Step Into Junior Varsity
However, in August of this year, Junior Varsity debuted their first EP consisting of pop-punk, alternative rock, all infused through a lens of experimental hip-hop. In an exclusive interview with office, Junior Varsity’s Greg and Zach speak to us on decisions about waiting so long to release their full tracks, the importance of their live shows, and what JV is really all about.
What's up? What have you guys been up to?
GREG— We just dropped the EP, so we took one week off to just kind of do nothing. We're working on a bunch of shit and we've been sitting on a bunch of music. So we're finished with a bunch of ideas, and now that the EP is out, we want to keep it moving, you know, non-stop music for as long as we can. More shows, or assets for the EP. We have some videos we want to drop. It took us two years to get these six songs out, so we're not trying to waste any more time.
ZACH— Mostly staying at home and working on music.
Was there a main reason as to why you wanted to wait to release stuff?
Z— I think it didn’t feel right to release it given the circumstances of the world for a while. Ultimately I think it was the right decision because the EP evolved over the course of the pandemic. We got rid of a song, and added a song, and changed some songs slightly also. We had a long time to sit with it which was both helpful in figuring out what worked and if anything wasn’t working, but also kind of brutal.
G— The initiative was, let's build the world around JV before dropping music. In our minds pop music was just getting super singular. You drop a single, then drop a video, do shit around it, and try to make a career out around something singular. That was just super off-putting for us, it was boring, to be frank. So we were like, "okay, let's switch it up. Let's just do everything that would come after a music release first."
That's fire.
G— It all kind of came together. When we did the live show that definitely introduced people to the Junior Varsity world. The initiative wasn't to be mysterious and wait two years to drop music. We were trying to give people as much as we could. Even when we would drop songs, they would come out only as one-minute audio on Instagram and shit. And people would hit me up, they'd be like, "Where's the song?" And I'd be like, "It's here, this is it." Just because it's not on Spotify doesn't mean you can't listen to it. So that was the first year and then obviously, with the pandemic and shit, we obviously wanted to release last year, but I think both of us just made the conscious decision that it felt really weird to be self-serving during that time. To be a new band dropping music didn't feel appropriate. I've always thought music and art will prevail no matter what, but last year was the first time ever that I was like, "No, there's actually shit way more important than our careers and art right now."
Back in 2019, you guys were building a name for yourself and getting that sort of recognition. But then obviously, the pandemic hit. So how was that like, for you guys?
G— We were making a lot of music for sure. But also at the same time, we were dealing with a lot of mental health shit. There's definitely some sort of spectacle to JV, you know? It was a weird time to put on the act at a time that like, honestly, and emotions should have held precedents. I lost some family members during that time, and then a couple of months later, I went to a party in the middle of it all and had this crazy anxiety attack. I was like, "Damn, what the fuck am I doing here?" In that moment, I was like, "Yo, this is backwards. Fuck this shit. Fuck playing into this game. The whole reason we started JV was to go against the game. Let's wait to hold that shit off. We don't need to play into what feels like the right moves.
Z— I think it was tough to not feel like the pandemic hurt some of the momentum. But I feel like it was a time for us to reflect on the music and JV generally. I think at least personally, it helped me learn about what JV meant to me. And in a lot of ways, I’m grateful for that time.
Were you ever nervous that maybe this isn't gonna work out?
G— No, I hold myself to a lot of conviction, and I was very convinced that it was gonna work.
You had that gut feeling?
G— It's even beyond that. I think beyond the art being good. I just knew that there was this energy that was missing in music. There hasn't been an anti-hero in a long time. Both of us wanted to come in and shake it up a little bit and I think we did.
When was a time for you guys where you felt that what you were doing had a greater impact?
G— I think for us it was the end of 2019. We're both super broke, like beyond broke, but we were being flown out to Tokyo to play A F$*KING WEEKEND, Tokyo. Waiting back home was just all these record labels that were trying to sign us, but we were trying to hold off on that. Just the juxtaposition of knowing that there's a million dollars on the table, but instead of taking that deal, being flown to another country with no money to just play music was kind of the moment that we were like, this shit is fucking working."
I feel like that's kind of the essence of you guys. Correct me if I'm wrong, but instead of staying home and taking those record deals right away, you're like, "No, fuck it. Let's go to Tokyo. Let's go play these shows right now."
G— Honestly, if it was up to me, and Zach wouldn't agree with this, but if it was up to me, I think the coolest thing ever would have been if we never signed a deal and never put out music. Or rather, if we signed a deal, but then never put out music, and then we only play the live shows. That was the only way you could hear our shit, but obviously, that's not that sustainable of a career.
If you would want your audience to take away one thing from your show, what would it be?
G— Just to feel anything. It's hard to feel anything nowadays. Everything's digitalized. We spend days of our time a week on our phone and if we think about it, the accumulation is you spend 24 hours a week on your cell phone and that's a full day loss. The initiative always since the beginning with the live show with the music is for people to really feel something. We don't even make punk music, but it's presented in a punk way.
