In the midst of Who Dat Fever tonight, Memphis rock ‘n’ soul band Jump Back Jake is coming down the Mississippi to play a show at All-Ways Lounge tonight at 10 p.m with Magnolia Beacon & ex-New Marigny Millionaires.

Jump Back Jake mix their love of classic Stax and Hi Records-style Memphis soul with their upbringing in rock n roll, coming up with well-developed songs of scorching, whiskey-drenched classic Southern rock. The group is led by guitarist and vocalist, Jake Rabinbach, who took time out for a quick interview with OffBeat to introduce the band and what they’re all about. The quick recap: anyone whose favorite album is Lee Dorsey’s Yes We Can, Can is alright with us.

Jump Back Jake’s record label, Memphis-based Ardent Records (recently revived, and famous for releasing Big Star’s albums in the 1970s) is offering a free download. You can also preview more tracks on the band’s website, jumpbackjake.com.

 

OffBeat: For those who don’t know you yet, how would you sum up your sound?

Jake: Uh oh! Well it changes a lot. Jump Back Jake is a band, you know? We’re a band the way Booker T. & the MGs were a band, the way the Muscle Shoals Band was a band, the way that the Hawks were a band when they were backing Dylan. When we play together we are greater than the sum of our parts and we can cover a lot of different styles, we can cover a lot of ground. We can mix and match a lot of things.

It’s hard for me to place the sound, but I can talk about the process. I’ll bring in a song, but then the approach to the music is really about four musicians with a lot of different influences coming together. Certainly the things that I think are most formative for us musically in terms of what we all are thinking about together are the early ’70s Lee Dorsey records. The Sir Douglas Quintet were big for us.

Then it just sort of starts to get out there, you know what i mean. I think we all sort of grew up listening to indie rock in the ’90s. I think we all listened to a lot of hip hop. Some of us listened to more modern kinds of music. Certainly Memphis bands have had a big influence on us-bands like the Reigning Sounds and the Compulsive Gamblers. A lot of the local Memphis rock and roll guys who are about 10 or 15 years older than us have been really influential.

And also I’d say playing a lot. One thing we’ve all shared is that we’ve all been in bands since we were like twelve. You take four guys who have been in bands since they were like twelve or fourteen years old and that is maybe the most influential thing – having been a musician through different parts of your life.

So what are some different kinds of bands that you’ve played in?

Well I play guitar in Francis in the Lights right now, which is a completely different outfit. It really has a strong electronic element, a strong rhythmic element, really pop oriented. And I just play guitar, I’m not a vocalist in that band. I’ve done singer-songwriter stuff, I’ve played in more acoustic sounding bands, and I’ve played in more garage-punk sounding bands. Brandon, the bass player, he’s been in much more pop, as in Beach Boys, kind of bands. And the drummer, Greg, has been in thrashy punk bands before. We’ve all done our time with a lot of different projects. Jake Vest, the guitar player, was in this band called the Third Man which was this really far out psychedelic band. The range of bands that you play in from the time that you’re 12, I think it gives you a real expansion in the way of playing.

Is there a central influence that brings all of you guys together? A place where you guys find the most common ground?

Sure, well originally when we started this band the idea was just like, “What would happen if some kids that grew up listening to Pavement wanted to be in an R&B/soul band?” That was the initial concept. But now it’s too hard to say. We’re on the Ardent Records label, home of Big Star in the ’70s. And of course that band means the world to me and certainly to the other Jake [Vest]. And we can sit around and talk about that for hours. And Brandon and I can talk about Willie Mitchell’s horn arrangements and Leroy Hodges’ bass parts on the Al Green and Ann Peebles records. Greg the drummer can explain to you exactly where you have to hit the hi-hat if you want to be a Memphis sounding drummer. We all have very specific relationships with various  bands that we can all sort of talk about together.

Do you write all the songs for the group?

Yeah, I pretty much write the material, and the band really helps me develop the arrangements. At the beginning i was actually writing the arrangements, I was writing a lot of the drum, bass, and other parts. And then, at a certain point, I pulled back and just sort of decided to really trust the band to be a band, and it got a lot more fun and the music started sounding a lot better, and so that’s been a great development.

So when you’re putting the arrangements together, does each member bring in their certain influences and their own touches?

Yeah sure, I can tell what Greg is listening to when he plays a certain beat. I can tell if he’s been listening to afrobeat all week, and that’s a great moment when that happens.

You mentioned the influence of Memphis. Is there something specific about the city and its musical history that you guys latch on to, either the song writing or the arrangements or even something in your live shows?

Oh yeah! I mean, it’s really more just the vibration of the city, it’s more like there’s an electricity in the ground, you know? Jim Dickinson would tell you that there was always a hum in all the recording studios, and that there’s a magnetic pull of the city that pulls you from the Delta or from Arkansas into the city and makes you compelled to play the devil’s music. Memphis has everything to do with this band. This band could not exist anywhere else. I came to Memphis to form this band. It was so easy to form this band you would think it was a supernatural development. If you look at the fact that everybody in Memphis that plays in a band is in several bands, that’s a really key element. And that’s always been true. Everybody was always in each other’s bands, and it was always really loose that way.

