There are certain bands that create the perfect for specific seasons. Yes, an obvious statement, yet when the music of Jackson Pines floats through your headphones you can’t help but feel this band is one of the most perfect bands to listen to the fall (they’re also really good so listen to them year-round).
The emotion and humanity of the band’s lyrics and their sonic tones of their music bring us to that place of autumnal introspection that one can seemingly only find on a crisp night in front of a fire, wrapped in flannel with a strong cup of whiskey in your hand. It’s the type of music that can literally rend you to tears but also readjust your head and soul to where it needs to be. Simply put, it’s wonderful.
Jackson Pines returns to Asbury Park this Sunday as a part of the Asbury Park Music Foundation’s Sundays on St. John’s Concert Series — a socially distanced and precaution taken concert series taking place on St. John’s Island in Asbury Park. They will perform along with Tara Dente and Rachel Ana Dobken.
We caught up with the band’s singer Joe Makoviecki to talk about their new song “Half Light,” Sea.Hear.Now 2021, their new record, performing this Sunday in Asbury Park and more.
Jackson Pines Are (Members of the Band, Instruments They Play): We are a little unorthodox in that we are, at our core, a duo. I (Joe Makoviecki) play guitar, sing, and sometimes add a little harmonica. James Black plays the stand-up bass, electric bass, as well as a little banjo and fiddle sometimes. That is the nucleus of the band, that’s Jackson Pines at its atomic level.
But, over the last four years, depending on the session or the demands of the concert, you can also find us playing with: Santo Rizzolo on drums, James Herdman on fiddle/ukulele, Jesse Herdman on guitar/banjo, and General Roshane on the piano/organ/synth. At this point we are transitioning from an “acoustic duo” to a more fully realized “full band,” although I hate and reject the binary distinction and what comes along with it.
Year We Formed: 2016
The Story Behind Our Name: I was never very clever when it comes to band names. Our last group’s name was just the three singer’s’ middle names arranged into a new name (that confused a whole lot of people). For this reincarnation, we wanted the name to reflect who we were in as simple a way as possible. We tossed around a lot of possibilities while in the studio for our first full length in the summer of 2016.
We wanted to record the album first and then figure out who we were based on that experience and collection of songs. We were in the Catskills with Simone Felice (The Felice Brothers, producer of The Lumineers last two records) and we just bounced ideas off of him and our engineer for two weeks while tracking/mixing. No one could agree on who we truly “were”, so when we got home to our hometown of Jackson in the Pine Barrens, we decided to call ourselves “Jackson Pines.”
You’ve Seen Us Perform in Other Bands Such As: For Joe: The Boy Judas and Thomas Wesley Stern. For James: Mad Feather Group, and Thomas Wesley Stern. Our other bandmates come from bands such as Accidental Seabirds, Remember Jones, and loads more if you count session work over the years.
Platforms You Can Buy/Stream Our Music: BANDCAMP! (That’s our favorite). As well as itunes, Spotify, Tidal, and a litany of other options.
Famous/Rad Bands We’ve Shared the Stage With: We’ve been lucky over our unmanaged, unsigned, totally DIY, career to be invited to open for and play with artists such as: Old Crow Medicine Show, Mumford and Sons, The Avett Brothers, Margo Price, Band of Horses, The Felice Brothers, Rhett Miller, Nicole Atkins, Billy Strings, and more.
You dropped the single ‘Half Light’ earlier this year — can you talk about the lyrical inspiration of the song? My mom had a tough run with cancer from 2016 (right before we recorded our first album Purgatory Road) until last year. She beat it once and then it beat her in the rematch. It encompassed almost my entire life in that time, while we continued to make EPs and tour and do what we could while I mainly took her to chemo and appointments and eventually surgeries. We had to let her go last summer and it’s still really hard for me to cope with.
The lyrics are super personal to me, but also I wrote it hoping it wasn’t just going to be a miserable journal entry. It is about how after someone dies and is physically deleted from your present and future, I wanted to believe I could “find” her somewhere. Stereotypes, you know? Maybe the sunset, a butterfly wafting by, or by looking through her things- to feel close to her, but then realizing I can’t find her anywhere, and I can’t feel her presence and it’s just I guess about being in that emotional limbo of wanting to believe in the mystical or the spiritual and coming up with nothing. I hoped it could be said convincingly, but generally, enough that anyone could walk into that mood and not feel clobbered by dread.
Can you talk about the song “Bourdain” — I saw a video of you guys performing it in Philadelphia from earlier this year. Will this be a song headed towards the new album? And can you talk about the song itself (I’m a massive fan of Anthony Bourdain, myself).
I’m glad you found it! We often wonder if anyone sees the little things we struggled to put out this year. That video was supposed to be the first of 3-5 DIY videos, a sort of peak into what it’s like as we travel around and play shows, but not in a HD polished way. Unfortunately, we only got to make that before everything closed down. “Bourdain” will certainly be on the next album, and everyone seems really excited about playing it.
The song was written about a year ago and it’s about falling in love with someone new and remembering exactly what was on the TV while you fall for the person. My wife and I started hanging out and dating in 2013 and we would just binge watch Bourdain and it was sort of the “soundtrack” of our budding romance. It was also a way to do tribute to a man and figure everyone around and involved with Jackson Pines truly respects and loves without writing an elegy or on-the-nose song about the man. “You’re angelic when your eyes are closed while the TV plays Bourdain”… yeah, that was the moment I knew I was in love with her.