Z— I really want the live show to sound good. That’s something I’ve been putting a lot of work into, like figuring out performance pedals and stuff. That said, energy is probably the main draw. I just want people to have fun whether they’re moshing or in the back vibing.
That whole Hollywood sign stunt? That was crazy. Talk to us about what that experience really was like for you and the aftermath of it all.
Z— Greg did that, I’m innocent.
G— We had the idea in early 2020, and we were just gonna drop our logo. We were gonna drop the smiley logo and release the whole EP with the stunt, but as soon as the pandemic hit, it felt weirdly self-serving. To do a stunt like that, that has no greater meaning except advertising our band, you know? I'm really, really against it for a while, and then last minute we needed to finish the Cold Blooded music video. Last minute, Zach was like, "let's just get weird with the video that's and put cows." We're like, "Okay, cool. Fuck it." And we did that for the video. Maybe a week before the video came out, we were just like, "yo, should we drop a portrait of a cow off the Hollywood sign?" It's ambiguous enough that it's not just strictly advertising. I called up Danny Cole who is a good friend of mine and an artist. On three days’ notice, we flew out and we painted the whole thing together. We hiked up in the middle of the day, it was noon on a Friday. It wasn't like we went at night, we weren't trying to be stealthy. We all knew that we were probably going to get caught. We might as well just do it in the middle of the day when most people were there to watch.
How was it for your band in the aftermath of it? Like, obviously, people fucked with that.
G— I was more gratified for the general audience, you know, all the news articles being like, "What the fuck, why is there a cow on Hollywood sign?" Even when we got arrested, the cops were just like, "what are you guys are vegans or something?"
Do you have a deeper meaning of what it means to you personally? I know it's kind of up for interpretation of how anybody else wants to perceive it, but what does it mean for you?
G— We do, but I feel like we won't say for like a while.
Z— There’s a meaning to us, but it’s not really about that.
Would you say that you want your music to speak for you and the physical energy to speak for you guys as opposed to anything else?
G— I feel like the mascot of JV, not like a frontman, that's not what I'm trying to be. I think as far as being ambiguous or mysterious to me, like we were just rolling our shit out at first I was so against that because I thought that shit was just corny. People that use mystery as an aesthetic now, and unless you're Frank Ocean it's corny. No one fucking cares. To me, I was like, I don't want to be mysterious. I want to do everything we can except put the music out. Every song we had on the EP has been out for two years on Instagram. Even we do the live shows, we're doing three nights. What's the mystery? So it's funny when people say it's mysterious, because inevitably if you don't drop music for that long, people are gonna think it's a mystery. We're trying to be as loud as possible, but obviously tasteful. So there's a balance.
How synonymous would you say are the feelings that people get from your music with the physicality of being at the shows?
G— I don't know how people feel at home and they listen to music, you know, like, to the music. I know how I feel, and it's definitely super sentimental to us. Even though in our minds, we're like, "Damn, we're already making better shit," that music still sticks with us, because it represents a time in our life where we were really young and fucking hungry. I noticed only two years ago, there's a lot of motions in those two years. Moving out to LA together, not really having money, trying to make it fucking work, and me convincing Zach, that it's going to work and him trusting me. I think in terms of the live shows, it brings people together. We've just come out of two years of people not being able to be together. So the first thing I wanted to do back was bring back that format for the shows, and obviously make them all free. People deserve that and they shouldn't have to pay for a fucking concert right now.
Z— I think the music is a foundation that people connect to. When it’s in place it’s fun to experience that in a shared way, in a physical way.
Can you talk to us about your process of what it's like making music?
Z— We’re both starting ideas all the time and hoping the other person will like it. Recently I’ve put it out of my head that I need to approach music-making for my idea of what JV should be, and just making things I like. I think that approach has been liberating. JV should be whatever we both think sounds good- I think it’s good to leave that open-ended to an extent. But I guess when we’re trying to finish up an LP I may have to adjust that approach slightly.
G— Zach really leads the music-making, every final decision goes through him when it comes to music. I think for him, he just loves music more than anything else. In the way that I like presenting JV in terms of physical aspects, branding, video, and shit, he wants to touch people in the same way with strictly music. At the end of the day, music is the nucleus of it all. I don't want the music to ever be undermined. We really are focusing on shit that sounds unique. In the same way that we were tired of rollouts being very singular, I think a lot of music is boring to us right now and that's no hate on anyone specific. This is the circle of cool kids and we're definitely in the outliers of it. A lot of these kids are about inclusivity, and how inclusive their shit is, but when you really get close to that circle, you just realize how exclusive it is. There's a lot of gatekeeping and shit and that's corny as hell even on a music-making level. So for us, we're like, "yo, fuck that." We just want to make sure that it's unique enough that it obliterates that circle. All these people that are like an army of people working together, we just want to make the fucking bomb that just blows that army up.
What's next for you guys? I know you guys are always up to some crazy shit.
G— What's next is really fucking good music. More good music and everything that comes with good music. More live shows, more music.
Z— Who knows?