Thats something we in New Orleans can definitely relate to!

Well, New orleans and Memphis have a cosmic communication along the Mississippi River, and they always have. New Orleans was picking up radio stations from Jamaica, and that’s why the Meters were into those island rhythms before anybody else was. Then of course that traveled up the river, and so Teenie Hodges and the Hodges brothers are playing straight up Wailers tracks on Al Green songs, and then eventually going down to Jamaica themselves. Those are the 3 points of light: you have Jamaica, New Orleans and Memphis, and they’re all in communication with each other through radio waves and cosmic signals.

And since your first record is called Brooklyn Hustle/Memphis Muscle, does Brooklyn play into this for you as well?

No, I lived there for about 5 years before i moved to Memphis. I don’t know, it’s almost  a joke in a way, because it refers to the fact that i have this sort of Northern, Yankee, uptight sort of drive & ambition that can make me difficult to work with at times. It’s all looser down here-i had to come down here and learn how to do that.

I guess i think there’s something cosmopolitan and bohemian and urban about what we do. We’re all trying to stay tuned in to the present moment, and that’s a very sort of New York idea. I mean i think there are a lot of soul bands right now today who are doing a really good job recreating he sounds of the past and i just knew i couldn’t do that. I think that’s an idea that living in new york really sort of hipped me to.

The other group you play in, Francis & the Lights, is based in Brooklyn, and has a very different sound. Does your work with that band influence Jump Back Jake, and vice versa?

Sure, you can’t play in a band for 8 years and not find yourself dipping into that. I always sound like me in some form or another, and I would say that I  certainly bring real Memphis elements to the Francis & the Lights sound. That’s something that I think about a lot. Our first show we played the record “The Immortal Otis Redding” in its entirety. Francis asked me to join the band because I was into Steve Cropper’s guitar playing, I was into Teenie Hodges’ guitar playing. And then, as far as Francis & the Lights affecting Jump Back Jake, Francis is an unbelievable arranger. I think he’s a genius. I’ve never worked with anybody like him in my life, and I really learned how to lead a band from him and how to arrange rhythmically from him. I also learned how not to overplay from being in that band, and I play less and less all the time in both bands, I can say that for sure.

Any particular NOLA musicians who are particularly inspirational for your sound?

Yeah, Lee Dorsey’s Yes We Can Can was a revelation to me, I’ve never heard a record like that in my life. That’s just maybe my all-time favorite record. It’s just got everything.

Is there anything specific that you sort of latched on to and said, “I need to learn a lesson from this?”

Yeah, totally. I listen to so much soul music, and sometimes there are a lot of similarities and it’s easy to get snowblind. But that record doesn’t sound like any record i’ve ever heard. The lyrics are really cohesive throughout the album. If you listen to the drums on a song like “Riverboat”, the way that the drums and bass are playing together seems very influenced by brass band music, but also very modern and psychedelic and far out without using any silly effects or anything. They just create that mood.

And then the way that Leo [Nocentelli] from the Meters is playing guitar on those songs, it’s like he’s playing country chicken pickin’ guitar like he always does, but with all that reverb and all that percussion, and I just never thought of playing guitar like that on a vocal song! The way he plays off of Lee [Dorsey]’s vocals. Like on “Yes We Can”, the way he does the upstrokes on the chorus especially, you’re like, “Holy shit! You can play around a vocal melody like that and you don’t step on anything and you’re driving it forward as hard as the drums are?” That just completely knocked me out and i just ripped it off as much as I possibly can.

And i would say also that, generally speaking, all of the Allen Toussaint arrangements from the early ’70s made me feel like people don’t realize that that stuff was as progressive and forward thinking and as modern as anything that Brian Wilson did. I still don’t think that he gets his dues as being one of the great modern geniuses of 20th century composition, period, end of story. He knew those musicians he worked with so intimately, and i think that he and Willie Mitchell-the way that they could understand how to find the right band, arrange for that band, and then also find the balance of arranging for the band while still letting the band be themselves was amazing. Striking that balance as a producer, nobody equalled those two guys.

Did you ever get a chance to see or meet Willie [Mitchell] before he passed away?

I did, I met him a couple times. I met him once over at Royal [Studios]. I went over there and he showed me the tracking board and the equipment there. Then I saw him lead a band one time, this new artist he was working with, and I saw him waving his cane in the guitar player’s face saying, “If you don’t tune that guitar i will get up there and tune it for you, i don’t think you want me to do that!” That was revelatory for me, watching him lead that band. That man was in charge.

Last thing, are you guys sticking around for the Saints game on Sunday?

Ha, some of us really want to, but some of us, not me, some of us have jobs and families at home, so i don’t know, we’ll find out. i mean we’re all really excited, and the guy who’s playing organ with us right now, Derek, is from Monroe and spent a lot of time in New Orleans, and is just beside himself with excitement, so that’s going to palpable Saturday night. We’ll probably be in the van listening to the game if we’re not at Markey’s with everybody else!