve got to be honest with yourself, because sometimes, you might’ve written a song and it’s not bad, but then you got to listen to it and decide if it’s good enough or realize you need to throw it away and go back and start again and work on another one. There’s a tendency with a lot of young artists, and a lot of artists just in general, to say “well, I did this, so this must somehow be magical, because it’s me.” But sometimes you got to be honest because it’s just not quite there, you know, it’s not quite there and it takes a lot of time. It gets overused, but you know there’s that 10,000 hour rule: it takes 10,000 hours to get good at anything, and you really have to do that. I mean some people are lucky, like Cat Stevens just seemed to be able to write songs off the bat and they’d be some of the best songs of all time, but he was a lucky bastard. Not many people can do that, sometimes it takes a lot more than just a couple of songs to get good, so I think it’s really just being prepared. It’s not an easy road, and there aren’t any guarantees, but just be honest with yourself and have belief in what you’re doing. And just keep going.
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