On a Facebook post from August the band mentioned you had a lot planned in March — including talking with studios to record your second full length and touring. Have you guys been able to regroup and been able to accomplish or at least plan to accomplish some of the things you had mapped out for 2020?
While we haven’t been able to accomplish everything we wanted this year, we didn’t come out empty handed. We thought (pre-COVID) that we could record at least two full length albums this year and save one for early 2021, but we all know what happened. Also, we had planned to retrace our touring routes of the last three years and expand on them, which means going back through the northeast, the midwest, and parts of the south, extending further into Texas, the Rockies, and the West Coast. All that was shelved.
What I’m happy about, though, is that despite all the festivals, country fairs, and smaller gigs we had lined up, we still were able to participate in the 59th Philadelphia Folk Fest in August. It was our second year in a row we were invited and were able to produce a concert film in HD audio and video, with the full band, playing two older songs and three from the upcoming album. It’s now available on our YouTube as a playlist, and it’s a great representation of where Jackson Pines is headed for LP2 and 2021.
In the same vein, how have you been dealing, as a creative, during this time where live streams and the infrequent socially distanced outdoor show are your only means of performing your music?
As an unknown musician without representation it’s difficult in a way, because we’re only as “real” as our ability to pop up all over the place and play our music for people. So not having done it since February isn’t just a financial crisis, but an existential one too. We decided to sparingly livestream, and when I have done it, it has been very fun and rewarding. I just don’t like inundating people on the internet. But as far as being creative, we have so many new songs. So many things we’re excited about. In addition to that, I’m a writer, so I’ve put together a chapbook of poetry, and am finally getting around to finishing my second novel, which I stopped working on for about three years.
Will we be seeing a new full length coming from the band within the next year?
Yes, absolutely. We’d love to be able to promise it by the start of 2021, but so much is still up in the air, from booking to just finishing the necessary rehearsals for all the songs we wanna include. But within the next year, absolutely. We may put out even more than that, if everything works out.
On Sunday you’ll be a part of the Asbury Park Music Foundation’s concert series on St. John’s Island along with Tara Dente and Rachel Ana Dobken. Talk about your feelings heading back to perform before people in Asbury for the first time since the winter?
We’re super excited to be back to our “musical hometown.” We’re not from there and don’t live there, but we learned everything we didn’t learn on the road in Asbury Park. It’s been there for me since I was a weird 13-year-old kid who’d rather scream into his 8-track than play football down the street. James’s first punk bands played there around the same age. Those people and those stages are the reason I am who I am today and do what we do now, so I’m super excited to tap back into that energy, sing some old and new songs, and just see familiar faces.
You’ll also be a part of Sea.Hear.Now. 2021 — while it’s a year away, can you talk about how you were approached for the show (originally scheduled for 2020) and how does it feel to be part of such a massive event?
Since about 2010, when Thomas Wesley Stern first came to Asbury Park, Tim Donnelly has been our champion. He helped throw CD releases for us in the past, booked us in New Orleans when we were 21 and didn’t know what we were doing, and has never stopped believing in us. He hooked us into Mumford and Son’s Gentlemen of the Road Stopover in 2015 and has always found ways to push us to new levels of exposure. Through him we met Danny Clinch and we’ve stayed on their radar ever since. When they started doing S.H.N. in 2018 I was amazed at what they created, but never wanted to ask to be a part of it, because imagine how many people probably do that? In January I was driving home from Manhattan one night and Tim called and said, “Do you want to play?” And I said, “Hell yes.” And that was it. That’s how we do things.
Being a part of S.H.N. 2021, despite the postponement, is the biggest thrill for us right now. We had so much planned for it this year, but now we see it as even more time to work on what we’re gonna do when it’s our turn. To represent Ocean County and New Jersey and the local scene at such a massive event is everything I ever dreamed of as a child watching Phil Collins and Bruce Springsteen videos. We’re just honored that everyone involved thinks of us as someone trustworthy enough to step out there and show them how we do our thing.
Obviously, Asbury Park is the heart and soul of the Jersey music scene. What’s one positive change you’d like to see in the scene once it can safely come back to 100% efficacy?
One positive change I have noticed before the live music scene had to close down is the inclusion of more BIPOC musicians and artists, especially people who are from Asbury, Neptune, etc. Places, such as Danny Clinch’s Transparent Gallery, and a few others were beginning to bring in the community and hold events that cater to the people who live in the town itself, not just the cash-rich tourists. The KYDS non-profit, for example, has been brought in to expose the children of Asbury to art, to yoga and meditation, to musical creation in a community setting. I would love to see more establishments and cultural institutions invite the community in. It’s their home first.
If someone wants to check Jackson Pines out for the first time what song would you recommend they check out in order to fully understand what the band is out about either lyrically or sonically — and why?
Well, it’s a very hard choice as the songwriter. They’re all like children you send off and wish the best for. But I think I’ll have to point to the statistics and say, “Even When I’m Gone” from our first album. The most people have listened to it, the most people have commented on it, and people tend to have a super emotional reaction and attachment to it. More than a few have approached us in person and email saying they feel like it was written just for them and has helped them in some emotional way. As a songwriter, it’s the highest compliment one can pay.
Finally, what are your creative plans for the rest of 2020 and heading into 2021?
I’ll be brief (for once): finish arranging the songs for LP2, rehearse, see if we can safely play a few more gigs, and release some of the DIY videos to give our friends, families, and fans a window into what this super insane year has looked like for us.
