less than jake

Less Jake is a (curently) five-piece melodic punk band out of Gainesville, Florida. Despite what most people think, they are not ska. They started off as a power-pop-punk trio with metal and punk influences, then the drummer, Vinnie started thinking, "Hey, some horns would be cool," after listening to The Specials. In their decade of writing incredible songs, they have undoubtably written some ska, but the majority is punk, albeit with horns.

The band has put out so many records it's not even funny, and is touring constantly, and they have been doing this for many years. They represent the punk mindstate, as they always do shit for their fans. Then after the release of Anthem, so many of their fans turned around and started calling them sellouts, just for signing to a major label (Warner Brothers/Sire). They said this, when in fact, the only thing that changed is now more people have access to their incredible music and terribly deep lyrics. I must admit, some trendhoppers peeking their way into Less Than Jake can get annoying, having to see them call "Look What Happened" "I Swear It's the Last Time", and seeing them just in general tarnish the loyalty Less Than Jake's fan body, it's bad, and it can hurt. The fact that they are on a big label doesn't make them sellouts. Anthem is my least favorite LTJ record, I admit, but overall quality is still uncompromised (She's Gonna Break Soon is a pretty shitty song though).

Memberwise, Less Than Jake is currently Chris on guitar and vox, Roger on bass and vox, Vinnie on drums and he writes the lyrics, Buddy on trombone, and JR on tenor sax. Roger has another band called Rehasher, in which he plays guitar. Roger is pretty good at guitar, and he mostly writes the lyrics for them, and has proved to be as adept as Vinnie with lyrics. Vinnie writes the best lyrics ever, if I may express my opinion. What he wrties is so deep, and most anyone who cares to look can extract multiple levels of meaning from his lyrics. Buddy is one of the best trombonists not involved in orchestral or jazz music, if not the best. JR has some solo music where he plays guitar and sings. Previous members include Chris, their first bassist; their second bassist Shaun, who was a roadie after he was replaced by Roger; Jessica, who played alto sax, who now teaches highschool in Gainesville; Derron on bari sax, who started a kickass band called Gunmoll, now broken up; and finally Pete on trombone, who now is a firefighter, and is rumored to be a firefighter in Antarctica (I don't get it either).

Do you like Less Than Jake?

Oh, hell yeah. Best GVR band. Ever.

Borders and Boundaries is the best album ever. Faction is off that album. It just so happens to be the best song on Earth.

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